My Year Being Thin: Judgement

We judge.

I know.  We hear it all of our lives.

"You can't judge."
"You shouldn't judge people."
"Who are you to pass judgement?"

We are all human.  It is in our nature to judge.  No matter what you have been told, our own survival, according to Darwin, is based on choices that help us navigate our way through life.  Those choices are made based on judgements we make.  Our survival, which is based on thousands years of evolution, is predicated on the basic rule that we do not have the time necessary in life to assess every person we meet and make an educated judgement on them.  We do not have time to know their motives, their ethics, or their deepest fears and neurosis.  We have to make our judgements quickly.  In some cases, cases of self preservation, very quickly.  This means we are going to judge people first and foremost by that which is most obvious to us...their appearance.

So we judge.  Now comes the painful part of this.  We are going to BE judged.  That's right.  When we look at others and make those choices about them, they are doing the same thing.

"Why are they judging me?  What did I ever do to them...?", you say.  It gives one perspective doesn't it?

It is a cruel reality that the first judgement a person makes will be on your appearance.  The second judgement will be on your behavior.  The last judgement only occurs after significant exposure to you.  That is the only way someone can get to know the real person inside your shell.  So 90% of the people are going to judge you based on your appearance.  If you are fat, and I know this from experience, that can be uncomfortable.  For some, it can be downright frightening.

Most of you reading this are trying to be thinner.  You are trying to lose weight and the goal for most of you is to look and feel better.  Some of you remember what it felt like to be thinner.  Some of you don't.  Some of you have no idea how it will feel to be thin because you have truly never been there.  Deep down, we all know we are being judged on our looks first.  We learn that at a very early age.

So keep 'judgement' in mind when I tell you one of the big lessons about losing weight that you will experience in year one.

YOU ARE GOING TO BE PERCEIVED DIFFERENTLY BECAUSE YOU ARE A THIN PERSON.

I don't mean they will look and think about you being thin.  They won't.  I mean the perception of who you are as a person, now that you are thin, will be different than it has been in the past.  I also don't mean just a little differently.  I mean a lot differently.  The bigger you were, the more radical the experience will be for you.  I also do not mean to imply that 'different' means they will see you as thin versus fat.  People are not just going to look at you and see a thin, or thinner, person.  They are going to assess you differently, react to you differently, and ultimately make judgements about you that are different than what you have experienced.

Here is something you should know.  Looking and feeling great is an advantage.  It is an advantage socially.  It is an advantage professionally.  It is a success tool that can give you a definite edge.  That part you probably know.  Now, the strange part, and the part you sometimes can only learn by moving back and forth along the appearance continuum, is that looking and feeling better than you look right now is not something everybody wants for you.  That's right.  Not everyone is going to be happy with your new found thinness.

As I said before, we judge.  Life is a competition.  We look at people and judge because we want to know our chances.  We all do it as a natural reaction.

"Can I compete or not?"

Making a dramatic change in your appearance will change the competitive assessment.  If you are a woman and your girlfriends have always seen you as a jolly fat pal, they have not had you on their radar as competition.  Now they do.  Expect that they will first be excited for you about your weight loss, then the catty remarks may begin.  This doesn't always happen...there are good people and friends out there.  But you can expect levels of this within social circles.

If you are a man, and you have a strong presence at the office, expect similar experiences.  If your personality is strong and you are well spoken, but you also are a very large jolly guy, you will find that being thinner suddenly means that the funny remarks that everyone used to laugh at are seen as biting sarcasm.  This happens when you transform from being a jolly colleague to a professional on-the-job competitor.

I mention that first because it is the opposite of what you probably thought would happen.  Everyone should love the new thin you, right?  Welcome to reality.

There are many benefits as well, particularly if you are always meeting new people professionally or socially.  People will assess you differently right from the first meeting.  That first impression will be distinctly different and create different opinions about you, even if the opinions are not valid.  Perception is all too often the reality for people.  I will use myself as an example.  I have changed jobs 3 times since 1997.  I have, however, applied for new positions more than ten times in that same period.  EVERY time I was hired, I was thin.  I NEVER got the job when I was fat.  Don't say it...'that's discrimination.'  Again, welcome to reality.  How you take care of yourself, if you are two small clicks from being obese, typically will tell people about your feelings about yourself, your discipline, your judgement, etc.  They leap from that to the first opinion about you.  They do not make the same excuses for you that you make for yourself.  They don't have time.

So you have it.  Judgement.  Perception.  Your year is going to be very different.  Not all good but certainly more good than when you were a large person.  It is going to be fun if you approach it with an open mind and allow people to react the way they need to.  You can change you, but you will never change them.  Some will support you, some will wish you were 'you' again.

Be happy where you are when you get to thinness.  As Harry Chapin would say, 'it is a better place to be.'

Congratulations.


Next: Your new outlook and coping with everyone else

One Year Later: Goal Achieved

The behavior specialist looked curiously at me and said, "What's your goal?"

"My goal is to get the weight off and, this time, to keep it off."

"No...what is your goal?  How much do you want to lose?"

"I don't care.  Pick a number for me.  YOU tell me what I am supposed to weigh and I will hit it.  My goal is to get the weight off and keep it off."

I wasn't playing around.  I didn't know why she couldn't get my point.  I was not a rookie to weight loss.  I had been a yo-yo dieter since I was 10 years old.  I was now 46.  36 years of this crap had me at 286 lbs.  I wanted to make a change and I wanted it permanently.  I also knew, from experience, that once the weight was lost, the hardest part lie in front of me.

When I finished the diet around November 6th of last year, I weighed 205.  I stepped on the scale yesterday.  200 lbs.  It has been a year and I am 5 lbs lighter.  One year later I have achieved my goal.

It has been a while since I posted to the diet blog.  I am going to celebrate my one year anniversary by addressing the challenges along the way. 

Dieting is hard for almost everyone.  The optifast diet made the dieting part easy for me.  900 calories per day of a rigid eating regimen coupled with 2.6 miles per day of brisk walking to create exertion resulted in about 80-85 lbs lost.  Approached this way, it was a very fast process.  Many people on this diet, however, do not exercise or do not follow the strict eating guidelines.  When they do this, the diet takes a long time.  It puts the optifast dieter into the same category as all other dieters.  It makes you feel like dieting is your life.  That is because, when you lose weight that way, it takes a long time and it IS your life.  That is why so many people fail on diets.  When it becomes your life it hangs over you like a shadow.  You wonder every single day if you will ever be able to wake up in the morning and not think about the diet.

If you think that is hard, I have some bad news for you.  When you finally reach that goal of losing all the weight you wanted to lose, that is precisely how you will live the rest of your life.

I know.  That sounds incredibly demoralizing.  It shouldn't.  The one thing that makes getting thin and staying thin different is being able to see yourself thin (the fruits of your labor) and knowing that you never want to go back to what you were.  When I get on that scale each morning (and I weigh myself EVERY day) and see myself in the mirror, I smile.  When I pull on my pants and see the "Size 36" waist marker (remembering that it was 42 last year), I smile again.  When I sit in my car and see the loose piece of plastic under my seat that broke last year because I was massive, I smile again.  You know, I purposely didn't fix it because it makes me smile when I see it.  Seeing what you have become makes the discipline easier than getting up every morning, looking in the mirror, and sadly thinking you will never get there and that you are suffering.  That is the difference.

If you are still trying to achieve that critical first step of just losing the weight, there is light at the end of the tunnel.  You WILL be able to look at yourself in the mirror and like what you see.  Once you do that, it makes the discipline easier than what you are going through to complete that first step.

Believe it or not, many thin people think about what they eat every day.  It is how they manage to stay thin.  They have, however, become so regular about it that it doesn't seem like they are thinking about it at all.  That is the trick.  That is the trick right there.  People who you know as thin regulate themselves as a normal course of action.  Whether from good eating habits, an active life style or some built in neurosis from strange parenting, they are doing it reflexively.  THAT is one of the tricks to keeping the weight off.  The way you think about your eating has to first become concious and then it has to become unconcious.  Once that happens, you will NOT think about the diet every day.  Your body and its eating habits will be on autopilot.

This is the first trick to keeping the weight off.  You have to find a way to build into your psyche the same thought processes that are in the thin people.  I believe I have successfully done that.  I do not eat reflexively anymore...but I also do not make my eating choices by over-thinking it.  I plan my meals each day and I plan my exercise and I stick to it.  Planning meals sounds hard.  It isn't.  What that means is that I know what I am going to eat everyday.  I know if I go out to lunch that I am going to stick to roughly the same healthy choices.  I have built into my head a rough idea of how many calories I am taking in when I eat and I am keeping a running ticker.  My breakfast is the same every day.  My snacks come to work with me in a bag.  Granola and berries for mid morning.  Nut mix for the afternoon or a protein bar.  If lunch seems to be overdone, I will make sure I lighten the load for dinner.  It has become reflexive.  So much so that when I watch other people eat meals, I do the math and figure they won't need to eat for the next two days.

