The Past and the Future

Since I technically (for about 3 days) made my goal weight last year, I've been contemplating what I want to do now.  How do I want to eat for the rest of my life? How much do I care about my weight? I've got a whole parallel running internal dialogue on fitness and activity, but for this post I'm mostly focused on food, eating, and weight.

Partly why I'm doing the Whole 30 is to try out a different way of eating. Because it is for a short period, it's possible to really think about what I'm eating and how it makes me feel.  It's very similar to the way I have been trying to eat for the past many years, but with some differences.  It's easiest to describe by what not to eat: no grains, no dairy, no legumes, no added sugar or any form of sweeteners, no alcohol. What's left are meat, fish, eggs, vegetables (including root vegetables like sweet and white potatoes), fruit, and nuts.  For the thirty days, no using these ingredients creatively to try to re-create treats - no baking with almond flour - because the diet tries to do two things: detox your body, and break eating habits while creating a new cooking habit.  Pretty close to every packaged food will have something not allowed - even my low-carb bottled salad dressings which have zero carbs per serving have some form of sugar as an added ingredient on the label, and thus are not allowed.  Cooking is the only possible way through.  Luckily, it's summer, and vegetables and fruit are good and plentiful.

So I'm doing this, for a month, and then I'll add stuff back.  I don't believe I have any actual food allergies nor even intolerances - no problems with gluten or lactose.  But this diet will help me know it for sure, when I add things back.  (I do have a health challenge of bizarre migraines, and perhaps there is a relationship to food. This restricted diet should help figure it out.)  My idealized diet I've conceptualized would include dairy, for richness, and legumes, for more plant-based proteins. I like meat, but I think the environmental toll of meat production, and animal welfare issues, mean I should eat less meat, if I can do so healthfully.  And by healthfully,  I mean without gaining weight.  The ideal diet would also include ice cream, alcohol, and chocolate, but in small exquisitely perfect tiny portions.  I haven't shown I'm able to do restrain myself that way, yet.

So far, I feel like I'm eating a lot, including a lot of fruit, and I'm getting the hunger pangs that I think sugar (even fruit sugar) drives.  So I may moderate the fruit a bit.  In addition, I've been eating sweet potatoes, something I haven't done much of ever. I quite like them.  I've been afraid to eat white potatoes.

Let's put some historical perspective on where my weight is now, six months after seeing my goal.  First the long view.

I consider anything below the red line to be a victory. I've shown I can keep from doing the big rebound - but only if I pay attention.  We can zoom in on the story since I started focusing on this, and blogging about it, in 2010.

One single big loss, and relatively stable weight with an intermittent focus for a few years, then a big push to get down to the blue goal.  But last year and this year definitely tell the classic weight loss rebound story.

People who say "diets don't work" would crow at seeing this classic rebound.  I think the longer history and context gives that point the lie - I have spent many years lower than my top weight. And my current weight is far from stable - in the last seven days alone, it has varied by five whole pounds.  I don't think my blue-line goal is actually realistic for me to maintain - I think I'd need to work too hard, more than I am willing to work.  I've set a goal at 140 pounds, ten pounds below the red line and five pounds below today.  I have found there is a difference in how I look and feel at that weight versus how I was at the red line, enough of a difference for my vanity to want that improvement.  My theory is I can actively manage myself down to that weight and stay there for a while, and eventually my body will realize it likes it and homeostasis will kick in and keep me there.

The Whole 30 goals do not include weight loss, though they say most people do lose weight during the thirty days.  They are so adament on the point that it's not about weight loss that the rules include a veto on weighing yourself during the period.  I have a problem with not collecting data, but I concede the point about not focusing on it.  Since I have a wi-fi scale that automatically records my weight, I've decided to step on it every day, but block my view of the number.  The history will be there waiting for me when the thirty days are up.  I don't have huge expectations - the decrease in sugar is likely to result in water loss, but so far I'm eating so much sweet fruit I might not even see that.  But of course I have hopes for a big reduction.

A 3x5 card over the numbers is enough to block my view.

The working week resumes tomorrow, with a bunch of stressors to be added to tending to my three patients.  I've got a fridge full of compliant leftovers, because cooking is not something I generally do during the week.  Blogging is also likely to suffer.  I am taking pictures of my meals, often, so there may be some food porn posted here, just as record keeping.

I long for a bit of routine, which the coming week should bring.