Apathy

I think apathy may very well be the obese dieter's worst enemy. Somewhere along the line, you seem to forget about the rock-bottom feelings of utter fatness and despair, and just stop caring. Sometimes this is a momentary lapse, like a night out or a weekend binge. Worst case, a weekend binge turns into a few days turns into a few weeks, and before you know it, you're back where you started - or worse.

So it was for me yesterday. It started in the morning with an incomplete breakfast which left me feeling hungry at about 9am. I find that if I don't have a good breakfast, it throws off my entire day. Even if I make up the calories with a mid morning snack, I seem to retain that psychological scar of feeling hungry throughout the day.

Of course I also had a great weigh in yesterday. Ironically, a great weigh-in can erode my willpower, by helping me feel like I have a license to indulge. After all, I'm doing great! Way ahead of plan! Go ahead, live a little! Talk about EVIL thoughts!

Meanwhile I had a bad day yesterday. There's been alot of conflict in my life lately, mostly with personal relationships i.e. friends and family. Yesterday there was another incident involving conflict. Actually I was only indirectly involved - the incident was between my wife and a friend, but it affects both of us, so I got caught up in it. The whole thing left me feeling perplexed, as to why I seem to be experiencing so much conflict in my life, and this made me feel a bit depressed.

So went the perfect storm: hungry + depressed + license to indulge = recipe for failure. In reflecting on it, I think I was really just feeling apathetic. I just didn't care. I didn't care about counting calories, measuring portions, or exercising willpower. I just didn't feel like thinking about any of it. I think this is hard for most "normal" people to understand. If you've never tried to diet - seriously diet - for a long period of time, you don't realize: committment to a diet requires a near-constant expenditure of mental energy, as every morsel that passes your lips must be carefully considered. I might even venture to say that this is what sets dieting apart from other types of behavior modification, like quitting smoking or drinking. In the latter cases, for the most part it is possible to entirely avoid the subjects - just don't hang out with smokers or drinkers (I know, I'm over-simplifying, but I'm trying to make a point). With dieting, on the other hand, you must constantly think about the source of your pain: food. If you stop caring for one nanosecond about what goes in your mouth, you're on the road to failure. Hence, apathy is the dieter's worst enemy.

Unfortunately I think for many this is unavoidable. I, for one, am not capable of sustaining this level of focused mental energy for very long. My strategy is to mitigate the risk through pre-emptive damage control. For me, that means keeping healthy food options on hand at all times, so when I do lapse into apathy, the potential damage is contained. This strategy seemed to work pretty well yesterday. The only snack I have at the office is Quaker rice cakes. Ok, so I had six of them. A bit overboard, but what the heck - only 50 calories apiece. Likewise at home, my freezer is stocked with Skinny Cow ice cream sandwiches, about 100 calories apiece. And my fridge is stocked with fruit. And my pantry has plenty of 100-calorie snack packs (like those new Oreo crisps). So fine, I'm hungry and reaching for something to satisfy the hunger and not really caring what it is, so fine, it's 100 calories. Problem neutralized!

Meanwhile, I am ready to shock myself back on track this morning. Even writing this entry has been therapeutic. Already, I am motivated to stay on plan today, and most importantly: I care what goes into my mouth today. Phew!