Fantasy World
I've written a book about weight loss. I've written "The Only 8 Things I Needed to Know to Lose Weight." I still stand by the information I wrote in those and think they are valuable. But, as I talk with more and more people who struggle with weight control, it occurred to me that people who want to lose weight fall into two categories.
Type 1 - Have NOT realized that they cannot eat as much as they want.
Type 2 - Have realized that they cannot eat as much as they want.
The success rate of losing and keeping weight off among the second type, in my experience, is much higher than the first type.
Why? Because type 2 people have realized the truth, while type 1 people have barricaded themselves in a fantasy world. Type 2 people focus on what really, truly works: eating the right amount of food. Type 2 people believe in myths such as not eating after 7 pm to keep the dream alive of being able eat like 20 year old runway models who claim to eat whatever, without exercise (but the truth is probably much different). However, much like fire-breathing dragons, no matter how much you believe in a myth, it's still a myth. And myths don't work. Sometimes it appears to, but it's not why you think.
I know. I was in that fantasy world. The first time I calculated my BMI to find out I was "overweight", I discounted it. I didn't think it applied to me.
I'd been praised all my life for "being able to eat whatever I wanted without gaining weight." I didn't want to disappoint. I had fans to please. The only problem? The truth. I was gaining weight.
As I gained weight, I tried exercising extra hard to burn off more calories. It helped some. But then would come a time period where I was too busy to exercise. Boom. I'd add a pound or two that wouldn't come off that easily.
Every time I turned around there was another special occasion to celebrate, which meant another excuse to pig out. I didn't want to be bothered with such things as the truth. In my thoughts, I could eat however much I wanted.
My social life was centered around food. Trying new restaurants. Trying new recipes. Traveling and trying new restaurants. When others around me would eat a lot, I'd eat a lot.
I took to heart such phrases as, "life isn't fun if you have to count calories or worry about what you eat...yada..yada..yada." "Only rabbits should eat rabbit food." "Weight loss people are anal retentive."
I was buying into the myth that we are all genetically predestined to weigh a certain amount and I didn't have much control over it.
But, I wasn't happy being overweight and I was growing more and more concerned with the needle creeping up on the scale and my seeming inability to control my weight.
The Realization
It's hard to pinpoint the exact moment when it became absolutely clear to me that my weight problem was all about how much food I put in my mouth.
I think the nearest I can get is when I calculated how many calories my body needed each day. I figured out that to maintain the weight I wanted to be without any exercise I only needed about 1,400 - 1,500 calories each day. At that time, I was often eating that at one meal. I probably averaged 2,500 - 3,000 calories a day.
Or it could have been when I read the part in Lance Armstrong's book, It's Not About the Bike, where he said that he tracked every calorie he took in while prepping for the Tour de France because he wanted to start the race at a specific weight. That floored me. It struck a chord to see that someone who burns so many calories on the bike paid such close attention to his food intake.
Whenever it happened, I'm glad reality (the truth) finally set in. There was still a lot of work to do beyond that point. I had to figure out how to reduce my daily caloric intake. I had to figure out how to unwind the feelings I had wrapped around food.
But, I did it. So can you.