Daily tally November 4, 2009

Well, I stuck with my plan today.  When I weighed in at 164 this morning, I knew what I had to do.  That weight was, I think, kind of inaccurate, as I’d eaten some really salty Caesar salad AND had a glass of wine not too long before bedtime last night…but really, it was enough to make me “scared straight,” enough to make me get back in food prison for a few days.

So today, I got up and ran nearly 3 miles before getting my kids up for school.  I stayed focused on just eating what I’d planned for myself – I didn’t have a huge problem with obsessing over the potato chips I know are in the pantry.  Some days, I’ll get all giddy and weird about stuff like that and plan deliberately to “cheat” even as I go through the motions of “eating right.”

But not today.

Here’s what I ate:

Cereal with milk – 250; banana – 70; yogurt – 100; Slim-Fast – 190; broccoli with dip – 150; Lean Cuisine Salmon With Basil – 230; milk – 90; prunes – 150.

Total:  1,230.

And honestly, right now, I am NOT hungry…not at all.

I’m a bit concerned about tomorrow.  Wednesdays are “date night” for my husband and me, and I haven’t been able to eat at a restaurant and exert even the slightest bit of restraint in a long time.

Lying to myself… November 3, 2009

Well, after those last two posts, I fell back into my same old mindset.  I made it through ONE DAY of restricting myself, and immediately the lies of Crazed Addict Fatgirl came back to haunt me.  It was like, “Look, you got back down into the 150s.”  (I’d weighed in at 158, I think)  “Look how easy it was.  So you can have this snack [or this huge meal, or whatever] and it obviously does not REALLY hurt you…”

And I’d succumb to this thinking because in the moment, I’d rather listen to the lies and indulge myself instead of shutting down that voice.

I think what it is – what keeps prompting SO MANY posts where I essentially say the same thing – is that falling back into my old habits (using food for entertainment, eating way too much, not stopping until I’ve grown sick of a taste) dulls my mind into not calling out Crazed Addict Fatgirl for her lies.  Because I don’t have a big enough problem right now – I’m still within a weight range where getting back down into the low 150s is “only” 5 or 7 pounds away – it’s easier to lie to myself.

I really don’t want to undo all the hard work I put into this.  I really don’t.

So today, I’m back at it.  I’m going to focus on not thinking about things too much…about just plodding along and DOING it.  There was really something to that old Nike advertising slogan, “Just Do It.”  When I’d just plug away at my plan and get a few days of momentum going, it wouldn’t be so terribly hard.

That’s what I’m going to do.  No lie.

End-of-day report October 28, 2009

So I made it through today, and it wasn’t so terrible.  I even went grocery shopping when I was hungry, WITH a child in tow.  Daughter was home from school, still recovering from some sort of cold/flu.  But by the time I needed to go to Walmart, she no longer had a fever and said she felt well enough to go along.

Typically, when I take kids to the store with me, they will beg and beg for snacks, and sometimes I will cave and buy things – especially potato chips – just because they sound good to me, too.

Today, though, I did not do that.  I did buy some ice cream – the child’s choice – and I did replenish my garlic bread supply.  My choice.  Heh.

But I’m not going to have any garlic bread till the weekend.  If then.

Here’s what I ate today:

South Beach Bar (180); banana (70); Slim-Fast (190); broccoli, tomatoes, and some ranch dressing (300?); large Stouffer’s turkey dinner (480); milk (100); apple (80).  Total:  1,500 calories.

I ran 3 miles.

I feel pretty good about the whole thing…I’m not sitting here starving, and in my thoughts, I’m feeling pretty determined.  I want to see the low 150s again.  I’d like my jeans to fit again.  I’m just going to stay focused, one moment at a time, on eating what I need to eat, avoiding the foods that set me off, and staying the course.

The Maintenance Mindset October 27, 2009

I’ve been doing this weight loss thing for over a year and a half. 

It took me about 4 months of concentrated effort to get to my goal weight, so I’ve been maintaining for more than a year.

As I’ve mentioned before, staying the same has been more difficult than reaching my goal.  It’s hard to maintain the mindset of always having to CARE about what I eat.

I’ve talked a lot about trying to “eat like a thin person.”  Naturally thin people do not view unlimited amounts of good-tasting food as an essential part of the entertainment of eating.  Naturally thin people don’t look at food as recreation, as entertainment.  Naturally thin people do not compulsively eat way too much of certain foods.  Naturally thin people do not have categories of “good” and “bad” foods in their minds.  Naturally thin people eat when they’re hungry and stop eating when they’ve had a normal portion of something.

I am not a naturally thin person.