I also exercise regularly.  Some would say I over-exercise.  When I count the calories, I also know how much I burn when I exercise.  Exercising makes me feel like I can have small indulgences.  Sometimes they are medium to large indulgences.  I now jog/run about 25 miles per week.  At age 47, I ran my first 5K road race last Saturday.  I ran it in 24:08.  For my age bracket of 45-49 years old, that is supposed to be an excellent time.  I surprised a lot of people with the time, I surprised myself.  Pleasantly.

So I am going to blog this week about the challenges of keeping the weight off.  Many things like (a) disruptions to the routine, (b) alcohol, (c) visiting old habits, and (d) finally burning the old BIG clothes.  Glad to be back for a while.  Stay focused and keep the faith, it will work out for you.

Next: Your new life and how people treat you

You CAN Vacation and Maintain

What's required here is a success story. The family took a vacation to the Florida Keys. I know, Florida in July sounds lovely. Have any of you looked at the New England weather this summer? I am using the term Summer loosely here. There has been one day of temps over 90 degrees. That is unheard of. Typically, we have 8 days, on average, over 90 degrees. So the deal here is that we have had no Summer. So as a family, we went searching for it. It was hot. There were a few days where the temps hit the low 90's and felt like the low 100's. I have to say this...and this is something for all of you trying to lose weight...the heat was not too bad at all. My family dragged along and I just trotted on my merry way. This is the first time in 25 years that I have been this thin and in the heat. It didn't bother me in the least. I felt awesome. That is the first positive effect of weight loss.

Now we were in the Keys on vacation. I expected to come home and be overweight. I expected to have to spend some time cranking down the poundage. Not at all. I didn't gain a pound. The heat and all the moving around must have had a contribution. If you factor in all the beer and Sangria calories, I should be a moose. Not the case at all.

One other thing...I got a skin issue the week before the trip. The docs put me on prednisone to clear it up. The major side effect from that steroid is weight gain. Nada.

I couldn't be happier. I kayak'd with the kids, walked miles, and just had a hell of a time in the heat and didn't care. This is what weight loss and regaining your life will do for you.

Sayonara. Dick.

Next: One Year Later

Thin Living

By October of 2008, I hit the end of my diet. I weighed between 204 and 207, depending on the day. Keeping the weight off is now the battle. I live on the scale, constantly keeping myself between the numbers. My decision is to be no higher than 207. It isn’t an easy thing, particularly in the summer when the family get-togethers seem to increase geometrically. Vacations are tough. Hot days make exercise a chore. But you have to push through.

I had an interesting dilemma and it has impacted the diet the last couple of weeks. I was kayaking on a river in New Hampshire and the kayak capsized. As I was body surfing the rapids in 50 degree water, I must have hit my knee hard on a rock. I was ok for about a day, until the pain kicked in. The cold (or the beer we were drinking all weekend) kept me from truly understanding the extent of the damage. Suffice it to say I have not been able to walk well or run at all. If you have been following this blog, you know that I have stressed that diet and exercise have to go hand-in-hand with a life that is going to include ‘thinness.’ Going two weeks without exercise was worse than the soreness in my leg.

I cut down on my food intake. I was hoping the injury would be short lived. I was real conscious of the number on the scale. It hovered around 206-207 for the whole time. Then at the end of the two weeks…disaster.

My boss decided that we needed a morale boost and we threw a barbeque at work during Friday lunch for about 2 hours. I ate a lot more than I should have. Lots of carbs. Carbs go in easy, taste great, and absorb water in your body. This makes the weight go on and if you don’t exercise, it stays on. Normally, I would have gone home and exercised. I couldn’t and didn’t. Also, because I hadn’t exercised in two weeks, my metabolism had to be going real slow. Those calories just got absorbed right into my system. I had a salad on Friday night, and a few beers.

The next day, worse than a barbeque, my brother-in-law and sister-in-law invited me to go to the Jimmy Buffet concert in Mansfield, MA. Ever been to one of these? It is not so much a concert as it is a food and alcohol driven block-party with a tiny concert jammed in at the end. Food. Drink. Food. Drink. Food. Food. Drink. Drink. Drink. 12 noon to 10:30PM at night. Sunday morning around noon I hopped on the scale.

213. Ouch. Big Ouch. I haven’t been North of 209 since last October.

So. What to do? No cheating. No booze. Exercise. Daily. Get the weight back to where it is supposed to be.

Sunday night, 3 miles on the treadmill on the bad knee. It actually didn't feel bad. Apparently if I don't twist on it and stay in a forward motion, I am OK. Monday morning, 211. Monday night, 4 miles on the treadmill. Again, the knee is fine. Tuesday morning, 209. Tonight, mowed the lawn with push mower, 3 miles on the treadmill. Scale says 207 tonight...it WILL be less tomorrow.

I am going to keep going this way for the rest of the week. I have to get back to the range...there is no other option. Wish me luck...will keep you updated.

Next: Your new life...don't let vacation mess you up.

Portion Control or "Stop Eating Like a Pig"

I love this topic. Portion control. This is what people talk about when they get tired of telling you about the foods you SHOULD be eating versus what you actually ARE eating. They get worn out telling you to eat more protein, eat less carbs and eat even less fat...and exercise. They realize that it just isn't working. You don't care. You don't even care if they have a top-secret, FDA not yet approved, super diet drug. They just know that you will rationalize over and over and will convince yourself that you can just make slight modifications to your abysmally terrible diet and "lose giant amounts of weight." So when they tire of telling you that, they throw in the towel and just say, "I'm exhausted...the hell with it, just eat less."

Portion control really hit its feverish heights when the documentary "Super Size Me" came out. This documentary followed a guy who ate nothing but super sized McDonalds for about 3 months. He damn near died. Literally. He was eating 5000 calories a day just at a McDonalds. It was so bad for McDonald's that they had to issue a formal statement through Public Relations to address it. They had to get rid of their Super Size Coke and just have the large size Coke. They had to start talking about 'healthy meals.'

When you have to discuss portion control in terms of how restaurants (fast food in particular) are feeding us...you have gone totally around the bend. You are gone. I think that sometimes the newswriters believe that if they don't show the extreme, it will be a meaningless discussion. So they tell you the worst possible story. It's like the 'Scared Straight' documentary that was designed to keep High School kids out of jail. Do you really have to make the leap from the fear of being arrested to the fear of having 450 lb. Bubba as a cellmate who thinks you are his girlfriend? Does this need to happen to convince you that a life of crime is a bad idea? Apparently, the same people developed the idea for 'Super Size Me.' "Wow, how about we paint the worst possible picture and see how they react?"

We covered portion control in our Diet Class at Miriam Hospital. Our portion control classes dealt with how to look at the meals you eat at home and make sure that you eat the portion that you have (or the dietician has..) calculated that you SHOULD be eating at this meal. It is about eating as "Fuel" and not "Entertainment." It is about eating the amount of food that gives you real satiety. It is about NOT eating as though your next commercial gig will be with Sally Struthers in Africa.

McDonalds?  If you are watching your weight, here is my solution. Stay out of stinking McDonalds....and Burger King, and Wendy's and Taco Bell, and any other fast food, fried feast, fat injected family restaurant. You know which ones they are. Don't walk in the door. It is not about eating their regular meals and avoiding their 'Super Size Me' policy. It is about the fact that their 'food' is some of the most fatty and vile stuff on earth. It merits no place on your personal food list.

Do you want to know why? McDonalds wants to tell you that they have a small Coke with only 150 calories. Drink this. Drink this now. It is so much better for you than the 42 ounce, 410 calorie soda they USED to have on the menu. In fact, they are so smart now, they reduced the large size to ONLY 32 ounces. You can buy a 32 ounce Coke at McDonalds. And do WHAT with it? Put out a California wildfire? That is a QUART of Soda. Half of a two liter bottle roughly. There is only 12 ounces in a CAN of soda...and when you drink THAT it feels like a lot. But let's drink a quart. What's next, the 55 Gallon drum? And how many calories in the large 32 oz. Coke? 300. Oh yeah...for a beverage. DRINK THE WATER! Get it for free from that little space in the middle of the Soda dispenser...or but the bottled. It has zero calories.

Fries? Little deep fried sticks of lard. "Can I get a mailbag full of those please?"

"How big is BIG...cause I want to get my moneys worth."

What do the Portion Controllers tell you? They have many idea's on how to use Portion Control to your fat advantage.

(1) Just eat half. Thanks. How about 'Close your mouth?' I get the 'eat less' paradigm.
(2) Avoid buffets. Really? The last time I checked, the buffet charged about $20-$50 depending on the venue. The whole idea of this centers around trying to eat more than you actually spend...and you just spent a lot. Good luck.
(3) Resist upsizing. Enough said.
(4) Eat a child's meal. Wow. I can't believe Einstein is dead. I thought he was alive and doing diet research.
(5) Put your left-overs in opaque containers. You know what they say..."out of sight, out of mind." And I guess, if you have forgotten what you ate last night, you are out of your mind...for real. You might have bigger problems than your weight if you have to trick yourself.

