We are bombarded with weight loss solutions on a daily basis. We want quick and easy...also, if you can make it painless, that would be a plus! But unfortunately, dropping pounds is hard, especially if you're struggling to lose many pounds.
A lot of readers know me personally. When I say I'm on some sort of nutritional program, they laugh. "Dude, you're skin and bone. You need to be chowin'!"
Don't get me wrong. I love to eat like anyone else...and I can eat a lot. My normal Denny's breakfast years ago was The Lumberjack. If you haven't had the pleasure (depending on which Denny's you go to), it is served on at least two plates, many times two standard and one smaller plate. Eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns or home fries, toast, and pancakes make up this Paul Bunyan (hold the ax) type meal.
I ate my last Lumberjack on Congress Street, in South Portland, Maine in November of 2012. Every meal I seemed to eat resembled The Lumberjack. Did I need all this food? No. Did I really want all this food? I thought so. Did I crave this? Oh, yes...regularly.
What I had done over the span of many years was form a really bad habit.
Many years ago, when finances were exceptionally lean, money nor food was plentiful. I was living in Nashville, Tennessee at the time, and Shoney's breakfast bar and I became close friends. My strategy: eat yourself silly because this would be your only chance at food today, kiddo. I would have cooked at home, but at this time, home was a weekly boarding house filled with unsavory types and no kitchen. It was hard enough grasping the fact of sleeping there, let alone spending any additional time there. (A vision I'll never forget...this boarding house had three floors and a lot of people. Only one bathroom per floor - a shared type deal. Also, when you walked in the front door, there were a cast of colorful characters, all smoking, using a hubcap as an ashtray. Some things you never forget.)
Well, you can only imagine, my habit stayed with me as finances got better. I always ate more than I needed because I seemed to get away with it...kind of. I was usually tired and stuffed all of the time...not ideal for an aspiring go-getter. I never really appreciated the "You are what you eat" saying until later in life. You know the feeling...when you eat crappy food, you feel pretty...crappy. When you eat good for you food...you feel kinda good. When you overeat good or bad food, you still feel kind of crappy.
The moral of this story: we are struggling to lose weight because we eat too much, period. Food is fuel. Find a system that works well and incorporate it into your busy lifestyle. Here's what I did:
After my last Lumberjack, I committed (and of all month's - November with Thanksgiving...yipes) to eating smaller portions of everything. This usually meant leaving the table when I wasn't full, but I knew I had plenty of fuel to keep me going.
For now, have a fantastic and productive day. Part 2 will be coming soon.
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