I have issues with “Crazed Addict Fatgirl,” this creature who lives in my thoughts and takes control of what I do way too often.

I have spent too much of my life using food for entertainment, thinking of “food without limits” as an essential part of the “fun” of an activity.  If something tastes good to me, I have the natural inclination to eat as much of that food as I possibly can, until I reach the point of feeling sick of the taste (which usually happens after I’m already way too full).

I’ve never been someone who – especially when I’m hungry – will take just one piece of pizza and nibble at it.  No, instead, I will put two pieces on my plate from the git-go.  And I will feel like it’s my inalienable right to have a third and frequently a fourth slice.

I will also develop food obsessions, food rituals.

For awhile, of course, it was the Chick-Fil-A chocolate milkshake.  I really don’t know why I got obsessed with it.  I just did.  I mean, yeah, it’s a pretty tasty milkshake, but it’s NOT worth 740 calories.  That is a HUGE amount of calories to take in in a matter of a few minutes.

But for some reason, I had one of those milkshakes again after not having one for a long, long time, and like a recovering heroin addict who somehow finds himself shooting up again, there I was.  I was hooked once more.

Then there was my hangup about pie.

This past summer, when I was at my mom and dad’s, I found a Claim Jumper Berry Cobbler in the freezer and baked it one afternoon.  I don’t know what it was – a combination of actual hunger, mixed with just how good it tasted – but the cobbler, loaded up with vanilla ice cream, just tasted SO GOOD to me.

It started yet another food obsession.

I couldn’t find the Claim Jumper cobbler here back at home – I later found out that they don’t even make it any longer – but the Marie Callender Razzleberry Pie was very close.  I began making an afternoon ritual out of hot berry pie slathered with vanilla ice cream. 

Then I’d eat a large amount of regular dinner, whatever I cooked for the family.  There seemed to be no point in exercising restraint at dinner when I’d already thrown all restraint to the wind with my afternoon pie indulgence.

And so it’s gone.

What’s interesting is that for quite awhile, the scale numbers have remained fairly constant.  Oh, my weight has crept up a tiny bit, from a low of about 153 to hovering in the high 150s.  But I’ve stayed within 5 pounds of that low weight.  Partly, I’ve done this because I’ve maintained my exercise habits, along with eating fruits and vegetables and restraining myself at lunchtime.

But, eventually, my crazed rituals and over-indulgences at dinner have taken their toll.

And I have to be honest about that.

Lately, the TRUTH is that the jeans I was able to wear when I was at my goal weight (the low 150s) are no longer even remotely comfortable.  Matter of fact, the jeans I’d always thought were my “sloppy” jeans from back in the low 150s also don’t fit so well anymore.  I was surprised when I put them on a few weeks ago and discovered that they seemed too small and too short.  They still zipped, they still fit OK, but they were no longer comfy-loose.  Instead, they seemed to ride down low, becoming “bikini jeans,” revealing too much of my lower backside when I’d sit down.

Not good.

And the scale numbers.  Well, to be brutally honest, the scale numbers have finally crept up a tad.

This morning, I weighed in at 160.5.  And believe it or not, that’s actually DOWN from what the numbers were yesterday – 163.2.

I’ve come by these pounds honestly, that’s for sure.  I actually think it’s amazing that I don’t weigh more, considering how I’ve gradually slipped back into some bad habits.

It’s like one tiny slip-up sort of naturally leads into yet another tiny slip-up, which then sort of snowballs into more and more “tiny” slip-ups.  Until I look and realize that I’m having far more “bad days” than “good” days.

I was able to maintain my goal weight for a long time because I would follow my basic diet plan - eating a Lean Cuisine for dinner and then not permitting myself to have anything else after dinner – probably three days per week at a minimum.

On the other days – weekends, for sure, and occasionally a weekday here and there – I’d have at least one or two deliberate over-indulgences.

But the “good days” seemed to make up for the planned over-indulgences, so I was able to maintain.  Also, because it was a balance of “good” versus “bad,” it wasn’t so difficult to get into the “good” mindset of self-control.

But lately, for all sorts of reasons, I’ve had multiple “bad” days in a row, where we either went out to eat and I WAY overdid it, or where I just had bad snacks in my head, deliberately buying potato chips to eat while we watched TV late at night.

This past Sunday, though, as I thought about all of this, I decided that I’m not going to let this thing get the better of me.  I cannot allow Crazed Addict Fatgirl to take over in my thoughts again.  I must remain brutally honest with myself, rather than more and more habitually cave to the crazed whispers of Crazed Addict Fatgirl, that “it doesn’t matter,” that whatever indulgence I’m about to engage in “won’t hurt me.” 

