Round

For those who’ve been following my story longer (or anyone who’s looking into Intuitive Eating or any of that type of approach), I spent a few months seeing a diet doctor (a real MD) here in France who I nicknamed Dr Hope. Her basic premise was that diets don’t work and that if you re-learn to listen to your body you’ll find your correct weight.

Someone asked a few days back whatever happened to Dr Hope, as I haven’t mentioned her in a long time. Well, I stopped going but might someday go back. I really liked her approach but found her “thinking” method too unstructured for me, and she seemed way too happy to take my money every week or two while I continued to gain weight. I gained about 12 pounds while working with her, and then went on to gain several more afterwards.

I learned a lot from her, some of which I am still using, some of which I’ll go back to with time. Thanks to her and things like the Pizza Test I learned to de-mystify problem foods. I learned to pay more attention to pleasure in food. And hunger. And to try to figure out what “satisfied” means.

My new Project YOU approach is not a rejection of Dr Hope - it’s kind of building on that. Sandra talks about “Top-Down/Bottom-Up” dieting - a mix between thinking about why you eat, how you eat etc (Top Down — and very Dr Hope) and building in structure (what, when to eat - Bottom Up). I think the mix of the two can make me successful.

I’m also still committed to doing this low-stress. That hasn’t changed, nor has an acceptance that this will take a while. I’m not at all tempted to follow suit of those I see “miraculously” losing 20 pounds in 10 days on meal replacement or 800 calorie diets. Not for me, and I couldn’t have said that without regret a few years back.

I saw Dr Hope again yesterday. We re-hashed a lot of the past few weeks. She believes the UTI etc are my body reacting to stress. I talked a lot about the job opportunity and it’s true it has been bothering me more than I wanted to admit. My first real clue came when I mentioned it a few days back in a blog post here… I was pretty surprised to have so much pour out of me so fast.

In any event, the Dr Hope advice is to find time to take care of myself - a few minutes of stretching or yoga or meditation or breathing. Ideally a few times a day, but we’ll start with once.

We also talked a lot about the past week or so - my eating has been getting worse and worse - although nothing terrible, certainly not the “eat with intention to lose weight” approach, and the scale must be creeping upwards again, my pants are tighter. So I’m to keep a proper food diary, and bring it to her at my next appointment. Yeah, accountability!

I’ve actually decided to share my food diary here on my blog for the next few days - comments welcome!

For Tuesday 5th February

Breakfast (7:45am) :

• Ate : Muesli, coffee with milk
• Hunger : high
• Environment : home, relaxed
• Appreciation : muesli was good after a week of other stuff. It’s better when I make it with rice milk, however… Coffee I drank too fast as I was running late.
• Leave something leftover : nope.

Lunch (2pm):

• Ate : Spaghetti bolognese
• Hunger : very high
• Environment : restaurant with colleague, pressed for time
• Appreciation : sauce was very good, noodles were greasy and a bit dried out. I ate too fast, and menu choices were limited to a few things they could do fast.
• Leave something leftover : I left a few bites of my spaghetti and I didn’t touch the bread.

Snack (6pm)

• Ate : 3 clementines and then a small “faiselle” (sort of like yogurt)
• Hunger : medium
• Environment : in front of the computer checking email for work. As I left my co-worker she had just bought a chocolate bar thinking she’d share half with me… I don’t think I was hungry before she offered me that.
• Appreciation : high for the clementines, lower for the faiselle - I don’t regularly buy this and probably won’t again… yogurt is bettter
• Leave something leftover : no

Dinner (10:30pm)

• Ate : small bowl of Grape Nuts with milk (the end of my box from the American imports store…)
• Hunger : low but present (and I didn’t want to try to sleep hungry)
• Environment : web surfing to see about the elections after working all evening
• Appreciation : pretty high. I love the texture and plain-ness of Grape Nuts
• Leave something leftover : a spoonful left just because I decided I would blog about this and thought I better have something decent to say…

I saw Dr Hope again late last week.

I continue to be awed by the way the universe sometimes provides what you need when you need it. I wouldn’t have been able to appreciate Dr Hope a year ago, but right now she’s exactly what I need.

