Round

Dessert Test 5 :

The Situation : Another buffet lunch at the hotel, again new desserts present.

The Dessert : I spent a lot of time looking over the choices before noticing a half a peice of some powdered-sugar dusted cake with a cream and raspberry filling. I took that small piece (about 2 inches square) and some of the fromage blanc and a big apple.

The Analysis : I ate the fromage blanc first, it was really good. Next the sugar-dusted cake, which was sugar-loaded. Way too sweet when I ate a bit as it came, I picked off the top and the bottom and ate just the filing. On the last bite I realized it was too sweet too. Very disappointing. The apple, however was great. Crunchy, crisp, sweet. On a normal day (not a Dessert Test day) I’d have taken a whole peice of the sugar cake and eaten it too, probably never stopping to think about if it was good or not. And I’d have missed the apple.

Dessert Test 6 :

The Situation : Dinner at hotel, buffet style but festive. Seated next to the division head, but he’s a nice guy and I’m not easily spooked by management, so I was relaxed and ok. I’m really sick of the business meals, however. I dislike the forced fake socializing, and while I can do it once in a while without a problem, 8 meals in a row, plus coffee breaks and cocktail hours it’s grating on my last nerve now…

The Dessert : Another buffet choice, but I wasn’t very hungry at the end. I was really hoping there would be fresh fruit, because even w a Dessert Test in place that’s what I wanted. No dice. I selected a “chocolat miroir” which was a half-sphere chocolate thing, dusted in cocoa and topped w a tiny square of dark chocolate. It turned out to be a type of chocolate mousse and in the very center there were some strips of candied orange.

Analysis : It was quite rich, good creamy texture, light and airy mousse although a bit too sweet. The orange was a nice contrast. I ate about 25% of it, then I’d had enough and left it. My colleagues had taken other things and were not very happy w them, and I passed the rest of my dessert around the table and everyone thought it was better than what they’d taken. Bonus - it was also out of my reach while we sat at the table listening to a boring speech - so no ability to keep eating it just because it was there!

I wasn’t expecting to say this already at dessert 6, but I’m glad the Dessert Test is almost over. I’m not finding them such a treat, more like a normal part of a meal, and thus, less magical, less forbidden, less special, and most importantly, less attractive.

Dessert Test 3 :

The Situation : buffet lunch again.  Our team was very late to the lunch, again, and I was overly hungry (having had breakfast at 7:30, just tea at the break, and lunch at 1:30).  There were no tables left so we had to jump on one that was abandoned, where my former boss (whom I dislike) was sitting.  

The Dessert : The buffet looked pretty much like Monday’s, but with new choices.  Choice is so dangerous.  I took a small serving (maybe 2 tablespoons) of creme caramel and snagged a very pretty red berry spongecake tart because the berries were fresh and yummy looking.  I also grabbed a clementine because I consider fruit free. 

The Analysis :  The creme caramel turned out to have coconut in it, which ruined the smooth creamy texture that I like, and was too sweet. Still, having taken so little, I finished it.  The tart I had the sense to taste the sponge cake, and it wasn’t so great, so I ate the inside which turned out to be some type of sweetened whipped cream topped w fruit puree and then the berries.  Very yummy.  The best of all, however, was the clementine.  Sometimes citrus fruit is just so-so, and sometimes it’s a sweet juicy explosion in your mouth.  I got lucky and this one was super.

I know that being at the table w my ex-boss increased my anxiety a bit, and I found I ate the whole meal faster than usual and not paying much attention to my food (which I’ve done a pretty good job on lately).  Maybe the lesson is never to eat near my former boss again?  Or  more reasonably, to try not to let social anxiety dictate how I eat. 

Dessert Test 4 :

The Situation : Another seated served dinner at another hotel.  At the table with colleagues,  half I like, another half I don’t know very well.

The Dessert :  A rich almond cake topped with a vanilla cream and raspberries. 

The Analysis :  Took one bite of the total cake to taste it, then ate just the cream and raspberries.  The cake just wasn’t that good.  The whole dessert didn’t appeal to me, but the berries looked good (and the cream was stuck to them when I picked them off).