It’s really weird, actually…because even as I write this, I feel like I’m being hit with a new realization:  maintenance is really all about remaining in touch with reality.

Maintenance is about remaining honest with myself.  About not listening to the voice of Crazed Addict Fatgirl, who takes over my thoughts and whispers to me that “this one indulgence” won’t REALLY affect me.  That I can somehow cheat reality.

That’s half the equation.  The other half, as I seek to take off some of these extra pounds and get back to my goal weight, is the simple practice of putting off the indulgences. 

I mean, like yesterday.  Yesterday I decided I simply needed to go back to “food prison” for awhile, where I’d depend upon Lean Cuisines and simply close my mind to the possibility of having snacks after dinner.

It’s interesting how, once my mind was made up, and all the possibilities for “cheating” had been eliminated in my thoughts, it really wasn’t so hard.  I did not sit here obsessing about potato chips at 8:30 at night simply because – for one – we didn’t have any chips, but – for another – I’d already made up my mind that I did not WANT chips, because they would get in the way of my goal.

The only serious moment of temptation I had was when I asked my husband to pick up some Dairy Queen ice cream for one of the kids, who’d been sick for a couple of days with a sore throat, hadn’t eaten much of anything, and had said that the ice cream was the only thing she MIGHT feel like eating.

I had this weird thought of desperation as I called my husband to ask him to pick up the ice cream.  It was like, “Oh dear, I absolutely HATE having to give up this opportunity to have some ice cream for myself!”

If my mind hadn’t been so definitely made up already, I would have felt a peculiar obligation to ask my husband to get me some ice cream.  And not just a small cup, either.  I would have requested a quart, and I would have probably eaten the entire thing in one sitting.

It didn’t happen, though, because I’d decided the door to that possibility was simply shut.  And, I also did the simple mind trick of telling myself that I wasn’t giving up ice cream for all time and eternity – I was just postponing the indulgence to some other day.

And I think that’s another crucial piece of getting back to my goal weight again.

I can’t overthink this.  I can’t look at the whole thing as one gigantic issue.  I can’t list all these weird problems I have – this huge inability to “eat like a thin person” – and think of it all at once.  If I do that, I get a feeling like I will NEVER be able to overcome any of it.

The only thing I can do – the only thing that works for me – is to just put off the indulgence.  When the temptation is really strong, I put it off just for a minute or two.  Which then leads to another minute or two, which morphs into an hour, and soon, the temptation has left me for the moment.  If I just tell myself that I already know what such-and-such a food tastes like, and that I can someday have it again, only I’m not going to have it now – well, that’s what works for me.

I have to keep the door completely shut to the possibility of over-indulging.  And I have to, at the same time, tell myself that it’s “just for a minute.”

(And yes, I realize, that is sort of a lie.  But it works for me.)

So here’s what I’m working for:

I want to get back down to 153.  I want my “skinny jeans” to feel just a tad bit more comfortable.  I want my “loose skinny jeans” to be, well, LOOSE again, and not ever-so-slightly uncomfortable and “accidental bikini.”

I’m going to stick with this thing until I’ve taken off 7 pounds.  I’m going to put off further over-indulgences until I get to that point.

I’ve already made good choices yesterday and this morning.  I once again bought some fat-free half and half and have been using that instead of the regular.  I ran 3 miles yesterday, and I’m going to go do that again in a little while.  I have my mind shut off to the possibility of “cheating” today – I’m not going to even make provisions for it.

And I’m going to stay focused on the moment…all those moments do add up, and if I get enough of ‘em together in a row, the weight will come off once again.

Staying Real… September 22, 2009

The truth of this weight loss thing is, it never ends.

And you have to stay honest with yourself.

I’ve been at my goal weight, more or less, for about a year.  I’ve maintained the scale numbers by being pretty religious about my morning weigh-in.  Really, it all comes down to forcing myself to be honest.  Seeing those numbers on the scale each morning is the reality check I need.  Oh, here and there, when I know the numbers will probably reflect a bad gain, I will fudge and skip a weigh-in.  But mostly, I weigh every morning.

Also, I periodically have to force myself to deal with Crazed Addict Fatgirl.  Yes, she still lives inside my thoughts, making me weirdly giddy as I plan – deliberately – to pig out with a bag of potato chips and unlimited glasses of Diet Coke…after finishing my Slim-Fast for lunch.  It’s utterly crazy, but it’s true.  I’ve done some pretty bizarrely deliberate acts of sabotage on my weight loss, where I will buy potato chips all the while KNOWING that I have no self-control with them once I get started.  Crazed Addict Fatgirl will lie and say that I can eat chips with no consequences.