I have never, NEVER felt so peaceful and eaten so well while trying to actively lose weight.

Did you see that? I said I am “actively trying to lose weight” — BUT I AM NOT DIETING.

Oh no, dieting certainly not. I ate pasta carbonara for lunch yesterday. And I had 3 chocolate truffles too. In the past few days I’ve eaten waffles, french fries, fried eggs, bread and so much more. Not to mention that I use real sugar, real butter, full-fat milk on a near-daily basis.

And yet, I am losing weight - slowly, slowly - but surely.

I am starting to get the hang of some more of the Dr Hope guidelines.

I now pretty systematically evaluate my level of hunger before eating. I’ve even skipped a few meals in the past week because I wasn’t hungry, or eaten “too soon” because I was. I’m not at 100% on this yet, but it’s definitely in the majority zone.

The thing I am probably best at of all the Dr Hope tricks is evaluating my food for pleasure. Everything I eat, from a breadstick to an elaborately prepared gastronomic treat, I try to think about the taste, texture and how much I like (or dislike) it. What is that subtle spice? How do they make it both crispy and creamy? It’s a lot of thinking, but it makes the eating much more enjoyable. And, as I learned at my weeklong work meeting in early January, if it’s not good, I don’t eat much of it anymore. I would say I now evaluate my food for pleasure about 90% of the time.

And to respond to a few comments on the blog in the past few weeks - I RARELY thought about the pleasure from my food before November of last year. Only at Special Events where food was a featured item (fancy restaurants, someone making me dinner, etc).

The latest challenge Dr Hope added has been to leave something on my plate uneaten. This has been really hard for me, but finally this week I started to see some real progress. The idea of this one is to actually build up to being able to stop eating when you have had enough. If you are like I was, “enough” meant when the plate is empty. I still have a long ways to go for this to be routine for me, but I’m now more and more consistent, leaving something over more meals than not. Sometimes if something is particularly good I set the “leftover” bit aside early, and finish the rest, which isn’t quite the same thing, but it’s helping me to get over the “mine! all mine!” mentality, and work on giving up some of what is on my plate. In the past week I’ve had 2 times when I stopped much earlier than one bite uneaten - really able to sense my hunger and leave a good amount untouched. It feels really good, and I can see how in the future this will really help.

I’m much less stressed about food in general. Yesterday afternoon one of my employees wanted to stop at a local bakery because “they have the best chausson aux pommes (apple croissants) in Paris.” Mind you, this is AFTER we’d had pasta carbonara (loaded w cream, egg yolk, bacon and cheese) for lunch. Did I sweat it? No. I was glad to have an expert showing me something, glad to find a good address for this flaky treat. I was not hungry at the time so I took it home. Knowing that I’ll eat it when I’m hungry. And I know I’ll enjoy it, or I’ll stop eating it. I haven’t eaten enough chaussons aux pommes to know which is the best in Paris, but I’ll be able to tell if it’s really good or just ok. And I won’t eat it all, either.

My discussion w Dr Hope also centered around emotional eating. I’ve stated this before, but for the record I wouldn’t categorize myself as a binge eater or an emotional eater. I’m just an eater. I eat with or without emotion, but apparently a bit more with emotion.

The same day I saw Dr Hope I got a call about a job opportunity that is moving into the next phase. It’s flattering and a big move, and I’m very conflicted because while it’s a great job, it would also be a big change in lifestyle (lots more travel and pressure) and I really like my life right now. So after a few email and phone exchanges to set up the meetings, I found myself wandering around the house looking for stuff to eat. I wasn’t hungry. I was conscious that I wasn’t hungry. But still I was looking for stuff to eat. Specifically, I wanted Crunch. Apples. Popcorn. If I wasn’t actively trying to lose weight it would probably be something else. But I wanted, really wanted, to crunch my way through the stress. I didn’t. But knowing that this issue would keep bugging me for the next several days or weeks I discussed it w Dr Hope.

