Week 2 numbers

Week 3 weigh in:
Last week 211.8 lbs
This week 212.8 lbs
Weight lost + 1 lb
Total weight lost 4 lbs

I'm not going to let myself be discouraged. I did everything right. Perhaps this is muscle gain slowing my momentum a bit.

Week one in detail.

Week one of my new way of eating is over. While it is too early to tell, so far it is a resounding success.

I have lost 5 pounds, which is quite a lot by normal standards. I credit this to my body responding to suddenly getting what it needs and not getting what is harmful to it. I predict as the weeks progress, weight loss should be less dramatic.

As predicted, my new diet is leaving me sated with far fewer calories. I am not controlling calories and fat intake as such, but Sparkpeople automatically records them. I have found this diet results in less fat and calories eaten with the same or better levels of satisfaction. I feel more in control of my eating and I find myself eating smaller portions automatically, though there was no limit on how much I could eat as long as the foods were high in fiber and contained no processed sugars.

While I still crave unhealthy foods, I feel that the choice to eat them is more in my control. I also am going with the knowledge that I have not given up bad food altogether, but will be more measured and careful about how I consume them. As one should with alcohol, I plan to indulge only occasionally. The first time this happens will be a test. In the past this has led me to spin out of control and resume bad, addictive behaviors.

I’m being careful with exercise, because overtraining has been my other downfall, leading to burnout. I’m making sure to give my muscles plenty of rest and take progression of workouts slowly. The goal is to feel challenged, but not exhausted. While I was sore up to my rest over the weekend, I seem to have recovered completely.
The most unexpected aspect of the changeover is my energy levels. In the past, I would experience a spike in my energy when starting a new diet. I became restless and overly obsessive. This usually led to overtraining. With this diet, my energy levels are moderate. I do not feel sluggish, nor do I feel overly energetic. I believe this is a good sign, but since the body usually takes about 2 weeks to stabilize, I’ll have a better idea of how my energy is affected in the next week or two.

Overall, my results are positive, and sustainable good health and weight seem to be a possibility. So far, it would seem that food addiction is indeed treatable. I do not feel like I’m fighting with my appetite, and this is almost easy. That’s important to success I think.

I’m reminded of when I gave up another addiction, smoking. I remember that every time I quit was horribly difficult, except the last time, which was quite easy. I had decided that I really didn’t want to smoke anymore, which meant I psychologically was not working against myself. This made the treatment go smoothly. I think all addictions work in a similar fashion. You have to really be ready to make a change, if you force a change on yourself, it will never work. It is not so much the desire to lose weight and become healthy, it is the desire to commit to what needs to be done to make this happen. And of course the careful application of the right methods of treatment, which is the basis of this experiment.

Most importantly I decided to stop hating myself for what I have done, and to stop hating my body for not looking the way I want it to. I am as I am, and I want to be healthy. If my body takes on a more pleasing shape, I will be happy, but I will not hate it if it doesn’t.

Start of week 2

Last weeks weight: 216.8 lbs
This week: 211.8 lbs
Weight lost: 5 lbs
Total Weight lost: 5 lbs

Full entry about my first week to come later today.
If you're wondering what I've been eating and doing for exercise, it's all posted here. my.sparkpeople.com/AMAZONPAGE

Lifestyle Change Update 1

Alright, here we go, and here are the big numbers. Sort of embarrassing but necessary.

Weight- 216.8 lbs (The lowest weight I've started any eating plan or lifestyle change)
Waist- 40.5 in
Hips- 48.75 in
Thigh- 24 in
Upper Arm- 12.5 in

Next week at this time I will post a weight update and the difference. In four weeks I'll update the measurements the same way.

in which research is carefully applied...

It isn’t a secret that I’ve struggled with my weight for all of my adult life. Becoming obese wasn’t intentional (is it ever?), it was just something that happened and before I knew it, it was kind of out of control. Over these years I developed binge eating disorder, which I kept a secret for a long time, and that made it quite difficult to take any weight off despite attempts at a healthier lifestyle, and health concerns.

Over the last year and a half, after yet another renewed effort to get my eating under control failed, I decided that if I was going to ever lose weight and get healthy, I would need to find out why I overeat in the first place and fix the cause.

This is what I found out:

My reasons for overeating are a combination of emotional and physical (yes physical) factors; to succeed I need to treat both.

People are drawn by years of evolution to seek and eat as much fat, sugar, and salt as they can. These are available in huge quantities now, yet we haven’t changed.

Sugar is in everything, and while it’s quick energy, it’s like alcohol in our liver. We can neutralize the effects of sugar with fiber. Fiber also controls appetite. Nature pairs sugar with fiber. Fruit is high in fiber, and sugarcane is loaded with sugar, but has so much fiber it’s a stick. When we process sugars we remove the fiber, so there’s no antidote to the poison. In order to preserve foods, we processed out the fiber from them as well. When we removed fat from all our foods, we added sugar to make them tasty. Sugar covers up the fact that the processed food I was eating was the nutritional equivalent of packing peanuts.

Like alcohol, tons of sugar can cause dependence and yes, binging.

The result of our modern diet is weight gain and dependency.

The result of weight gain is emotional alienation that results in further dependency.

While it might not have been totally my fault, I got fat, it is my responsibility to fix the problem now that I know what caused it.

Starting Monday, I’m going to try to apply my research and try to “cure” myself. The plan is to lower my sugar levels as much as possible. If I do have sugar I must pair it with fiber. I will also raise my fiber intake to at least the daily recommended amounts, higher if possible. My diet will mostly contain fruits and veggies, beans, nuts, and whole grains. As little processed items as possible, no juices or flavored drinks (all sugar, no fiber). No aspartame or sucralose because I don’t think those are better. Little or no high fructose corn syrup. For this plan, I will not be necessarily monitoring fat or calorie intake, though I will do my best to keep these reasonable because 60 grams of fat in one meal isn’t all that great either.