This has SORT OF been true.  But only sort of.

Yes, I have maintained my weight, to where I hover around the higher 150s.  But last year, I did get all the way down to 152, and definitely, my clothes fit much better.  It’s that extra 5 pounds that makes my good jeans fit poorly, to where they’re “too shallow” and keep slipping off my fatter hips.  Crazed Addict Fatgirl has lied herself into a 5-pound weight gain over this year.

I have to periodically give myself additional reality checks, besides relying on the daily weigh-ins.  I’m still happy with the high 150s, but I will NOT be happy if my weight creeps up still more.

So today – after nearly a week of eating random stuff and sometimes fudging on my vegetables and stuffing myself to uncomfortable fullness – I went back into food prison.  I ran 3 miles, and I did my usual routine of fruits, veggies, Slim-Fast, and a Lean Cuisine for dinner.  Honestly, it wasn’t bad at all.  It actually feels GOOD to exert some self-control.  I’m looking forward to weighing in tomorrow.

But these periodic trips to food prison are necessary because of my idiotic binge behavior.  If I did not BUY the potato chips (when I was having particular issues with chips), they wouldn’t be here, tempting me to sit with an entire bag and wolf ‘em down till the inside of my mouth was all shredded from the crunchiness and the salt.  If I did not bake the pie and buy the ice cream to go with it, I wouldn’t be enabled in my weird afternoon ritual of having a huge slice of pie with ice cream as though it were my inalienable RIGHT.

I’m still not entirely sure why I do this stuff.  I’ve been at this process (I was going to call it a battle, but it’s really more of a process) for 18 months, and that silly animal, Crazed Addict Fatgirl, still does live in my thoughts.  She’s vanquished mostly by not enabling her.  And by deliberately ignoring her till she goes away.

But then…

Well, I’ll binge and not see any major consequences, and that will fuel Crazed Addict Fatgirl the next time we’re at the grocery store.  And then she’ll whisper into my thoughts and I’ll make more of the enabling purchases.

It does feel good, though, to be honest and admit that I don’t like the upward direction of the scale.  It’s good to sit here and admit that Crazed Addict Fatgirl IS a liar and I should not listen to her.

I’m ignoring her right now.  And it’s really not that hard.

And it will keep getting easier.

An OK day… July 10, 2009

I didn’t work out today because I had a really poor night’s sleep, got up late, and just wanted to get out and run my errands.  But I didn’t cave to temptation and have a fattening fast-food lunch, even though I was tempted to.

So I can celebrate that.

We were out and about, and I suddenly had this hankering to take the kids to Chick-Fil-A.  Although I do find their side salad (with just a teensy bit of dressing) and 8 nuggets a perfectly satisfying lunch, I already knew that I was feeling rebellious and would probably have succumbed and ordered a sandwich, fries, and maybe even a chocolate shake.  So I stayed the course.  I reminded myself of how crummy those foods make me feel afterward.  I know I would have felt especially bad today, given my lack of sleep.

I came home and had a plate of raw cauliflower and carrots, and then a Slim-Fast shake.  The girls enjoyed the veggies, too, along with their own homemade lunches.

My one downfall was tonight at dinner.  I made a family favorite, this chicken-and-rice dish, and by the time dinner rolled around, I was very hungry.  I ate at least 3 servings of rice and drank two glasses of skim milk.  I’m sure my dinner contained about 800 calories.

But given the rest of my day – just a South Beach bar (190), veggies (100), and a Slim-Fast (190), I still stayed within limits.

And tonight my husband and I took a 3-mile walk.  We did it at a decent pace, too.

This is life.  I’d like to become more in tune with my hunger and listen to my body and not eat so much at dinnertime.  But at least I’m maintaining healthy habits otherwise.

I’ve been at this for a year and four months, and I feel like this maintenance phase is my biggest triumph.

Still here July 9, 2009

I’m still plugging along.

In case anyone was wondering.

My weight stays around 158, give or take a couple of pounds.  And it only stays in that range because I continue to renew my commitment to this lifestyle every single day.

It’s not easy.  In fact, lately, I’ve become plagued by Crazed Addict Fatgirl even on days when I make up my mind to refrain from over-indulging.  It’s almost hard to remember what it was like to be so committed to my new ways that I did not WANT to eat junk food or pig out with no restraint. 