I’ve gotten some great comments recently & I’ll incorporate a response to some of them into the Dessert Test wrap-up post.  If you’ve got questions to ask me, here’s your chance!

Thanks for all the comments encouraging me to go ahead w the Dessert Test.  No pics this time - I don’t want to explain to 200 colleagues that I’m taking pics of my plate for my weight loss blog…

Dessert Test 1 :

The Situation : buffet lunch - our team arrived late, there was very little left of lunch, I ate fast but healthy, filling up on the turkey & salad. 

The Dessert : Headed to the dessert buffet where there were lemon tarts, apple tart, clafoutis (a type of flan), fruit, chocolate mousse and a few other pretty pastries.  There was also “fromage blanc” which is a kind of yogurt-like thing (less tangy & sour) and a raspberry coulis.  I took the fromage blanc and put some raspberry coulis on it, and took a slice of the apple tart. 

The Analysis : One bite of the apple tart was all I needed - very industrial tasting, with a creamy filling under the apples that tasted like chemicals or plastic.  I did eat the fromage blanc (which is healthy and something I eat routinely anyway).  I think knowing I’m going to have dessert each time made me say to myself there is nothing magic in this - and if it’s not great I won’t eat it.  If I was in my usual thing of “only dessert this once” I probably would have loaded up my plate w the most sugary stuff (not the fromage blanc) and eaten all of it even if it wasn’t good.

Dessert Test 2 :

The Situation : Served dinner at hotel, which lasted 2 1/2 hours.  Starter, main dish, cheese, dessert, coffee.  Seated at a table w people I know and like, decent conversation. 

The Dessert : Three parts on one plate, and not a small dessert plate either, probably 9 inches.  On it was a 2 1/2 inch diameter 3-layer chocolate mousse (dark, milk and white chocolates) topped with a few chopped pecans.  This was sitting on a vanilla cream sauce, and next to it was a medium-sized scoop of deep dark chocolate ice cream.

The Analysis :  I was expecting more icky industrial fare, but this was actually good.  The mousse was very sweet and the novelty of tasting the 3 different chocolates in one bite soon ran out, and I stopped eating after about 1/3.  I didn’t touch the vanilla cream, as it didn’t look homemade, and also didn’t seem to add anything to the rest of the desserts.  The ice cream, however, was excellent.  Really rich dark chocolate flavor, and dark chocolate chips throughout.  I love ice cream and almost never have it at home (because I’d eat it all very fast).  Because it was so rich it was very satisfying, and I took small bites and let them melt in my mouth to really savor it.  I managed to leave one spoonful on my plate which I am pretty proud of.

I’d judge this effort so far a success.  At dinner, knowing I’d at least taste the dessert, I only ate what I liked, which turned out not to be much.  I didn’t care for the veal, nor the sauce, and even the green beans had that odd freezer taste to them.  There was too much pepper on the tomato, so I ended up mainly eating the side of potatoes.  One nice thing about France for dinners like this is that there is almost always cheese, so you will find protein later if you don’t eat your meat.  Only one of the 3 cheeses was to my liking (about an ounce of a goat’s cheese) and so even with the dessert included it wasn’t a calorie-killer meal.

Tomorrow lunch should be the same basic thing as today, and dinner will be another sit-down affair, only this time at a table w people I’m not crazy about and don’t know well.  Will I hide my social anxiety in my plate?  Tune in tomorrow to find out…

Given the success of the Pizza Test, I’m wondering if I should put myself on a “dessert test” for this coming week. I’m in a 4 day offsite meeting, staying in a big chain hotel where there is a buffet lunch and seated dinners (probably one restaurant dinner too). I’ll be faced with dessert 7 times in total. What if I decide to have dessert 7 times? 

Often my approach at meetings like this is to tell myself that I can have dessert once or twice in the 4 days. My choice as to when and what, but limiting the times (I don’t count fruit).