Exercise is supposed to help you purge toxins, so I plan to exercise a minimum of 5 days a week for at least 30 minutes consisting of 3 cardio days and two strength days.

If my weight is a sign of my illness then it should regulate itself once I fix what’s making me ill. To that end, I will be weighing myself once a week, and measuring my waist, hips, thigh, and arm once a month.

I’ll be using Sparkpeople.com to report my weight and monitor my exercise and food intake. My name is Amazonpage, and you’re welcome to check that out, though I will be reporting my weight weekly on Mondays, and my measurement progress every fourth Monday on both Blogger and Facebook.

I’m treating my attempt at weight loss as an experiment. What happens when I neutralize the toxins in the environment? Is food addiction treatable? I think it is, and I’ll be excited to see where I am one year from now.

Common Sense 2.0

Some time ago, a customer told me her childhood friend married a graduate from RPI, an engineering school in my hometown. She said this guy invented the strips that allowed credit cards to be read. Apparently, this guy had capitalized on his invention very wisely, because this customer told me he had a ton of money and 5 homes around the world. She said this with the wistful look in her eye that people get when they talk about winning the lottery or watch rich people on television.

This is what I said to her: “I would hate to have that much money.”

I don’t think it was the response she expected from a register jockey, because she looked at me a little strangely. I elaborated, “If you have a lot of money there’s a lot of extra work and stress that goes into managing that money. You have to hire people to look after it, to look after your houses, to look after the people who look after your houses. That much money needs to be handled in a special way and it’s really noticeable when you screw up…so you have to hire more people. All these people have to be paid. While it might be nice to have a lot of fancy things and travel a lot, it seems like it would be more trouble than it’s worth.” Or if you prefer the boiled down version: “Mo money, mo problems.” She agreed with me, but I had the distinct feeling she didn’t go into it feeling that way.

Long after the conversation ended, I was struck by my own response. I realized that I really meant it. While there are things that I would like, I don’t really want money itself. The things I want are simple and attainable by my social class. However, there was not a single thing I felt I needed or would feel discontented if I didn’t get. There’s not a tangible item I own, no matter how sentimental, that I wouldn’t be able to do without. The only things I need are the basics of health: Food, shelter, and social interaction. I believe that if you are unhappy, money will not change that. I honestly just want to get by and I hope that I can do just a little bit better for the sake of stability, security, and comfort. It is happiness and contentment that I seek in life. Joy comes to me, because I succeed at it often.

Somewhere along the way, and without my realizing it, I became non-materialistic. I realized that I had no real interest in capitalism or a capitalist society, and in this society that made me a bit of an eccentric. I don’t fit in, because I don’t desire infinite growth. I don’t understand profit for the sake of profit, and at the expense of others.

I see the inherent flaws in the infinite growth paradigm. It is alarmingly obvious to me that the way we are doing things isn’t working. We have grown as a culture to desire growth over our, and our neighbors, well being. However, we’ve grown to accept it out of habit. We ignore or understate the flaws in the system because we don’t want to admit it doesn’t work. We have finite resources, so unless we start doing things very differently we might lose everything we’ve built so far.

I am no longer convinced that our government is able to fix what they have brought to pass. I am of the opinion that our current government is no longer doing what it set out to do. I cannot expect the Obama administration to fix all our problems because it has been given the task of the near impossible. Perhaps if we consider Thomas Jefferson’s political philosophy, we have been too long without a revolution. I am convinced that the solution is to scrap the current methods and find a better way of doing things. However, we better do it quick because if things keep going the way they are we won’t be given the option.

I worry about us, because as a culture (sadly it is a world culture) we have become so detached from each other that we’ve lost our sense of community. We no longer interface with each other, we interface with machines, and honestly it isn’t the same thing as face to face interaction. To see this in play go to any public place: People are not interacting with each other; they are interacting with their devices. I love technology myself, but it should be a tool for relaying information, not a substitute for social interaction.

Something is wrong with the way our society is changing…

Then I had to wonder what I’m going to do about it. I’m one person, I hardly matter…

I guess I’m going to do everything I can…

Crossposted to Facebook

What I'm thinking about today

I've been thinking a lot lately about how sites like Facebook really stretch the word "friend" to include people I consider only acquaintances. Likewise there are people in my life who I was considering my friends, but may only really be acquaintances.

To me a friend is around and supportive in good times and in bad. These people can be counted on, even if it's for nothing else other than a kind ear and maybe some advice. They realize that things aren't always good, but are willing to be there when it's not because they really like who you are. They care for your feelings, and when there's a disagreement they try to repair the breach because you're important to them.

Then there are acquaintances. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with acquaintances. They can be good to celebrate occasions and occasionally get together with. They are also good for networking purposes and a laugh. Acquaintances are like the hearty stock in a stew: On their own they are lacking, but they fill in and enrich the spaces in your life. They also give your friends a break from time to time. However, they are not the people you turn to in crisis or when things get rough. They aren't there when it really matters. That's what your friends are for. Also, the loss of acquaintances isn't a big deal.

Facebook is like a picture of your social stew. Friends and acquaintances and family all jumbled together, like your real life. These are all the people you know.

Regarding the people mentioned in the first paragraph. I think if they aren't really there in good times and only really act like acquaintances, then I should really treat and regard them as such. Now that leaves a lot of empty spaces in the "friends" category, but those spaces will be filled if there are people who really want to fill them. If they remain empty then more of my energy is devoted to those who remain.

Maybe this is like spring cleaning of the soul. I'm gathering up my love and figuring out where it should go.

Crossposted to Facebook