I do know that after I got going and stayed committed for several days in a row, Crazed Addict Fatgirl’s lying voice got much fainter, much less powerful.  But it’s been several weeks since I’ve had more than one “good day” in a row.  I think that’s definitely part of the problem.  My old mindset of using food for entertainment – of deliberately seeking out unlimited amounts of the fattening foods I enjoy – is so easily resurrected.  All it takes is a few days of caving to Crazed Addict Fatgirl, and I start to absolutely CHAFFE at any sort of restriction when I try to “get back in the saddle.”

Yesterday was a great case in point.

My resolve is the strongest throughout the morning.  It tends to wane as the day wears on.  Yesterday afternoon, I found myself sitting around, toying with the idea of going to Chick-Fil-A for lunch.  I actually prayed that I’d be able to resist the temptation.  I needed to go out to the store, and it’d be way too easy to swing on over to where Chick-Fil-A is located.

I went ahead and had a Slim-Fast instead.  I knew that I’d feel too full to be enticed by large amounts of fast food once I’d had my shake.

I went to the store, did my errand.  As I was getting back into my car, I realized that I was NOT satisfied with just the Slim-Fast.  I still was not going to go to Chick-Fil-A, but I suddenly remembered the bag of barbecue potato chips that I’d bought a week or two ago.  Immediately, I knew what I was going to do.

And this is where Crazed Addict Fatgirl comes in.

A part of me really did NOT want to eat a bunch of chips.  But then a larger part of me totally did, and Crazed Addict Fatgirl came and took possession of my thoughts.  When Crazed Addict Fatgirl is in residence, she has me convinced that wolfing down as many potato chips as I can stand will not hurt me.  I actually get this weird giddy rush of excitement as I contemplate how much fun the over-indulgence is going to be.  I feel a sort of bizarre “high” about it.  I’m carefree and full of anticipation, and at that moment, I utterly do not care about eating healthy foods, eating well, keeping my weight within a good range, or fitting into my clothes.

It’s really strange.

So I came home and ripped open the chip bag, poured a huge glass of Diet Coke, and sat down to zone out and eat.  I think I put away half the bag before getting sick of the taste.  At one point, I realized that I was almost not able to eat the chips fast enough, so great was my weird urgency to keep the barbecue flavor inside my mouth.

Strange strange strange.

I didn’t really feel too bad afterward.  Sometimes, especially after having too many potato chips, I actually feel sick, but not yesterday.  Later, I felt regret.  But in the moment – it’s crazy. 

It’s Crazed Addict Fatgirl.

I’m pretty sure I will always be plagued by this…CREATURE.  I do know that her voice gets fainter if I don’t indulge her bizarre whims.  I do know that if I could just resist her possession, if I could just distract myself from her lures, she does lose power over me.

These days, I have a much more heartfelt sympathy for those “loser” alcoholics or drug addicts who keep falling off the wagon.  I know what it’s like.  My thoughts lie to me…and I choose to believe their lies.  I eat the foods that trigger more lying thoughts…which puts me right back into the out-of-control cycle, where I feel powerless to resist food.  It’s definitely an addiction.

I’ve been cleaning out my closet, and I am NOT tossing all my fat-chick clothes.  Instead, I’m putting them in clear plastic bins down in the basement.  I hope that with my daily renewed commitment, I never will need them again.  I do continue to eat my fruits and vegetables, and I do exercise intensely just about every day.  But my addictive personality - the part of me that slips so easily into the habit of using an over-indulgence of fattening foods for entertainment – puts me at real risk of being fat again.

I need to quit lying to myself.

I need to put Crazed Addict Fatgirl in her place.

I need to remember that once I get past the first couple of days, it’s REALLY NOT THAT HARD to exercise portion control.

I’m heading out to my parents’ place for a two-week vacation, and in a bizarre way, I’m actually thinking that it will be easier to get back into a groove over there.  My mom and dad have been complaining greatly of money woes and aren’t doing nearly the dining out and the self-indulgent eating that they’ve done in the past.  When I was out there last time, it was easy to fend for myself and just have a Lean Cuisine for dinner, and dinner is when I struggle the most.  Dinner, and stupid junk food snacks like potato chips.

So I’m still here.  Still committed.  Still plugging along.  With a renewed commitment to quit listening to lying Crazed Addict Fatgirl.

I Knew It! May 9, 2009

The other day, our newspaper ran a story that explains what I’ve come to view as my literal addiction to certain foods.  Here it is:

Dives into Dumpsters yield theory on junk food

He went in the middle of the night, long after the last employee had locked up the Chili’s Grill and Bar. He’d steer his car around the back, check to make sure no one was around and then quietly approach the Dumpster.