But what if I decided now to have dessert 7 times? Will I be less anxious about it? Will I listen more to my hunger and maybe have just one bite and leave the rest alone? Will I eat chocolate mousse, AND the lemon tart, AND the napoleon AND the custard in the same meal, and go on to repeat that 7 times?

Somehow I’m feeling that giving myself permission to have dessert every day, at every meal, is going to be better progress than the rationing out of sugar.

I’m still sticking to fruit only at coffee breaks, however - I’m not ready to go crazy yet!

The context of the 4th day of Pizza Test was different - a big manic family meal, with my DH, brother in law, my stepson and his friend. The other nights it’s been a string of rather rare solitary evenings, with my DH working late each night. I, of course, was having pizza, and soon everyone decided they wanted pizza, and my DH & brother in law both wanted pepperoni like me. I insisted on having my OWN pizza for the Pizza Test aspect, so instead of a large we bought two smalls. Plus 2 other pizzas on the table for the kids & my DH - so variety enters in for the first time in Pizza Test land. I only ate the pepperoni, but I did have an urge to eat some of each, which probably would have resulted in me eating more overall.

BEFORE :AFTER:
• The meal is the pizza : Sort of. I only ate pizza but I knew there would be dessert later, my husband brought home desserts from a new neighborhood bakery…
• Pay attention to your hunger : Yes, but less clear than the other nights. The mania of the 2 kids, me running late from work, needing to get dinner done by a certain time…. Just less reflective than I am when I’m alone. Not that eating alone is a preferred option, but it’s probably helpful to bear in mind.
• Pay attention to your pleasure : A 1 1/2 on a scale of 3. It was kinda cold. The crust was greasy. Not enough sauce. The pepperoni was really good, however.
• Pay attention to your satisfaction : I was glad to have pepperoni, anything else would have been off. I was also glad to find it wasn’t as good as I had hoped, so I don’t think I’ll develop deep cravings for pepperoni pizza here. I did eat w a knife and fork (and by consequence the adults followed my example), and it did help me not just wolf the food down.
• Try to stop before it’s all gone : Ok. I noticed that a lot of my eating was kind of “keeping pace” with the others. I did feel like eating more pepperoni even after I wasn’t too hungry and I ate just the top of one piece (see the naked one?). I didn’t measure it or use the same plate, but I’m pretty sure this pizza was a little bigger than the others, and I ate more of it.
• Any other comments? Do you see the disgusting grease stains from under the pizza in the “After” photo? That’s the Pizza Hut difference, nauseating, who needs oil on the bottom of the classic crust? The really gross thing was the “double cheesy crust” that we got for the kids. We all felt the Pizza Hut pizzas tasted really chemical and artificial. Chain restaurants are blissfully few in Paris, and almost everywhere food is prepared from real ingredients, not industrial dry mixes and bulk-processed corporate kitchens. Pizza Hut may be about the only pepperoni in Paris, but it won’t be a regular pizza in our house.

The Pizza Test exercise was to have pizza every day for 4 days, and I could have it more if I wanted it. At the beginning I thought I’d try to go through the end of the week and also have pizza on Friday (which would have been day 5) but on Friday I just couldn’t face pizza again, so I didn’t force it.

I’m guessing I won’t crave pizza for a while after this. I’m also guessing I’ll never feel the need to eat a whole pizza by myself again. And that if I’m wanting pizza (after a few months!) I’ll just have it, knowing I can control it.

NOTE : I’ll do one final post on Pizza Test after I see Dr Hope (in a week).

Change is SCARY and HARD. I am working on changing the way I deal with food – something I deal with about 5 or more times a day. It’s not easy.

My new approach, which I call Low Stress Weight Loss is really about finding a way to manage my weight without losing my sanity. But I’m out of my comfort zone. Luckily I found Dr Hope who is giving me a lot of lessons that are in line with what I’m trying to achieve.

In truth, as much as I’d love to be several sizes smaller (about 4), I’ll gladly get there a year or two later in exchange for my sanity and an approach that I feel will work for me long-term. Which means biting the bullet and doing some hard thinking. And changing.

