Just One Bite—Destruction Testing

“One bite won’t hurt.”  Well maybe, maybe not.  The problem is, you can’t know if it will hurt until it has already hurt you.

You’re on your plan, you’re through the worst of the withdrawal, and you’ve lost some weight.  You’re starting to feel like you’ve got your legs under you again and you can do this.  Then there’s that food.  That delicious food.  One bite—what could that matter?  It’s hardly worth putting in your food log it’s so insignificant.  You eat it, and it’s delicious.

What happens after that?  For a small percentage of people, you say “yay, that was good, now back to my food plan.”  I won’t say there aren’t people who can handle one bite like it didn’t matter at all.  But are you one of them?

Handling Restaurants Like an Entitled Princess

“OMG what am I going to order at this restaurant there’s nothing on plan on their menu??!”

We can try to avoid restaurants, or only go to restaurants of our choosing, but eventually we will fail.  There will be a work function, or fat relatives in from out of town who reject your healthy eateries, or a first date who picks the restaurant and you don’t want to act like a freak about food.  What do you do then?

Don’t panic.  Bring a towel.

Just kidding about the towel.  But don’t panic.  The mental shift you need to make is this: a menu is never a list of dishes to choose from.  It is always a list of ingredients they have in their kitchen.

Know Thy Enemy—Understand the Science of the Plan You’re On

All weight loss plans are not created equal.  All of them that get any popular traction work, at least for some people who go on them.  But why do they work?

Low carb plans get ketosis working for you.  When you keep your daily carbs below a certain level, you enter a fat-burning state that speeds the process along.  If you’re on a low-carb diet, eating a lovely “healthy” piece of fruit can throw you off for 3 days, but eating some bacon would barely cause a blip.  Carbs are the enemy.

Calorie-restricted plans work a little differently.  The basic equation is: when (calories in) < (calories burned), you lose weight.  Calories are the enemy.  But you have to stay within certain parameters.  I could eat 900 calories a day on Medifast because it was nutritionally enhanced and kept me in ketosis.  But if someone ate a different 900 calories a day, it would shut their metabolism down into starvation mode and they wouldn’t lose weight at all.  There’s a calorie and nutrition threshold you have to stay above on a straight calorie-restricted plan.

Do Whatever it Takes to Get Whole

Yes, there is something broken inside us.  We don’t get to where our fat is making us crippled and miserable without having something broken inside.  There are a whole range of things it could be – external, internal, spiritual, emotional, mental, past or present.

It doesn’t matter what it is.  No matter what it is, you can find a way to heal.

I just read an article about a journalist who used very violent sex to heal her PTSD.  Does that make sense?  Maybe not.  Would her therapist have recommended it?  Almost certainly no.  Did it work for her?  Yes.

I’m not saying you need to get that extreme.  What I am advocating is an extreme commitment to fixing yourself.

Shaking Fat Person Syndrome - Taking Up Space

A lot of heavy people have what I call “Fat Person Syndrome.”  It’s that belief that they’re not worthy that makes them slouch through life trying to be invisible and not take up any space.  Many fat people even buy tiny cars – have you noticed this?

Let me assure you of two things: 1) slouching and trying to hide does not make you any less fat, and 2) being fat does not make you any less lovable, no matter what our culture tells you.

This is a problem that has to be attacked on two fronts.  Taking off some of the weight can definitely help you feel better about yourself.  When we’re thinner, we naturally want to show off for the camera, go out more, ride on amusement park rides, and insist on a decent table at a restaurant.

Choose Your Transfer Addictions Wisely

On a lighter note, yes, many of us have been addicted to food in one way or another.  Food has taken up a lot of our time: thinking about it, planning what to eat next, shopping, cooking, restaurants, savoring the meal.

Suddenly it’s taking up less of our time.  It’s not being the focus of our attention.  Worse, it’s not performing its old function anymore, as a cure for boredom, loneliness, anger, grief, etc.  Now what do we do with ourselves?

We need to find transfer addictions.  Have you ever noticed how many people at AA meetings smoke?  They’ve transferred one addiction to another.  Yes, of course, we should endeavor to cure ourselves of having addictive personalities at all.  But not only does that sound like hard and boring work, it may also be completely futile.  So whether you call them “hobbies” or “transfer addictions,” you need to stay on top of the selection process.

It's Not a Sin, It's a Food Choice

Somewhere along the way we ended up with all this moral context around our food choices.  A Ding Dong isn’t just a stupidly sweet petroleum product we occasionally opt to eat.  Instead, it’s wickedly delicious, a sinful treat.  What exactly is “sinful” about it? 

It's not really “good” or “bad” to eat a certain food, right? It's just a food choice. Different foods have different effects on our bodies. Some fuels are healthy for our engines, like gasoline, and some are not, like shampoo. It's smarter to run our cars on gasoline and avoid shampoo, but not “good.”