Ok, it's all about just eating less. Your diet should also be about eating less of the right foods. Here is what portion control is all about...for each meal, there is a limited amount that a rational human being should be eating. To measure it, use this chart (courtesy of Web MD).

Let me tell you what has been successful for me. Take both your hands and stretch out your fingers. Touch the pointer fingers from each hand together at the tips of your fingers. Now touch the tips of your thumbs together. There is a space now between your two hands. Any meat you have, it should fit in there and be no more than half an inch thick. Done. That is your meat. Have as many steamed or boiled veggies as you want. Same for salad. One fruit. Drink water. This isn't hard. Get used to food as fuel. Not entertainment.

If you are in a restaurant, eat what fits in the space. Take the rest home in a doggie bag...then give it to the dog. If you keep it, you might go after it after hours.That is portion control. Eating what makes sense...not what tastes good.Good luck doing this. I have made it sound simpler than it is. It IS simple to conceive and then it is tough to execute. Be tough. You can do it. Good luck.

Next: Living Thin

You Want Some Chicken With That Fat?

Oprah, Oprah, Oprah. Will you never learn? Remember the book debacle? The one where you promoted the book on your show and then found out that the author had lied about most of the elements in his book that you were gushing about? Remember when you had the guy come back on and do the 'mea culpa' to get your fanny out of hot water? You are someone that many people listen to and heed like some deity. Why they do this, I admit, I cannot fathom. Shouldn't you have learned from the book experience and wield your Godlike power with a degree of caution? Don't you have a conscionable responsibility to get some facts before you promote something (else)?

People remember Oprah for her weight loss. Notwithstanding the fact that she got thin once in her life and hasn't actually been thin since then, they think she is an expert. As I blogged this week, Kirstie Alley went on Oprah to talk to the guru about weight. I slammed Oprah in that blog entry and got some nasty email over it. Valerie Bertinelli (someone who, I think, actually gets the weight thing) went on Oprah to discuss her weight battle. So Oprah has some level of expertise on weight loss that has been awarded to her by the public. People seem to think that she is an expert on everything, but this week it is weight. Much in the same way that colleges give Bill Cosby a doctorates degree to speak at their graduation ceremonies...you don't really need to do the work, just have enough drag that you can demand the accolade. So now we have our elected fitness guru...Oprah Winfrey.

What made Oprah my topic today? Well, she has been promoting Kentucky Fried Chicken's (KFC for those of you who only know it by that name) new product, grilled chicken. Not fried. Grilled. So we will now be calling them KGC? The grilled chicken is a great idea. If you read my last blog, 'steamed and grilled' is the way to go. Apparently, through Oprah's promotion, you could get a free Grilled Chicken meal. There were so many people that took Oprah up on the promotion that KGFC actually ran out of product.

I like the concept of grilled chicken on the menu. In fact, I am even looking forward to trying it myself at KGFC. It is a great idea!! But, and this is a big butt (extra 'T' intended), KGFC and Oprah still found a way to screw this up. Here is how they did it: they are offering the grilled chicken in a MEAL format at KGFC!

They don't mix people!! That is like mixing roses and mud, oil and water, or prune juice and radiator seal. You just don't put the two together. The objective of the new product is supposed to be health. Let's look at this proposition.

Here is the chicken portion of the new grilled chicken meal.

You can get two pieces of any of these grilled items in combination.

Drumstick (70 calories), Breast (180 calories) or Thigh (140 calories). It should be noted that KGFC loves to toss you one drumstick and one of the meatier selections. I think I respect my readers enough that I know you can figure out why. If we take a Drumstick and a Breast, we get 250 calories. That is more than 6-7 ounces of protein and is more than we need in a meal BUT it is all protein and is OK at this point. You have about 1800 calories to use today if you are a guy and about 1400 if you are a gal.

NOW...let's look at the "meal" portion of this deal.

Mashed Potatoes with Gravy (130 calories). I know the gravy isn't in the picture above, but I also know that NOBODY is eating that pseudo-wallpaper paste without the hot gravy to help it glide down your esophagus. Biscuit (180 calories). Ok, this is a biscuit right? One biscuit? They must dehydrate this thing so you can swallow it and then it expands to the size of a beach ball. A candy bar, full size, is 200 calories. Coleslaw (180 calories). This should be the most healthy part of the meal in that it is made mostly of cabbage and lettuce. Someone must have found a way to inject massive amounts of sugar into the mayo sauce they mix it with because it is running neck and neck in a fat race with the biscuit. Two things that haven't been mentioned are the drink and potential dessert that KGFC sells. Let's be optimistic and think water and no sweets. Entire meal calorie count: 490 calories.

New grilled chicken: 250 calories.
The meal: 490 calories.
TOTAL: 740 calories.

Ladies, you just used a half day's calories. Men, you have about 500 cals each left over for breakfast and the other meal you choose now so be careful. You (anyone of you) do NOT need a 740 calorie meal. You know also that if you have the regular soda, the total will be about 900 calories.

So they have found a way to ruin a perfectly good idea.

Here is what you do. Get the bucket of grilled chicken for the family. Make a huge garden salad with cucumbers, tomatoes, green peppers, and NO cheese. Get some 'No Fat' Maple Farms dressing, my favorite is balsamic vinaigrette. Big helping of salad with one breast of grilled chicken each. Fresh fruit salad for desert with Ice Water for the beverage. Total meal calories (460 calories): Chicken (180 cals), Salad (200 cals) and Fruit (80 cals).

KGFC could have redone some of their side dishes to make them more healthy. Oprah is helping them push the 750 to 900 calorie meal into people under the guise of it being so 'good for you.' It makes one wonder what the heck Oprah eats on a regular basis. In reality, there is no reason for the wealthiest of stars to be overweight. They have personal chefs and can easily afford all the fresh foods and veggies that are typically more expensive than pre-cooked food and/or fast food. Also, stars like Oprah can be on treadmill or be exercising all day if she wants...she can afford enough assistants to have them read stuff TO her and take dictation. If Oprah had this Grilled Chicken Meal three times a day, she'd be bigger than she is right now.

So there she is, pushing the meal on us because she is the 'expert.' Also, like some crack dealer, you get the first hit for free. You will love it. And because it is so good for you, you will be going back. They are counting on it.

So who will you be taking advice from, Oprah or Dick? Unfortunately, for most of you, I know the answer.

Next: Stay between the lines!

You Can't Go Home Again

When you go on the Optifast diet, if you follow it and do not cheat, it is like being in a nice secure bubble. You are insulated from all the bad things that you were doing that turned you into a Thanksgiving Day float. But eventually, you have to leave the bubble. The rest of the world doesn't live in there. That's when your time comes and it's "fly little bird, fly!!" It's time to do the hard work. It's time to look at the real world and address all the things that contributed to the XXL or XXXL person who walked through that door on day one.

At week 12, I hit 219 lbs. I had now shed about 60 plus lbs of ugly fat. 12 weeks is an incredibly fast time to lose that amount of weight. It is weird in that you just seem to be hitting stride and now it is time to think about managing your life OFF the diet. My original goal as set by the doctor was 215. My personal goal was 205. I was basically where the doctor thought I should be. Next week, we would talk about adding another meal to the daily plan. As I have said, I was on three shakes per day plus one carefully measured dinner meal. I now had to consider a diet that was 100% real food. The Miriam Hospital program, in my opinion, excelled at showing you how to manage your eating like a normal person. Strike that. Our country is now comprised of a population where over 50% are considered overweight, obese and morbidly obese. This condition is becoming the 'norm.' So this program was teaching us how to eat within the boundaries of a normal human body, not at the levels we have become accustomed to as a society.

To do this, the education program in broken into behavior and dietary management. I have said this over and over, but the diet management was the most valuable to me. I am going to cover some of the topics in the next few blog entries.

A man of 210 lbs burns about 2000 calories per day. If you want to lose weight over a long term, you should restrict your intake to about 1600-1800 calories per day. Exercise plays an important role. First, you need to have enough energy to exercise. Second, you can burn a large amount of calories depending on how much exercise you are doing. On my diet I was taking in 900 calories per day. I was burning about 2000 normal calories and about 400 exercise calories. The exercise calories came about from my speed walking which I did daily. On weekends, in addition to the walking, I would mow the lawn etc. I was running a daily 1500 calorie deficit. The weight, at this tempo, comes off at a speed that has been reflected in my progress.

Start to think about your sex, height and weight. Look at a chart that will show you your normal calorie burn. That is what you work with daily. The most important thing you need to know now, coming off of Optifast, is how many calories you are burning on average daily and how much you are taking in. We could go into the detail about the type of calories but let's keep this real simple. My 'off-diet' calorie intake should be about 1800 calories daily. I could manage this because I had decided that I would exercise 3-4 days per week and figured I was burning around 2400 calories per day. That number gave me some leeway for any small indiscretions. We aren't perfect and we aren't robots either. So that's my number 1,800.