Part of what makes the change scary is my weight loss history. I’ve always been someone who believes in ‘if it’s not broke, don’t fix it’ and ‘don’t re-invent the wheel’. So if I need to lose weight again why not just return to what’s worked for me in the past?

My first successful weight loss (40 pounds) was following the low-fat craze, and I kept a very simple food journal of listings of foods I ate with no portions or calories calculated. Eventually my weight loss slowed, and then stalled, probably because plates of pasta piled to the sky or boxes of Snackwells fat-free cookies does not lead to losing weight. What I thought I learned here was that I needed to be more structured, and do more than just keep a list for serious weight loss. I didn’t keep those 40 pounds off for very long, but I’m no longer so sure it was because of the lack of structure - I was eating huge quantities of low-fat food, and I suspect in calories it was just too much.

My 2002 weight loss success was built on rigorous record keeping and even more rigorous exercise (with record keeping for that too). All the record keeping appealed deeply to my control-freak tendencies, and gave me things to obsess over. Since that effort was successful, this time not just in the short term, but in the long term. From 250+ I lost weight and eventually settled around 185-190 where I’ve been for 5+ years (recent slip-up not included).

So each time I’ve made an attempt to diet since 2003 it’s always been a return to the 2002 approach – strict diet, tons of exercise, and lots of record keeping. Except it hasn’t worked for me again. Which I know is actually a good thing, because I was miserably unhappy with my life in 2002 which is why I dedicated myself 100% to my weight. I needed and wanted a change, and so I made some radical ones. It worked.

My life today is totally different than in 2002, and all for the better. Today I am happy. Living in a fabulous city, married to, and in love with, a man who is such a great match for me sometimes I have to pinch myself to see I’m not dreaming, with a decent job, good prospects for the future and a diverse and balanced set of interests and activities. Of course maniacal dieting is not going to work with that. I don’t want it to.

In writing this I’m realizing that this new approach is about paying attention. Which is not what I did on the low-fat plan at all. And it’s about pleasure and moderation, which was not the approach in 2002, it’s not obsession.

It’s going to take time to learn how to do this, but it’s an interesting set of lessons.

Due to the various comments - either “eww, egg on pizza, yuck!” or “now I’m craving pizza after reading your blog” I decided to put days 2 & 3 of the Pizza Test together into one post (but I still want your comments ).

Day 2 : Tuesday Dec 11

Before :
After :

• The meal is the pizza : um… sort of. I only ate the pizza at first, but I’ve been dying for fruit and wasn’t hungry for a snack before dinner, so I did have fruit about an hour after the pizza
• Pay attention to your hunger : I’d say my hunger was moderate, a 4 on a 6 point scale
• Pay attention to your pleasure : Today’s pizza wasn’t great at all. Not enough sauce. Mushrooms dry and icky. Beef with no flavor, no spices. Cheese tasted kind of gummy to me. This pizza is the reason we’d decided to stop going to the pizza place just down the street, but yesterday’s was also from there and it was good. Tomorrow I have to get pizza from somewhere else. I’d give it a 1 of 3 on the pleasure scale.
• Pay attention to your satisfaction : I ate a bit more than I really wanted because I kept thinking of the rule “the pizza is the meal” and I didn’t want to be hungry later. That, my friends, is called “stocking” and is not a good thing. I finally quit eating when I told myself I’d just break the rule and eat something else later if I’m hungry again. Ta da! I put the fork down.
• Try to stop before it’s all gone : No problem there. I’d have been hard pressed to finish this pizza actually. I didn’t even eat many crusts, and normally I love crusts.
• Any other comments? The quality of this pizza was a big factor in my lack of satisfaction. I was kind of wanting pepperoni but it’s not French, so the only place I can get it is Pizza Hut, and they have big pizzas not individual ones. I should have just gotten a small and been done with it. Tomorrow I’m making sure I have what I want, not just going down the street. At one moment I cut off a slice and picked it up in my hands, then remembered the comments I got about what a good idea it was to use the knife and fork, so I put it down and ate it the civilized and slow way. All this thinking is exhausting!

