Weight loss non-advice: your questions answered badly
Jul 29, 2009 Weight Loss
[I am NOT a nutritionist, doctor, nurse, or anything else that would give me any special knowledge about weight loss outside of my own experience. If you take anything I'm about to say as advice, you do it at your own risk and I take absolutely no responsibility. I'm a BLOGGER, and you should never take medical advice from a blogger, unless possibly that blogger is also a well-known doctor who has appeared repeatedly on Oprah. And even then, not sure you should. Just saying. To sum up: me, not responsible for anything you do.]
So I just got this email. Here it is in its entirety:
Hi,
How fast would you lose weight if you didn t eat?
I know you are probably very busy but I was hoping you could give me a couple pointers.
Any help would be appreciated. Thank you in advance.
yours truly,
Susan
Well Susan, first off, I’m wondering why you’re asking. Either you’re a smart-ass looking for a laugh at my expense, or you are so vain/depressed/desperate that you would risk your life to be thin. I suspect it’s the first one, but since I like math I’ll play along. I’ll even use myself as an example. But if it’s the second one, my friendly suggestion would be to get yourself to a psychiatrist as soon as possible. The fact that you’re even asking the question (if it’s a serious one) scares me.
Checking a few different websites with calorie calculators (just google “how many calories do I need calculator”), I’ve found that I need anywhere from 1,700 calories to 2,500 a day to maintain my weight. That’s a big range, but I’m guessing that if I were fasting in order to lose weight, I’d also be exercising and being active to help things along. So I’ll use the top of the range, 2,500 calories a day. One pound equals approximately 3,500 calories. So, if I fasted (voluntarily stopped eating) and drank only calorie-free water, I would stand to lose about 5 pounds per week, probably a lot more the first week as my body gets rid of all the extra water it’s been retaining due to sodium in the french fries, frozen dinners and canned soup I’m no longer eating. I’m guessing I could probably drop ten pounds just in water weight.
At that rate, I’d be at the absolute bottom of my goal weight in just a couple of months (probably too thin for my frame, actually). Of course, that probably would never happen, because I would most likely die first. I’ve seen estimates on how long an adequately-hydrated person can live without food, and they range anywhere from two weeks to six months , depending on many factors: the person’s weight when she started, how much energy she expels while fasting, her overall health before starting the fast, etc. But for most of us I’m guessing it would be towards the lower end with absolutely no food. The six month mention was for an extremely obese person, who had hundreds of pounds to lose.
So, there you have it, Susan. I have no idea how fast you would lose weight, because I have nothing but your name and your email address, and those don’t give me a clue as to your height, weight and activity level. But for me, it would be somewhere around five pounds a week until I died, or the starvation-induced delirium caused me to get involuntarily committed to a mental hospital, where they would probably give me a feeding tube or force me to eat. The only pointer I can reasonably give you is to eat healthy, don’t go below 1,200 calories a day, and figure out why it’s so important to you to lose weight so fast – again, the psychiatrist might come in handy.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
Tags: fasting, Weight Loss
Weight Loss Tuesday: Dr. Phil can’t help me lose weight
Jul 28, 2009 Weight Loss
I love Dr. Phil, and I agree with a lot of what he as to say (even if I often cringe at how he’s saying it). But I’ve never agreed with him on weight loss. I didn’t agree when I was thin, I didn’t agree when I was fat, and I still don’t agree with him now that I’m on my way back. And it all centers on will power.
Dr. Phil has said over and over on his show that if you want to lose weight, you can’t rely on will power. Instead, he pushes his guests to change their entire routines and environments in order to take the weight off. The house is emptied of junk food, the route to work is changed in order to not pass any tempting drive-thru restaurants. This has never made sense to me. For one thing, the foods that I really shouldn’t have much of if I want to lose weight are not necessarily bad foods. Some M&M’s are fine. Half a large bag is not. Cheese is great, as long as I don’t eat the entire package. Why in the world should I keep my family from eating foods that only seem to be making me fat, and why should I deprive myself of foods that are delicious?
And the McDonald’s Drive-Thru? It’s everywhere. I pass at least half a dozen on the way to camp each day to pick up my kids. Will power is the only thing stopping me from driving in every day and grabbing some fries for the road. So sure, if you were to put me in some kind of sterile environment where I didn’t have access to foods that can make me fat, I’m sure that I would come out thin. But I can’t live in that environment forever. Nor would I want to. I want to be able to have some dessert without binging. I want to be able to drive past McDonald’s and choose (most of the time, anyway) not to stop. And the free food? Oh my God, every press event I go to has delicious, free food – my weakness! But the thinner I get, the easier those decisions become.
I’ve often been tempted to join Nutri-System or some other program that would send me food, and as long as I ate that food I would lose weight. But then what? Do I have to eat that food forever? Losing weight isn’t easy, but neither is it hard. What it is, though, is a commitment from within, and changing the outside environment is a temporary fix. I need to be able to live and eat well in my world as it is. And my world is filled with fast food, and kids’ snacks, and the incredibly delicious pizza that’s one room away from me right now (and which is fine to eat as long as I stop at one or two pieces).