One of the most astonishing things I learned in the education classes was how many calories I had been ingesting. I had absolutely convinced myself that, before this diet, I didn't consume that many calories. The day it really came home to roost was the day our class covered the "Dining Out Guide." This is a compiled list of meals and their calorie content from some of the most known restaurants in the United States. If you are serious about losing weight, you should go out and buy "The CalorieKing Calorie, Fat & Carbohydrate Counter 2009" by Allan Borushek. If you eat out even one night a week, you should just take this little baby with you. It lists the calories in most foods but it also has a section like our class "Dining Out Guide," only even more extensive. It tells you just how much you are stuffing into that chubby little frame when you eat out in restaurants. You won't believe it. I didn't .

Here are a few examples. As an appetizer (the meal hasn't even arrived yet!!), an order of fried Calamari (3 cups)....1,037 calories. That was more than my diet allowed ALL DAY! Here are some more appetizers. Ruby Tuesday's low carb Spicy Buffalo Chicken Wings with dressing...1,090 cals. That's right football aficionado's, don't even try to tell me that you limit it to one serving either. Especially during the playoffs and on Super Bowl Sunday. Don't rationalize this one...the restaurant doesn't matter! Check out TGI Friday's Buffalo Wings...1,010 cals. Whew!! But you may actually be making a relatively HEALTHY choice! Check out these! Stuffed Potato Skins with sour cream...1,260 cals. The Bloomin' Onion with dipping sauce (because it tastes awful when it's plain)...2,130 cals. Here is the all time show stopper appetizer, Cheese Fries with ranch dressing...3,010 cals. Make sure you have the diet-cola!!

Here is something you figure out pretty fast using these guides, and take it as a tip. The appetizers listed above had more calories than the entrees. They also have more calories than dessert! The golden rule, SKIP THE APPETIZERS and SKIP THE DESSERT. If you are going to eat the meal, an appetizer could multiply your calorie intake by (depending on choice) a factor of 4!! Add a dessert and multiply that intake by 6!

I could cover this forever. Go and buy the book. It will be the best education and investment you can make. Go and find a chart of calories you burn daily, print the number in BIG BOLD CHARACTERS on a sticky label, and put that label on the cover of the guide. If you are serious about weight loss, you may never have another appetizer OR dessert.

Other major thing to consider in restaurants:

(1) Watch the alcohol. It is a source of empty calories and makes resisting the dessert and appetizers hard. You will thank me when you get the bill and see the difference between the cost of two Brown Ale's and two Ice Water's with Lime.
(2) Watch how the meal is cooked. If it says "fried" or "baked", ignore it. Go for grilled or steamed. Watch the sauces. Go light. Pick "marinated in juice" over "marinated in butter."
(3) No pasta and no starch. Go double veggies always with your protein.
(4) If all else fails, go with the Grilled Chicken or Fish Salad.

My pre-Optifast life was one of excess. Absolutely. No exercise. Much food. Much drink. I was King of my castle. My castle of fat.

The walls are down and it's time to live like a person who hopes to see the finish line. It IS possible. But...you can't go home again. You don't want to anyway.

Next: Stay with the new life plan, don't listen to them!!

Motivation (Part 3): What Motivates Kirstie Alley?

So what motivates Kirstie Alley (or any of us for that matter)? Will we ever be able to answer this?

Let's try to apply the theory that we have exposed in Parts 1 and 2. I have to make some assumptions based on what I know about her life. Most people of even a moderate degree of success fulfill their Level One needs. Let's presuppose that she has done this. The Level Two need of Safety and Soundness is probably being filled as well. I do not know of other medical issues she may have but I am assuming, since she is still large, that her weight issues are not tied to them. With this in mind, Diet and Physical Fitness (DPF) are probably not on Level Two for her. So let's also presuppose Level Two is fulfilled at this point in her life. The question becomes, 'where does Kirstie put DPF in her hierarchy?' Some people put their DPF in the Social Needs bucket...particularly those in the Media. Their social circles place a high value on how they look. Additionally, affinity needs get fulfilled with intimate relationships and, unfortunately, many intimate relationships start and are maintained based on appearance. So, in that case, DPF becomes critical. Friends and Family also typically play a role in Level Three.

So, it is quite apparent that Ms. Alley is not taking care of DPF. It is either a Level Three need that she is not fulfilling OR she has put it on Level Four and only thinks of it when it becomes an Esteem Need issue. If she has a lot of support and affinity in spite of being very large, she may have put the DPF priority at the top of her pyramid and is simply not addressing it. She then would be in the position of only addressing her DPF when it becomes something that she feels is inhibiting her career. If it is sitting at Level Four, it is in a place where many things can derail it as a priority, in particular, Level Three things.

There is one other possible answer to this though. She went through a divorce in 1997 to her ex-husband Parker Stevenson. That may have triggered her weight loss issues culminating in the 2005 appearance on Oprah. For many who simply let their weight and personal appearance get out of hand, when they lose affinity/love and feel like they need to find love again, they move DPF from a Level Four to a Level Three, but only TEMPORARILY. When they get their DPF under control and regain some affinity ties, they move DPF back to Level Four. I believe, based on Kirstie's pattern, that this is what she did. In all fairness to Kirstie, I am using her (somewhat unfairly since I do not even know her) as an example and my evaluation is based on much supposition.

I think that the majority of yo-yo dieting happens this way. Instead of putting DPF somewhere in our personal needs hierarchy and making its placement permanent, we move it around to suit our temporary wishes and then it gets bumped by other things.

What is my recommendation to Kirstie about her weight? It is the same advice I would give, and will give, to any of you that want to go on the Optifast (or any other) diet.

Start with a personal assessment of what the diet actually means to you. Where does this diet fit on your personal hierarchy needs chart? The lower (lower meaning a most basic need and a high priority) it is on your chart, the higher probability of success you will have with it. What in your life will trump your dieting efforts? Will it be trumped by work?...by family?...by social life? Is it going to take a permanent place on your needs chart or is it temporary because it is serving a temporary purpose?

If you need to lose a serious amount of weight, you need to assess its value to you. Losing the weight is difficult. There will be a lot of obstacles to derail that goal. There is something even more difficult after you complete the diet and that is KEEPING THE WEIGHT OFF. That is the real battle. That is where the Personal Needs Hierarchy Pyramid for you becomes critical. You need to put your DPF in a permanent place. You need to assess this in your life because extreme dieting and yo-yo rebounding can actually be more unhealthy than never losing the weight in the first place.

Is there a value you can tie to your weight loss that makes you permanently move it to a lower and more important base level of your needs? If physical safety is not one of those things, how about the monetary cost of being fat?

I recently took a look at our family's financial situation and decided I needed to upgrade my life insurance. Without getting into my personal finances in a public forum, let me say one thing. A life insurance policy with the same payback and term provisions for me as a fat, high cholesterol person would have been $150 more PER MONTH than the same policy for me under my current 205 lb frame with low cholesterol. Additionally, because I have not had the weight off for at least a year, they ADDED HALF THE WEIGHT BACK when calculating my new policy. If I had lost the weight 2 years ago, my policy right now would be $50 per month less. So in real terms, being fat, per just my life insurance policy alone, would cost me an additional $200 per month. That is $2400 more per year and $48,000 over a twenty year policy. That is a tangible cost that you can use to put the value of DPF into the low level, high priority area's of your Personal Needs Hierarchy Pyramid.

Doing these things will separate for you whether or not the diet is a goal for your life, or whether it is a "wish to be thin."

This kind of look takes a lot of hard work and commitment.

My thanks to Kirstie Alley for involuntarily providing the inspiration for these past 3 blog posts! Not everyone needs to show perfect success in order to be inspiring. I have poked fun at her (honestly, I make fun of myself a lot too) but truly wish the best for her.

Next: Sticking With IT!!

Motivation (Part 2): What Motivates Kirstie Alley?

Let's see if we can answer the question by examining my personal theory and how I have applied it to my diet at this juncture of my life.

Motivation, as defined in Wikipedia (God, I hope someone didn't edit it to say something stupid), is "the set of reasons that determines one to engage in a particular behavior." That understood, the question becomes "what forms the basis for the 'reasons?" To understand the 'reasons' we must go back to something that, at some point in time, we have all been exposed to...whether it was in High School Biology, Psych 101, or some type of workplace training...and that is Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Ugggghhhhh!! I can just hear the collective groan.

