Diet day 789

[darkemeralds]

It's no fucking wonder people believe that diets don't work. When I turned my back on mine last year for ten minutes a few months, I regained 20% of what I'd lost and it's taken a whole year to get back to where I left off. Without my massive data set, my half a pound a week loss would be indiscernible, and I'd be on the diets-don't-work bandwagon myself.

But I have that data, so I keep going.



The slowness has advantages. I can get used to one change, like giving up wheat, before introducing another one, like learning to love vegetables. (God, that one was hard!) I've also had time to re-learn cooking and find new restaurants, so that every meal is still a pleasure--even though my diet would have seemed scarily restrictive a couple of years ago.

The most tectonic changes I've made, however, are simple and free, and happen six days a week: I track my weight and calories, and I ride my bike.

Over the course of nearly 800 days, these basic things have created profound improvements in my life. I believe in them deeply. Diets in general may not work for people in general, but my diet works for me. I've lost over 60 pounds, I can squat to my haunches (and get up again); I can ride a heavy Dutch bike 20 miles and buy clothes in "standard" sizes and fit in an airplane seat. My resting heart rate is 60, my blood pressure is normal, my lungs are clear, I sleep eight hours a night, I have no depression, and all the basic test results that were edging into the red three years ago are comfortably in the green.

Yesterday when my doctor said, "You're an amazing human being with the health profile of a person twenty years younger, and I expect to be treating you for thirty or forty more years," (if you're new here, I'm 57) I wasn't all that surprised. Pleased like a smug bitch, of course, but not astonished.

So if it takes another 800 days to lose the remaining 30 pounds I want to lose, well, then it takes another 800 days. I seem to be on the right track.


On my way to the bike garage on Monday evening after work

Comments

[ash48]

It's inspirational is what it is. It makes me feel like I CAN loose the 5kg (11 pounds) I want to. I believe slow is the way too.

You look gorgeous btw. Congrats and all the best with the rest.

xox

[darkemeralds]

Yay! I'm glad you're inspired. Part of me wants to say "5 kg--pfft! That's nothing!" but then I stop and realize that it's taken me a year to re-lose that much and if it's nothing, then what the hell has my last year even been?? So go you!

[scribblemoose]

You're looking so good!

my diet works for me

I think that's the thing we should all be aiming for. It might differ from person to person, but that basic truth about listening to and working with our body's needs is so important.

You're a real inspiration, you know. Getting back on the horse is so hard, but a little voice inside me tells me that if you can, so can I. *hugs*

[darkemeralds]

Thank you. And nothing has been more important in my process than listening to my body. I get better and better at it, and slowly the messages have become clearer.

I know you can do it. I know, too, that kindness and gentleness have been a critical component of hearing my body's messages, and I would guess that it's the same for you. *hugs back*

[enkeli]

i love your coat! would you mind me asking where you got it? :)

[darkemeralds]

At the Gap Outlet in Lincoln City, Oregon, to be quite specific. The color is called Sulfut Sulfur (which I just love, so demonic!) and I replaced the original gold-tone buttons with these black ones.

[enkeli]

oh, man! well, it's absolutely gorgeous. :) thank you!

[darkemeralds]

Yeah, I know. :( I hunted online for quite a while and it must be from last year or something, because I couldn't find a picture of it anywhere. It was a lovely stroke of luck, me finding it.

[emungere]

You look fabulous! Great haircut too; it really suits you.

[darkemeralds]

Thank you! I'm working on a jaw-length Sassoon bob. Another year, I think, should get me there.

[just_jes]

Ah, I so needed this post right now. I'm up around 12 pounds from my lowest weight in mid-July and really the entire reason for that can be summed up thusly: not paying attention, being aware that I'm not paying attention, and then choosing to continue to not pay attention.

I've been persistent in not re-dedicating myself to my goals and I really need to do something about that now rather than wait for some theoretically perfect start date to come around when I know that such a day won't actually happen until I decide that it has.

Happy to see you've had such success with getting back on track!

[darkemeralds]

not paying attention, being aware that I'm not paying attention, and then choosing to continue to not pay attention

This. This is the whole thing, in nice rhetorically well-rounded nutshell. The day I started my journey (October 17, 2010--engraved on my brain) was the day I made up my mind to choose to pay attention. The day I re-started it (that date is a bit muddier), I did the same thing.

I don't think I've adequately been able to convey to anyone how paying attention is the whole damn journey. Everything else takes care of itself, really--or causes very little hardship. The decision to pay attention is fulcrum of life. From there, we can move the earth.

Strange that 12 pounds is the awareness point for us both. Good luck!

[darkemeralds]

I meant to say, too, that since my re-boot a few months ago, I notice that I decide to pay attention every day. I'm regularly aware of an urge to skip it, forget it, let it go. Then I gently tell myself to write down my food, even if it's not perfectly accurate, and especially if I've overeaten and don't want to look it in the eye. It took me a long time to realize that my calorie tracking isn't my nanny or my boss or my punisher; it's my yoga--my daily practice. That's all.

But it has the amazing effect of changing my behavior.