How to Lose Weight

Wednesday, May 10, 2006 (Original Post)

How to Lose Weight

If you have read my first two posts, How to Quit Smoking and How to Quit Drinking, and other Bad Things, you already know how to lose weight, more or less.

1.  One must desire to lose weight.
2.  One must find a way to see depriving oneself of one’s comfort foods not as depriving oneself of something but as rewarding oneself.
3. One must, on losing the weigh desired, see oneself as a non-eater, not an ex-eater.

There is a little problem with my 3-step plan, as you will have noticed.  I complained once to a friend about how much trouble I was having dieting whereas I had quit smoking and drinking with ease.  She responded, “Well, you don’t have to smoke to live or drink to live but you do have to eat to live.”
I do have a plan for weight loss that does not depend on item 3 and even one for keeping the weight off but you are going to have to supply most of the details.
You have to supply the motivation.  My motivations for losing weight—the positive things I put before myself to turn self-deprivation into self-gratification—have been

a.  to greater enjoy trips. The goal of my first successful adult diet was to help me better enjoy a summer my wife and I spent in Scotland, where I had been invited to do research at the University of Edinburgh.  I am morally certain that I went on the Atkins diet for this, but it would have been in 1970, two years before he published his first book, I believe, and I might have gotten it out of a newspaper.  My recollection was that the diet was skimpy on the details.  Nevertheless it worked.  Since then, I have dieted before trips to London, Edinburgh, and Madrid, in one case, and to Costa Rica, in another.
b.  to get laid. I had begun weight lifting and dieting before my wife and I decided to divorce but the divorce definitely spurred me on.  I was relentless.  Every other day, sick or well, I lifed weights and kept to a very strict diet, the details of which I foret.  My wife and I later got remarried while I was still “georgous,” as one woman put it.
c.  for health reasons. This would never have worked for me as a younger man, but now that I hve “neuro-spinal issues” and find it difficult to walk, especially up hill.  A friend suggested that if I lost 50 pounds that might improve.  Based on my modest loss so far, he seems possibly to be right.
d.  whatever works for you.

Up until recently, my weight loss plans have been basically two—the Atkins diet and a less radical low carb diet by Heller and Heller combined with weight lifting and aerobics work (except for my Scotland diet when weight lifting would never have occurred to me.) In my current physical condition, it is hard for me to work up the motivation to work out.  This is stupid, I know, and I will get around to it when I am ready.  The importance of working out is simple to state: it speeds up weight loss and it puts one in fighting (dating) trim much more quickly.
I don’t recall how it was that I regained my weight after my Scotland trip but every single weight gain since then has resulted from an injury.  These injuries led to a decrease in work outs (even to the point of stopping them) but no decrease in eating.  There is only one direction my body could go—it had to expand.  You don’t have to tell me how stupid that is.
Here are some facts.

1.  Maybe the Atkins Induction Phase gives one a ery rapid weight loss or it doesn’t—I have come down on both sides of that—but do not be misled:  calories count.  The reason most crazy diets work in my opinion is that they indirectly cause one to take in fewer calories without being unhappy about it and without actually having to count calories.
2.  Weight loss is about hunger and satiety.  The Glycemic Index/Load stuff that is currently “hot” applies to the hunger issue in that “good carbs” do not elevate blood sugar and in doing that induce one into the sort of eating frenzies that eating ice cream, chocolates, and potato chips do.  I don’t doubt this at all since it is based on solid research, prompted initially by a concern for diabetics.  Satiety is best dealt with by eating slowly.  If you start eating but get interrupted for 10 or more minutes you may find you are not as hungry when you return to the table as when you left.  So, pushing one away from the table before one is full is a good idea.  Read the work by the Glycemic people.  I
3.  Lift weights and do aerobic work.  Everyone by now should know the importance of these things for everyone no matter how young or old.
4.  Weigh yourself regularly.  Every day is best.  Weigh mmediately after getting up and in the same mode of dress to give the numbers some consistency in interpretation (pee first so your weight will be as low as possible).  Don’t worry about little ups, downs, and plateaus.  Weighing yourself is the only way to make sure you aren’t deceiving yourself as to how well you are following your diet.  A second somewhat less accurate method is to put in view some clothes you can’t fit into.  Check how close you are to fitting into them from time to time.
5.  If, like me, you get injured after losing weight, it is imperative that you keep weighing yourself regularly and keep up with a weight lifting/aerobics plan consistent with the injury.

