The Zen of Calories

Part Fourteen: Boredom

The Middle Third

In crossing a wide expanse, say a desert or an ocean — or the wide expanse of seventy-five pounds to lose — the middle third always seems the hardest.

You’ve definitely lost sight of the coast you left, and your port of call is way beyond the onward horizon. It’s just you out there, walking, rowing, or sailing, and it’s the same walking, rowing, or sailing day in and day out, and then some more of the same. And then some more.

Poster child for boring.

This can get to the point where any change is welcome, even if that change gains you a pound or two, just to break the monotony.

Change

They say change is the spice of life, which may well be true, but with 40 pounds lost and 35 to go, you have to realize that numbers don’t lie, and that change might be the last thing you should indulge in at this point.

It’s axiomatic that what works does work, and if you have managed to drop forty pounds over four months, you have been doing something (or many things) right. To continue this success, you must continue to do what worked, not something new or something else no matter how much variety cries out to be heard and taken into account.

Isolate What Works

If staying the precise course is simply too painfully boring, and you must alter something, then ensure that you don’t alter anything that my adversely affect your success to date. In other words, don’t touch the things that work.

To do that, you need accurately to assess what these things are.

One recent long-distance dieter reports that she, day in and day out, keeps her calorie intake between 1,300–1,500 calories a day by eating a low-calorie protein bar for breakfast, and then drinking two low-calorie nutrition drinks a day, one to supplement the breakfast bar, and one as lunch.

To reach her calorie range she then eats a pre-packaged low-calorie meal for dinner.

As for burning calories, she exercises 30 minutes a day.

Also, she weighs herself every day to keep a close check on progress.

Day in. And day out.

But this day in and day out application of the First Law of Thermodynamics (1LTD) has lost her 53 pounds so far. This fact can (but must not) get lost in the scramble for variety.

Don’t Change What Works

Isolating what has worked, she sees: her daily calorie intake ranges between 1,300–1,500, and as for burning the darn things, she exercises 30 minutes each day. That’s the working principle that must not, for any reason, nor under any circumstances, be altered.

The two daily drinks help a lot, she realizes that, and they’re actually quite tasty, so no need to mess with those.

She likes plotting her weight daily, so no need to change that either.

But the pre-packaged dinners are really getting to her: they taste more and more like plastic with each spin of the planet. True, they are convenient, and they do come with a full calorie declaration, facilitating the counting and staying within the range, but these benefits are less and less worth the cost of boredom.

So, change them.

Tuning What Works

One workable approach, with several benefits — and which can be seen as tuning what works, rather than changing it — is to replace pre-packaged dinners with low calorie meals prepared and cooked from scratch. And as long as this meal keeps you within your calorie range, a freshly cooked meal will in all likelihood be more nutritious than something prepackaged.

Additionally, and many have observed this rather curious phenomenon, the act of preparing something from scratch — the cutting, the slicing and dicing, the measuring, the stirring and baking — in and of itself provides a nourishing contentment. It’s as if the moment you begin to prepare the meal, the hunger pangs ease and go away, seeing now that food is on its way.

And here is where you can introduce as much change as you please. As long as you stay within the calorie range, experiment to your heart’s content. Document successes (to revisit) as well as failures (to avoid) and become your own best culinary friend.

Those who have tried this swear that it makes the middle third easier to travel. And once you’re over the middle third, well, you can see the harbor from there, and that makes all the difference.

© Wolfstuff