Maslow's theory, which we have all come to widely respect, is that we humans fill and fulfill our most basic needs in a specific order. That order is based on the pyramid above. We fill the pyramid from the bottom up. We start with our Basic Physiological Needs (survival). We fill those needs first. Once we feel that those needs are met, we move on. Safety Needs, Social Needs, Esteem Needs and then we can focus on Self-Actualization. For most of us, we live our lives filling the levels in the middle of the pyramid. Some people are rare and get to the top two levels. There is a very tiny group that actually make it all the way to the top. The theory (and one I happen to agree with) is that if one of us has a deficiency in a lower level, it must be filled before we can further advance. The theory also says that if you have three levels filled and are working on something that fills a level four need, but then have something happen to you that upsets the lower level needs, you will stop the level four work to go back and back fill the lower level need and then have to return to level four. This theory of Maslow's is ageless and valuable.

As I read the many professional interpretations of Maslow, I continued to run into the same conflict. That conflict was that the writers in each case interpreted Maslow's levels with their own definition of what makes up each level. In the most basic example, 'Career Success' is most often placed at the Esteem Level by the social scientists who study Maslow. It is commonly held by them that a person's need for that success usually satiates the Esteem Level in that it typically brings with it the fulfillment of the Respect and Achievement need. The question I had was, "what if, for whatever reason (upbringing, dire social situations, etc.) a person puts Career Success at a different level?" If a person places Career Success at the Safety Need level, or they classify it as a 'must have' for their definition of personal Safety, they will approach fulfilling that need differently.

The uniqueness of every human being and the diversity of upbringing and experiences means that we build our pyramids differently. The items in my life that constitute my Esteem level are different from the next person's. If we try to interpret someone's motive and behavior using OUR OWN pyramid, we invariably end up in confusion and it can often result in conflict. The key, therefore, to understanding anyone and their motives, is to understand the person's personal pyramid of needs. Once you know that, their behavior makes sense and forms a pattern. Try to evaluate their behavior using YOUR pyramid, and their behavior looks erratic and confusing to you...because it is! It violates your own pattern of needs.

So I began to look at this as it relates to Dieting and Physical Fitness (DPF). Why can some people do this well and yet others be so poor at it? Also, why have I had success in my weight loss but not in keeping it off? The answer lies in where we place this DPF part of our lives on our personal hierarchy of needs pyramid.

I will tell you that for the longest time, I put DPF in the category of Esteem Needs. Why? Let's cover the lower levels first. I had all my Level One needs met without needing my DPF to be perfect. My Level Two needs of Safety and Security were not viewed by me as being jeopardized by being fat or thin. All those needs were met also. My Level Three Social Needs were also being met. I am happily married with a great family. No one socially, that I know of, was accepting me or rejecting me because I was a very big person. Everyone told me that I wasn't really THAT big and people accepted me for who I was. I also had the ability to laugh about my size and didn't take offense if people said I was big, fat, heavy...whatever. My Social Needs were filled without the need for my DPF to be perfect. I had, at that point in my life, decided to put my DPF issues on Level Four, the Esteem Level.

My personal reasons for putting DPF on Level Four were based on some observations that I had in my personal life. I noticed that many times in my life, I had tried to obtain jobs and move to a higher level of career status. The ONLY times I had ever been hired and obtained the next level successfully, was when I was thin. When I was large, I never got the job. Not once. Based on this, I had coupled my DPF with Career Success. Let me state for the record that in the last 3 to 4 years, I have been relatively happy with my current job. That said, I think I am ready to try some new things in my life. The fact that I am pretty happy and feel somewhat secure had me toying with the idea of improving my DPF and getting thin. But I wasn't that serious. Also, with DPF at Level Four in the chart, anything that could disrupt the first three levels became a priority and would derail the DPF goal. It just wasn't as important as other things.

Then something happened. My physical security was threatened. I was experiencing physical ailments that I hadn't before and needed to take drugs to counteract them. There was an inability to enjoy certain activities with my kids and family without feeling like I was hurting myself or holding them back. Without knowing it at the time (or thinking about it quite this way), I made the decision to move my DPF to a Level Two Personal Safety concern. Once I did that, things in my life pertinent to dieting changed to what they are today. I now view them as a safety and soundness issue in my life. My DPF today comes before a lot of other things in my life.

My theory is this: How you achieve the things in your life is determined by where you as a person put them on your own individual hierarchy of needs. You have to take a real personal assessment of the things in your life and then look close at where you put them. Some things make sense. Some things do not. There may be conflicts that cause life events to be at issue for you. Also, and very important to my theory, is that you can move things in your life from one location on the pyramid to another. It is not easy to just "do". It takes a strong degree of self-realization and self-awareness. It also may require something very serious to affect your life and force this change. But it IS possible.

As an illustration of this, let's explore a subject that people have differing values about in terms of their placement in the personal hierarchy of needs. There are many people in this world that put their Career Aspirations in the Safety and Soundness box on Level Two. For them, something in their lives convinced them it deserved this position. Something in their upbringing or personal experience has supported this placement. As a result, the Social Need things (the Level where most people put 'family and friends') take a back seat to work. This causes conflict not because this person has put Career in the "wrong place" but because their placement of it is so at odds with the majority of society. In many societies, take Japan and China for example, it is expected that the Male personal hierarchy chart look just this way! The Female hierarchy chart in these societies, however, puts Career at the Fourth Level if even giving it a position at all. So the Female hierarchy chart has Family as a priority before Career. In that way, these societies have determined that you may be able to optimize both Career and Family within a family unit. It is highly dependent on a family structure (husband and wife) being stable and that that structure is acceptable to both husband and wife. I am sure there are conflicts that arise because of this societal norm.

So, based on all this theory, what motivates Kirstie Alley (or any of us)?

What Motivates Kirstie Alley - Part Three

Motivation (Part 1): What Motivates Kirstie Alley?

Kirstie Alley is fat again. I know, I was really upset too. Distraught is actually a better word. She was real thin in the early 80's when she was in Star Trek 'Wrath of Khan.' She had her first televised weight issues when she was on 'Cheers.' She started out thin and then became bigger in front of our eyes while hanging out with Sam Malone and Norm and Cliff. Then, for some reason, she lost the extra weight and went back to her svelt self. Now, why did she do that? Did she worry about losing her job? Did the public criticism get to her? Was she afraid Sam would love Diane Chambers instead? Was it just the cameras? We all know they add ten lbs. Why did she lose it? These stars we watch regularly are always so concerned with appearance that when they lose weight, no one questions it...unless of course it becomes extreme like Nicole Richie or Tori Spelling. We have come to expect our stars to be thin and in shape. So in 2005, Kirstie lost 75 lbs and became a part of the Jenny Craig diet movement. Sans her weight, she went on Oprah in a bikini. Personally, I thought the 75 lbs was admirable. I also thought she should have dropped another 50 before she jammed herself into the XXL Victoria's Secret. It really seemed a bit premature to be sporting those thighs on stage.

Of course, to show herself off, she picked The Oprah Winfrey Show. Oprah is the biggest 'enabler' on television. She will applaud any cause...especially if it has to do with weight. Kirstie (and I refer to her by first name because, through the tabloids, I feel as though we are personal friends) went on Oprah in 2005 when she lost the weight and, last week, she went back on Oprah to say the weight had come back. This poor woman. By all evidence known to man, it was a sneak attack.

There she was, going into her refrigerator for the apple and celery sticks. She innocently opened the freezer looking for some ice cubes. As she reached for the tray, the Haagen Daaz Cherry Vanilla morphed into a big hand and pulled her into the Half Gallon container...where she built a home...for the next 18 months.

The diet that I used to lose my 80 lbs was the Optifast diet. Oprah made that diet famous by using it to lose a remarkable amount of weight...just like many of the serious dieters who go on that diet. But Oprah, as we all know, put that weight back on. Again, this rebound is similar to those on Optifast or ANY diet for that matter. The rebound syndrome is something that we all have to face. Point of fact, "the rebound syndrome" is the REAL battle not "losing the weight." For those of us who have lost weight and put it back on, this is crystal clear. We have been successful losing weight, but not in keeping it off. Doesn't it make sense then that our goal should be to "stay thin", not "lose weight?"

So there Kirstie was last week with Oprah. She wants to lose the weight again. My last blog entry (before the Celtics) addressed the things that drive us to lose weight. I read and re-read my own writings again and again. I was missing something. So I did some research on the subject of motivation. There are surprisingly few books and research studies on the subject. There are many books on how to motivate yourself to do something. There are many on why we don't do things the things we should. There are many on the things we do to sabotage ourselves. But there are very few that explain what motivates us to do the things we do.

I was not looking for motives for dieting...I was looking for that THING in all of us that drives us to do anything at all. What drives us to get out of bed in the morning? What drives us to eat X for breakfast instead of Y? What makes you work longer hours at work to be successful? What got Michael Jordan to go outside and shoot a basketball for so long that he became the best player the game has ever seen? There has to be an answer...and I was looking for it. The real trick to dieting successfully and having your physical condition be a driving force in your life centers around the answer to this question. Why are some people successfully staying vibrant and thin and others successful at being obese? Why are others losing and gaining so much?

