I’m almost as happy about having been correct yesterday as I am about being down three pounds in a week. This morning I weighed-in at 265, which is 22 pounds in 17 weeks. Being firmly back on the plan and emotionally in-control of what I eat makes all the difference.
But I don’t discount the extra coffee I’m drinking either. Fighting sleep-deprivation with a three-week -old in the house is a real concern. Maybe I’ll start a new fad diet: “Shed pounds NOW with the NEW No-Sleep Plan!”
(I’m kidding. Unless somebody wants to pay me to write a No-Sleep Diet book, in which case, I’m open to the discussion.)
I would have been happy to get back to 267 this week, but I’m thrilled the correction in my thinking (leading to the correction on my plate) worked as well as it did. The plateau is in my rear-view, and … for now … I’m rollin’ downhill.
—
Related to my own struggle with weight, and worth sharing with you, are the ongoing discussions my lovely wife and I have about our sprightly daughters and their current and future relationship to food. Raising daughters to be happy and healthy in their own skins is tough business. I don’t want to get too far off on this tangent, because it is it’s own topic, but it’s daunting to think about the horrible, unhealthy messages they’re going to face about food, weight and body-image in general.
Part of the problem is that, as a society, we no longer share a definition of what it means to eat healthy. My lovely wife and our daughters’ pediatrician agree on a definition, and it’s essentially what I espouse here on this blog – the Michael Pollan “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants” ideal – but away from home? It seems like everybody ha a different idea of what the phrase “healthy eating” is supposed to mean.
For some people, it means “eat whatever you want, but be very concerned about how much of it you eat.” For others it conveys the dreaded, “fat free” concept. For most school lunch planners it apparently means “PIZZA!”
Candy is a reward nearly everywhere for kids. Everywhere but our house, that is. Which is going to confuse the hell out of my daughters as they spend more time away from home. If the reward for achievement at school (or pre-school) is sweets, and we don’t do that at home, do they perceive (subtly) that they’re not being rewarded at home?
Some of you will shake your head and think, “he worries too much.” Some of you will think, “well, he just needs to be clear with the people his kids are around about what he means.” Would that either of those things were that easy. I do worry about it a lot. Because, if you haven’t noticed, we’re in kind of an obesity epidemic. Somebody’s got to worry about it, and it ain’t gonna be the schools.
I’m not looking for answers on this topic. But I know many of you share the concern. And if you don’t share it, and you have kids (or grandkids), I want to shake you up.
Skipping Dessert 