Dieting & Trade-Offs: Week 3 Check-In

My current weight is 171 pounds even (it went as low as 170.4, but bounced back a bit). Nearly eight  pounds down is not bad for 3 weeks in! 

Here's what I've learned this week: When you have a food-related event coming up, it's best to plan ahead. I've developed a system of exchanges that allows me "treats," but it works best for me if I don't restrict those exchanges to a single 8-hour eating period. Let me explain.

First of all, I call these splurges "treats" rather than "cheats" because a "cheat" implies that you're going outside of your diet plan. My personal diet plan incorporates "treats" as an expected part of my eating. If I thought I could never eat a chocolate-chip cookie or drink a sugar-laden cocktail ever again, my diet plan would never work. But knowing that I can enjoy "treats" within reason makes my plan a lot more manageable for me. Here's how I handle treats: I plan a trade-off for each treat. For example, if I decide I want an iced coffee from Dunk's, I figure I should give up one of my 3 weekend cocktails. Do I want that iced coffee more than I want that lemon drop martini on Friday night? Sometimes the answer is yes, and sometimes it's no. But it makes me conscious of the choices that I'm making. A lot of commercial diet plans restrict your total calories by the day, so if I wanted that iced coffee on Thursday, I'd need to give up something else on Thursday so my total caloric intake for that day would be under a certain arbitrary amount. I find that thinking about my food intake over a longer period of time, such as a week, is much more manageable. I already have weekend cocktails built into my plan, so that's an obvious choice to give up. But sometimes I might feel like, "Eh, I don't need a whole serving of mashed potatoes with dinner tonight", or "I'm going to drink my coffee black today and then have a mug of sweet hot cocoa when I get home from work," or even "I'm not that hungry today but I really want a cookie so that cookie will be my whole lunch." 

This works especially well when my schedule calls for food-related events. Over the past week or so, I had two big social events involving food: a (very) belated Christmas party with friends, and a women's potluck event at my church. For the first event, I planned ahead by skipping breakfast (which I frequently do anyway; I find my morning energy level is not much different when I have two pieces of toast than when I only have coffee) and having a handful of cashews as a late lunch. I also planned out ahead of time what my limits were: I would eat small servings of anything I wanted, I would eat slowly and stop when I was full, and I would limit myself to one cocktail and one (small) glass of wine, or two glasses of wine. Similarly, for the potluck event, I ate less than usual during the day, and then allowed myself to have a sample of everything, but promised myself not to go back for seconds of anything. In addition, I planned to skip my usual cocktail on either Friday or Saturday. In fact, I ended up not having a cocktail both nights, because I simply didn't feel a particular need to have one! In both situations, I really enjoyed everything I ate, and I didn't feel like I was being overly restricted. Over the course of the week, my food intake balanced out quite well. 

I've never been good at counting calories, and I could never be bothered with weighing my food to calculate exactly what my caloric intake is, or to make exact trade-offs. But it's not really meant to be about a perfectly even exchange. It's about being aware of what I'm eating and making conscious decisions rather than eating out of habit or convenience. By consciously swapping out foods that I know are richer, sweeter, or fattier than is good for me, I can keep things reasonably in balance. Is the number of calories in a "glug" of half and half (I have no idea how many tablespoons are in a "glug," nor do I care) roughly equal to the cookie I traded it for? Not a clue, but simply considering the exchange made me think about how badly I wanted that cookie. I've surprised myself at how often, when I stop and think about whether I want to eat something, I find that I don't, or at least I don't mind skipping it. As I mentioned last week, I added a column to my spreadsheet listing temptations I've resisted (this week that column includes a burger and fries, seconds on dinner, tortilla chips, a stop at Dunkin Donuts, an entire dessert tray, a Saturday night cocktail, and breakfast from McDonald's), which is a real encouragement to me, particularly when I give in to a treat - yes, I'm splurging, but look how many times recently I would have splurged but decided not to merely because I stopped to think about it. This week I also added a column for treats that I enjoyed - not to shame me for eating sugar and fat, but to remind me that I can still have "unhealthy" foods in moderation. It's easier for me to resist that cookie when I look at my spreadsheet and remember that I just had a cookie (or an iced coffee, or a handful of tortilla chips, or pancakes with syrup, or a midweek glass of wine) a couple of days ago. 

One aspect of my diet plan that doesn't really fit in my spreadsheet is portion size. As stated above, I can't be bothered to weigh or measure each serving I eat, but I am avoiding seconds and trying to take smaller portions, especially of carb-heavy sides like potatoes and rice. In addition, I'm avoiding add-ons like bread or rolls, appetizers, and even sauces and condiments. It's amazing to me how quickly those calories add up. A dinner roll with butter can run 200 to calories; a dollop of sour cream is 30 calories, half and half and sugar are 60 calories, a single cocktail is 200-300 calories, and two slices of bread with butter is a whopping 350 calories! But on the flip side, what about treats? A single Oreo cookie is about 50 calories, a whole apple is 100 calories, a couple of tablespoons of hummus is 50 calories. So sensible trade-offs can really have an effect on my overall calorie intake, especially when judged over the course of a week!

I'm sure that I'll continue to tweak my plan as time goes on, and I have no doubt I will hit slower periods and plateaus in my weight loss journey, but by my calculations, if I can keep this trend going I'll be able to hit my goal weight of 150 pounds in about 9 more weeks, or by mid-April. Which, since I'm aiming for reaching that goal by my nephew's wedding in early July, gives me lots of wiggle room. But so far, it seems like not only an attainable goal, but a way of eating - and thinking about eating - that I can sustain in the long term, and not just while I'm actively working on losing weight. We'll see how it goes!

Quote for the week: "Moderation. Small helpings. Sample a little bit of everything. These are the secrets of happiness and good health." ~ Julia Child