What motivates the Kirstie Alley's of the world?

What Motivates Kirstie Alley - Part Two

Dear Santa, Please Bring Me a Unicorn

There I was, week 10. I weighed 230 lbs, down from 283. Total weight lost, 53 lbs. I was slowly getting to a place where I hadn't been in a long time. I had invested in some better fitting pants and some shirts that would not look like the baggy skin I probably would have in about a month or two. Unlike my time in Weight Watchers, I enjoyed going to the classes. My favorite classes were the dietician classes where we learned about calories (and the various types and forms of them), portion control, and the information sources that we would use in the future to maintain our new lifeforms. My least favorite were the behavior classes.

Ok, so why were they my least favorite? Let me start by saying that in 10 weeks I had lost 53 lbs. That is a pretty mean feat. I had done it by sticking to the diet and speed walking (by now jogging a little) 2.6 miles each day. When I say 'sticking to the diet', I mean it. I didn't cheat. I drank those shakes three times a day and had my vegetable/salad servings, my lean protein (6-7 oz) and my fruit at dinner. This diet was working. I saw that every week on the scale and I was not about to screw it up. The damn Aspartame had messed with the momentum, but now it was back. This was MY experience. WHY were the behavior classes so irritating? Because it exposed the side of this diet I didn't want to see...the ones who confused 'wishing' with 'goal setting.'

When I walked in on day one, there was a whole team of folks purportedly there for the same reason. Looking at them, you didn't need to guess that. 95% of them were very large and in need of a life-change. By week 10, many had lost weight, but about half had not. They seemed the same to me. Week in and week out, I heard the same thing.

"I had an OK week" or "I need to recommit to the diet." Blah blah blah.

They NEVER said how much they lost and NEVER commented on what 'OK' was. Seriously, this is a 900 calorie, strictly measured, medically supervised diet. If you do this diet and exercise, you will lose weight. That's a fact. If you are not losing weight you are (a) cheating or (b) not exercising enough. End of story. But something else was amiss in this diet program...an observed behavior was peeking out from under the taudry covers.

You begin to notice a trend. There are those that make losing the weight a goal and there are those who wish they were thin.

I am the former. I look at weight loss something I can control and need to accomplish. It is and was real to me. There are those, however, who want to be thin, or look better, or be healthier...and are NOT willing to take control and drive their life to that end. They wish it. They dream it. But they are not willing to do what it takes to make it happen.

Here is a real interaction in class.

"Hi, my name is StarchLover (made up name) and I didn't have a very good week. I had a problem with...um...Animal Crackers. It started when I was making my daughter's lunch. I thought I could eat just a few. I really started to like them, so I had a couple of boxes. I have been eating a couple of boxes a day for the last 4 days. But on the positive side, I have been drinking the shakes."

Seriously, what do you say to that? "You are drinking the shakes?" As what? Dessert? That is like saying you drank them with a side of fries. THIS IS A MEDICALLY SUPERVISED DIET!!!!! Cheating and eating unmeasured unsanctioned food is NOT ALLOWED!

Even the normally reserved behavior specialist couldn't restrain herself. "Do you know what is in those things? Sugar! Starch! Flour!...nothing but bad calories!"

"Oh...sorry...how do you feel about Peanut Butter Crackers?"

This diet costs money. For some, more money than others. You would think that that would be a factor. It is not. There are those who go with the intent on making losing weight their goal. They will succeed. There are those that wish they were thinner. They are still there. Wishing.

I had seen this at Weight Watchers. When I went there, I skipped the meetings and simply weighed in and left. I then went home and jogged 5 miles. I did this 4-5 nights per week. I would go to weigh-in and the 'un-losers' would give me the nasty death stare as I got off the scale with the WW rep saying, "congratulations, you lost ANOTHER 5 lbs!" The wishers just stand there. They gained a pound this week. Or they lost .75lbs. They are convinced they are killing themselves on this diet and that YOU, Mr. Miracle, are doing something magical like using a Harry Potter anti-fat potion. They cannot even be honest with themselves. They hate you and they hate your success.

That brings me to the thing that separates the 'Wishers' from the 'Goal Setters." That thing is the MOTIVATOR. What is motivating you? If the thing that motivates you is not strong enough, you are not going to achieve your goal. If you have NO motivator and have just a pipe-dream...you are a 'Wisher' and will NEVER lose the weight. I had a motivator. I wanted better health. I wanted to look better. But more than all of that, I wanted the 205 lb number. Achievement of the number is rarely ever going to be enough for people. That is what makes me a unique person in some regards. I can take a number and turn that into my sole goal. For most it is the 'looking good', or 'feeling great' thing. The health driver is a big one. I will tell you that the motivator has to be something that will trump all the de-railers in your life. The de-railers will be the excuses that you use to get you off the hook and off track.

So you need to ask yourself before any endeavor, especially a diet, "what is my motivation for this?" If you don't have an answer, a diet is probably not for you, especially an expensive one like Optifast.

No matter what challenge you face in your life...no matter what addiction or life-situation...you need to know what it is that is motivating you. It has to be serious. It has to be meaningful. It HAS to be something you REALLY want. If the motivator is weak, so will be your resolve.

Find the motivator and focus on it.

Commit to the change and keep your eye on the motivator.

My best to you.

Next: What motivates Kirstie Alley, REBOUND!

Aspartame: Someone should really be going to jail

I can remember when this stuff first came out as Nutrasweet. It was 1983 and I was in the Army stationed at Ft. Carson in Colorado. They put it in Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi as the 'new saccharin.' It tasted awesome and I drank a lot of it because it could help me keep the weight off. You had to wonder how something that made stuff taste so sweet and had zero calories had been kept under wraps for so long! It was the miracle that we fatties and former fatties had been waiting for.

It wasn't long before I started feeling unusual. Not sick. Nothing I could put my finger on...just not good. I tried to isolate the cause and I thought the Diet Coke was doing it. When I drank it, I got headaches. So I stopped drinking it. It didn't really click on the Nutrasweet, I thought it might be the caffeine.

Then I noticed something else interesting. When we had barracks parties, I was drinking the new Crystal Light Lemonade and mixing it with Gin. Hey, what could be better than this? Zero calories, no caffeine and something in it literally masked the taste of the alcohol. But with relatively little Gin, I was feeling a little more woozy a lot more quickly. I went back to beer. More calories, but it felt like I was in control. That's when it hit me. Something about the Nutrasweet wasn't right. Headaches, stuff getting to my brain faster...it was almost, chemical.

Now at that time, there was very little research on Aspartame. There was no internet to speak of yet and if you read something on Nutrasweet/Aspartame, then someone must have given it to you or you were lucky to fall on it. Since then, there has been a lot written about the dangers of Aspartame. If you look around the web, you can find volumes on the dangers and also much to counter those findings, but typically, with no test results to back up the rebuttals. They point to the same tests that were run in the early 1980's when this drug, and I use that term purposely, was approved by the FDA for use in foods.

Aspartame is a very weak chemical compound that is made up primarily of Aspartic Acid, Methanol and Phenylalanine. At least, that is the three chemicals that it breaks down to in your body. Methanol converts, in your body, into formaldehyde. Yes, you read that correctly. It converts to the same stuff we embalm bodies with. It also converts very easily when the temperature is above 87 degrees Fahrenheit. Now, many other foods contain Methanol, orange juice is just one of them. Those foods, however, have naturally occurring chemical compounds around the Methanol that keep it from becoming formaldehyde. The same is not true for Nutrasweet aka Aspartame. Exposure to formaldehyde in the body is "known to cause gradual damage to the nervous system, the immune system and has recently been shown to cause irreversible genetic damage at long-term, low-level exposure." Sounds great doesn't it?

So how did this product get on the market? There is an excellent history of it online at this URL:

How Aspartame Became Legal - Synopsis

If you don't read the excerpt, know this much. It was political and Donald Rumsfeld was involved. G.E. Searle hired him around 1979 to help them get the substance approved by the FDA. The FDA would not approve the chemical due to safety concerns. Rumsfeld was a part of the 1980 Ronald Reagan Election Team. When Reagan was elected President, the day after his inauguration on January 21st, 1981, Searle reapplied to the FDA for approval. On that day, Reagan and his transition team, which includes G.E. Searle CEO Donald Rumsfeld, replaces the head of the FDA with a handpicked buddy, Dr. Arthur Hayes, Jr. In July of 1981, in one of his first moves as head of FDA, Hayes overrules the FDA approving body and approves Aspartame for use in dry products. In October of 1982, it is approved for carbonated beverages. Sounds legit doesn't it? Especially when the FDA originally classified it as toxic.

Here is what I know from personal experience, and this was my own little experiment. On my diet, I ate the same foods for 7 weeks. I lost 5 pounds each week like clockwork. In week 8, I changed one thing in my diet. I started drinking a couple cans of diet soda each day. Aspartame loaded and no calories. In week 8, my weight loss slowed to 4.5 lbs. In week 9, 3 lbs. In week 10, 1.5 lbs. The ONLY change in my diet was the diet soda. That was when I found an article that explained how Aspartame was processed in the body.