She said she found it interesting that I was looking to eat because of it, and a great sign that I was aware of the emotional pull and not giving in to it. She then told me to have a fun weekend and to spend Tuesday - Friday when I was back at home paying attention to think-as-you-eat principles. And to enjoy my weekend vacation.

A diet doctor who tells you to enjoy life…. not bad at all!

By the way, just identifying this stress-induced desire to eat was enough to keep it from coming to pass. I haven’t had the crunch-fest nor any other food-fest that I could easily justify from the stress.

I saw Dr Hope again yesterday. I got kind of nervous beforehand, actually, because I haven’t been keeping my food diary, have barely paid attention to the new food rules, and have eaten “Holiday Fun Style” more days than not these past 2 weeks.

Luckily, I didn’t listen to the little voice in my head telling me to cancel, and luckily Dr Hope is really nice and understanding. Her first words, after “best wishes for a happy new year” were “well, it’s that season…”.

So it has been. The season of Overindulgence. The season of Overeating. The season of dropping some of my good food habits. The season of very little exercise. The season of the clothes getting tighter, the face looking puffier.

I decided that yesterday was back to totally normal (although Wednesday wasn’t so bad). I started with a check-in on the scale, up one pound from when I last weighed in a month ago, which isn’t so bad considering what I’ve been eating, and I’m still in Onderland (but barely!). As I mentioned recently, the scale will now be my helper, coming to check on me every 2 weeks or so. I don’t want to get into letting the scale rule my life, so it’s staying in the closet to prevent daily (and more) check-ins. But it’s not hard to take it out, and I’ll do that periodically.

I started eating a lot better Wednesday, (dinner excluded) and Thursday was downright good. I have listened to my hunger and eaten at odd times of the day, helped by my schedule which was remarkably flexible today. I made muesli again, and I am yet once again reminded how much better I do when I start with an oatmeal or muesli breakfast. Anything else seems to open too many doors to temptation, whereas the oatmeal or muesli are delicious and Satisfying.
I am away next week for work again. I discussed the challenge of next week w Dr Hope. It’s a big national meeting of my company, with about 1500 people crammed into some hotel. Almost the whole time is spoken for, from breakfast meetings at 7:30 am to “disco nights” until 2 am. Don’t worry, I need my sleep and won’t be drinking and dancing, but I’ll need to do some socializing until at least 11pm every night and just the thought of that makes me grumpy. I think we have one or two 2-hour free sessions during the week. I am not a big fan of this kind of meeting personally, although I recognize it’s importance for the teams to help them get motivated for the year, so I put on my best “team player” smile and go at it.

The food challenges will be considerable - there are not so many ways to give great and healthy food to that many people who eat at once, so the meals will probably be almost all buffets and filled with starch and oil. Alcohol is the social lubricant of choice for these events, and I’ve decided that apart from an occasional glass of champagne in my hand, I will not drink (and I never drink very much of cheap champagne, so the glass will be mainly decorative).

I also don’t know if I’ll be able to blog (there is apparently very little internet access), and I’m sure I won’t be able to read others’ blogs. I’ll at least write while I’m there, even if it’s only to post it upon my return.

Dr Hope & I discussed this coming week, and the plan is three-fold.

1) Keep the food diary every day (the document contains where I ate, hunger level, what I ate, did I leave anything left over, pleasure rating and relaxation level). I know this will help me. Some structure usually does.

2) Drink at least 2 liters of water a day. Should be do-able, and it will give me something to do at coffee breaks besides eat the snacks, since I’ll be in line for the bathrooms… I agreed to this step quickly, because I know hotel air and travel is dehydrating, and I’m a big water drinker anyway.

3) Leave something uneaten at every opportunity. Breakfast. Coffee breaks. A square of chocolate served w coffee. At meals, at the appetizer, the main dish, AND the dessert.

We talked a lot about the difficulty I was having with this ‘leaving something’ uneaten bit and this was her suggestion. Out of habit, out of comfort, without thinking, I eat what I am served. It is ENORMOUSLY hard for me not to do that. Its even harder when I serve myself. I need to be able to FORGO some of “my” food in order to be able to move to a place where I can judge which portions will satisfy me. But until I can stop myself from cleaning my plate mechanically, I can’t get to that next step.

