Long Bones

http://www.thefrisky.com/post/246-twitter-the-new-diet/

This article comees from the Frisky. I can see how tweeting every single thing you eat can add a level of accountability that a lot of people (me included) need when first making a lifestyle change. However, I do not like the concept as described “food shaming,” you should never be ashamed of what you eat. It is so hard to disassociate emotions from food but the more time passes the more I realize it is so necessary.

Verdict: Tweeting what you eat is great if you want to have real time accountability for what you eat and track your calories as such. Tweeting what you eat is horrid if you use it as a tool to feel bad about your choices as it will only lead to binging later.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/22/fashion/22Skin.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

So this is all over the intarwebs in the past few days. I have to say I am really not impressed. I mean, seriously! The one thing people have to realize in order to lose weight and the one thing that our strange American culture will not admit to is this: There is no frickin’ magic bullet!!

The writer, Abby Ellin,  has it exactly right when she says:

“Or, in blunter terms: Consume a substance whose ingredients and nutritional value are somewhat vague and drop weight, because how can you not when you’re only consuming 800 to 1,000 calories a day?”

The thing with losing weight is that it has to be a lifestyle change. No diet will work forever if you can’t stick to it forever. In order to lose 79.8 lbs (yes, I am at 200.2 this morning!) I have had to literally change my life. Now you don’t have to change all at once and you don’t have to change anything. In fact, deprivation diets are proven to be ineffective in the long run because once you start not allowing yourself, say, doughnuts then you will start craving doughnuts and then one day you’ll be in your office staring at a plate of doughnuts unable to walk away until you take one. Five minutes later you go back and grab two more. You have a stomach ache from all the sugar but it is so good. You can no longer resist.

That my friends is what kills diets.

So back to the absurd cookie diet. I like food. I got up to 280 lbs liking food far too much. In order to lose all this weight I cut out processed foods and learned how to cook awesome flavorful dishes without a lot of calories. I think I would have failed long ago if I had simply started eating six “cookies” a day (which I’m told by a reliable source taste like cardboard) I’d be depriving myself of so much of what makes life great: carrots and cauliflower, buffalo and brussel sprouts (yes I’m weird), funky mushrooms, whole wheat pasta, home made bread, coriander, cumin, saffron, zucchini, garlic, those amazing waxy potatoes I get from my CSA, Al Fresco chicken sausages, halibut, olive oil, lindt intense chili chocolate, my beloved winter squash and god damn it, maple frosted doughnuts!!!

I do not feel deprived. Ever. I wanted barbeque, I eventually got barbecue. I ate a reasonable serving and tossed the left overs. I eat mostly vegetables but I have chocolate every day. And when a coworker brings in doughnuts (or I am generous and actually driving that day) there is always a maple frosted doughnut, my favorite kind, which disappears under “mysterious” circumstances when I walk through the room.  I always, always have a cocktail when I watch Mad Men.

I’d say that I’d probably weigh less if I eschewed the doughnuts, held up strong against the barbecue and never touched a drop of alcohol. But I’d be lying. Because if I totally cut out all the “bad” stuff when I started then eventually my will power would have eroded and I would have binged and I wouldn’t be here today writing about weight loss. Because I wouldn’t have lost that much weight.

And can I redeem myself as I lose weight?

This article came out sometime in September in the New York Times magazine. Basically it goes into detail about the theory of social contagion which actually seems to be pretty much fact. People gain weight if their friends gain weight. In fact, people gain weight if their friends’ friends gain weight. And its true, since I gained weight, Shondar has, Colleen has, Kromey and Flickerbrain have. Nini hasn’t. So maybe it was me? After all I gained a bunch of weight first.

The cool thing is that it should work the other way – if your friends all start getting healthier you will too. Since I’ve lost all this weight Shondar and a friend at work have started losing weight too. It could be coincidence. Or I could be influencing my contacts in a positive direction.