Here in the Land of DietHobby

                                      
This morning I sipped a cup of tea while I thumbed through a couple of my hundreds of inspirational diet books. My weight has gotten higher up than it's been for a long time, and it seems to be staying up. My fear is that, unless I can reverse this trend, it will continue to climb and climb, first into overweight, then obesity, and then back into morbid obesity, as it has so many times before, and as it does for so many other reduced obese people. I've been feeling like I'm at that in-between place. That place of inertia where the pendulum has stopped, and the task of starting it again seems incredibly difficult… if not impossible.

I read lots of good thoughts about mindful eating, which is an important concept, but struggled again with deciding on the type of eating personal plan I wanted to use today. What is consistent for me is an approximate calorie number that I work not to go over, but most of the other eating factors are usually up for grabs.

There are very few diets in existence that I haven't tried at one time or another. This is all part of my own personal dieting hobby. If I ever found one particular way of eating that I was able to follow indefinitely, I would do that. However, so far, I haven't discovered such a food plan, so my own way is to switch from one to another, and to run personal experiments while factoring in what I have learned about myself and my body and its calorie burning ability. This is not "yo-yo" dieting. This is dieting all of the time, but with different dieting plans.

 This morning an idea came to me that is different for me.. I decided that … for today… I would eat small portions of whatever healthy foods appealed to me at reasonable intervals throughout the day, BUT FOR TODAY, I would divide those small portions in half, and eat only half of what I would normally eat to maintain my current weight, and either save away or trash the rest BEFORE taking my first bite. If I find this effective, and reasonable, then I might continue doing it for awhile. I will still, of course, record everything I eat today in my computer software food journal since no matter what food plan I use, it is important for me to remain accountable for every bite, every day.

Finding something different to try sort of perked me up a bit, which led me to get out my ipod and earphones and spend some time on the treadmill and gazelle right after breakfast. Now, I feel pleased with myself for exercising on Saturday, and for eating a very small breakfast, and I am encouraged by the possibility of a successful weekend food day.

 This is how it is going for me today here in the land of DietHobby.