My BodyBlog

My posts about dieting failures, eating and food have mostly been focused on the way my attitudes and perceptions have evolved during my lifetime.  I have been examining the mental aspect of the subject, and painting a picture for how I have overcome the mental and emotional barriers that were preventing me from eating in a positive and healthy way.  In this post I get to the specifics about how my attitude and therefore my behavior transformed in a major way in 2007.  In the end, its all comes down to the the food, so its time talk about it all, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

In January, 2007 I had been working out for 34 months.  I had succeeded in toning up, building some good muscle mass, and losing a lot of body fat on my legs, arms, shoulders, and chest.  I had lost some fat on my stomach and hips, but still had a long way to go there.

I was very happy with my progress.  I was doing more than sticking to my workouts, I was thriving at them.  Going to the gym had become one of the best parts of my life, and I was feeling great.  Except when it came to one thing.  My eating.  Up to that point, I was content to continue eating just about everything I wanted, as long as I was still seeing positive changes in my body.  I was justifying my bad eating habits, saying to myself "my workouts are offsetting that and more besides!"

Here’s how I was eating:  I was making some healthy food choices, thanks mostly to some habits formed during my Weight Watchers days.  For example, I never deep-fried food at home, and had it rarely in restaurants.  I shied away from chicken skin and gravies.  I tried to eat some vegetables and fruit everyday, and I always drank skim milk and sugar-free sodas.  On the other hand, I made a lot of unhealthy choices everyday too.  Potatoe chips, cheese sticks, chocolate bars, ice cream, baked goods, takeout burgers and fries, pastries from coffee shops, pizza, white bread and processed meats were regular foods for me.  Along with many unhealthy foods, I was eating a lot for pleasure, especially in the evenings after 9 o’clock.  Not good.  In spite of this, I was losing body fat, thanks to daily walks and my 3 to 4 times per week gym workouts.  This is a great tribute to the power of physical activity.

Now, the start of a new year was always my time to start a new diet.  Of course, I always failed.  In January, 2007, it was different.  I looked at myself in the mirror, and thought "I’ve come a long way.  But just look at my gut.  Why am I still fat there?  I know I can lose body fat, why shouldn’t I be able to do it faster?"  Of course, I had my answer.  The junk food and fast food.  I was pissed off with myself.  Just think of the progress I could have made if I hadn’t been eating all that garbage for the last 34 months!  I knew how to eat right, I even enjoyed many healthy foods, I just enjoyed all the other stuff too and didn’t know how to break my long-held habits!  It was as if I briefly became another person when I made unhealthy choices.  A part of my mind took over my actions and all good intentions and thoughts were wiped out for those short periods of time.  Immediately after eating junk, I’d come to my senses and remember how it was stopping me from having the body I wanted.  I’d feel guilt and regret.  The next day, it would happen again.  I knew that to go on a strict diet or try to cut out everything unhealthy at once wouldn’t work for me.  I’d been down that road before.  It never worked and I wasn’t willing to do that to myself again.  I decided to try to change my poor eating habits gradually. 

I identifed the biggest problem as my eating outside of regular meal times, especially before going to bed.  I tried to stop eating at this time.  Some nights I could, some I couldn’t.  It was especially hard when I’d do an evening workout.  If I finished working out at 10, I was starving by 10:30.  My body was telling me it needed nourishment to help it recover from the workout.  On those nights, I started eating two slices of white bread with thickly spread peanut butter.  That satisfied me, and although not great nutrition wise, it was a lot better than most of the things I used to be eating before bed.  I was able to stick with this first ‘food management strategy.’  I tied this change in behavior directly to my workouts.  I knew that over time, my new behavior for evening eating would help reduce my bodyfat.  This success motivated me to start making small changes with every other aspect of my eating that I knew was unhealthy.  From about March to a point in September, I was successful in cutting back significantly on junk food and the number of times I had fast food, plus I made better fast food choices (i.e. getting a small fries instead of large, or having chili or a baked potatoe).  During that period I was able to stop almost all impulse eating.  I started thinking about what I was about to eat, and to consciously evaluate if that food was going to help me improve my body.  Most times I made the healthy decision.  As my nutrition improved, I felt better, and was more motivated to eat right. 

