How I Lose Weight—Part I: General Principles

I tend to gain weight when I’m stressed, so I’ve had to develop a strategy for losing the weight again when the stress goes back down. There are too many diet plans out there anyway, but here’s what works for me.

General Principles
1. Don’t make yourself unhealthy to make yourself look good! Therefore, no pills, no powders, no crazy, nutritionally unsound diets. The Harvard food pyramid seems sound and unaffected by special interest groups (e.g., cattle ranchers) or a desire to sell a quick, easy diet as the “next big thing.”



Definitely check out their website for more information.
Harvard Food Pyramid

2. Also, don’t try to lose weight too fast. It’s stressful on you and it’s stressful on your body. In fact, if you lose weight very, very fast, you may develop gallstones and have to have your gallbladder surgically removed! Furthermore, crash diets, don’t really teach you how to eat. A sound diet for slow weight loss can easily be tweaked into a maintenance diet. If your diet basically consists of “swear off food”, then after the diet you will probably go back to the old ways of eating that made you gain excess weight in the first place.

Personally, crash diets are not an option to me because my body is sensitive to low blood sugar. I can handle a little hunger but nausea, weakness, and stupidity don’t work for me.

3. Accept and manage your hunger. You’re going to be hungry. Not very hungry, but a little hungry. Because healthy weight loss is a long process, you’re going to be hungry for a long time. Even after you switch to maintenance, you may not be hungry, but you will have to deny yourself some. Your body has already proven that it likes more cookies or cakes or cheese or crackers or whatever your weakness is than is really good for you, so you are going to have to get used to saying “No,” or “Okay, but just a little bit”.

A book I read on natural childbirth pointed out what seems to me to be a very useful concept, namely, that there is a difference between pain and suffering. If you are in control of your pain, you do not suffer from it—it’s just an annoyance or a reminder that you are doing the difficult work necessary to achieve your goals. When you feel that pain is out of your control, you suffer. Remember that, while hunger is painful, it is also a sign that you are in control.

[Note: this is a dangerous concept, as many eating disorders arise from an effort to control one’s life and an addiction to the “pain = control” concept. Before you start on the dieting path, be on the lookout for this particular addiction. If you find that being in control of everything you put in your mouth is becoming more important to you than your health, please discuss it with someone who has your best interests at heart.]

4. Try to diet out of self-love, not self-hatred. Dieting is hard work, and it’s very hard to summon the mental energy if you’re berating yourself over the size of your tummy. Instead, remind yourself of your positive qualities—including the physical ones. Also, try to pick a time when you have the mental energy to do this hard work--no time is perfect, but the day your dog died is probably not the best day to start a diet. Sometimes, it's just better to be kind to yourself and wait for the storm to pass or the wounds to heal.

5. The first week is the hardest.

Next post: more specific tips.