Buy Walking VideosAsk Laura: How Do You Keep Track?
Laura,
Do you just count calories then? Or do you pay attention to fat content as well? Just curious.
Ernie
Ernie,
I have been struggling with keeping track of my food since last March. About two or three months ago, I stopped following the Weight Watcher plan and stopped going to the meetings. I essentially started The F**K It Diet again.
I told myself that keeping track of my food was making me obsess about it. All I did all day was think about food: what I ate yesterday, what I was eating today, and what I was going to eat tomorrow. I thought the dieting was making me focus on eating all day long, so I stopped keeping track.
I gained about twenty pounds.
But I learned something really important: it wasn’t the dieting that was making me obsess about food. When I stopped keeping track, I still focused all day on what food I was going to eat. Even though I could eat whatever I wanted whenever I wanted, I still thought about my meals with a strange interest. It wasn’t the dieting that made me obsessive about food.
I’m obsessive about food no matter what I do.
So, I decided that if I’m going to obsess about food no matter what, I’m going to concentrate on eating healthy while I do it.
Right now, I’m easing off The F**K It Diet and back into a healthy calorie range. I am currently keeping track using Calorie King software. The company provided me with a free copy of the software to test it out and give a full review. I did a review of the software earlier this year (Starling Fitness » Review: CalorieKing), but they have just added the feature that will allow you to sync your Palm with your desktop computer. That missing feature before made it something that I didn’t want to use, so I’m testing it again.
As soon as I know whether CalorieKing works for me, I’ll do another review. For now, I’m keeping track of calories, but I might just end up going back to Weight Watcher Points.
Thanks,
Laura Moncur
Previous: Why I Don’t Trust Weight Watchers Points System
Next: Bring Your Lunch To Work
September 7th, 2006 at 1:49 pm
Hi,
I’m taking a chance and writing from work because I can so relate to this post. Last Dec I started dieting even though I was at a healthy, but not fashionable weight, because I was feeling insecure.
I lost weight. I don’t know when I realized that it was absolutely ridiculous, but at some point I did not want to obsess about food anymore. I read a book about Intuitive Eating (purposefully skipped the last chapter,) http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0312957211?v=glance, and I did something radical. I promised myself that I would never diet again. So, I ate whatever I wanted which included a lot of hot pockets and licorice at first. I went through a series of different cravings. I gained a lot of hot pocket weight. But, I stopped obsessing about food!
I think the reason I still obsessed in my non-diet times before is because I knew that someday I would diet again, or “eat healthy” (code for diet) or “only eat when I’m hungry.” This time was different and I had a lot of different and suprising emotions come up about not ever dieting again. However, my relationship with food changed right away- for the better. Now, when I’m hungry I think about food. When I’m not, I don’t. Unless I’m around food and I want to try something- then I do. A big change is that I don’t feel driven to try something because I know that this party is not a special occasion. I can always have whatever I want.
My cravings continually change. Right now I feel like eating fairly healthy foods. Last night I wanted fries, but today I wanted an apple, some organic food and a green drink. Out of ALL the options, which I freely allow myself, that’s what I wanted- and what I got.
September 7th, 2006 at 5:45 pm
I think a lot of people don’t see that they were always obsessed before weight watchers, or calorie counting before they were but they gave into the preoccupation. I still think of food a lot and I know that I always will.
September 8th, 2006 at 4:04 am
LEt’s just face something that we all know and are not saying.
1) Dieting works, but only as long as you are willing to sacrifice. You give up a little here and there and voila! you’re down a few pounds.
2) Human beings are not made to sacrifice for the rest of their lives. We are beats of pleasure. We can’t get enough pleasure and we can’t get it fast enough.
3) The moment a diet begins, what does any expert dieter worth their salt start looking for? The loophole. We figure out what we can “get away with” and still stay “on program”. For example, I wasn’t on the Weight Watchers Core Plan longer than a day before I figured out that I’m allowed to have a Burrito Bol from Chipotle. It’s on the diet to have anytime I want it, but is it healthy? It’s ridiculous what we do to ourselves when we think we have control over our obsession.
So, maybe eating obsession is in our genetic code? We dominate the planet, so we get whatever we want?
Maybe it’s a by-product of childhood? I was the youngest of four children, so if I didn’t eat it there was always someone to take it from me.
Maybe it’s just that we like the flavors, tectures and smells of food.
And so we should.