Weight Loss / Weight Gain: Repeated Patterns of Behavior

I found a Dress Size chart in one of my many diet and health books the other day. It was disturbing to say the least. Repeated patterns of behaviour, if the many annotations were anything to go by.

09.02.2004    16.01.2005        31.12.2005     06.05.2006
Bust 96cm           Bust 91.5cm        Bust 98cm         Bust 92cm
 Waist 86cm        Waist 81.5cm     Waist 89cm       Waist 82cm
 Hips 114cm        Hips 108cm         Hips 115cm      Hips 108cm

My body fat composition is as follows:

Date % of body fat % Reduction Reduction in lbs
30.12.2005 37.97%  
22.02.2006 35.75% 2.21% 
06.04.2006 33.22% 4.75%          8.5lbs
06.05.2006 32.07% 5.90%         10.20lbs
   
Current weight x % of body fat = fat weight

The calculations for this can be found in the Protein Power book I mentioned before.

The question is – why do I keep doing this to myself? I would lose weight and reduce my size, only to gain it all back again and then some more. Most people think they’ve done this – I know I have done this to myself and have the figures to prove it – and probably the photographs as well. If I were to look in my personal archive I would probably find other statistics of dieting failure.

Some of the answers I have worked out –

I stress and then I over eat (comfort eating)
I worry and I over eat
Rewards were always food related, and usually the sweet, chocolate variety.

Question – why do we use food as an emotional crutch? Something to turn to when things don’t go as we had planned? Why do we do this when we know all it will do is keep us locked in an endless pattern of behaviour?

So what can I do about it?

Remove the stressors from my life. Easier said than done perhaps. But at least I now recognise those things that are likely to cause me to stress and over eat. Now instead of turning to food, I turn to my writing and keep myself busy until I have “calmed” down long enough to recognise genuine hunger from imagined.

Action step for you:

Take some time out and work out the times that you eat. Do you eat out of habit, or do you eat out of genuine hunger?
Do you eat as a reaction to a certain stimuli?

If your normal pattern of behaviour is to reach for the biscuit tin every time you feel worried about something I would suggest you find something else to occupy your hands and mind. For example - turn off the television and go for a walk. Clean out one of the drawers in the kitchen. I find it very hard to be busy and worry at the same time.

Why waste energy worrying about something you have absolutely no control over.

Of those things that you do have control over, and there is only one thing that you do have complete control over and that is YOU and YOUR reactions, then do what you need to do to ensure that you get the best results for yourself.

I am totally responsible for where I am today. In my case, overweight with an unhealthy Body Mass Index of 25, and an unhealthy body fat range of 32%. FYI my body fat range should be between 22 and 27%, so I still have a long way to go.

I am totally responsible for my actions and my reactions to any given circumstance. And so are you.

Every choice that we have made in the past has brought us to where we are now. Only we can change the future.

Notes:
Eat more that your body needs on a daily basis and you will gain weight.
Conversely
Eat less than your body needs on a daily basis and your body will have to draw on its own energy supplies – the sugars and fats in your blood stream first and foremost. Then the fat stores or the use of muscle tissue. Both books tell you the why and the how.

Unfortunately, most of us do not give our bodies time to use up what is in the blood stream before we put more food into our mouths and stomach, so the body shunts what is already there into the fat cells.

Leave a 2.5 – 3 hours between “meals”. If you still feel hungry, drink lots of water.
Get busy – you rarely feel hungry when you are absorbed with another task.

Eat a balance of protein, fat and carbs at each meal time (you should be eating 5 small “meals” per day). A meal in this instance can be a handful of nuts and an apple, or a cheese and tomato sandwich, tin of tuna and a bowl of salad.

Eating small meals keeps your metabolism running smoothly and reduces the intensity of cravings for “bad” stuff.

Will this work for you?

Yes and no. My recommendation to you is to:

• Choose a plan that works for you and stick to it. We are all very different people, with very different needs and requirements. The more active you are, the more food you will need to maintain your bodily functions.
  Follow all the steps as listed, even the ones that sound too basic. Sometimes it is the basic information that makes all the difference, and are the things we simply forget to do on a consistent basis.
• Be consistent and persistent.
• It takes time to re-train your habits, and it takes time to find the formula that works for you.
  But don’t get caught up worrying about the plateau’s. Simply change what you are doing slightly and you will be able to move forwards again.
• Buy a tape measure, and use that as your guide rather than the scales. If you are doing some form of weight or resistance training, you are likely to lose body fat, but add some additional muscle mass. So you will look thinner, but you may not have lost any weight on the scale. This can be discouraging.