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 have been listening to diet and weight-loss podcasts off and on for several years now. I started not long after iTunes started including podcasts, and depending on my mood and weight loss (or gain) phase I’ve listened off and on.

One of my favorites from the beginning was The Reasonable Diet by Sandra Ahten. She is a former WW leader who is now a private weight-loss coach and her first series of  podcasts (and honestly my favorites) were recordings of her telephone-based weekly group meetings with her clients. It was kind of like listening in to a real-life, real-people Biggest Loser without all the commercials and Hollywood. Her advice was always really practical and kind, and by listening to other people’s situations and struggles I really learned a lot.

I signed up for her newsletter and have been following along ever since.

Want an idea of what she’s about? She sums it up nicely as “for the I-know-what-to-do-I-just-don’t-do-it crowd”. Bingo. That’s me.

A few months ago she announced a new program called “Project YOU” which is email, handouts (well, PDFs on the www) and support as you want it from the forum and a few phone calls. There was also a plan with weekly phone calls, but with my schedule right now (plus the time difference between France and US central time) I didn’t think the phone calls would work out. So I decided something was better than nothing and I signed up.

So far it’s been good for me. I was heading back on track already when I signed up, but I think the flexible type of structure it offers (daily and weekly check-in sheets, articles and things to think about each week, etc) is pretty well adapted to my needs right now.

The basic concept is for you to think through what you’re going to do, adapting it each week, and be accountable to what you plan to do. For me, who’s always been someone who created her own diets (although I read a lot of books and magazines for ideas) it’s a good fit.

You can find the links to her podcasts and Project YOU page on my blogroll. Her website has some good articles too.

I’ll be blogging from time to time about some of the exercises she’s giving us. The page I added about “my plan” is one of the first ones.