In spite of all the improvement, I still had one major weakness: chocolate.  I had eaten chocolate every day for years, and my body and brain was not about to let it go without a fight.  If I went without chocolate for a couple of days I would get a craving that drove me to distraction and wouldn’t rest until I did something about it.  At first I’d have a cookie or a small piece of chocolate bar, but I soon found something better!  I started keeping a bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips on hand.  They are intended for baking, not for eating straight from the bag!  They have a chocolate taste while at the same time being bitter.  When I got the craving I’d take a handful of these and pop them in my mouth!  At first I enjoyed the taste, but after a couple of months of doing this I got sick of it and to my amazement, the craving started to be less powerful.  I still craved chocolate just about every day, but now I could satisfy the craving with only 3 or 4 small chips!

By the middle of September I was in a very good place.  My consumption of junk food and the most unhealthy of fast foods was reduced to a fraction of what it once was.  I was proud of myself, and content with my new food habits.  I wasn’t perfect, but I was a lot better than I was and a lot better than everyone I knew.  Then, I did something very stupid, but that ultimately would a very valuable experience.  My wife and I had a five day trip planned to another province.  For the first half I would be attending a conference, then we were going to do some sightseeing for the rest.  It was supposed to be a time of relaxaton.  Somewhere in the run-up to that trip my brain somehow got the idea that if I were to have a truly enjoyable vacation I had to forget about all of the eating rules I was living by and treat myself by indulging in whatever food I wanted.  After all, I had been so good, didn’t I deserve it?  So off we went and the eating binge started.  During the conference there were many functions where food was available and I took full advantage of it!  Buffet breakfasts with sausages, bacon and pastries!  Muffins, cookies, and pastries at every coffee break!  Sweet desserts with lunch!  And to top it all of, a buffet dinner where I stuffed myself like a pig.  I am ashamed to say that I ate so much at that buffet, I got up from the table, went to the washroom and puked.  I was uncomfortable for the rest of the evening, but did the eating stop?  Of course not, my vacation wasn’t over yet!

For the next three days I’m glad to say that the binging stopped, but I made regular unhealthy food choices.  Burgers and fries, nachos, belgian waffles with whipped cream, chinese food, potatoe chips, ice cream and chocolate bars were all on the menu.  The only saving grace on that trip was that for the last three days I kept on the move, going for several long walks.  When I got back home and settled into my regular routine, I had time to think about what I had done on vacation.  I was shocked that my eating could have gotten out of hand so quickly.  And all because of my attitude that vacation time equals eating whatever I want.  I realized how stupid that was.  Healthy choices were available to me at every meal, and there is no reason why I couldn’t have made them.  I’m sure I would have had just as enjoyable a time, probably more so since I would never have felt bloated and I sure as hell wouldn’t have ended up gourging and puking!

Home again, I took up my good eating habits and workout schedule as if nothing had happened.  Reflecting on it, I realized that the ‘mindless eating machine’ that briefly surfaced was a result of old habits that reasserted themselves because of my stupid attitude about what you needed to do on vacation to have a great time.  That eating machine was who I used to be.  It’s not who I’d become.  I’d found a level of personal satisfaction with living a healthy lifestyle that no food could ever again come close to providing me with.  My motivation to continue my body transformation was far stronger than any desire for the short-term pleasure that food could give me.  I knew at that point I would never again eat that way, no matter what was happening in my life or where I was in this world.  I had made a mistake and learned perhaps one of the most valuable lessons of my life:  The emotionally driven eater was gone, I was now a ‘food for fuel and nutrition’ eater, and nothing else.

So, at the end of September I found myself more stongly dedicated than ever to my healthy lifestyle.  I didn’t know it then, but a series of simple but important things were about to happen to raise my level of commitment, motivaton and progress to heights that I never thought I would experience!

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 30th, 2007 at 5:32 pm and is filed under Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.