THOUGHT CONTROL

Well, I just read Katiebird's comment from a well over a year ago, and it's right there with Mike Huckabee, depression-wise. I mean, she's saying that not eating has to be a focus of your life, or the weight will come back (or the eating will take over - whatever).

I just can't totally accept that - when I lost my weight, when I started and wrote this blog - losing weight was my life's focus. I read about, developed a program, thought about it everyday, watched my success, etc.

But I have other consuming projects I want to do. For example, tax season: I am a local leader for the AARP Tax Aide service, and we had a hell of a year - over 625 returns prepared, over 750 clients. There's no question that "taxes" is the focus of my life for this 3 month period - not to mention the 3 months before that which is consumed with training and planning.

My next project is my derelict boat. I have lots of projects besides not eating.

If I have to, I am getting closer and closer to counting calories, because I know that works. But I am still searching for some other form of control - one that is more adaptable and can be sustained without being the focus of my life.

The main premise of Hacker's Diet is that my body does not create or receive signals indicating that I have eaten enough. I really subscribed to this idea, and it was partially the basis for my weight loss program. Yet I don't entirely believe that anymore. I mean, yesterday when I ate that donut, I was FULL. There was no missed signal there. My body body was screaming for mercy, but my mouth wanted food.

Now I don't want to get into psychotherapy here, but I am a big (tall) guy, and as a teenager I was not allowed to free feed - I was allowed to eat whatever I could get at certain intervals. And I was in competition with everyone else for the limited amount of food that was available. (I am NOT trying to say we were poor and didn't have enough food - just that a meal was a meal, and whatever was around was all I was going to get until the next meal.) And that is how I eat now - if the food is here, I eat it, and I eat it now, even if there's no one else who might remotely want to eat it. So I suppose I still feel, deep down inside, that I may not be able to eat again for a good long while.

So the more I think of it, the more I am beginning to think that I just have a nasty habit here.

I have read, and I think that I quoted an article here, saying that stopping smoking and losing weight are not the same thing. And that's probably true to a degree. However, the physical addiction to nicotine is just 3 days - the rest is just a pervasive habit.

I just scanned a couple of web pages on "how to beak a habit", and although they don't specifically use the term, the articles are all about intercepting impulses and urges. The exact same thing in cigarette smoking.

So in theory, something like my stop smoking slogan ("Having a [donut] now won't change a thing") should work. My friends slogan of "If I still want [a donut] five minutes from now, I'll have it" might also be a good one. Also, one of these articles suggested putting a mark on a calendar or something every time an urge/impulse occurs. For some reason it sounds like a good idea to me.

I also think, for myself, I would like to have a good long list of all the things I don't like about being fat again. Yes, being relatively skinny (of course I was never actually skinny) allowed me to experience many new, and better, things, that I hadn't been able to enjoy for quite some time.

I think I will try to have some sort of program by tomorrow morning.