Did I eat more than I should have this past weekend in Chicago? Of course. But did I ever stuff myself? No. I did usually eat until I was very full, but I ate so much less than on any other recent out-of-town trip. It all basically boiled down to reminding myself that that wasn’t going to be my last chance to eat free food. That was it. Because I think I eat out of fear a lot of the time. Fear that the food won’t be there tomorrow. And really, convincing myself that I’m a grown-up who could go out and buy food whenever was not hard. So, I can be in the same room with chips and brownies and pasta and not just automatically go hog-wild.
Sorry, Dr. Phil. But I’ll be sure to call you when I catch my daughter pouring drain cleaner on my toothbrush.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
Tags: fast food, Weight Loss
Weight Loss Tuesday: I didn’t go crazy!
Jul 22, 2009 Weight Loss
This is going to be a short one, because I stayed out with friends until one in the morning and the laundry that I’m waiting to put in the dryer is minutes away from being done in the washer. So no recipe this week. Just this: I went out to dinner with a friend tonight and didn’t go crazy. That’s a big deal for me.
It’s not the first time it’s happened, but it’s rare. The last time, I was going out with someone else who is also dieting with My Food Diary, and that just made it so much easier to stay on track. But not this time. I made dinner plans this morning with a friend, and tried to eat as little as possible for the rest of the day. There’s no way it’s going to be a day of weight loss, but I think it might be a break even day, and I’ll take it. Because I went out with a friend and had a non-extreme dinner. A year ago, the only choices for me would have been to either not eat at all at the restaurant, or I would have just said “screw it” and pigged out. Tonight I did neither. Yes, I could have stopped after the first piece of spinach-ricotta-garlic pizza. But I did stop after the second, and wasn’t even tempted by the cheese and crackers that came out later. I ate like a normal person. It was a good feeling.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
Tags: pizza, Weight Loss
Would Twitter make me thinner or fatter?
Jul 19, 2009 Weight Loss
A weird thing played out on Twitter this morning that started with me tweeting out of a desire to delay working and ended with me eating a s’more for lunch that I didn’t even start out really wanting. My daughter went into a cupboard to get something and of course left it open. From where I was sitting at the dining room table I could clearly see marshmallows, Hershey’s Kisses, and graham crackers. So, I tweeted this:
I wasn’t really serious about making s’mores before lunch. Hell, not that much time had passed since breakfast. I wasn’t even hungry. But then almost immediately these tweets came in:
Followed by these:
And these:
So, even though my first tweet had just been to hear myself “talk” (as so many of them are), the idea of eating a s’more was now firmly rooted in my brain. I didn’t really want to have it. I mean, I did, but I knew I wasn’t hungry. So I sent this, hoping for a way out:
I’ve been chronicling my weight loss attempt for a while now, and I’ve always said that the only way that I can do it long term is by not giving up the things I like. I still eat ALL of the same foods that I did when I weighed 30lbs more than this. The keys for me have been not eating when I’m not hungry, weighing and measuring everything, and recording it all on My Food Diary. The past few years have shown me that I’m a slave to numbers and statistics. So, I do those three things and I’m halfway home.
But sometimes I get tired of counting and weighing and measuring and tracking. And for reasons that I just can’t figure out, if I’m not keeping track of calories, then my brain thinks it’s OK to stuff my face and eat s’mores when I’m completely full (of chocolate chip pancakes, no less – this was definitely not a matter of me feeling deprived). So, I used Twitter as my excuse. I hate to give up control, and yet this time I did it willingly. I got the ingredients out and starting assembling a nice big s’more: two full sheets of graham cracker, four big marshmallows, and six Hershey’s Kisses.
Then this tweet came in:
Sigh. That got me to stop, look at what I was doing, and put more than half of the ingredients back, leaving one graham cracker, one marshmallow, and two Hershey’s Kisses. Twitter had given, and Twitter had taken away (at least partially). It was about 130 calories, not bad for a snack. But still, not one I would have eaten if I hadn’t been on Twitter.
As I was eating my little s’more, I started to think about what had transpired. Did my tweeps have my best interest in mind? I tweeted about the ingredients sans context. Would the response have been different if I had started by saying that there was a dress I wanted to fit into for BlogHer and wasn’t there yet? Or were my tweeps living vicariously through me, the way I encourage other people to spend money recklessly? Or, like me, were they just bored?
So I’m going to do an experiment. I’ll be counting calories Monday-Wednesday this week (I usually do it six or seven days a week, but it’s just too hard when traveling). I’m NOT going to let the twitterverse decide what I eat, since a) I’m way too picky, and b) I know what I need to eat in order to be reasonably satisfied and lose weight. But what I am going to do for the next three days is rely on my tweeps for back-up, encouragement, or a way out. If the general consensus seems to be that a size 14 woman is fine, and I should just eat what I want to stay this way (even though I’m stating in no uncertain terms that I want to lose another 30-40lbs), so be it. If the consensus is that it would be great if I looked better and thinner and I get loads of encouragement, fantastic.