Now, we all know (for those who have been reading this blog site or are on the Optifast system) that you cannot have alcohol on this diet. The reason is that your liver is processing the fat 24/7 and if you ask the liver to start processing alcohol, you could damage it. Also, if your liver is processing alcohol, it will not be processing your fat and you will not lose weight. So given that information, I read the Aspartame article. The chemical compound Aspartame is ALSO processed in the liver. Your liver, when drinking it, spends less time breaking down your fat and more breaking down the Aspartame. It also takes more time to get your fat burning process revved up again. Mine deteriorated over a period of 3 weeks. One other thing that Aspartame does is that it causes fluctuations in your Insulin levels. These unstable blood sugar levels mess with the pre-measured levels that you experience on the Optifast diet and cause both cravings and fluid retention. Now, I experienced this myself. I discussed it with the Doctor and he seemed to think, while not documented, that it made sense.

Here is Dr. Sandra Cabot's article:

Aspartame Makes You Fatter

Once I was armed with this knowledge, I stopped drinking the Aspartame filled products. The result? 5 lbs were lost the NEXT WEEK. This continued until I reached my goal.

Aspartame. It is a chemical killer. It should be outlawed. It makes you fatter. It messes with your diet.

Drink water!

Next: Do it...don't wish it.

The House of Louse (Part Two)

So the diet was going well on Day Two of the family vacation. Because we were in a condo unit, we could shop and get my cans of tuna and spinach. I was carrying the shakes and mixing them on the fly…the diet part was really no problem.

On day two, we hit Disney’s Hollywood Studios. This was a new name for the park. It used to be called MGM Studios. Someone at MGM must really have pissed off the mouse for them to spend all that money rebranding a whole theme park. We left the condo and started on our way to the park. The extended family had all stayed at a different condo than us. We were using a timeshare slot we own and they were all in timeshares owned by my wife’s aunt. She had cashed in three weeks worth of units for the family trip so they could all be together. I like togetherness as much as the next person, but I really liked having our own secluded place in Kissimmee. We visited them when the family was gathering, but we had a built in escape clause if things got tedious.

So we started on our way to Hollywood Studios and drove over to the park Parking Lot. Yeah, real tiny place…it looked like the pictures I have seen of Area 51. They should give you a map for the Parking Lot, never mind the theme park. At least the theme park has signs and recognizable landmarks and attractions. The Parking Lot is a desolate wasteland as big as 30 football fields and all the vehicles look the same. As a side note, you ever notice how many people drive Toyota’s? No wonder GM is going out of business. I will say this, at least they help you by naming the lot sections…”you are now parked in Goofy Seven…remember that!!”

We had the $10 fee for parking already out and pulled up. The money collector looked at our one day pass and waved at us to go through. The one day pass, however, had been for yesterday. But they never looked. Oh wait. What was this? A flaw in the Disney Order? So we told them about their mistake and gave them the money anyway….WRONG!!! I took off like I just got the green flag at Daytona. Now this was a ride. We saved our SECOND $10 now from our $130 one-night stay at the Disney Resort. My wife started with the math. Total cost of Disney Resort stay was now down to $110 for the night. I can tell you one thing…that pass was staying on the dashboard all week.

I was really in a great rhythm with the diet. I had no problems. I kept mixing the shakes and clocking the walking miles. I fully expected to lose more weight on this vacation than if I was home!

We did a lot of great rides in Hollywood Studios. This park, of all of them, is typically the least crowded. On a slow day, you can see everything if you plan right. Planning is really the key to a Disney World vacation. You have to go online or buy a book and get all the tips. My wife has a Disney Ph.D. If the Army had let her plan the D-Day Invasion and had given her the Intelligence gathering capabilities she uses to plan family vacations, the U.S. would have been in and out of Normandy in 8 hours. So she tells us what shows are happening when, knows the proximate location of each major attraction, and always has a checklist of “must see’s”, “nice-to-have’s” and outright “time-killer throwaways.” My kids are even in tune to the whole battle plan…so much so that they barely even say anything beyond “what’s next?” They are excellent forward scouts and can always see unexpected trends breaking out like unplanned and unmarked Disney parades and Character autograph sessions. They don’t even have to talk…they use hand-and-arm signals. This is effective because the place is really noisy. This was tough when they were little but now that they are 11 and 13 (Disney aged ‘adults’), they are tall enough to be able to point and wave you off a potentially bad situation (like a closed ride).

One thing I noticed on this day was the “help”, the Disney employees. They used to be young eager kids with happy faces. They were excited to be working in the Happiest Place on Earth. What did I see this time? Foreign “twenty-somethings” and the elderly. What the heck happened here? This is the epitome of a ‘buck-saving’ scheme. I can understand doing this when you have a seasonal facility and you do not want to take on full-time year-round permanent help. But Disney World is a full-time park in the nicest environment (barring the usual Hurricanes) in the U.S.! This was a money making scam of the highest order. And did they care about the consumers? No way, not one iota. The foreign workers…well they must have failed the ‘Always Smile 101’ course at Disney University. They were all smirking at the guests and speaking their foreign languages to each other. They didn’t care if you were happy, sad, hot, cold…just “keep moving” so I can get to my break. The funny thing is that THEY weren’t the worst part! I expect them to be miserable after they were practically kidnapped out of the Ukraine with some Disney Magic. The real killer here was the “oldies but moldies” they had hired. There is nothing more cranky on a hot day that a 70 year old man or woman forced into mouse slave labor because they didn’t earn enough to retire. This visit, there were more of them than ever. Hey, it’s a real park perk to be able to go on the American Adventure with people who have actually been there in 1920! I thought the old guy on the ride was an animatron…until he walked off the stage. So here’s a hint. If you are going through the park, and Pluto is sitting peacefully on the park bench, he isn’t sleeping. It’s probably a senior-citizen dead from heat exhaustion. Call 911.

So we had a pretty good day. The “must do” attraction was the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular. It was number one on my son’s list. We had it on the battle plan for the first show of the day, but the House of Louse had cancelled it. It had caused a major remapping of our plan at the last minute. Thank God my wife had done so much pre-planning. She was able to put alternate plan Bravo into action. That called for us to Fast-Pass the Indian Jones show and be at the last show of the day. The Fast-Pass meant we were at the front of the line and, due to the morning cancellation, this show would probably be mobbed. So we were in front of the line and, to my son’s delight, had great seats in the 3rd row, center. While we sat there, I noticed that none of the overhead fans were working. This was a 90 degree humid August day. I was slowly getting used to the belt-tightening that was going on in Happy Land. 5 minutes before the show begins, out comes a cranky old fart to yell at us. He wants us to move in tightly to make room for more people. Yeah right. 90 plus degrees, no fans…I am not sitting on top of anybody. So it was very funny to see full-grown adults all thinking the same thing at the same time. Everyone shifted left a little, then right a little, and then sat right back on their spot. Still no extra space and just the way we wanted it. So two minutes later he is back. Now he is yelling at us. We “better move in” or we will be kicked out of the event. I start looking around…because I know I am no longer in the Disney World resort. I have just been transported to some kind of street carnival and we are all back in 3rd grade. Now, I can see the crazed look in the eyes of the rest of the people around me. We can all play this game. We do the full-tilt shift one more time…but this time, we all flare our elbows out a little to give the appearance that there is no room. This was funny to me because I was dieting to get thin and now here I was trying to be as fat as possible. Now the guy is back and he starts picking on individual people in spots and berating them until they move. “It’s a small world afterall, it’s a small world…tra-la-la-la-la…this sucks.” If he points me out in this heat I am going to knock him on his ancient ass in front of the whole crowd. I will probably get a standing ovation. One thing you know about Disney is that they start their shows on time. Thanks to their adherence to at least that one time-honored tradition, the old fart stopped and left the stage area. Good riddance.

We went home that night exhausted. It felt good to eat, lay down and just watch some TV and go to bed early.

The rest of the week was spent with family, tolerating the crowds and heat and just having more laughs.

We did Blizzard Beach. Great water park with an awesome drop on one of their runs called the Summit Plummet…the 120 foot drop will you get up to 70 miles per hour and an unbelievable “wedgy.” We also saved $10 on parking…ka-CHING!

We did Animal Kingdom…loved the Expedition Everest roller coaster, the Kali River Rapids and the Kilimanjaro Safari ride. We also saved $10 on parking…ka-CHING CHING. The resort hotel cost was now, by my wife’s estimate, a bargain at $90 for that one night!