So I’m taking a step backwards to concentrate on just this. I’m not going to worry about pausing in the middle of my meals and evaluating hunger again for now.

I will be packing my walking shoes, and a new audiobook. Not sure how much opportunity I’ll have, but certainly more than if I leave the shoes at home! I’ve been pushing myself to get back into my mild exercise, and have walked 3 times this week and hope to post a “walking to Bilbao” update soon after my trip.

I saw Dr Hope Saturday morning.

We discussed any progress I may have made, and I was ready. I was able to talk about the various foods I had really enjoyed during the week, and about my victory over the baguette sandwich.

She said I am making really fast progress. In truth I am able to pay attention to hunger and satisfaction and pleasure some of the time, but more often I just eat automatically.

We discussed HOW I’d eaten this week, and also WHAT I’d had. Since the stomach flu put me off the pizza test for a week and during a few days I hadn’t eaten much, it was really mainly about how I ate during my business trip.

I’ve spent years of my life in jobs where I traveled constantly, so I don’t find it glamorous or fun to do so. I’ve gone out of my way to downsize my career to have less travel and more time at home, and am now in the job with the least possible travel I could have, although I don’t expect to stay in this job forever. But this week I had to travel, for 3 days, so Marseille, a city in the South of France. I didn’t see anything much except the hotel, train station and one restaurant, although I did manage to fit in one 45 minute walk.

I don’t think it’s an accident that I had lots to report. I had some really good food on my trip - or rather, I really paid attention to my food and was able to describe it in detail, because I took the time to appreciate it. I could probably have as much to say about what I eat for any 3 day period, but it’s not my habitual way of dealing with food

The foods I really enjoyed :

Muesli : The old-fashioned Swiss kind. It looked horrible – brownish glop with lumps of stuff.. It’s made with shredded apples and whole grains (rolled oats and another rolled something) cooked in milk and then chilled. God it was good, and so healthy. One of the best breakfast foods I’ve ever had. I have to find recipes for this.

Dried fruit and nut bread : probably one of the best breads I’ve had in my life, in a rather ordinary big chain hotel. This stuff is seriously good. Thick, dense bread just filled with raisins and walnuts and hazelnuts. No butter or anything needed, but I would have loved to try it with goat cheese… They had this the first night at dinner and not again until the last lunch, although I looked for it at every meal. When I found it for the last lunch I built my whole meal around having a big hunk of it. Luckily this is not available at a bakery near me in Paris.

Soup with truffles and scallops : starter dish at our Thursday night dinner. A rather unusual preparation of a rich soup made probably of potatoes cooked with lots of black truffles. 3 seared scallops sitting in the thick soup. Very rich, but not a huge portion. It was amazing, and I really savored it, eating slowly, enjoying the tastes and textures.

Fish with julienned vegetables and polenta in bouillabaisse sauce : Bouillabaisse is French fish soup, and something I don’t even like, but this dish was excellent, at the same restaurant Thursday night. The portion was small – maybe 2 ounces of fish and half a cup of polenta, less than that of the veggies, but due to the heaviness of the sauce and polenta it was very filling. Flavors were very deep and rich, and quite complex.

So you see, I’ve had really good food this week. Maybe I have really good food every week but I don’t take the time to appreciate it.

With Dr Hope I discussed the aspects of the HOW and WHY of what I’m eating, but except for the foodie descriptions, not the WHAT. I did ask her if people lose weight with this approach, and only then did she offer to weigh me (I declined). She said yes, people lose weight, but not all at the same rate, some people have a really hard time getting the behavioral components of healthy eating down (listening to your hunger, stopping when just barely full, savoring food instead of just inhaling it, etc). I know for myself it feels like I can do it sometimes, and at other times it just slips my mind…

Well, up this week : the Pizza Test!

I remember discussing with Dr Hope last week about eating what you want. Which means if you want a candy bar, eat the candy bar. But not the candy bar AND a full dinner.

