Musings on Moderation

I believe moderation is a good thing.  I am not very good at practicing it.  When I'm in to something, I am all in.  When I am excited about something, it is my primary topic of conversation.  When I don't care for something, I avoid it completely.  Extending this mindset to weight loss, I'm either on a 'diet' or not.  In trying to practice a little more moderation in all areas of my life, I have come to some realizations in the weight loss piece as well.

Mainly, that my goal now is to lose weight.  Silly isn't it?  Not exactly.  I am not setting a goal to lose two pounds a week, or even just one pound per week as I understand many physicians are touting now.  Nope.  My goal is to lose weight from one week to the next no matter how large or small.

This change in mindset did not come about overnight.  Although, I have wanted to moderate in my weight loss efforts for some time, I was afraid to.  I had an event coming up and couldn't risk it for one.  But mostly my all or nothing thinking had me concerned that if I loosened up at all, I'd just pig out.  

So, I began to think about my likes and dislikes in food and eating plans.  I also began to think about my lifestyle and what would be reasonable.  Some of my conclusions:

• I grow weary of counting stuff.  No matter what it is.  I don't want to weigh and measure every bite and decide how many points, calories, carbs, fat grams, etc are involved.
• Counting stuff feeds my perfectionistic tendencies, if 1200 calories is good, then 1000 is better, and 800 would be even better.
• My household at this time, seems to have a revolving door of guests.  This is a good thing and a goal for which 65MD and I have longed for some time.  It is not, however, conducive to strict eating plans.
• Right now, I have no major events on the horizon.  No weddings, graduations, etc for which there will be pictures made.  The closest thing is my birthday in August.
• I know what good food choices are and are not.
• I believe I will be happy with a slow loss.  (I think a slow, steady loss will be faster in the long run, since I bounce up and down the scales so much.)

I have decided that my eating will center around lean protein and green vegetables.  That won't be hard.  I eat that way most of the time now.  I will allow myself one fruit per day, but harking back to my issue with counting stuff, I'm not going to be militant about it.  If there is watermelon in the house and I want more than a cup, I'll eat it.  White bread, white potatoes and other starchy vegetables will be severely limited.  There aren't many of this type of food in my house anyway.  Sweets will be limited to special occasions only, like my birthday in August.  I'll continue to drink water.  I like it so that is almost a non-issue.

I will monitor my weight closely, at least in the beginning to ensure that my plan is working.  I've been doing this since July 1.  So far, I've lost 0.4 lbs.  I think this is the right thing for me.  I feel like I am ready to relax the rules a little bit and get on with life.  I probably needed the strict parameters for this time to develop better habits.  I'll know soon enough if that is true.