This is just a rant. If you read this, you may feel compelled to offer me advice. Please don’t.
I’m 73 years old and for half of that time I have been overweight, and not a lot, most of the time, but as I approached the age of 50, I was 50 pounds overweight. And yes, that’s a lot. Usually, my weight is about 15 to 25 pounds over my healthy weight of around 185 pounds. Right now, as of January 24, 2022, I weigh 204 pounds. I would be quite happy if I could get down to 195 pounds. Around that point, I stop feeling fat and can manage to get into a 36-inch-waist pair of pants.
I have lost down to 170 pounds in the past. I felt great. My blood pressure was low enough to get me off medication. But my face looked like I had just escaped from a concentration camp, drawn and old, and certainly not healthy. I won’t be trying to get that low again. It’s just not worth it.
It seems sort of odd that I find it quite easy to lose weight, but find it impossible to keep it off past my next time of difficulty, whether it be financial problems, health problems, or problems with anxiety. Something always happens and I lose focus on my health. And I concentrate on the relief that comes from the pleasure of eating foods that I should not ever eat: fast foods, breads potatoes and rice, ice cream, candy; if I don’t stop writing those words I’ll have to get online and order something to be delivered by Uber Eats.
If my life was perfect, my weight would be perfect. I understand nutrition. I can cook simple meals. I like nutrient dense, whole and unprocessed foods. And I understand the value of intermittent fasting. My current practice is an 18-hour window of fasting, followed by a six-hour window of eating two meals. I am flirting with the idea of occasionally practicing OMAD, One Meal a Day. I don’t know if I can do it, but on a couple of occasions I have managed to shrink my food window down to three or four hours.
Even when I’m doing well with my eating schedule, I permit myself a few cheat days, most often days when I have a doctor’s appointment; a fast-food meal after an appointment gives me something to look forward to on the other side of that miserable hour or so at the doctor’s office.
I keep up with all the food I eat in a spreadsheet, with cheat day meals displayed in red letters. So there’s a record of every meal, including the meals I had on my “cheat days.” I just took a look at the spreadsheet. In 2021, although I was true to my intermittent fasting schedule, I had 457 cheat days.
You know … that number doesn’t sound right.
Okay, I did not count all 365 days of meals. But what I did was look through that spreadsheet and was amazed at all the meals with the red letters. Probably, 1/3 of those days in 2021 had at least one fast food meal recorded. I know I didn’t have that many doctor’s appointments. Many of those meals were delivered, significantly increasing the cost. Chick-fil-A, McDonald’s, Starbucks, Panera Bread, a sub sandwich shop that I don’t recall the name of … those and probably a few more got a great deal of money from me. I believe I can safely estimate that I spent around $6 million on fast food last year.
I rounded up, so that number might be a little inflated.
My intermittent fasting saved me from gaining as much weight as I otherwise would have. I gained about 5 pounds last year. That pleased me, until my recent physical, which showed high cholesterol and high sugar, not bad enough for medication, but brutal evidence that I have a problem.
The physical appointment was about a month ago. I took those lab numbers seriously. Since then, I’ve had approximately 4000 cheat days.
Wait a minute. What I think I meant was four cheat days. In the first week of the year, I told myself I would stop eating fast food for 2022. A few days after I privately pledge that to myself, I had a cheat day, just to celebrate.
In the past five weeks, I have lost 4 pounds and gained 6 pounds. I don’t have it under control yet.
Some of this rant has been lighthearted. I’m sure you noticed. But there is one very serious part of this that disturbs me. For all practical purposes, I am addicted. Thank goodness my addiction is food, and not alcohol or drugs. But the symptoms are somewhat similar.
If my day goes bad, and quite a few of them do, and even if I’m trying very hard to stay on my healthy diet, my mind starts telling me that one more fast-food meal is not going to hurt a thing. So I should go ahead, order that meal on Uber Eats. I’m feeling bad. I’m too tired to cook. I deserve another cheat day. Does that sound anything like the thoughts of a drug addict or alcoholic who’s trying to quit? Obviously, their problem is much more dangerous and much more difficult to resolve. But the similarities are frustrating.
I had a bad day at the park today. That sounds almost ludicrous, doesn’t it? All it means is that I went to a place to walk around and take some photographs, and things did not turn out the way I had hoped. No good photos, my back started hurting from the heavy lens I have rented, and by the time I got back to my car I was very tired. Avoiding Chick-fil-A on the way home was difficult. I took a detour just to keep from driving by.
I’d like to say “that’s one day in a row of no fast food” … but as I write this it’s only 12 noon, and I’m really, really tired and really, really hungry.
Right now, I’m sipping Earl Grey tea. Under the right circumstances, it can help me put off my meal until afternoon. And if my research is correct, the bergamot oil in the tea is beneficial to the autophagy process that gets triggered by intermittent fasting.
Today’s meal plan includes one meal at around 2 PM of buckwheat with nuts and berries. Then an hour or so later I will prepare a meal of salmon and a very large salad, with a homemade vinaigrette. I enjoy both of those meals and at the end of them I will feel satiated. It is not likely that I will have the need for a snack later.
I already have tomorrow’s meals planned out. It’s another couple of meals that I thoroughly enjoy. So, with a little luck, at the end of the day tomorrow, I will be able to say, “that’s two days in a row.”