If anyone noticed the man foraging through the trash, they would have assumed he was a vagrant. Except he was wearing black dress slacks and padded gardening gloves. “I’m surprised he didn’t wear a tie,” his wife said dryly.

The high-octane career path of David Kessler, the Harvard-trained doctor, lawyer, medical school dean and former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration had come to this: nocturnal Dumpster diving. It took many of these forays until Kessler emerged with his prize: ingredient labels affixed to empty cardboard boxes that spelled out the fats, salt and sugar used to make the Southwestern Eggrolls, Boneless Shanghai Wings and other dishes served by the nation’s second-largest restaurant chain.

Kessler was on a mission to understand a problem that had vexed him since childhood: why he can’t resist certain foods.

His resulting theory, described in his new book, “The End of Overeating,” is startling. Foods high in fat, salt and sugar alter the brain’s chemistry in ways that compel people to overeat. “Much of the scientific research around overeating has been physiology — what’s going on in our body,” he said. “The real question is what’s going on in our brain.”

The ingredient labels gave Kessler information the restaurant chain declined to provide when he asked for it. At the FDA, Kessler pushed through nutritional labels on foods sold through retail outlets but stopped short of requiring the same for restaurants. Yet if suppliers ship across state lines, as suppliers for Chili’s do, the ingredients must be printed on the box. That is what led Kessler, one of the nation’s leading public-health figures, to hang around Dumpsters across California.

The labels showed the foods were bathed in salt, fat and sugars, beyond what a diner might expect by reading the menu, Kessler said.

The ingredient list for Southwestern Eggrolls mentioned salt eight separate times; sugars showed up five times. The “egg rolls,” which are deep-fried in fat, contain chicken that has been chopped up like meatloaf to give it a “melt in the mouth” quality that also makes it faster to eat. By the time a diner has finished this appetizer, he has consumed 910 calories, 57 grams of fat and 1,960 milligrams of sodium.

“Betcha can’t eat just one” by design

Instead of satisfying hunger, the salt-fat-sugar combination will stimulate that diner’s brain to crave more, Kessler said. For many, the come-on offered by Lay’s Potato Chips — “Betcha can’t eat just one” — is scientifically accurate. And the food industry manipulates this neurological response, designing foods to induce people to eat more than they should or even want, Kessler found.

His theory, born out in a growing body of scientific research, has implications not just for the increasing number of Americans struggling with obesity but for health providers and policymakers.

“The challenge is, how do we explain to America what’s going on — how do we break through and help people understand how their brains have been captured?” he said.

Kessler is best remembered for his investigation of the tobacco industry and attempts to place it under federal regulation while he was FDA commissioner from 1990 to 1997. After he was elected in 1992, President Bill Clinton asked Kessler to continue to run the FDA.

Kessler’s aggressive approach toward the tobacco industry led to billion-dollar settlements between Big Tobacco and 46 states and laid the groundwork for legislation now pending in Congress that would place tobacco under FDA regulation.

Kessler, 57, sees parallels between the tobacco and food industries. Both are manipulating consumer behavior to sell products that can harm health, he said.

Whether government should exercise tougher controls over the food industry is going to be the next great debate, especially because much of the advertising is aimed at children, Kessler said.

“The food the industry is selling is much more powerful than we realized,” he said. “I used to think I ate to feel full. Now I know — we have the science that shows — we’re eating to stimulate ourselves.

“And so the question is, what are we going to do about it?”

The idea for the book came seven years ago as Kessler was channel-surfing and came across an overweight woman named Sarah on “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” While Sarah was successful in nearly every aspect of her life, she tearfully told Winfrey, she could not control her eating.

Kessler was mesmerized by Sarah — she was describing his own private struggle. “I needed to not only figure out Sarah — I needed to figure out myself,” he said. “Little did I know it would lead me into real fundamental issues of what makes us human and how our brains are wired.” At 5-foot-11, Kessler has swung from weighing 160 pounds to 230 pounds and back, many times over. He owns pants in sizes ranging from 34 to 42.

“I was a fat kid,” he said. “I grew up in the world of Entenmann’s cakes. I was pretty much of a science nerd. If you looked in my refrigerator in college, it was Entenmann’s.”

Every few years, Kessler would go on a diet and apply the kind of discipline that enabled him to earn a law degree from the University of Chicago while attending Harvard Medical School. “I’d lose weight and over time gain it back,” said Kessler, who also completed a medical residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore at the same time he worked as a staffer to Sen. Orrin Hatch. “I couldn’t control it.”

The man who took on Big Tobacco was helpless when confronted with a plate of chocolate chip cookies. He couldn’t focus on anything else until he had eaten them all.

