I saw Dr Hope just before leaving for the holidays. I’ll sum up the holidays by saying only that I was not doing anything I should have. No food diary, and when there is no food diary it means things are BAD. I went for one very short walk, I had a few servings of fruit, but it was not a weight-loss or weight-management few days by any stretch of the imagination. I wasn’t off to a great start yesterday morning either, but luckily didn’t let a slightly exaggerated breakfast become an excuse for torching the whole day, and by the afternoon had actually pushed myself out the door for a short walk. So - all is forgiven, now back on track.

I began my discussion w Dr Hope on the Pizza Test where my lessons apparently were learned correctly - a food like any other. I then talked to her about my self-designed Dessert Test and she was very pleased, and again seemed to think I’d done quite well.

She did, however, ask me if I’d cut back at other parts of the meal, knowing I was having dessert. And there the answer is no. I’ve been enjoying this “I can eat anything” diet too much. I like paying attention to the pleasure aspect of my food - that I’m pretty good at. But the truth is I am eating “anything” and not paying much attention to the fact that I want to lose weight.

Enter Dr Hope…. The aspects of the Dr Hope approach are basically as follows :

  • You can eat anything. No food is off limits. You can have cake for breakfast and bacon for dessert if thats what you really want.
  • Enjoy what you eat
  • Eat when hungry
  • Eat to the point of satisfaction (not FULLNESS)

Probably there will be more, but for now it’s pretty much that. Dessert tests & Pizza tests teach you in fact you can really eat anything. There are no “bad” foods, no “good” foods.

Enjoying your food is a question of paying attention. Slowing down. Concentrating. Being able to separate “so-so” from “spectacular”. Eventually, being demanding about what you eat - only eating the very good things, and leaving the rest behind. I’m making some progress on this, but there is still a good ways to go - more often than not I eat out of habit, not taking the mental energy to focus on the pleasure.

The last 2 items, paying attention to my hunger, and eating to satisfaction, I am VERY BAD at. Again, I’ve made some progress, but we’re coming from 0% on this one, so occasional semi-attention isn’t much progress.

Dr Hope gave me some more structure for these, which will help (especially if I start to put them to use, which I haven’t done since I’d seen her, as we left for the holidays just after my appointment).

What I’m supposed to do now :

  • Stop for a pause in the middle of each meal. Set down the silverware. Don’t eat for a minute or two. Evaluate your hunger that remains. Then continue.
  • Try to not finish everything on your plate.
  • Pay attention to being relaxed while eating.
  • Pay attention to portions.

Ok, I’m admitting here that I’m not even going to try to deal w the portion issue right away. The relaxation thing I can handle, it seems to come pretty naturally when I focus on evaluating the pleasure I’m getting from the foods, so that’s do-able.

The others will be HARD, however.

Stop in the middle of a meal. Yikes.

Evaluate how much hunger remains. Double yikes.

Try to leave something on the plate. I’ve worked on this from time to time since September (when I read “Mindless Eating”). Even with effort I find this hard, but it is do-able, and it is a great feeling for me to see something left over.

There you have it, my next set of challenges. I’m going to change my journal document to incorporate this already, that should help keep me focused.