This morning going out the door I grabbed just an apple because that was all I was in the mood for. For years I have eaten a full breakfast anticipating the next meal and next hunger. Dr Hope has pointed out that it’s important to eat for our current hunger, not the future. In today’s modern world we can always find more food when we are hungry again. Since hunger is something I fear, this habit is very hard to break, so just having an apple this morning was something of a victory.

By 1pm I was starving and was trying to decided exactly what I was hungry for and I was torn between going to a restaurant (quick, and good variety of choices) or making do with what we have in the house. But we don’t have much, we’ve been gone most of the week. There is a bad fake Tex-Mex restaurant not too far, and I was thinking maybe we’d go there - fajitas are usually reasonably edible, and my DH loves tacos.

Then I had the idea to use yesterday’s leftover roast beef to make tacos. The roast beef was yet another culinary disaster by yours truly - my DH showed me how to put a sliver of garlic into the meat before cooking but didn’t tell me how much garlic to use, and I used 4 cloves — WAY too much. But the beef cut up and simmered in some salsa it wouldn’t matter, and I had some cheddar at home hidden (hard to find here) and an onion and cherry tomatoes. We have taco shells in the pantry, so I figured it was a good way to try to cook, please my DH with tacos, use the beef, and respond to my hunger level and focus on savoring my food. They were pretty good, I had 3. And I was proud of how I handled it, even being very hungry in the kitchen I didn’t just wolf down the quickest thing I could. That alone is very unusual for me - usually when I’m very hungry food is just about speed.

I was late to my appointment with Dr Hope yesterday. Can anyone say “Self-Sabatoge”? I got there, but late, so we had a short appointment. My bad.

I talked to her about my weekend indulgences of dessert 4x and bread and butter 4x. She shrugged her shoulders and asked me if I enjoyed it. What??? I took in WAY too many calories to lose weight, almost all from empty carbs with little nutritional value (well, there were raspberries & pistachios in one of the cakes, does that count?). No, all her discussions were about did I enjoy it, did I do it consciously with attention.

To answer her questions, on the cakes, the second one (Saturday night) I really did enjoy. The others not so much, and in fact we decided to not return to the bakery where we got them (it’s a famous one but we’ve been unimpressed several times now). Of course, I was aware the cake was not excellent but still I ate it.

On the bread & butter : I started on the bread & butter being over-hungry for dinner on Friday night. I started out w just bread in the kitchen standing up while I did other stuff, then pulled out the butter and continued in that mindless way. At the table I would dive into the bread and butter when my DH & our guest talked shop. Are you seeing a pattern yet? At Saturday’s dinner I had bread & butter while the others spent an hour and a half eating oysters and raw clams. I am not a big seafood person, especially not raw, and while this was a huge treat for 3 of the 4 of us, for me it was NOT. I ate 3 jumbo shrimps during that time. And a lot of bread and butter. Ok, now the picture is even clearer.

It was an interesting discussion, because I felt guilty about the fat and calories and empty nutrition, and she was only discussion HOW I ate and if I ENJOYED it.

I told her I hadn’t been good about my homework but that I’d put together the document and was now on the ball. She didn’t say anything about it, nor look at it (I could have cheated)! That said, we were pressed for time because I was so late…

She gave me another homework assignment.

I’m to eat “normally” through the weekend. For those of you who, like me, have had that “normal eating” thing broken for most of their lives, that means eating with attention, adjusting each meal to your hunger (eating only a dessert is an option), being relaxed during meals, and ENJOYING what you eat. So, that’s what I’m supposed to be trying to do every day, and in particular until Monday.

Then Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I am to have PIZZA FOR LUNCH. Come again? Yes, that’s right. Pizza. You know, the crunchy-chewy crust, tangy tomato sauce, gooey cheese and a few heavenly toppings — that stuff. Every day. EATING PIZZA EVERY DAY - THAT’S MY HOMEWORK!!!

Oh, I’m also supposed to really pay attention to the taste, to my satisfaction, my hunger, and I’m supposed to try to stop before it’s all gone. (Here in Europe pizzas are individual size - about 12 inches in diameter. You can eat a whole one but it’s a good amount of food. I usually eat the whole thing….)

