Pizza, Indian Curry, and WATER

Fads are bad, fads are bad, fads are bad.  Right?

It's true.  The faddier a diet, the less successful it usually is.  I've proven this true with lots of them.  Carb-Addict's (though I'm absolutely a carb-addict by their definition...), The Zone, South Beach, Atkin's, Cabbage Soup, blah blah blah.  Those are a few I've done, with initial results that turned into even more pounds gained after I fell off the wagon.

The permanent lifestyle change-thing is the only real way to go, but it's one thing to say it - quite another to DO it, permanently.  I know we're supposed to figure out our own personal food triggers; the reasons WHY we over-eat, or why we're emotional eaters, etc. etc.  I eat when I'm bored, I eat when I'm stressed, I eat when I'm depressed, I eat when I'm happy.  I eat whenever, whatever, wherever.  I LOVE TO EAT.  I love food, and I always have.  Thoughts of food and cooking and baking and grocery shopping infuse every aspect of my life.  I understand that as human beings, we can't exactly get away from this...we have to either eat or die.  But I still know plenty of people who don't obsess the way I do.

Somehow I've lost 5 pounds (according to my scale) in the past 48 hours.  I still document the calories in every bite I eat, so out of stunned curiosity, I read my last two days' lists.  I guess I'm not shocked to discover that yesterday, I was so busy that I literally forgot to eat; at least as often as I normally do.  The other thing was that the items I actually DID eat were extremely healthy, rather than on-the-fly, portable crap food.  I grabbed water bottles instead of pops, and I heated up some Indian curry-spiced "chili" and ate it before taking the teenager to the mall in the evening - which eliminated my craving for Pretzel Time and liquid cheese.  I came home, drank a cup of tea rather than eating anything more, and voila! - down five pounds since Monday morning.  

This is bizarre, but it has made me want to dust off one of my old methods of weight-loss, which I'm almost never disciplined enough to do over a sustained period of time:  Only Eat When I'm Truly Hungry.

Don't laugh.  This is REALLY tough to do.  Food is everywhere; food events never stop.  I NEVER pass up the opportunity to eat when others around me are eating, whether I'm hungry or not.  But I have to say...this is probably the single greatest piece of diet-lifestyle-changing advice I've ever tried.  

I try to add one more thing to that advice when I'm trying to drop pounds:  At the first sign of a hunger pang, I do what the books say you should do - drink a tall glass or 20-oz. bottle of ice-cold water.  Supposedly, the colder your drinking water, the more calories you burn trying to warm it up in your stomach.  OK, I guess that's logically sound.  The other thing I do is, after drinking that water, I ask myself:  Are you so hungry that you HAVE TO eat something RIGHT NOW?  Or can you wait 30 minutes?  Or even an hour?  When I do this, every time I feel a little hunger pang, I obviously stretch my eating out more over the course of the entire day, and I consume far less calories over-all simply because the day ends, and I run out of time to eat anything more!  Try it ladies, it really works!!!  

P.S.  Note on PIZZA:  I crave pizza more than anything when I'm limiting my fun foods.  So now I'm eating a Lean Cuisine mushroom pizza almost every day, which is only 300 calories, and they totally help me feel less deprived!  They're great - and I feel like I'm cheating the Diet Gods with this indulgence.

P.P.S.  I have succeeded in giving up POP - regular AND diet.  I am only drinking COLD water, fridge-brewed fruit-flavored ice teas with a teaspoon of sugar, a variety of hot teas (Lipton black, Lady Grey, honey-lemon green tea, white tea...), lime or black cherry-flavored mineral water (aaccckkk), and random cups of coffee if I'm dragging.  Anyone who knows me understands that this is the single-most amazing accomplishment of my entire life.