Sunday, May 9, 2010

Eat, Drink and Be Merry, for Tomorrow We Diet






In 2002, researchers at the University of Toronto published a study that claimed to show that “merely planning to go on a diet can trigger overeating in restrained eaters, reflecting the dynamic connection between dieting and overeating.”  Seven weeks into the alternative day diet, I’ve rediscovered that myself.  It’s a tendency I must learn to check.

On some non-fasting days, I feel an urge to “stock up”, especially near day’s end.  I’m not hungry.  I’m satisfying tomorrow’s hunger in advance.  For a while, I tolerated this, but I see it will work against me and have vowed to focus on actual appetite.

It’s ironic that this tendency has surfaced now.  In many ways the diet has grown easier in recent weeks.  On fasting days, I usually find that the last felt need for food is about two in the afternoon.  Once I make it that far, thoughts of food vanish for the rest of the day.  If I make it to mid-afternoon on only half my 500-calorie ration, the evening’s menu seems epicurean.

My wife and I both feel we could keep this diet up for as long as we need to.  Many nights we drift asleep or awaken, not quite sure whether we’ve just had our “down day” or are about to begin it.  “Breaking the fast” on an “up day” never tempts us to gorge.  (I might make an exception for Tuesday, which follows half-fast Sunday and a down-day Monday.)

Physical weakness during fasting days no longer plagues us, although we still save our most strenuous exercise for times when we have some carbohydrates available.  But I do notice the cold weather more on “down days”.  I’ve kept my sweater in service longer this spring.

While we might have to pay more for heating and clothes, we’re banking the savings on food.  500-calorie days rarely require much in the way of meal preparation.  Leftovers from other days last almost twice as long.  Our college-age boys give us a hard time about the paucity of food on the table on diet days, but they pretty much manage their own mega-meals anyway.  Now that we know we only have three or four good evening meals a week, we try harder to make them family occasions.

And that’s something else I’ve experienced directly:  the huge role that food and eating plays in our lives, beyond providing physical sustenance.  We socialize around food.  We eat for the pure pleasure of the experience.  We structure many habits and rituals around food, like ice cream at the beach, or Eggs Benedict for Mother’s Day brunch.  And sometimes we eat just for something to do.  Eliminating all these on fasting days leaves us with far more time on our hands – and the opportunity to take on new challenges.

Seven weeks into this diet, we know we can reach our original goals.  My wife “came clean” on her starting weight – with this revision, she is now half-way to her target weight.  In order to qualify as a lightweight rower, I decided to push my ultimate goal down a little further, and I’m 57% of the way there.  Almost three-quarters of the way to my original destination, I will report when I slide past it.  Those regions on the bathroom scale I won’t have toured in almost 30 years.

Resources:
Dr. Johnson's UpDayDownDay Diet
Calorie Restriction (Wikipedia)

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