The idea is to re-train my brain with my “taboo foods”.

I’ve decided to really give Dr Hope & her methods a true effort. I agree with her diagnosis that I am too uptight and un-natural with food. It’s not easy to change that, and it’s clearly not the same thing as dieting, but I think it’s more important to me right now than putting myself on yet another strict and restrictive eating program. I’m hoping to find a new normal at the end of this, one that will allow me to enjoy my life - and my food and manage a lower weight with ease and joy.

…and no, she still didn’t weight me!

I have an appointment tomorrow with Dr Hope and I haven’t done my homework.

I am a bad girl.

I have been thinking a lot, and eating well (except the weekend), and doing some walking, and finally feeling better physically, and keeping a food diary, but I did not do her exercise of rating my hunger and where I was for each meal, plus what I ate.

I saw Ratatouille, do you think she’ll give me credit for that?

It’s funny how those ingrained childhood reactions never leave us. I am nervous and dreading the appointment because I didn’t do my homework. Never mind that it is ME paying the woman, and ME not getting the benefit. I feel guilty.

And feeling guilty has no place in my Low Stress Weight Loss world.

MIDNIGHT UPDATE : I felt so bad about not having done the homework that I whipped up a word document (table) & played around to make it pretty and set up a page a day w room for 3 meals and 3 snacks (although I rarely eat all those times in one day). Filling in today was a snap & w my food diary I was able to reconstruct the Monday & Tuesday without too much trouble so I have some of the homework done. Whew, now I can sleep without that on my mind!

Ok, Dr Hope still gets to retain her title. I saw her again last night.

On my homework, apparently the correct answer to the many questions is FALSE for all of them (a calorie is a calorie, you should only eat when you’re hungry, etc). Except the dreaded #27… #27 is ” To lose weight you need to eat everything you like in smaller quantities ” and the answer is TRUE.

You know what that means? Yes, MODERATION. Attention. Thinking. Risk. No hiding behind diets, no pre-measured portions that I can eat all of. I knew #27 would be my dragon to slay!

So, I have more homework for Dr. Hope this week. I am to eat anything I want, IN MODERATION. If I knew how to eat in moderation would I weigh 202 pounds? But, it’s true, I’d like to be able to eat normally in the future and be way less stressed about food. So, I’ll try it.

I’m to pay attention to my hunger. Hunger scares me. When I am very hungry I don’t usually make good choices. When I diet I try to eat healthy food often so that I don’t put myself at risk. Now I’m supposed to get hungry.

And I’m supposed to stop eating before I get too full. I’ve never been able to do that. I hate to leave food on my plate. It’s not about starving children in Africa, either, it’s that it’s MY FOOD. Apparently it’s a pretty common “hoarding” reaction for those who have a broken relationship with food. So I’m supposed to work on stopping eating when I don’t feel hunger anymore. Okay, this will be another challenge…

Finally, I am supposed to make sure I enjoy my food. Eat butter if I want it, dessert if I want it, but make sure I really enjoy what I eat. And don’t eat it if I don’t enjoy it. This will be kind of new to me. I mean, I do enjoy food and eating, but how much is enjoying the ACT of eating vs what I’m actually eating at the time. I mean, do I actually ENJOY the zucchini, or do I eat the zucchini because I know I can eat a lot of it and fill up my tummy for few calories. This too will be a challenge.

I am to keep three columns for each meal - how I ate (time, place, people), how hungry was I (scale of 0-6) and what I ate.

It’s actually a lot to pay attention to, but it seems like it might be worth the effort, so I’m giving it a go.

Ok, Dr Hope gave me 3 homework assignments and I promised I’d share them :

Assignment 1: The first is to re-trace my weight history. Largely that’s in my “about” page so I won’t bore you all with it. I’ve been fat since I was a kid and I never got skinny. I had some success losing some weight at times, but pretty much was size 18-22 for all of my 20s and half of the 30s. I remember being 12 and going shopping w my dad for my first ‘grown up clothes’ not in the kid department and I wore a size 12. (which in those days was smaller than today’s size 12, but still…).

