Insight

Yesterday i wrote that i have been ping ponging with weight loss..i have been thinking about that. for pretty close to two decades i have been on a diet...basically either starving myself or working out like mad, feeling totally deprived and pretty soon giving up, telling myself, all this isnt working, i just cant do it!!
i am beginning to wonder if i dont know the reason why it is so difficult to lose weight and keep it off. the reason is got to do with my mind. its like, i start on this diet, lose some weight, maybe even a lot of weight, and then end the diet.. meaning go back to original way of life, eat a little more than what i need and work a little less than what i need to.. being busy and all, time flies and before i know it a year has gone by and i look at myself and say, "what happened? i thought i had lost weight".
its like this: as long as dieting is a "course" one is taking, once the course is complete, and one has been graded and one forgets about it, the weight will come back. its not something finite, like a course of antibiotics say- 500 mg twice daily for five days after food!! 5 days up, course complete, the symptoms are gone, the infection is taken care of no further need of antibiotics... its simply not like that.
one puts on weight when one eats more than one spends.. a little at a time, even 100 cals extra a day, and it adds upto 5 whopping kilos a year.. its the difference between being slim and comfortable, between being plump to overweight, and overweight to obese.. ask anybody who is 5 kilos over the desired levels and who is trying to drop those 5 kilos...
i have read that in many many books, magazines, on line anything you can name- and also that diet has to become a way of life..(just dont call it a diet and dont think of you being on a diet!!) the eating and working has to be a habit and has to be followed all the time, the whole life. you slip up sometime, you get right back on. its not like i can say to myself, my body, "look body, i have made the effort and dropped 5 kilos, you are at the desirable weight, now keep it that way". no it doesnt work like that, coz, its the mind that needs to know that in order for the body to stay that way, it has to control itself and the body.. i know all this is coming out all confusing and confused. but what i am trying to say is that, it is so much simpler to just follow a set pattern of eating and working out, just some simple rules that are not some physics formulae (i am a sociology major)which anyone can remember effortlessly... like the NO S diet which i have started recently. i am into the 25th day today, although i have to confess i havent done it strictly, i have been sort of doing only 2/3rds of it, no sweets, no seconds... but even that is helping me a lot. i dont need to remember the calorific content of any particular food...no food is offlimits or forbidden, no worrying about carbs. nothing. no worries. no stress. i just eat a good breakfast, my stomach is full, i have eaten real food and to my heart's (and stomach's!!) content, i am happy, not deprived, not starving... i have a mid morning tea, dont eat the 2 biscuits that go with it, thank you, no eating in between meals coz that is snacking...lunch and a good lunch, colourful, nutritious, filling and a real lunch. same mid evening tea, no snack, and a dinner fit for kings, brush teeth, no eating after dinner. and it is helping; i cant see it. yet . but i can certainly feel it. and after a long long time i am content and not obsessing about food. i am not thinking of the next meal before this is over..i know that in a few hours time i will be eating, and eating well. i know i will be full, satiated and happy. i still log my weight in calorie count, i still maintain a diary both online and manual(being extra careful!!) and do count calories, but i dont need to do it. i know that now. i walk 10000 steps and run 2 miles thrice a week... i know why this is going to help me this time, more than anything else,this time, my diet is not for 4 months only, 6 weeks only or any fixed period like that. it is going be a 21-day, life long cycle. since yesterday, i have stopped the third S also.. the snack.. i hope i can do that too...
lets see how it goes.. i dont mind failing once in a while, if that is the way to success, so be it...