Solving the puzzle

Question
Hi Laurie,

I am 53, a non-smoker, 5-11, about 265 lbs, and the heaviest I've ever been.

I know proper nutrition.  I understand a low-fat, high-fiber diet, and I like all the foods in such a diet.  In fact, there isn't any foods I don't like.

I've done Weight Watchers before, lost a lot of weight and even almost reached my goal, but then slowly went back to my old ways.  When I was doing weight watchers, I actually found it easy to do, and the weight came off fast.

As I'm writing this, I'm trying to put my finger on what it is that keeps me from eating healthy.  Here's what I know.

I love food, and I love variety.

When I am hungry, I love to eat large quantities of whatever it is that we're having.  I'll eat mine, then whatever my wife didn't eat, and then my daughter's leftovers.  The entire time I'm eating, I know that it's not good for me, but my desire to do it is too strong.  Sometimes I think I probably know what it's like to be a drug addict, except my drug is food.  I can wake up in the morning with a confidence and knowing that I could simply go through every meal from that day forward, eating the proper foods in proper proportions, and that my excess weight would come off in no time, and that I would live the rest of my years eating properly and having a weight in proper proportion to my height.  But by lunch, I have this irresistible drive to go to one of my favorite places and eat too much of the kind of food that has gotten me in this predicament.

I know that when I was younger, single, and more active, I would gain an extra 20 or 30 pounds from eating too many Chinese or barbecue buffets, but then I could diet for three or four months and lose it.  The more strict the diet, the better I did with it.  It seems to me that when a diet has a lot of options and variety, I have a much more difficult time with it.  One such strict diet that I used in the past was to simply eat an apple for breakfast, a plain baked potato with some steamed broccoli and a steamed chicken breast for lunch, and then the same thing for supper with lots of water in between. Then I might have another apple for a snack in the evening.  That would be it.

I've tried figuring out what works for me.  I even went to a hypnotist once.  He said that until I could understand why I over eat, I would never be able to stop.  He's probably right, but I honestly don't know why I do it except to say that I like doing it.  I get hungry, and I just love food.  I just don't like what it does to me.

I often look at my two cats.  We feed them nothing but Science Diet dry cat food.  Sometimes I think that if there was a human food that was simply a bag of dry kibbles, that had all the nutrition a human needs, and all you needed to do would be to eat a cup in the morning, a cup at lunch, and a cup in the evening, that I could break myself from eating for fun.  I wish I could change so that I only ate because of hunger, not because it tastes good, and that I would stop as soon as the hunger went away.

I want to say that I do have some restraint.  I could easily eat all the time.  I'm always attracted to food.  If I wanted to just let myself go, I know I could easily be one of those three, four, or even five hundred pound people you occasionally see.  I enjoy eating that much.  But as much as I enjoy it, I would say it's not all consuming for me.

On a few occasions when I've been sick, I have lost my appetite completely for several days.  I would make myself eat, just because I knew my body needed nutrition, but I didn't derive the normal enjoyment out of it.  I remember thinking to myself; "Man, I wish I could bottle this feeling (of having no appetite.)"

I want to start dieting again, but I need something get me going.  It's almost as if I need to detoxify myself from the way I've been eating before I start with a sensible diet.

So I have a few questions for you.

Is there anything I can take, or eat, or do that would help reduce my appetite?

Are there over-the-counter (and therefore less expensive) liquid diets that have the same nutritional value as a physician supervised liquid diet like Optifast?

If you had to plan a day's worth of meals for someone like me that would bring about weight loss, but which also had the least amount of variety, yet contained the minimal amount of nutritional requirements, what would that be?

Do you have any other thoughts or suggestions?

Thank you for your help.

Answer
Dear Joe,

It sounds like you've been giving this a lot of thought. And that means you are one step closer to acting on it, and that's the good news :)

I'll try to answer your questions one at a time.

First of all, it's good that you know Weight Watcher's worked for you. Many people go on and off their plan several times in their life. If you know it worked before, chances are it will work again. Think back to when you were on it and what the situation was.... chances are you were READY to make eating right a PRIORITY. And that has to be in place for long term success.

If eating set meals without variety worked for you, that's a great option as well. Your simple meal plan looks good. I would probably give it a little more variety, like "fish, rice and carrots" for dinner and probably whole-grain toast for breakfast with the apple (maybe even some cottage cheese or yogurt as well). Maybe a smoothie for an evening snack that is made from frozen fruit and skim milk. This would give you more of the food groups so you can stay on the diet for a long time without a significant risk of vitamin or calcium deficiency.

Second of all, there are some great meal replacement diets like Jenny Craig and NutriSystem and SlimFast. The problem is, what do you do once you've lost the weight--do you want to eat on this program forever? With weight watcher's it's easy to stay on the rest of your life. With meal replacements it might be a shorter-term fix. Or even a kick-start if you feel this would help motivate you and get you away from food for a while--there's some truth to that working.

I don't believe there is any reason to figure out why you overeat. It doesn't help you move ahead. If you really keep trying to lose weight and end up sabotaging yourself, it could help to find a counselor and see if there's something underlying that could be worked out.  But basically most humans love to eat (just as animals do!) It's this drive that keeps our species from going extinct. And the more calories are in the food, the more we crave it. Because our bodies still work like cavemen---eat as many calories as you can because you don't know where the next meal is coming from. Only, nowadays food is too abundant. We still think "keep eating in case there is no more" and then there is always more, every hour of the day, whether we're getting gas for the car or visiting a friend in the hospital--there is food everywhere tempting us. So that's why you overeat!

Third, there are some appetite suppressants available by prescription now, so you might want to talk to your physician about them. Again, it may be a short term fix. And if you are very serious about wanting to lose weight but not having the control you want, you might look into some of the weight-loss surgeries such as the Realize Band (which is less invasive than stomach-stapling). Here's an article about it http://www.mylifestylediet.com/blog/diet-news/the-realize-band-a-method-of-surgi... This is a site that has more articles and information you might be interested in.

If you like books and are self-motivated, consider "The Beck Diet Solution". A client of mine told me about it, then I heard Dr. Beck speak, and now I am reading her program and I must say it is fantastic. You can probably check it out from the library if you just wanted to take a look.

And, finally, if you would like professional support, I am a registered dietitian certified in Adult Weight Management and I see private clients as a diet coach. We talk 3 or 4 times a month, email in between, help you figure out what will motivate you to lose weight, and work on road blocks as they arise. You can read more at my website, http://www.mycoachlaurie.com and email me from there with any questions as well. I would be happy to set up an introductory 15 minute call with no obligation just to answer your questions and concerns!

You sound like you are really ready to make a change and so I encourage you to keep looking and keep trying things out and set a date to start your new healthy eating lifestyle :)

Let me know what you end up doing and how it's going!

Laurie

1. Prev:follow up to answer
2. Next:energy levels