Assignment 2: Second homework assignment is to list as “true or false” each of the 27 statements below. I’ll mark T or F for what I’m writing on my homework paper for Dr Hope. (Note : the homework is in French - I’ve used “starches” to refer to bread, pasta, rice etc type of carbohydrates - there is a specific word for this in French)

1. I need to eat 3 meals a day (T)
2. I need to not eat between meals (F)
3. I need to never skip a meal (T)
4. I need to have a big breakfast every morning (F)
5. I must never leave in the morning without breakfast (T)
6. What I eat in the morning can’t make me fat (F)
7. One should never eat fruit in the middle of a meal (F)
8. One should never eat fruit between meals (F)
9. I should never mix starches and fats (F)
10. I should never mix protein and starches (F)
11. Everything eaten after 5pm is stored, not burned (F)
12. Eating before going to bed makes one fat (F)
13. Certain foods can’t make you fat (F)
14. Certain foods make you lose weight (F)
15. Certain foods always make you fat (F)
16. To lose weight you need a balanced diet (T)
17. To lose weight, you need balanced meals (T)
18. Proteins can’t make you fat (F)
19. To lose weight you need to drink water (F)
20. For a cocktail, tomato juice is a better choice than alcohol (T)
21. Starches can’t make you fat (F)
22. Fats make you fat (F)
23. A square of chocolate is more fattening than a nonfat yogurt (F)
24. If I don’t eat vegetables I can’t lose weight (T)
25. One should never eat starches more than once a day (F)
26. I need to eliminate sugars (T)
27. One needs to eat everything one likes in reduced quantities (F)

I think number 27 will turn out to be a big focus for her, and very difficult for me. I have always found it easier to avoid certain foods completely, because I have a hard time eating a “reasonable” portion of them…

Assignment 3 : Write the list of all your taboo foods

• Pastries
• Butter
• Cakes, cookies, pies, desserts
• Ice cream
• Pasta, rice, potatoes
• Bread (except whole wheat)
• Cheese
• Pizza
• A lot of restaurant foods (sauces, preparation, etc, including most ethnic stuff Chinese, Indian, Thai, Mexican, Lebanese. I can manage w French & American easier.)
• Candy
• Anything breaded or fried
• Most sauces

Maybe I’ll think of more taboo foods before my appointment tomorrow…

I’d love to see others’ Taboo Foods lists!

Today I had a doctor’s appointment I made quite a while ago, well before I’d decided to re-start. My doc had noticed the weight I’d gained since my back surgery and was none too pleased, and gave me the name of a “nutritionniste” which is a diet doctor - but a real M.D.

I was grumbling to myself the whole way over there - I’d met with 2 other docs of this type since arriving in France, one who tried to get me to go on a liquid protein diet (and this at my low weight!) and another who I did work with for a few months who gave me a very rigid diet that excluded oatmeal and some other healthy stuff. Since right now I’m feeling both motivated and relaxed, I was quite resistant but figured one appointment wouldn’t hurt anything, so I went.

I am going to call her Dr. Hope. Because she was calm, kind, relaxed, reassuring. Among the nutrition and medical books on her shelves were several titles such as “maigrir sans regime” (lose weight without dieting).

As I told her my weight history, my current diet etc she saw quickly one of the big issues. I am way too stressed about food. I don’t enjoy it enough, I am not relaxed around it, I don’t treat it “normally”. So I am allowed to eat whatever I want, but I need to enjoy it. I have a few homework assignments (which I think I’ll actually do as blog entries), and one of them is to watch the movie Ratatouille (apparently there is a mouse who talks about eating slowly and enjoying it).

She told me that obviously I know nutrition and what foods are good to eat, but that I have put too many labels on foods (Good vs Bad, etc). Her objective is that I re-find balance in my relationship with food, and that within that slowly the weight will come off. She told me she is not focused on rapid weight loss.

Yippee! I feel like I have found a real support in this woman, and what’s odd is that had I met her at other times in my life I would have dismissed her as a crackpot who wasn’t serious enough about my weight. She didn’t even weigh me, people!