Scale It Down

"We", throughout this site, really means all of us who keep fighting the battle of the bulge. And 'keep fighting', is the key point here. Because if we didn't have any fight left in us, we sure as hell wouldn't be continually looking for resolve on the matter of weight.

The point of the many ideas and suggestions posted across this site, is to help trigger your own minds into figuring out what it is you need to do and how to think differently about losing and maintaining your weight. If you want daily diet menus and structure, then by all means follow that road. Butt what we found was that all the pre-printed diets plans and methods in the world can't get beyond the obstacles of real life. And those obstacles, ( i.e. the daily stress from lifestyle, work, family, and of course any mental barriers you have in place), are exactly why it's so important to figure out what will work for you in your life. Our method of weight loss came down to doing 2 things: losing weight slowly and redefining the way we ate and exercised along the way. Sounds boring, right? Boring, maybe; simple, definitely; effective; definitely! What motivated us, may not motivate you, but if you stop and think twice about what will - that's what counts. Once that light bulb goes off in your head, the possibilities for successful change are endless.

Redefining the way you eat and approach food is easier than you think. We started with a general healthy guideline, from which we added to it everything we could get away with whenever possible. That's what Everyday Eats is all about. In reality what you will be doing is designing your own menu scheme. Make it simple, by all means. Simple, is what works. For example, if you loosely structure your daily dietary goals to include 3 fruits, 4 vegetables and a protein or 2, eat with the intention of accomplishing that. Add in the minimum 64 oz. water intake, some exercise and you've got a diet. We found this attitude of mind much easier to maintain than trying to follow daily menus made up of 3 oz. of this and ½ C of that with 2 rye crisps on the side. Who has the time, energy or foresight to eat in such increments? And where, besides your own home, can you possibly accomplish and control these types of servings? The point is, if you go out to Mickey D's for lunch, have a shaker salad or Happy Meal and be done with it. If you're at home and you want to have some protein - eat a yogurt, hard boiled egg or a Buddig sandwich and have a vending sized bag of chips. Why not? If you can get those 3 fruits, 4 vegetables and proteins in with other portion controlled goodies while you stay within the calorie boundaries you set for yourself, we say, ABSOLUTELY, why not!? When you set the parameters you can live with, the likelihood of following them is absolute.

We firmly believe that, Control is the Goal. Weight loss is the stepping stone to weight control. There's a billion dollar + weight loss industry out there who's counting on you to focus all of your efforts upon weight loss, because they know that if you only do that, you'll keep coming back for more. Our one wish would be to change their mindsets and yours - to refocus and concentrate on weight management. And to all those corporations out there, from Thigh Master to Slimfast, we say, revise your marketing programs to make weight loss one part of a billion dollar weight control industry.

There is something to be said about the aftermath of an event - of a goal attained. The thrill is in the road you climb getting there and then suddenly, once you're there, the thrill is gone. This is precisely the moment when it is paramount that you switch from the mindset of losing lbs. to controlling them. The point where you rethink what your daily menus should and shouldn't include, how much exercise you need to keep in your week and develop a cognizant mental system for bouncing back from bad food days - immediately! You will be able to eat differently when you're not trying to lose weight, but it's at this very point when your success (maintaining your new weight loss levels) will be determined by your continued behavior.

After the loss, we assumed it wouldn't last too long. Why would it? It never stayed lost before. Talk about sabotaging your own good intentions. Then we decided, okay, I'll ride this slimmed down train as long as it's in the cards for me. (Obviously, still not the right mindset to have.) Then, after the first 90 days, it occurred to us that we hadn't gained any weight back. How did that happen? Reflecting back, years later now, it was quite a natural transition.

Having lost the weight with all the ideals and methods described in this site, we were actually in training all along for weight control. By figuring out how we could lose weight without the mentality of the diet denial files, we'd actually been setting ourselves up for continued success the whole time. The only things we did differently was to adjust the total daily calorie intake up from a losing mode to a maintenance amount and decrease the number of times we exercised down to 4 times a week. What a concept! Increased calories and decreased exercise. If we'd known that was going to be the end result of going on a diet, we would have taken that road years ago. It really does all come down to how you think about things.

Once you reach your desired weight, you become a thin person - believe it or not! And that is a whole new ball game to deal with. For the first six months after we lost weight, we doubted this very fact, over and over again. Every time we received a gift of clothing in the "new" size, we didn't believe it would fit. Every time we tried on clothes, we took a larger back up size in with us to the dressing room - just in case. Every time we looked into the mirror we expected to see the larger image of ourselves. When you've spent the majority of your life in the double digit sizes, it's inconceivable that you'd ever be capable of donning a pair of pants with a single sized digit on the waistband tag.

It soon became evident that Mr. 8 was here to stay. YIKES! What do we do now? The most important thing was to get all those thoughts about his departure out of mind and out of our minds quickly. If you get what you concentrate on, than we most certainly had to devote ourselves to the new guy in our closet and build from there. Once you truly see yourself as you are, you will see your way to either the need for change or the need to sustain.

The Jean-O-Meter is a weekly (at the bare minimum) must. In fact, you don't need a scale as long as you consistently try your jeans on. If you fit into your jeans, you're in weight control mode - that's assuming you didn't have to lie down on the bed to zip them up. Understand that your maintenance check must be done with jeans. They're unforgiving and indestructible. We say this because we had a few set backs during the first year of loss when we ignored this fact and started wearing other Mr. 8's in our closet. NEVER again. We soon found out that all those nice pants and skirts we were wearing had LYCRA in them. LYCRA stands for: Losing Your Control Regarding Asses. The morale of the story is: try those jeans on at least once a week, even if you're not going to actually wear them!

Getting over the shock of your new self is half the battle. The other side of the coin is realizing, now that you're a thin person, you can stop despising other thin people and understand that you have come to live in the place where they have been all along - the ever elusive Kingdom of Thindom. As an inhabitant here, you now know that thin people understand their limitations when it comes to food - they know what to watch out for and they now how to compensate for food abuse, when it occurs. They also know how to eat pizza and ice cream without gaining weight. Imagine that! Now, you can.

photo courtesy of Jack Spratt
Think Thin, strike a dorky pose and SMILE!

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