Day 3 : Wednesday Dec 12

Before :

After :

• The meal is the pizza : Yep, ate only the pizza. Had herbal tea in the evening after, but no more food.
• Pay attention to your hunger : I was pretty hungry, a 5 on a scale of 6. I ate around 9pm
• Pay attention to your pleasure : I’d give it a 2 of 3 on the pleasure scale. Tonight I went out to a restaurant for pizza, because I couldn’t face the place near our house again. When the pizza first arrived I thought “uh-oh, this is MUCH better than the pizza at home, I bet I’ll eat a whole lot more.” But actually the first few bites were by far the best. As it went on, it became just another pizza. Although I did like the sausage…
• Pay attention to your satisfaction : I felt pretty hungry and so I dug in pretty hard at first. I got myself to slow down and chew a few times, and a few times I put my fork down. You’ll notice that I ate more crusts today - they were crispy and browned as I like ‘em. I thought I had stopped in time, but half a hour after eating I was too full.
• Try to stop before it’s all gone : Ok. I didn’t want the rest of the pizza but I did want more sausage, so I ate the slices remaining on the rest of the pizza. I wonder if I’d have done that a few minutes earlier if I’d have stopped eating sooner. I think in all 3 cases I ate 2/3 of the pizza, when I look at the pics the plates look pretty uniform to me.
• Any other comments? It was kind of fun to be at a restaurant by myself doing this homework. (My DH had a dinner meeting). I got a few strange looks as I took pics at the table for my before and after shots, but I thought it made the blog a bit more fun.

I have one more day left of Pizza Test. One more day seems like plenty.

I’ve stopped calorie counting.

I’ve been counting calories since I’ve been back on track (this is now the 6th week back on track). It wasn’t so much a decision to count calories as a decision to use an online food journal which automatically gives you the calorie counts. Still, an old-hand at dieting like me can’t sit in front of this kind of program and not see the totals for each day and try to stick to a similar range of calories.

Since I’ve been seeing Dr Hope I’ve been doing both the online thing PLUS a paper journal (with the columns to note where I ate, what I was doing, how I felt etc, along with what I ate).

I started to realize that maybe I should stop with the online journal the other day when I felt I had had enough to eat but I’d already marked that I ate a certain amount of the food in my online diary. Eventually reason won out and I didn’t keep eating just because I had written it down, but the incident did make me think. I’ve also noticed that sometimes I’ll eat more or an extra snack because I know I have the calories available for the day. That’s not listening to your hunger and paying attention to satisfaction, it’s nuts.

Bear in mind that I”m not even really actively dieting - just trying to get myself back on track a little, and the calorie target I’ve been working with is rather high.

All this behavior is deeply ingrained from years and years of dieting.

So for the past few days I’ve only been keeping the paper journal. At meals I try to think about how hungry I am, what I feel like eating, do I enjoy the tastes, and when can I stop eating.

Paying attention to food in this way is very new and quite hard for me. I’m also starting to think that it’s pretty opposite of the calorie-counting approach, and so in order to really give it the effort it deserves, I can’t be trying to do the new thinking while still secretly clinging to the old. Dr Hope didn’t know about the electronic food journal, because I was pretty sure she wouldn’t approve.

I confessed on Saturday when I saw her. Told her I’d been doing it, and that I was stopping. She was very supportive, as I expected. She called calorie counting and other types of counting or allowance dieting systems “accounting” and I thought that was interesting. It’s true that it puts a huge focus on food and what you’re allowed or supposed to have. I do think I think more about food when I’m dieting than when I’m free-for-all-ing.

I’m going to try the Dr Hope approach from now until January. No more diet software. Just the archaic paper journal … AND A WHOLE BUNCH OF THINKING.

My first Pizza Test day was Monday.

Before I tell you how I did, I suppose I should review why I’m doing this pizza test, what I’m expecting to learn, and the basic rules.

