Round

I have had a good few days.  I have eaten normally, I kept track of my calories (for the most part).  I am feeling like I’m back in control (or heading there anyway).

I am deeply, severely committed to doing this managing my weight ( or at least stopping the gain at this point) thing in a way that is low stress.  I have enough stress in my life without adding dieting to it, but I think I can start to draw on all these many years of dieting and weight watching (even when not losing) and take some of what works, turn it lower-stress, and throw out the rest.  Well, that’s my hope.

Some of what has worked in the past for me is keeping a food diary because it keeps me more aware of what I’m eating, and just the act of writing it down makes me make better choices.  So right now, I’m doing it zen.  That is, I do keep the diary but I don’t do anything with it, and I won’t keep old data.  Yesterday I didn’t input dinner because it didn’t matter.  I am kind of pushed this way by the software I’m using, which tells me my calorie limit (and can’t be changed by the user). Normally this would stress me out, but since I can’t change it, I’m just rolling with it, since I consider 1000 calories a day to be neither healthy nor desirable for me.  So knowing I’ll be going over every day by at least 500 cals (and probably more) makes me look at it just as a recorder of my day to keep me on track, help me see if I’m low in dairy etc.  It’s working for me, instead of the other way around — cool and liberating.

And then yesterday’s challenge.  That beautiful 3 chocolate cake in the picture? From one of the top bakeries in Paris, Dalloyau.  Brought into a meeting yesterday to celebrate a dear colleague’s birthday.  And I had a peice, with total enjoyment and no guilt. (Thank you Dr Hope!)  No worries about being “off” a diet, not wondering if this will send me into a tailspin, etc.  I took a small peice (and a chess peice, they’re made of high-quality chocolate!) and savored every bite.  Come lunchtime there was a chocolate dessert in the lunch that I took one bite of and quickly realized it was less good than the cake from Dalloyau.  I thought to myself that if I was going to have more sweets I’d have another slice of the good one (most of the people did that, by the way).  But I wanted a clementine first, and by the time I was done with that chocolate was no longer really necessary and I realized I was perfectly satisfied with what I’d already had so I stopped.

I’m feeling optimistic and in control.  Not deprived, not stressed (well, not about my weight anyway). If I can keep having days like this I think I’m on the right path.