My capacity to defeat any known diet is legendary, at least in my household (of two people and two dogs).  One warning I would give you.  The Net Carbs Scam I wrote about in my The Language Guy Blog should be taken to heart.  There are sugars and sugar alcohols.  It seems clear that sugar alcohols do not elevate blood sugar rapidly and so do not induce hunger the way sugar does.  But they are carbohydrates and their calories do count—exactly how much is not clear. 

How to Quit Drinking, and other Bad Things

Monday, May 08, 2006(Original Post)

How to Quit Drinking, and other Bad Things

As I noted in my previous blog, I have an addictive personality.  One of my nasty addictions was to alcohol.  A less self-destructive addiction was my photography jones.  As I said in my previous blog, my wife had put me on a budget and in order to have enough money to satisfy my photography jones, I would have to quit drinking.  Besides it is a horrible addiction.
At the time, I drank something on the order of 12 beers a day, starting after I returned from the university unless I had to prepare for the next day’s classes or write a paper or whatever.  In those circumstances I took it more slowly.
I began my drinking in college and by the time I was in graduate school the problem had gotten so bad I phoned a professor late one night to tell him I was drunk and needed help.  He sent me to a shrink and things got better.  However, the drinking continued on into my professional years.  In Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, a large number of young profs and graduate students went to the Capital bar most nights.  There was nothing else to do.  We had some great times.  Every Friday and Saturday night, someone would agree to host a post-Capitol party and the owner of the bar would announce the location and what that night’s carry out special was.  I was also caught up in the Anti-War effort and that, fortunately, didn’t involve drinking but it did involve pot.  I did slow up both activities after I met my wife.  Actually, she was someone else’s wife but became mine.
I then went on to Ohio State as a department chair.  They were desperate because no one wanted the job.  I was desperate because my wife wanted to quit her job and I needed to make up part of the loss in income.  The net result was that I had become a role model of sorts.  One can’t be a chair, not publish, and punish people who don’t publish by not giving them raises but I did just that.  I fell apart, suffering a mental breakdown and then a bout of depression.  The university took care of me and I returned in good health.
However, I had to become productive.  I made a key step.  I decided that I could not be the kind of linguist I was expected to be.  I thought theoretical syntax had become a virtually unempirical field and, in any event, I decided I was much more interested in how language was used in the real world.  So, I decided to write a book on the language of television advertising.  It wasn’t what my colleagues expected or wanted but I had decided to start pleasing myself not others.
We happened to own a cottage on a little lake south of where we live and I decided to go there and write, or, at least, try to write this book.  I got nowhere for the first week, though I did drink my 12 beers a day, and then one night, Bob Trumpy, a former Cincy Bengals football player who had a night time talk show, brought in an expert on alcoholism to chat with.  This was prompted by a pro football player being caught with drugs and Trumpy wanted to talk about that but couldn’t find a drug counselor.  This alcoholism expert said one killer thing—you know you are an alcoholic when you plan out your day so that it includes time for drinking.  In my case, the planning lay in making sure I passed by a place that sold beer on the way home from the university.  Somehow, that realization, added to some major embarrassment in my professional life due to my drinking pushed me over the edge.  I had to quit.
If you read my previous blog, How to Quit Smoking, you know that I have a three step program for quitting bad habits and I followed that.

1.  Prepare to quit.If you drink too much, especially if you are addicted or habituated to drinking, and you have gotten over your ability to deny that you have a problem, then the odds are you want to quit.  That is crucial.  If you don’t want to quit, don’t bother trying.  Alcohol will destroy your life if you are an alcoholic of one sort or another.  Drinking does not solve problems.  If it did, doctors would prescribe it.  Drinking causes problems.
2.  Rethinking what quitting means.As I noted in the previous blog, we are no good at self-deprivation.  To quit drinking, one has to see something positive coming out of it.  You will save a lot of money.  You may be able to save your marriage or keep your job.  I can’t say what your reward will be but that is what must be in your mind when you quit—what you are getting, not what you are giving up.  One thing I feared was that I would have no fun at parties.  Forget it.  You will have just as much fun as you did when you drank except that you will find the drunks pretty tiresome.  Two buddies and I dropped some acid in the late ‘60’s and went to one of those after-the-Capital parties.  No one noticed that we were stoned but we were astonished at how many couples were fighting with each other.  Who would have known—acid trips were less destructive than getting drunk.  Not that I am recommending you drop some acid.
3. Rethinking who you are after you quit. Obviously, the moment you quit, you have to think of yourself as a non-drinker, not an ex-drinker.  This bit of self-deception can work though I think some will have more problems with it than I did.