I am seeing a nutritionist (not just a dietitian but a full-fledged doctor in this country). She appears to be something of an expert on behavioral approaches to food, and is really guiding me in that way. I call her Dr Hope. She prescribed this Pizza Test for me 2 weeks ago, but due to stomach flu I had to put it off one week. The idea is to be confronted with your taboo foods, and I suspect I’ll learn to de-mystify them, and realize I need to pay attention to my hunger with even favorite foods. And that the pleasure of a food is probably related to not having too much of it.

The rules :

• The meal is the pizza. That means no side salad, no side veggies. No dessert.
• Pay attention to your hunger
• Pay attention to your pleasure
• Pay attention to your satisfaction
• 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…. If you were doing this in the States you’d either have an x-tra small or maybe half a medium for the same baseline.)

For today’s Pizza Test, I chose Paysanne (country style) with ham, sauteed onions and egg

Rather than tell you how I did, let me start by showing you :
BEFORE :
AFTER :

My Report :

• The meal is the pizza : ok, I ate pizza only. I would have liked a fruit for dessert.
• Pay attention to your hunger : I was very hungry. A 5 on a 6 point scale.
• Pay attention to your pleasure : I found the eggy parts very good (egg is relatively common on pizza in Europe. If you like sunny-side up fried eggs you’d like it, otherwise it’s not for you). I’d give it a 2 of 3 on the pleasure scale.
• Pay attention to your satisfaction : I was pretty satisfied pretty early, and that surprised me, because I usually eat more than this being less hungry.
• Try to stop before it’s all gone : No problem on this. In fact, see that little piece cut apart? I was going to eat that but I stopped, I decided I didn’t need it.
• Any other comments? Yes. I ate this pizza on a proper plate and with a knife and fork instead of my hands. I think that made a big difference, because it slowed me down and made it more civilized. When I had pizza a week ago I ate it in slices with my hands. And I ate a lot more, and faster.

I also was very aware that I’ll be having pizza for several days now. Knowing I’ll be having more and more was plenty to put me off overdoing it. In fact, an hour or so later, I felt uncomfortably full, so maybe I did overdo it. But in the real world there are precious few foods that we can never have again - you can always have more of something another time, the world won’t end if you don’t eat 3 slices of Aunt Darla’s Heavenly Cheesecake this holiday season. She’ll still make it next year. And you can find a decent recipe anywhere if the craving strikes again.

The other thing that I think helped me was having one pizza all to myself. No sharing. My DH wasn’t even home when I ate. I could eat what I want without feeling the need to “defend my turf” and eat “my share”.

Finally, before the Pizza Test I decided to try, for the first time, a Walk Away the Pounds DVD. I did 20 minutes, just over 1 mile. But moving my butt a little was enough to curb my desire to stuff myself afterwards. I didn’t exercise for that reason, but it did help (I did it to try to find a way to exercise despite crummy weather, and I think the DVD will be a good option for me this winter).

One of the things that’s always been helpful to me while dieting is PLANNING AHEAD. Thinking about the week to come, and thinking through how I’ll deal with the challenges I can identify.

I don’t think this approach is at all opposed to the Low Stress Weight Loss I’m trying to do, so here’s what’s up for the week :

I have a number of local meetings, and will have lunch out 3 or maybe 4 days this week. I also have the Pizza Test to do. Normally pizza test is lunchtime, according to Dr Hope, but we agreed in my case doing it at dinner this week makes more sense. I have 4 nights of pizza ahead of me : Monday - Thursday at least. I might have a dinner meeting on Thursday in which case I’ll have to add a pizza night on Friday. I’m guessing I’ll be pretty sick of pizza by then. Although I’ve often thought that pizza is a great food : mixing carb, veggie and protein…

Other than the pizza test, food goals are to plan healthy snacks I can take with me, as I probably won’t end my days until late.

Exercise will be more challenging - although Tuesday afternoon and Thursday morning should be do-able, and then maybe over the weekend. If I’m lucky maybe Monday night - but maybe not…it’s dark so early and so cold and rainy (ah, there are so many good excuses!).