Shockingly, nobody got sick this winter break. We did make it to Florida for a big family reunion - visited my sister and brother-in-law, cousin and his wife and three kids, and sister’s dad and step mom for New Year’s, which was chaotic but fun. There were cookouts and beach days and bike rides (scary for me as I haven’t ridden a bike in decades, but I survived), and overall a lovely bit of summer to break up California’s cold rainy winter.
Weighing heavily on my mind, no pun intended, is the need to start dieting as soon as I got home, which was the same situation I was in in 2020 at almost exactly the same weight and same level of disgust for myself. I don’t like admitting these things, and I know people get triggered by diet talk, but I think it’s important to be truthful. It dominates my thoughts - I could focus on barely anything else - and the fear and dread I face at yet another year spent starving myself to lose ten pounds only to gain it all back again by the end of the year, is exhausting. And yet I must lose weight, as I’m 50 now and the health implications get more intense at being only 10 lbs overweight as I currently am, and “just doing nothing” as in, eating basically what I want with minimal exercise leads to a 2-4 lb weight gain per month, which explains how I put on 10 lbs since my event. And now none of my clothes fit and I feel bad about myself and my food cravings are out of control. I’m always hungry and I just want to eat all the time. It’s a miserable cycle and I don’t know how to get off of it. How do I just “stay thin” for the rest of my life? I guess you don’t, unless you really train yourself to eat a lot less, all of the time, with no exceptions. I definitely know a few thin women my age, and they all have one thing in common - they just don’t really care about food. They eat half their portions at restaurants, rarely eat deserts, skip meals and don’t even realize they “forgot” to eat. All of these things are incomprehensible to me. But these are the habits that keep you thin. My “clean your plate” lifestyle results in my situation - slow, steady weight gain. I loathe food waste, so I eat things rather than throwing them out. Basically I throw them out in my stomach. Which is ridiculous. Again, the fact that I don’t eat meat, cook most of my food from scratch (a luxury few people have time for), and rarely drink anything other than water or unsweetened tea, are the reasons I’m ten pounds overweight and not thirty. But I definitely have other destructive habits. Too much sugar. Snacking. Late night eating. Too big portions. Not enough vegetables. Too many carbs. And yet I know how to lose weight. Anyone who tells you weight loss is anything other than basic math is lying to you. If I eat the equivalent of 1300 calories a day I will lose 1 lb a week. If I eat 2000 or more calories a day I will gain 1 lb a week. That’s it. It’s not any more complicated than that.
So, what do I do about this? I figure just my usual calorie restriction - I’m going to return to the 5:2 which worked so well for me in 2020, but mix it up a little; I figure if I do two fast days at 500-800 calories and then adjust the remaining day calories from there, it’s all the same. I’ll start tomorrow. In the meantime I’m going to try something I’ve never done in my life - diet pills. I heavily researched and found one with no stimulants that seems fairly mild; just something that makes you feel more full (supposedly). It was expensive AF and I don’t know how the hell I’m going to down six capsules a day - I may have to open them and take them with water, which apparently is fine with a supplement like this that’s not an actual medication - but I’m curious to see if it makes dieting more tolerable. If I can just get past the occasional waves of misery that being hungry causes, it could be easier to diet for longer. My theory is, if I can just rewire my brain to not obsessively think about food the way my friends who “forget to eat” do, I can finally have some lasting success. If I can take something that tricks me into thinking I’m full, or at least takes the edge off that intense rabid hunger, it would make it easier to change my actual eating habits so that I don’t always turn to food when I’m bored, happy, sad, lonely, want to celebrate something, etc etc. I’ve gotten myself into an endless feedback loop of food, and I need to break it, but I know it’s all mental. I need to rewire those pathways the way I rewired myself away from intense depression and anxiety some years ago. I need to not make food the center of my life. I still want to cook and enjoy healthy things, I just need to eat a lot less than I’ve gotten used to. So, we’ll see if these diet pills actually help me feel more full or not. They could be a total con, but even if they are, the placebo effect could be quite powerful. I’ll take copious notes.
Tomorrow is the final day of winter break and I’m looking forward to shaking it off like an itchy prom dress. I’m extremely grateful that none of us got sick and that CA’s “winter surge” has been minimal, although with the situation in China I wouldn’t be surprised if we get hit hard in a few weeks. Our desert contractor is back and says he can start work for us in a week or two, which is beyond exciting - an outhouse is first on the list, which would be amazing to finally have. After this long wait it’s hard to envision ever having progress out there, but it may be soon.
We returned from FL on Friday to discover half the electricity in the house was out - including our thermostat, so we’ve all been freezing ever since. The H thought he could fix it, so we waited around until last night to discover he couldn’t, and now nobody can come out until tomorrow, so we’ll have three miserable freezing nights here before we get help (assuming the guy who comes out Monday can fix it that day). Unfortunately it appears rats in the attic have chewed all our wires, so this could end up being a big deal. I don’t even want to think about it. I just want the heat back on. I dread getting these kids up for school on Tuesday in a freezing house. But that may be what we’re facing.
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