“My weight was yo-yoing all the time,” said Kessler, who estimates that 70 million Americans struggle with conditioned hyper-eating. “And I never understood why.”

He embarked on a mission to figure it out while serving as dean of the medical school at Yale University and later the University of California at San Francisco. UCSF fired Kessler from his position as dean in December after he alleged financial malfeasance at the institution. The university maintains there were no financial misdeeds; Kessler says he was forced out because he blew the whistle.

He remains on the faculty at the medical school and lives in San Francisco with his wife, Paulette, a lawyer. They have two grown children, both of whom live in Washington.

Brains become addicted to fat-sugar-salt combo

Through interviews with scientists, psychologists and food-industry insiders — and his own scientific studies and hours spent surreptitiously watching other diners at food courts and restaurants around the country — Kessler said he finally began to understand why he couldn’t control his eating.

“Highly palatable” foods — those containing fat, sugar and salt — stimulate the brain to release dopamine, the neurotransmitter associated with the pleasure center, he found. In time, the brain gets wired so that dopamine pathways light up at the mere suggestion of the food, such as driving past a fast-food restaurant, and the urge to eat the food grows insistent. Once the food is eaten, the brain releases opioids, which bring emotional relief. Together, dopamine and opioids create a pathway that can be activated every time a person is reminded about the particular food.

This happens regardless of whether the person is hungry.

Not everyone is vulnerable to “conditioned overeating” — Kessler estimates that about 15 percent of the population is not affected and says more research is needed to understand what makes them immune.

But the key to stopping the cycle is to rewire the brain’s response to food — not easy in a culture where unhealthy food and snacks are cheap and plentiful, portions are huge and consumers are bombarded by advertising that links these foods to fun and good times, he said.

Deprivation only heightens the way the brain values the food, which is why dieting doesn’t work, he said.

What’s needed is a perceptual shift, Kessler said. “We did this with cigarettes,” he said. “It used to be sexy and glamorous but now people look at it and say, ‘That’s not my friend, that’s not something I want.’ We need to make a cognitive shift as a country and change the way we look at food. Instead of viewing that huge plate of nachos and fries as a guilty pleasure, we have to … look at it and say, ‘That’s not going to make me feel good. In fact, that’s disgusting.’ “

Kessler said he’s made that shift himself, eating small portions of foods that contain fat, salt and sugar, part of a “food rehab” plan he suggests in the book. He has certain rules — no French fries, ever — that help him navigate through vulnerable moments.

He has embraced indoor cycling — the first time he has regularly exercised — and he belongs to multiple health clubs so that he has more options for class times. He avoids the cues that focus his brain on “highly palatable” foods, going so far as to chart a different route through San Francisco International Airport so that he doesn’t walk past the fried dumpling stand.

Kessler’s weight is relatively stable at 162 pounds. And as he has come to better understand himself, the food cravings and the resulting anguish he felt have subsided.

“So I’m at peace,” he said. “After 30 years, I’m at peace.”

It’s funny – this article rings so true for me!  The part about how pathways in the brain become almost re-wired to give us a “high” when we eat certain foods makes total sense.  I can remember the day when I decided to start this blog, over a year ago.  I was feeling incredibly fat and was wishing that I could do something to make a change.  I’d weighed myself and saw a disturbing number on the scale – 189.5, which was about the highest weight I’ve ever been, aside from during pregnancy.

And yet you know what I did?  That day, the day before I started this blog, I drove to Chick-Fil-A to get a chocolate milkshake.  As I was driving over there, I was pondering why I was doing what I was doing.  A part of me KNEW that I’d feel disgusting afterward, and sad about my poor choice, considering how fat I’d gotten and how I was wanting to make changes in my life.  But even as I thought those thoughts and acknowledged them as totally true, there was this other part of my mind that was feeling almost giddy as I anticipated having the milkshake.

Personally, I suspect that the Chick-Fil-A milkshake is chemically designed to be especially addictive.  Even after I’ve successfully taken off 30 pounds, and have maintained these changes for over a year, I still find myself slipping into stupid addictive behavior over this particular food item.  I will feel almost a sense of inevitability about it when I “take the kids” to Chick-Fil-A.  I will tell myself lies about how it “won’t really affect me,” and I will feel the same weird giddy anticipation…and the same definite “high” as I’m drinking it, and even for a bit afterward.

So this article is especially validating, because this guy did actual research to prove what I’ve long believed to be true and have seen at work in my own experiences.  Like, I’ve found that I will reactivate my French fry addiction if I have them once or twice…and then I will feel angry and cheated if I once again attempt to QUIT having fries.  Yet what’s funny is that if I just stop eating French fries for awhile, I don’t even think about them.  I don’t crave them, and I don’t feel cheated at the thought of them.