Does the twitterati think that I should stick to my guns and do what I mean to do, or will the masses decide that I should just relax and not worry about it? Will my tweeps ultimately let me off the hook? And if so, will it be because they’re telling me what they think is best, or some other motive?
Then, of course, there’s this possibility: that my lifelong problem with authority will rear its ugly head, it will all be too much, and I’ll say “Screw you, Twitter, you don’t control me!” Where’s the line between encouraging someone, and telling them what to do in such a way that they want to do the exact opposite?
If I know you (online, at least), your tweets will have more weight in my brain. I know, for example, that @JessicaGottlieb is a good 8-10 sizes smaller than I am. If someone else had tweeted exactly what she had, I may very well have eaten the big s’more.
This won’t be a group of people deciding democratically what I eat. I don’t have the stomach for that, literally or figuratively. But in this new world of online peer pressure, I’m curious whether Twitter will help me or hurt me, or even help me redefine what success for me even means.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
Tags: BlogHer, tweetloss, Twitter, Weight Loss
Weight Loss Tuesday: Weight solutions do not solve other problems
Jul 15, 2009 Recipes, Weight Loss
Living the good life, fat or thin
I’ve had a good life for the past 18 years, even though my weight has been up and down during that time. I met a great guy, went to college, did a great internship, traveled around South America, moved down south, got married, moved to NYC, messed around with an acting career, had two kids, started blogging. In that time my weight has varied as much as 87lbs. That’s like one entire Olsen twin.
If I’ve learned one thing, it’s that my happiness is not tied to my weight. I will admit that I seem to lose weight easier when I’m happy and organized and other parts of my life are working for me, but it doesn’t work the other way around: being thin did not make me happy. The only possible exception to that would be when I’m actually in a dressing room or packing for a trip. But that’s temporary and fades when I finally find something that fits.
I’m not sure I believe the experts who say that all weight problems are emotional problems. I don’t know why I seem to be losing weight right now when for years I didn’t. It’s not that easy to sort out. But I do know one thing for absolute sure: anything that I’m unhappy with in my life right now would not change if I magically lost 40lbs tomorrow. I would just be a thin person with problems instead of a fat person with problems. And I’d probably eat the weight back on.
So, if I’m already happy and have a great life, why do I want to lose weight? Well, like I already mentioned, it’s more fun to buy clothes and pack for trips and get dressed up for special events when I’m thin. Also, I’ve been getting my picture taken a lot lately, and some of them have just been hideous. I know from experience I’m more likely to look good in pictures from every angle when I’m thin. And I also want to get back into acting and other on-camera stuff, and Oh My God, it is just not a profession for anyone with extra weight.
So, I’ve got some vain reasons and some practical ones. But notice that not one of those reasons is “to be happy.” It doesn’t work that way. Don’t confuse the real problems in your life with a weight problem. Losing the weight will not cause you to lose your real problems. In fact, it might make them worse, when you come to the hard realization that getting thin didn’t solve them. Lose weight because you want to be healthier. Lose weight because you want to look better. Lose weight because you want to feel better about yourself. Hell, lose weight to fit into a pretty dress if that really motivates you enough. But don’t lose weight to lose your other problems.
Recipe: Zucchini Parmesan Hummus
And now, since I seem to be including a recipe with each of these posts, here you go: I made this for the first time a few days ago. It was delicious, easy, and hearty.
My friend Jenny Jennie posted this recipe for Zucchini Parmesan Hummus on her fantastic blog, and since I just happened to have all of the ingredients in my kitchen, I made it (don’t tell her I used lemon juice from one of those plastic lemons, though). Having neither a food processor nor a blender right now, I tried to do it with a hand mixer. Not only did this method not mix the ingredients together, it actually proved to be a handy way of shooting chick peas in all directions at a high rate of speed. So I went at the mixture with a potato masher, and when I could do no more, I switched back to the hand mixer. It worked pretty well. There were still some chunks of chick pea, and the zucchini’s skins did not mush up at all, but the flavors blended very nicely.
I decided to use only 1 tablespoon of olive oil instead of 3, but it was a really pungent oil and the taste came through beautifully. I’m sure it would be all that much better with three times the oil (what wouldn’t?) but it just wasn’t necessary considering I’m trying to eat fewer calories. I toasted up some whole wheat pita and had about half of the hummus recipe for lunch. The entire recipe was about 540 calories, but half of it eaten with the pita was a good meal – I was full!
Thanks very much to Jenny for coming up with a recipe that brings some of my most favorite ingredients together in one dish!
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
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Tags: emotional eating, Weight Loss, Zucchini Parmesan Hummus Recipe
