Friday, February 4, 2011

eat until you are satisfied

there were two  weight loss systems when i  was doing the weight watchers program a few years ago. there was the points system and then there was the core system. the points system meant that every food was assigned a points value and each person was only allowed to eat a certain amount of points per day according to their height and starting weight. the core program had certain guidelines as to which foods you consume but it did not put a concrete limit to how much you could eat it just said that you should eat until you were satisfied.  i found this  ironic. i was already eating until i was satisfied. this was why i was overweight! granted i was also eating junk food to achieve this satisfaction but still! even if i was eating just regular food if i would eat until i was satisfied i still would not lose weight. unless it meant eating as much free vegetables until i was satisfied it really is not valid .
i think  that there is a mindset behind a person's weight situation. i eat less when i am busy with non-stressful life issues. when i am stressed i eat more. when i spend time with people with poor eating habits i cave to the peer pressure. when i am unbearably overwrought with emotions of  9/11 proportions i eat nothing.
a man named peter walsh  wrote a book called does this clutter make my butt look big suggests writing a  food feelings diary. that is a diary of one's emotional state when one has eaten what one has eaten during the course of the day. i think that this is on the money. weight loss is still a lot of work, but its not just about the food. its about the emotions that drive one to this weight gain. peter walsh also does the show called  clean sweep where he helps people with hoarding issues clean their homes and deal with the issues that turned their home into a big mess. he also believes that a cluttered home can make someone eat too much. this isn't always true, but in my case it is. when my home is more cluttered so are my eating habits. the same issues that clutter my home clutter my eating . then again when one is busy organizing one's home one usually isn't snacking.
even jillian michaels of biggest loser fame says that in order to stay thin one should clear the clutter in one's home at least fifteen minutes a day.
i think that adhering to the weight watchers points system and  keeping track and managing the emotions that lead to my weight issues will help me find a happier weight. battling daily physical clutter will help me have a larger living space to share with my eventually smaller size.

1 comment:

Dante Inferno said...

Diets don't work unless you make them into lifestyles. Keep it consistent and eventually you will look at caloric-dense food the same way you look at ham or bacon.