From: crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu (Lauren L. Crawford)
Newsgroups: alt.support.diet
Subject: Re: Diet Methods
Date: 6 Nov 92 15:12:19 GMT
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

In article <9210@blue.cis.pitt.edu.UUCP> jsl+@pitt.edu (John S Lundberg) writes:

>I'm really convinced that each individual has to find an approach that
>works for him or her.  

Amen to that.

>I think there are three broad categories of "dieting."  Category A is
>simply learning to stop overeating behaviors that are clearly "wrong."
>An example of this would be eating a entire pizza or bag of cookies.
>Category B dieting is reduction of calories substantially below one's
>metabolic requirements to induce the body to use its stores of fat
>for energy.  Category C dieting is modifying the mixture of foods one
>eats to reduce fats, increase fiber, etc., without necessarily
>adopting a daily caloric intake below metabolic requirements.

Interesting.  At the moment, I'm in what you refer to as category A; as
I've mentioned here in this group, I'm cutting out the overeating, period.
I'm only eating when I'm hungry.  I find that I'm choosing foods that are
also good for me and not terribly high fat most of the time.  My goal is a
healthy body, and that's probably why I'm making those choices.

I thought I'd weigh myself this morning, one and a half weeks into this,
just to see if there had been any weight loss.  I'm down 6 pounds!  I
didn't expect it to be that much, although I did feel a bit thinner.  So
I'm very encouraged and feel I'm going in the right direction.  Now I'll
have to fight that old scale problem and not weigh myself constantly
again, just keep plugging away with the new eating style.

I find the most important thing for me as I eat is to remain conscious.  I
can't slip into automatic pilot; if I do, I'll overeat.  If I focus on the
eating, I find myself hitting a point of satiation pretty quickly and
realizing that I'm not hungry and don't need to keep eating.  This means I
no longer read or watch TV when I eat.  There may come a time when I'll be
able to do those things while eating again, but not right now.  

It's incredible to be able to eat a few bites of pizza and then quit.  Or
one cookie.  A few spoonfuls of ice cream.  And not feel compelled to go
on eating the whole thing just because it's there.  This is _very_ new
behavior for me.  

>In the
>past I never had the luxury of "adapting" my diet:  I had made
>a plan and I had to stick to it or else it was a FAILURE.  There
>is only one thing that I would consider a failure and that is
>a return to extreme overeating behaviors.  And IF that happens
>I simply go back to "A" until I get under control and then resume.

Yeah, I really agree.  The whole concept of diet failure is really
destructive, I think.  It's one of the main reasons I'm just not willing
to diet again at this point, maybe ever.


-- 
The trick of reason is to get the imagination to seize the actual world --
if only from time to time.     -- Annie Dillard, "An American Childhood"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lauren Crawford  //  crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu
Xref: sparky alt.support.diet:2633 sci.med.nutrition:1256