So I do believe that we can re-train our brains with new food habits.

It’s cool to know there’s a bit of science behind what I’ve always believed about my own problems with self-control.

Movin’ on down… April 26, 2009

Well, today I weighed in at 158.3.  So I’m down 5 pounds from that gasp-inducing high weight. 

I’ve been staying focused on eating like a thin person.  I’ve had a couple of slip-ups, like last night when I ate a large cup of Dairy Queen soft-serve.  But yesterday, when my husband and I went to lunch at a build-your-own-burrito place called Qdoba, I ordered Mexican gumbo and brought half of it home.  I found that I was more than satisfied by a half portion.

It really is not hard to eat like a thin person, once I set aside my attitudes about pigging out.  I truly do not like feeling stuffed after a binge session, and like yesterday’s lunch, it’s much more rewarding to eat moderately.  Aside from having to end the pleasure of enjoying the food’s taste before I’ve completely burned out on it, it’s no great change.

Tuesday April 22, 2009

So yesterday, in the morning, my weight was “down” to 160.3.  (I put “down” in quotes, because 160.3 is still 8 pounds higher than the lowest weight I’d reached, and I’m disgusted with myself for allowing it to creep back up.)

This morning I weighed again, and I’m now at 160.0.

So it’s gradually coming back down…but it’s going to take some focus.

Yesterday I did OK, although I knew that I wanted to make dinner for my family, and I knew I would have a difficult time controlling my hunger until 6:00.  Usually I eat my Lean Cuisine at about 5:00 at the latest.

So yesterday afternoon, I purposely had a snack of cheese and crackers at about 3:30, and that worked well to keep me from being totally famished by dinner.

Nonetheless, I had a difficult time controlling myself with portions.  I’d fixed what I call chicken pot pie, which is an easy casserole that my family loves.  It’s cut up cooked chicken breast, mixed vegetables, sauteed celery, and cream of chicken soup, topped with a can of Pillsbury refrigerator biscuits that have been split into thirds and brushed with melted butter and sprinkled with garlic powder.  It’s not necessarily a “bad” (fattening) thing, if you just take a little of the biscuit topping and a very moderate portion. 

I dished up a normal amount of casserole, and I would have been OK if I’d stopped there.  But I was very hungry, and it tasted really good, so I gave myself “just a dollop more,” and then (of course) “had” to pour myself another third of a glass of milk to go with it.

I have no idea how many calories my dinner was…probably well over 500…

I did OK, in that I did not stuff myself, but I definitely did not need that second portion.

Anyway, after dinner, I suddenly got antsy and decided to make some tea and have some candy.  I had 4 or 5 pieces of the See’s Candy that was left over from Easter.  Again, I don’t know the calorie content, but I’m guessing each piece was 75 or 100 calories. 

I did run close to 3 miles yesterday, and I did watch everything else I ate.  But I could feel last night as I went to bed that I would not see a significant drop on the scale, as normally if I stick with my plan and only have a Lean Cuisine for dinner at 5:00, I go to bed with that slightly hungry feeling and wake up with a loss.  But last night, after two portions of dinner and the candy, I went to bed feeling full.

And I was right.  The numbers were slightly down (.3 of a pound), but not significantly, considering that what had caused the gain had been a huge meal.

Anyway, that was OK, but I am reminding myself to pick up, dust off, and keep going.  I want to see the numbers back down to where they were, and I have to be serious about this.

Tonight my challenge will be dinner.  My husband and I have a habit of going out on Wednesday nights while the kids are at their church class.  It’s our date night.  The last couple of date nights have involved me TOTALLY over-indulging at Chilli’s.  Yikes.  Like, we even ordered chips and salsa, and I mindlessly wolfed the chips, inhaling them like I didn’t have a thought in the world about what I was doing.  That’s the kind of behavior that has “earned” my weight gain.  Sigh.

I need to plan ahead, one way or another, and not do anything like that tonight.  Either we don’t go out to eat, or I plan in advance where we go and what I will order.

Here’s what I ate yesterday:  South Beach bar (140); orange (100); Slim-Fast shake (190); broccoli (100); cheese (200); crackers (140); chicken casserole (600?); candy (300?).  Total:  1,970.

See – this is a good reality check for me.  It didn’t feel like I’d eaten almost 2,000 calories yesterday.  But I did.  It’s good to be brutally honest.  I’m going to see the scale numbers go back down.