bearing blog

In comments to the post about delayed gratification, Christy P writes something worth highlighting.

I think you got it there – you redefined your goals, and therefore success, into ones that were quantifiable and achievable not just on a daily basis but multiple times each day. Rather than focusing on a primary goal that seems so far away "Lose 40 pounds", you kept that as not just a secondary but even a tertiary or quaternary goal. The primaries were "Eat an appropriate amount at this opportunity", "Exercise today", "Let myself feel hungry for two hours from 10AM to noon". Each time you achieved one of these goals, it made you into an achiever, and if you didn't at one meal, then you weren't a complete failure, because you had a string of successes in your back pocket. It is really like the idea of intentional living. Making choices with thought behind them instead of reflexive action.

We talk about small goals in other parts of life, but I think the concept gets neglected with good eating and physical activity. Those lifestyle choices are seen as such an all or nothing prospect that people lose perspective.

I hadn't really thought about it, but she's right — if anything, we undermine short-term health goals.  You're supposed to exercise so many minutes PER WEEK, for example.  Doesn't that make it sound like a long-term commitment?  Oh, and by the way, you should get checked by your doctor before starting!  God forbid you should decide to take a walk around the block TODAY! 

But another question — how can a person create that motivation within herself, the motivation to seek the behavior change for its own sake and not just for the long term results?  I didn't really realize what I was doing at the time.

There is some precedent for this in mainstream weight loss advice. Haven't you seen recommendations to get exercise for its own sake?  To find a physical activity that you enjoy, whatever it is, and then get out and do it regularly?  What you don't see is a recommendation to learn to prefer eating less.  It's generally assumed that eating less always feels yucky and is only chosen in order to lose weight.  (You do see a recommendation to develop a taste for healthy food instead of unhealthy food, but that's a little different.)

I don't really know how I started to desire to eat less.  I do know some of the mental images I cultivate to maintain that desire. 

—I think about the evenings, Mark out of town, when I would order pizza for myself and the kids, and eat an entire medium pizza by myself while surfing the web. (plus a 20-ounce Coke and a big salad) This image horrifies me now, even though once upon a time I used to sort of look forward to it.   

—I think about my lapses in and out of bulimia in my younger days.  That's pretty disgusting. 

—And — I'm not really sure if doing this is good for my attitude towards my fellow human being, but I'll throw it out there anyway — I go to restaurants with buffets or salad bars, I sit near the buffet, and I watch people and their plates.  I find a fat person and I look at his plate and see what he eats.  I wish I could tell you that often the fat person I see has filled her plate with fresh greens and a reasonable portion of healthful entrees.  Haven't ever seen it in months of peoplewatching.  I watch them and they pile the plates high and go back for seconds, thirds, fourths, then desserts.  I watch the fat people eat and eat and eat — I watch them get breadstick appetizers before their pizzas, and dessert pizzas after their pizzas — I watch them supersize their fries and I say to myself:  "Self:  That was you, and that could be you again if you don't watch it."

I had to be grossed out by the behavior, not just by the results of the behavior. 

Is it possible to MAKE yourself change that attitude?  Is it possible to MAKE yourself be motivated by the short-term reality instead of the long-term dream?  If so, how do you make yourself feel that way?  I don't know because I've never tried to do it on purpose, I've only discovered it by accident.

So maybe readers can help me out with this one.

What do I tell people who ask me “How did you do it?  How did you lose all the weight?”

You know that the answer is long and complicated, not something that is easily distilled into a sound bite.  On the eating level, I have developed something like two dozen different strategies to help me control gluttony.  The exercise is easy to explain, but its effect is, I believe, mostly on my confidence and mental state.  And then there’s the motivational strategies — there are probably a dozen of those too.

I get the question a lot though.  “Look at you!  How did you do it?”

Yesterday my inner technical editor realized that there isn’t a single answer or a single set of answers, because the inquiry represents two distinct questions:

1) What strategy and supporting tactics did you employ?  what did you DO?
2) Why did you succeed this time and not the other times?  How did you stick to it?

Some people are looking for an answer to (1), others to (2).

