Why, Oh Why, Can’t I Eat That?

Lots of people have asked, so here I am answering how I started losing weight.

On July 6, 2016, I was sitting around munching on some goody or another, just pacifying myself with some deliciousness, and watching a video about the current state of Venezuela that popped up on YouTube; people starving, eating their pets, standing in long line all day long just to end up with nothing to eat. Honestly, I felt a bit gluttonous watching the video.

At the same time, I started to think, ‘what if I was the one who couldn’t get food to eat?’  What if things were like that here in the United States?  People in the States like food, lots of it, all kinds of it, we like it all the time, we have food shrines everywhere.  Yes, we have people who have less access than others for sure, but we are by no means in a 3rd world situation with people by the droves who are starving. We have been, indeed, a blessed nation overall.  So blessed that the obesity rate is extremely high… and I’ve always been obese according to those little charts doctors use (… we all know those charts are wrong though).

Anyway, after a few pensive moments I wondered how much food do I really need; how much could I survive on and maintain good health?  I figured if a Venezuela situation happened in the States, there will be a lot of anger and rioting going on simply because people will be HUNGRY!  Imaging going from a daily diet of 3000+ calories of processed, chemically-laden, fast foods, mixed in periodically with an occasional vegetable cooked in butter or fat back, then suddenly (or even gradually) having to live on about 1000 – 1500 calories (or less, God forbid).  People are going to be MAD!!! I’m talking food fight kind of mad…. without the food. It certainly won’t be a pretty scene.

My curiosity took over and almost instantly I decided to retrain myself to eat less.  I had no real weight goals.  At the time I was not on any medications for anything so that wasn’t a real motivation.  I just wanted to find out the minimum number of  calories I needed to live and be healthy. ‘Healthy’ by my standard was hair and nails staying healthy, not feeling tired all the time, and mostly not feeling hungry all the time, because hunger was always a deal-breaker. Like I said, I didn’t have any high blood pressure or diabetes issues so that wasn’t a goal.

Initially, I thought about all the ways I could accomplish this: Weight Watchers, NutriSystem, Boiled Egg Diet, Grapefruit Diet, Cheez-it Diet ( I did that in college once, yep, Cheezits and grapes – lost a lot of weight… lol) … I even thought about accomplishing this with some sort of surgical procedure.  Surgery was not an option however because although I was overweight (or obese according to some uninformed medical people) I was not overweight enough to have Bypass or stomach bands. I was too cheap to spend money on Weight Watchers (and didn’t want to fit group meetings into my schedule), and somehow having little processed boxes of food delivered to my house seemed to be the opposite of my new goal of healthy eating.

So, I had to stick with one of the old-fashion weight loss methods:  eating less and moving more.

Honestly, the change started in my mind.  I wanted to be healthy, and able to sustain myself on a normal amount of calories, which after some Googling, I learned should be around 1500 calories per day.  I also learned that 1500 calories would mean cutting my calories to more than half what it was.  Dang!  I was munching back to ton more than I realized. I had to do it though.

What I didn’t do was toss all the food in my pantry, or go out and buy diet food.  To this day I still NEVER eat low-fat or substitute sugars.  I decided to eat real foods… i.e. real sugar, real butter, real milk, just less of it.  My 1,500 calories today had to be a good mix of fresh veggies, fruit, good grains, and a tad of any of the sugary things I liked (still got a  Sweet Tart stash).  I wasn’t about deprivation and denial, just using good sense in making choices and deciding to used my calories wisely.  I always think of calories like money.  I am a decent money manager (OK, some would say frugal) so to me calories became money.  I have 1,500 per day, use them wisely or you’ll have to wait til the next day to get your bank filled again.  That worked for me … I’m a good ‘saver’, so I started saving calories and using them when I really wanted or needed them.

Now, all of what I just wrote about was way easier said than done.

In my next blog I will tell you about the drama and trauma of the first couple of weeks of doing this…. food really is a drug people.

Author: Jan Elle

❤️ Artist, Writer, and other things View all posts by Jan Elle