There existed a drug back in the day which would make you quite ill if you drank after taking it.  Now that I think about it, it is hard to imagine doctors actually prescribing such a thing but my doctor did.  At the time I quit, I had some pills left over from a failed effort.  So, I started taking them.  Some six or seven days later, I discovered that I hadn’t been taking the pills for a couple of days.  I had kicked my drinking habit.
Despite the many years I drank, it seems I never became chemically dependent.  If I had, I think it would have been much harder.  I might have had to go to some detox program or join AA or whatever.  AA doesn’t like people like me.  They call us “dry drunks.” Well, I have been a dry drunk for about 30 years or so, and can testify that it is not a bad way to be.  For those who are addicted rather than psychologically habituated to booze, I wish you luck.  My three step plan will work, but it will take hard work to make it work for you.

How to Quit Smoking

Tuesday, May 02, 2006 (Original Post)

How to Quit Smoking

I have an addictive personality.  No doubt about that.  When I quit drinking, I figured I might lose some weight.  I didn’t.  I switched to ice cream.  Right away I realized I was a carbohydrate junkie.
Many years ago, I was a heavy smoker and a heavy drinker and I had a photography jones.  That makes three addictions since I was accurately diagnosed by a colleague as being a serial hobbyist.  My wife, who was none too pleased with me on various grounds was especially displeased that I was spending much more of our joint income than was responsible.  I was also spending more than she was.  So, she put me on a $200 per month money diet.  That was some 25 or more years ago so it wasn’t chump change but it wasn’t enough to support all three addictions.
Clearly, I could not satisfy both of my harmful addictions and my photography jones at the same time so I decided to quite one of them.  I had been de-escalating the concentration of nicotine per cigarette for some years and felt that it would be easier to quit smoking than drinking.
There were three key factors that made my quitting cigarettes a success.

1.  Prepare to quit. Many years before I quit a friend told me how he quit.  He had a rough final semester of undergraduate school and decided that while he was determined to quit, he wouldn’t do so until the semester was over.  By the time the semester ended he was comfortable with quitting.  I had developed a strong disdain for my dependance on cigarettes.  Anyone who has scrounged around for stubs to smoke or gone out in the middle of the night to make sure there was something to smoke the next morning will know what I mean.  I didn’t know yet that like all other smokers I was a very stinky person.  All smokers reek of smoking.  That is one of the reason why in personals one sees “Black professional 30-year old woman wants nonsmoker who likes taking walks, snuggling, and watching football.”
2.  Rethinking what quitting means. We humans are very bad at self-deprivation.  Most of us operate according to the rule: “I see, I want, I take.” So, in order to quit successfully, it is necessary to rethink what it means.  One has to see it as providing you with some reward.  It might be that you could save up enough money in six months to take a nice trip.  Or, as in my case, I had more money available to satisfy my photography jones. It might even because you have a small child and don’t want him or her to suffer from your second hand smoke.  Another motivation that you may not know of is that if you are a smoker you stink and for that reason and for the reason that many people don’t like to be around smokers, you will increase the number of people in your life—the number of women you can date, for instance.  Back when I last looked some 10-12 years ago, personals went like this:  “Black female in her 30’s looking for a romantic nonsmoker who loves ...”
3.  Rethinking who you are after you quit. At the moment you quit, you must see your self, not as an ex-smoker but as a non-smoker.  Ex-smokers always start smoking again.  So when a craving for a cigarette comes over you, you reply to yourself:  “Dolt, you can’t be wanting a cigarette.  You don’t smoke.” Believe it or not, if you have gone through Steps 1 and 2, this exercise in self-deception will be more effective than you think.

So, I quit.  I won’t say it was easy, but it wasn’t very hard.  I know nothing about all the aids available to help you quit smoking—the patches, for instance.  There was a nicotine gum out when I quit but it did nothing for me.  After all, I was a nonsmoker so why would I use a gum that had nicotine.