July 15th, 2018
Back On The Diet
It’s late in the year for it, but I’ve been dieting to get my shape back into a form where I can get back into all my summer shirts, and look reasonably well in my swim trunks when I get to Walt Disney World this September, and hit the water parks. For some reason I’ve been disinterested in my appearance lately. But now I want to get the hourglass back, and shed some body mass. It’s not the painful thing for me it is for many, at least not in the being hungry all the time sense. It’s painful in the Very Boring Food sense. Basically three rules:
Firstly, no extra sugar. That means no cookies, candy bars, cupcakes. Also cut back on the alcohol. None of this is a problem when I’m also trying to save money for a big vacation anyway. This is probably the single biggest thing that makes a difference, and initially the hardest to get started on. Sugar is intensely addictive, and you don’t notice that until you try to cut back on it. But after about two weeks your body adjusts and isn’t demanding it anymore. So get through those first two weeks and it gets Much easier for the rest of it. I’ve found when the sugar withdrawal gets bad in that first two weeks, just taking a short walk kills it right away.
Secondly, and this takes some diligence, just simply don’t eat until I’m actually hungry. A friend once remarked that a lot of eating is out of boredom. It’s also habit. Home from work, time to eat. 12 noon, time to eat. Bedtime, time for a snack. Just don’t eat until you get hungry. The surprising thing, to me at least, is that most of the time I’m used to eating, when I stop to think am I hungry now, I’m not.
When I do get hungry, another bit of diligence is to stop eating when I’m not hungry anymore. That takes some paying attention to it, and a lot of unlearning all the scolding I got when I was a kid to eat everything on my plate. Sure, when I’m a growing boy that was probably for the best. But now I’m a 60-something who doesn’t need all those calories.
So stop eating when not hungry anymore. But that not only takes thinking about it while I’m eating, but also not eating the kinds of food that make you want more because it’s so delicious. Which brings me to Three..
…going back on the bland foods I grew up with. Here’s where pain lives. It’s so damn boring.
But it works. Just a week and a half into it now and I’ve lost 4 and a half pound already, and I’m not killing myself over it. Just following the rules above. Another week of it and I’ll be back in my 31s, and getting into the summer shirts that fit nicely. By September I should be able to hit the water parks with my hourglass back and only be squeamish about showing my corpse pale whiteness and gay otter body hair. One year I tried a spray on tan (seriously) to see if that helped me feel better about it. It did somewhat, but it also felt like I was faking it. When it started fading it made me look like I had some sort of skin disease. Now given the hilarious spray tan from the bargain tanning salon in the strip mall behind the county landfill now occupying the White House (I keep waiting for some reporter to shout back at him when he calls them fake news, “Fake? Like your tan?”), I will probably never do that again.
This isn’t just about vanity. There’s a health issue here I need to watch. My body tends not to accumulate fat around the hips and waist, so much as around the upper body. So I’m told, that’s a risk sign for heart disease and stroke. This is why my nicest summer shirts don’t fit now, because of just that slight bit of extra body mass around the upper chest and armpits. I loose that and they fit nicely. But it takes about four to six weeks of this diet to get there, because the body loses it randomly. A little off the top…a little around the waist…it’s like it flips a coin to decide where it comes from.
