Through a Glass Darkly

I was doing so well until the wedding. Since then? Not so much. The weight has, since March, started to creep back on. “Come on, Sally,” I tell myself, “You have lost 30 pounds! Don’t lose momentum!” But I have lost it. Here’s how you, too, can gain weight without really trying.

1. Don’t measure your portions. Eat healthy foods–lots of healthy foods, especially whole grains and nuts, without figuring out the correct serving size. Eat, eat, eat. It’s all good for you! Ignore your increasing waistline!

2. Eat out a lot. Use every excuse imaginable not to eat at home. When you are at a restaurant, tell yourself, “I am treating myself today,” or “I deserve whatever I want because I had a bad day,” or “I can’t control what I eat when I am PMSing!” Then proceed to order whatever you want, and eat between two-thirds of it and the whole thing. You deserve it, right?

3. “Deserving it” brings us to number 3: Make food your emotional sustenance. Feed your highs and fight your lows with tasty treats. Don’t figure out what you’re really feeling; just feed the pain!

4. Eat dessert on a regular basis. Not a bite of ice cream–a waffle cone of ice cream. Not a shared piece of cake–a giant slice of your own. Repeat 3-5 days a week. Okay, sometimes 7 days a week.

5. Wear only your outfits that don’t demonstrate your increasing girth. Stretchy pants = good. Tight jeans = bad.

6. Stop exercising! You need that sleep more than you need to go to the gym, don’t you? I mean, come on, you are really tired this morning. Shhh, it’s okay–go back to sleep.

7. Let foods you shouldn’t eat creep back into your diet and then become a regular habit. You love cheese (or wine, or vinegar, or high-fructose corn syrup), but it makes you queasy (shaky, tired)? Start out eating it once a week. Increase gradually until it’s almost a daily occurrence. Then when you don’t feel well from the cheese, eat something else to make you feel better. You’ll be feeling stuffed in no time.

8. Cut out some of your vegetables and replace them with starches. Potato chips, french fries, and tortilla chips are all great high-calorie, high-fat options.

9. Keep sweets and snacks around for when you are in the mood for snacking. Your office desk is begging to store some granola bars, chips, chocolates, whatever!

10. Drink alcohol with dinner on a regular basis. Tell yourself it’s good for your heart. (Ignore how being overweight is bad for your heart.)

11.Last but very importantly: Bemoan your weight gain. Let it really get you down–so low that you don’t do anything to improve it. Wallow in it. Ohh, you feel so bad. You are such a lazy, awful person. Would a cookie help?

On the other hand . . .

How to lose weight (this takes some trying):

1. Follow the guidelines you constructed with the nutritionist. WRITE DOWN WHAT YOU EAT. Stop complaining and just accept that you need to do it. A study of thousands of successful dieters found that over 80 percent of them write down what they eat. You are no exception.

2. Shop once a week for most of your groceries, and plan all your meals on the weekend. Have some easy, healthy meals on hand you can fix within 15 minutes–for the days you just don’t feel like cooking. Set up your budget to eat out maybe once a week. Take leftovers–measured for the right portion size–for lunch. (You’ll save money that way, too.)

3. One of my friends once told me when you are feeling bad, you should H.A.L.T.: check if you are Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired. (I take “angry” and “lonely” to mean check your emotions and their sources in general.) If you are feeling lonely, bread and olive oil won’t fix that. A good phone call will. Try out the other possibilities before turning to food, unless you are certain you are hungry.

4. Make dessert what it was intended to be: a rare treat. Try fruit for a more common dessert (unaltered fruit, not caramel-coated fruit or fruit baked in sugar). Keep desserts out of your house, and make your house a primary location for you while you’re dieting.

5. Have a pair of pants and a fitted top you love. Pay a little more for them if necessary. Use them to gauge how you are doing with your weight. Have pictures of yourself from the first day of your diet on so that you can see the changes. If your outfit gets too tight, or if your photos start inching back towards pudge, pay more attention to your diet. Stopping weight gain while it’s minor is much, much easier than once it’s major.

6. A pound of muscle burns 50 calories an hour. A pound of fat burns 5. It’s pretty simple math. Working out may suck when you’re doing it, but you feel better afterward, and it definitely makes you look better. Get back on track. Exercise daily; make it essential. If you bathe in a day, you exercise that day.

7. Find good alternatives to the things that make you feel ill or shaky or too full. Make sure you’re writing in your diet journal daily to catch yourself if you start to pile on the bad things.

8. If you regularly make low-glycemic veggies 2/3 of your meal, you will lose weight. Avoid meals like hamburgers that you naturally want to pair with starchy foods. Try curries and salads (but remember number 1).

9. Ban the sweets and snacks in your house. Temptation will come around sooner or later; don’t give yourself any easy ways to give in.

10. Have only 1-2 alcoholic drinks a week, and track that consumption in your diary.

11. Remember that you are not your weight, but you are a wonderful person whom others want to have around for many more decades. To reach your highest potential, you have to take care of yourself. See your good diet as nurturing your body: making you powerful, preventing diseases.

Good luck, Sally! I know you can get back on track.

(I entered this post in the ProBlogger List Contest.)