Obese 2
Ready for a 2nd helping on obesity?
This section on obesity is segmented into aspects I have learned about weight-control over the decades.
These include both caloric facts and emotional aspects that need to be reckoned with.
painting by wilke, or krimmel
"I deserve!!!"
A lot of gluttony is rooted in substitutionary behavior.
When we do one thing to make up for something
that we believe we deserve but aren't getting.
This is substitutionary behavior.
Over-doing anything depends on at least three factors:
1) How much of a commodity we actually need.
2) How much of that item we can afford without using credit.
3) How much attention we give that part of our lives without failing our other responsibilities.
This can apply to extra food, over-spending, seeking too much attention
having unjustified control of others...
Family Habits
Few things are harder to break than bad family habits.
I grew up in a family of smokers, and I began smoking at 14,
and it vexed me sorely until I gave it up at 27 years-old.
(I was up to three packs per day)
My dad wasn't a drinker, so alcohol had no special hold on me.
My dad was the 3rd of 10 kids, he quit school after 8th grade to help feed his siblings.
Food was always a source of pleasure in our family.
And obesity has always been in our family.
There is a difference between enjoying the food we need to eat,
and using food as a source of pleasure.
And we should appraise how much pleasure we expect out of life.
We should prioritize joy over pleasure.
If you don't know the difference between the two,
this is likely part of the problem.
Another point: When I quit smoking, I gained 30 pounds.
So, this is another factor in the equation...
photo: university of north Texas
A poor substitute...
In my younger foot-loose days, I ate a few meals from soup lines.
I used to go to 'Sally's' (Salvation Army) for lunch during those lean times.
that aren't being met elsewhere in their lives.
And like folks that need a real soup line, they're getting something to hold them over,
but they're not getting everything they really want.
Likewise, using food as a substitute for a different need -
it falls short of the real thing.
Food is not a substitute for love, or for married sex,
or for the baby that died,
or for the further education that was never pursued,
or for a happy, safe spouse,
or for a life that is as successful as a sibling's life.
Food is for an empty belly, and proof of God's provision to mankind.
That's it.
Don't try to milk your food for more than what God designed it to be.
A state fair food alley
Can't I have 1 solid pleasureto get me through life?
Beloved, legitimate pleasure doesn't kill people,
or cause them to lose their limbs to medical problems.
If the unceasing on-take of a pleasure physically threatens one's physical well-being,
then this pleasure isn't healthy to partake in.
If a behavior, like eating, is necessary, but can be deadly if overdone,
then we need to be careful not to over-do it, eh?
dieticians-online.blogspot.com
Plate Math:
A round plate has 78.5% of the space of a square plate of the same width.
A 10" square plate holds 100 square inches of food
A 10" round plate holds 78.5 square inches of food.
See how that works?
Those infected with the 'I deserve' mentality want to see their plate full. Period.
So, one bit of self-trickery is to use a smaller plate.
8.5" plate: 56.7 square inches.
10" plate: 78.5 square inches.
11" plate: 94.5 square inches.
12" plate: 113.0 square inches.
The 12" plate has 2wice the square area of the 8.5" plate.
I eat supper at home from an 8.5" plate.,
and try to limit myself to one helping, and then a modest dessert.
OBESE 2
Take a break....
Put your fork down between each bite.
Don't pick up the fork until you are through chewing and swallowing that bite.
This is what intentionally-lean people do.
but find you want to reload,
try taking a break of 5-10 minutes
then see how you feel about it.
And I almost always have dessert, but try to wait 15-30 minutes after supper.
And quit watching cooking shows. They truly are 'food-porn' for the obese.
Greens and sausage, or sausage and greens?
Rags to Riches
Let me show you a cultural tradition that intensifies obesity.
Poor people make meals differently from financially-abled people,
even when they use similar ingredients.
This photo is a pot of greens and sausage.
When money is tight, it is common to combine the meat, starches and vegetables in one pot.
That way, everyone gets a little bit of everything.
As years pass, or maybe generations later, the family has more money.
Now they can have individual meat servings in the meal.
What started out as a one-pot meal,
is now a pot of starches, a pot of vegetables and a platter of meat.
But people raised on greens, still get hungry for a mess of greens now and then.
But wait?!?
Why is there sausage in the greens?!?
If there is a platter of pork chops on the table,
Why does anyone need sausage in the greens?
That is two-helpings of calorie-dense meat.
Unhappy with me?
Am I messing with a cultural tradition?
Count the calories and do your own reckoning.
Perhaps Sausage and Greens without the separate platter of meat
for the occasional meal?
And...you could show your young 'uns how your kinfolk used to eat.
(Part of my family migrated to the Midwest from Appalachia,
so I'm not pokin' fun -
I'm talkin' the language of my older-timers that ate like this.)
OBESE 2
"I'm dieting, but I've hit a plateau,and can't seem to lose weight now."
Beloved, when a person's food intake, activity levels and weight are each consistent,
this means the person is eating just what they need to maintain that weight.
They are no longer dieting.
If we want to keep the weight off, we can't go back to old eating habits.
The way we eat when on the final plateau of our weight loss journey,
is how we need to eat the rest of our lives.
This is the new normal and there is no going back to the old ways of eating,
if we want to remain leaner than we used to be.
Learn to live on that plateau.
Diets fail because we want to revert to gluttony once the weight is gone.
It doesn't work like that.