We did Epcot. We pulled up to the Parking Lot and there he was. Every so often you find one of these people. You find a person who HAD an important job and is now reduced to THIS job. This guy was about 65 and looked like a retired CIA agent. He had that glare that lets you know that HE believes everyone is a terrorist. He looked the car up and down, in and out. He looked very close at us. He gave us very slow, detailed explanations of how we were to behave in the park I looked out my rear-view mirror. Traffic was backed up all the way to Jacksonville. “Dude, they check all the bags at the park entrance, you are the PARKING LOT ATTENDANT!”, I thought. Then it happened.

“Let me see that Parking Lot pass”, he said.

“What, no ‘please’?...gulp”

“Sure, here you go”, I said.

“Hey, this is expired.”

“Yeah, ugh, we know, the kids wanted it as a souvenir…let me have that back”, I said as I snatched it out of his hands. He was going to keep it but we might need it to further fleece the ‘Money Grubbing Mouse.’ I threw the Gestapo his $10 and flew out of there. Whew! That was close. Score one for the House of Louse.

All in all, it was a very fun time. As an epilogue, I lost about 6 lbs that week! So you can ‘have your cake and eat it too” when you are on a diet in Disney World. Just as long as you have your cake with Spinach!

Next: How diet soda kills you AND makes you fat.

The House of Louse (Part One)

The diet went great for the first three weeks. I lost about 18 lbs, 8lbs in the first week. Diets work best when you can establish a rhythm to your life and just stay in the pattern. For the first three weeks, I had done that. One style of discipline carries over to other styles of discipline and everything seems to work in sync. The times when you feel challenged are when the patterns have to break. It makes you nervous and then you have to figure out how to work within that change. It’s not easy, but that’s life.

My first real challenge to my new pattern was week four. It was August and time for the family vacation. It wasn’t just the wife and kids this time. It was my wife’s entire extended family. Because if you are going to break a rhythm pattern, why just break it? Why not shatter it? Her brother, two sisters, and their entire families were along for the ride. 19 of us. And where were we going? Why, the happiest place on earth of course, Walt Disney World. Really, is there anything more fun in August than standing in long lines with ten million sweaty people in 105 degree heat and humidity? I think not! It’s the American dream vacation. This year, we will spend August tied to wooden stakes in a hot Costa Rican jungle! In case you haven’t figured it out yet, this wasn’t my first choice. Given the democratic system that exists on my wife’s side of the family, my 1/19th percentage of the vote doesn’t carry even 1/100th of the weight. This is because I am considered one of the ‘non-blood’ out-laws. So the clan choice had been made. We would all trek down to Orlando to visit the House of Louse (my version of Toon-Disney’s ‘House of Mouse’).

I used to be a huge fan of Disneyworld. When my wife and I got married 20 years ago, we actually went there two years in a row without kids. When the kids came along, we went twice again, and then also did a Disney Cruise. So over the past 20 years, we had done Disney quite a bit. I always loved it. But over the past 10 years or so, and I am sure you have all noticed it, they have become a little less about your good time and a lot more about their money. They seem to have evolved the ‘Disney Magic’ into a new trick that consists of moving money from YOUR pocket into THEIR pocket. POOF! And they have become highly skilled at it. They used to be very good at making the trash in the theme parks disappear. Now they did it with your bank account. I think this really started happening as Michael Eisner became more entrenched in the business and the Disney family was pushed out.

In the late 80’s, Disney started the empire rolling again with the re-emergence of their cartoon movie empire. Remember when “The Little Mermaid” came out? It was like seeing a family friendly Broadway show. The artistry, the music, the funny snappy dialogue, it was real family fun. You could watch these movies over and over again. When they were released to videotape (can you remember those?), the kids DID watch them over and over again. Speaking of patterns, they had gotten their own little one going. “Beauty and the Beast” (the first animated movie ever nominated for an Oscar!), “Aladdin”, “The Lion King”, “Pocahontas”…every year you could count on it. Famous stars doing voice-overs, catchy songs you would sing to yourself, it was infectious. The House of Louse was on a roll and really building to something great. They got more TV exposure…their own cable channel! It was endless. Then, as patterns do, the public shifted to other areas of interest. The movies started being OK but not great. They seemed to be the same thing over and over. So Disney shifted gears. Did they get more creative? No. They decided to take the exceptional characters from the backlog of the big successful movies and make new sequels. Only they did not make new high-quality movies for the theater. They went for our wallets. They made crappy sequels with substitute star voice-overs, terrible songs and third rate artwork. They found Mel Gibson’s brother to replace his voice in Pocahontas. His brother?! I didn’t even know he had a brother. Where did they get this guy…some swamp in Australia? They slapped this stuff together and sold it ‘Coming Soon – Direct to Video.’ This was the beginning of the end. It wasn’t about us. It wasn’t about high quality entertainment. It was about the money.

My opinion on Disney has evolved, obviously, to a defensive posture. The game now is, “How can I keep the House of Louse from extracting money from my wallet that is over and above the value they are giving me.” With that in mind, the vacation was on!

Now I also had a diet to consider here. I couldn’t just throw away three weeks and kill the progress I had made. There were people in the diet class who had done exactly that. They had gotten out of the normal pattern and just said, “I will go back to my old habits for a week and then return to the diet.” One thing about this diet that I had agreed to up front…this was a life-style change for me. I wanted to change my habits and that meant ALL THE TIME, not just when it suited me. I decided to look at this positively. I brought a box (24 count) of powdered shakes. I figured that I could carry them in the park and mix them with water and that would be lunch. It would be phenomenally cheaper than the “cheese” the mouse would be trying to sell me. I could go with salad at dinner and then add the meat protein when I got back to our condo. Also, exercise was a critical component to the diet. If you have never been to the House of Louse, know this. You will walk. And walk. And run. And sweat. And walk. In the heat, you will cover about 5-8 miles per day in those parks. Run here, run there…”my ‘Fast Pass’ is for the Tower of Terror and it is on the other side of the park…RUNNNNNN”! If I had one concern it was this…”how do I endure this on 900 calories per day?” My doctor told me I should bring an extra shake for each day. Really? ANOTHER 160 calories? Thank God. I thought I was going to have a problem here.

We had all rented condo’s in Orlando. If you have never done this, you should look into it. It is as cheap as hotels and a lot more comfortable. There are also an amazing number of deals out there if you turn vacationing into a science, like my wife’s side of the family. The first night, a Friday, we stayed on Disney property at one of their park hotels. The condo stay started on Saturday night, so we needed one night at a hotel. It was OK. A small hotel accommodation with a lot of Disney art sprinkled around for effect…I think Tinkerbell does that stuff while people are sleeping. I did notice that the place wasn’t as clean as it had been my previous visits. Very few employees were around to smile and make sure everyone was ‘happy.’ It cost about $130 for the one night. The best part of this was a parking pass for the theme park. The theme park parking was free. Yippeee! We had our first savings of the week! We saved $10 for parking.

We had the 5 day base ticket. 4 Adults for $231…each. I know what you are thinking, because I thought the same thing. I have a 5th and 6th grader with me…where are my “Children’s” tickets? Oh no. Not at the House of Louse. They have slightly different standards. They consider you a child only if you are actually so small that you cannot go on 95% of the rides. They consider that to be the 5-9 year old range. So I have to tell my 10 year old son that he is now a “man”. “Go hunt something…like the stinking ‘Money Grubbing Mouse’ running around the theme park. Bring it back in a body bag”.

The whole family decided they would go to the same park the first day, the Magic Kingdom. It was the last decision all day that would be made peacefully ‘together.’ Did you ever try to do something like this with 19 people?

“Do you all need to sit together on the ride”, asked the attendant.

“Welllll, no…not really”, someone would reply.

The attendant did not have to be a linguist to know that that was double-speak for, “yes, can you go extremely out of your and all the other patrons’ ways to get all 19 of us together?”

I had sucked down my shake in the parking lot and had been running from ride to ride with the mob known as my extended family. The whole time, I was making sure I was fully hydrated. Around 12:30 in the afternoon, while I was in a mad sprint from Space Mountain to somewhere in Frontierland, the park started to lean sideways. Or was it me? Nope. It was the park. So when the park leaned sideways, so did I. And then back again. This was interesting. Usually you have to actually be ON a ride to experience vertigo on this level. Time to sit down and have my lunch. Yessiree, the vertigo was going to be cured with a 160 calorie fixer upper. Lunch was the breaking point for ‘family time.’ Starving sweating people who have different budget constraints for park spending have a knack of completely forgetting the democratic processes that got them to this lovely place. My daughter and I stopped at the first outpost we could find in Frontierland so she could get a hot dog and soda and I could mix my shake. Everyone else was scattered somewhere between our spot and Thunder Mountain. Thank God for cell phones.

The diet was fine after that. We went on many rides, had our fun, and left the House of Louse at about 5PM. We were tired (me, more than usual), hungry again, and out of patience. I didn’t want to see another extended family member until Christmas. If we hadn’t committed to 5 days of this, we might never have returned.

TO BE CONTINUED!

Next: Vacation and Diets - PART TWO