Diet Plans

What are your reasons for losing weight? What diet plan do you use?

These excellent questions have been raised by our local newspaper Diet Club sponsor, Joan Morris.

My reasons for wanting to lose weight run the gamut - I want to be healthy, live a long time, and look good while I'm doing it. I want clothes to fit. I want to not look seven months pregnant. I'm not sure I can decide which of those reasons carry the most weight (hah!), so I just let them all be my motivation. I've noticed a slight increase in things like blood pressure and cholesterol as my weight goes up, and I definitely want to keep those under control. My family has a history of heart disease, too. So I have to watch it.

I've been steadily gaining weight since I was 30, after a lifetime of skinniness. I weighed 95 pounds after the birth of my fourth child. It's taken over twenty years for me to truly understand that I can't eat the same amount of food that I could back in my breastfeeding days.
My problem is not eating "right." I'm the Earth momma you talked about (just not rail-thin), and I love fresh vegetables and whole grains. It's been about eight years since I revamped my diet in a major way by turning to fresh, organic food, more fish, less red meat and more vegetables. My husband and I both lost about twenty pounds when we did that. It was a lifestyle change and we still eat that way.

But all the weight didn't magically disappear, and it's come back more than once, and then some. With the advent of menopause, my weight has shot up and nothing seems to help. Hence, my second epiphany and another major lifestyle change: I must eat less.

A lot less, as it turns out. I'm still feeling my way on this, but I'm trying to cut my calories by at least a third. This isn't a "diet," this is probably forever, like giving up Burger King. My metabolism has slowed drastically, and my food intake needs to follow.

Do I follow a diet plan? No, because I refuse to eat processed food, especially things like artificial sweeteners, "lowfat" anything, or the latest snack with hoodia, or something. I don't eat snacks and I don't drink sodas. Basically, I refuse to eat what I call "laboratory food." I make all my own food from organic ingredients, bought from local producers, as much as possible. Just this morning, I made some yogurt from raw milk, a batch of granola, and a stack of waffles for the freezer. Eggos will never be in our house, but we'll never have the Weight Watchers version, either.

I like having control over what goes into my food. But the drawback is, that it's nearly impossible to keep track of calories, fat, and carbs. All the tables and databases I've found concentrate on processed food. None of them have information on flaxseed meal or amaranth grains. And even if I can find the information, I have to list every ingredient and do the math myself. Thank goodness for Excel.

But it's a hassle. After several years, I have a general idea of the nutritional value of my food, so I just don't bother anymore. My current meal plan follows my own hunger and blood sugar needs, based on years of observation. It's something like this:

A good breakfast of ½ cup of yogurt, ½ cup granola, and fresh fruit, with green tea = around 400 calories.

No lunch, if possible. Sometimes I'm lucky and not very hungry. If I have to eat something, then I try to have a salad or soup. But I try to keep daytime eating to under 300 calories.
Dinner has been the biggest change: my husband gets home around 7:00, so that's when we eat. I was having lots of problems with GERD and nighttime gas. It turns out that 7:00 is just too late for me to be eating. So I eat around 4 or 5, usually leftovers from the night before. When my husband gets home, I sit with him and have a glass of wine. On days that he is not working, we eat around 4:00. But whatever I do, dinner is a tiny amount of food. I aim for around 250 calories, but no more than 400, and that includes the wine (or beer or whatever).

If you added that up, you got 1100 calories. "Not enough to live on," I can hear you say. "You can't meet your nutritional requirements on that!"

I know, but it leaves me room to cheat. Because any meal plan I follow may as well include wiggle room. I'm going to do it, so I may as allow for it. A smidgeon of dessert, once in a while. Dinner out (where I eat a little and take the rest home, but the calories are still humongous). Lunch with my friends (never hungry for dinner on those days). Or it lets me add extra protein to the salad at lunch, or have a slice of truly yummy, excellent cheese. Or, goddess help me, I might have some bread. I love bread.

I do exercise, too, so I'm not depending on diet alone to solve the weight problem. If I can maintain this eating style--and it's fresh, Real Food, which gives me the highest benefit of nutrition from what I eat--then I will slowly lose the weight. Hopefully, I'll keep it off. But I recognize this is a permanent change I must make. No dieting for six months and going back to old habits. I'm just getting older, and I'll never be the lean, mean, calorie-burning machine I was in my twenties.

It means I think about food differently. I'm a chef, so I have a true love affair with food. I don't want that to end. Sometimes, I feel bitter - when did food become the enemy? But mostly, I try to truly appreciate what I CAN eat. Every meal is special, because I get to eat it. Guilt is not allowed. Just good health, good food, good company. And hopefully, long life.