I also have to ask myself, what can I say that will really be helpful to other people?  My interlocutor might not need to lose weight, but maybe she will tell my story to someone who does.  Most people believe that “eat less, exercise more” is oversimple — that is, though, what I did.  The only layer of complexity I added to it was that I chose to seek out “eating less” and “exercising more” each for their own sake.  I became motivated to eat less because I didn’t want to feel disgusted by myself anymore.  [Editing note much later:  Not a healthy source of motivation.  I reject it now.]   I became motivated to exercise more because I wanted to be a person who exercised.

Instead of delayed gratification (I ate less and exercised more and then I lost weight and that made me happy) I achieved sooner gratification (at that meal I ate less, I succeeded at defeating gluttony; this morning I exercised, I succeeded at swimming so many yards).  It is so much easier to be motivated when the gratification is close in time to the decision point.

Thanksgiving week, for me, began Saturday morning and ends next Saturday night (so it's really eight days).  In that week I count 6 meals-on-the-road, 3 restaurant meals, and 3 family holiday get-together meals.  Plus all the normal eating.

I will be content to remain more-or-less steady, a half a pound above my target weight.

Last night dinner at a fancy seafood restaurant.  I followed the "fill up on vegetables" strategy: a giant salad with dressing on the side, baked fish with broccoli and red pepper, and I had them swap the rice pilaf for a second side dish of asparagus.  I was far too full to even think about dessert, so ended with cappucino.

I am not sure about the "fill up on vegetables" strategy.  When I first started back in May, I was determined to practice getting hungry, to learn to be unafraid of hunger feelings.  Filling up on vegetables denied me opportunities to practice feeling hungry instead of stuffed.  Later I decided I'd had enough practice with that and started pounding the Brussels sprouts.  But I'm not sure — maybe it is better to avoid ever "filling up" on anything.  Is it still gluttony if you stuff yourself with plain okra?

Maybe the important thing is to have both those tools in my toolbox.  I can fill up on vegetables when there are vegetables available (plain ones anyway; butter-soaked asparagus and dressing-soaked salads have limits).  And if there are not healthful food choices around, I can practice my staying-hungry skills until I get within striking range of some lettuce. 

We got carryout from a great local sushi restaurant today, and had to wolf it down quickly with our dinner guest, Mark's friend Eric from work.  They were headed out tonight to Midwest Mountaineering  for the Outdoor Adventure Expo – to hear U.S. expedition leader Mike Farris give a public presentation about the accidents on K2 earlier this year that killed 11 climbers.  Anyway, they were in a hurry, so we got sushi, ate it, and sent them on their way.

I'm overfull.  I used some of my strategies, but I made mistakes and learned from them too.  Here's what went right and wrong.

 - Right:  I ordered two salads (a seaweed salad and a regular lettuce salad) and had them before I turned to the other stuff.

 - Right:  I brewed up some coffee to end the meal with.  This is getting to be a regular tradition and it really helps me put the brakes on.  But I really need to start the coffee before I sit down for the meal, so it's ready when I need it.

 - Wrong:  I should have had miso soup too.  It's mostly water and might have slowed me down.

– Wrong:  Mark suggested we eat "family style," with a lot of different things spread out on the table and everybody takes what looks good:  spicy tuna roll, salmon avocado roll, "crazy  roll" (which turned out to be tempura-fried), some udon  noodles, katsu don, gyoza, etc.  Note to self:  THIS IS NEVER A GOOD IDEA. Obviously I should be able to take a reasonable amount and just stop there, right? Wrong.  I had seconds.  And thirds.  I failed to anticipate that it would be hard to pass up the seconds and thirds.

– Wrong:  I thought it didn't matter what kind of sushi we got.  I really didn't need all that rice.

OK, I think I've learned my lesson.  Next time, I opt out of the family style smorgasbord thing.  Next time I order the two salads, or salad and miso, and *I order a single hand roll for ME.*  I already know that a typical hand roll — this is different from the ordinary sushi rolls that are cut into chunks you eat with chopsticks, it's more an ice-cream-cone shaped thing  – is about the right size for me.   But when there is a big pile of maki on the table, I lose count of how many I've had.  

Let everybody else eat family style.  I need my dinner to be more circumscribed — literally, by the edge of my own plate.