Diet: behavior mod step 1

Thank you for your comments following my post two days ago on the progress (or lack thereof) of my diet.  They are a support, but it’s also a little scary to realize you are actually reading this.  The temptation now is not to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but etc.  But I am determined that having started this public dialogue, I will not now sneak out of it.  So here and forthwith are all the trivial, sorry, or triumphant details.

Yes, I suppose my approach to this dieting thing is highly rational.  I am a cognitive psychologist and know a lot about the principles of behavior modification, which I do think has a lot to offer when one is trying to change addictive behaviors like eating, smoking, drinking, losing ones temper, possibly even self-harm.  Not that I think it is the whole answer, but working out a good program in itself usually leads to a lot of insights into the triggers of ones own behavior.

The first thing any effective behavior mod program does is ask the individual to keep a diary listing every time the target behavior occurs and the situation at the time.  Not to try to change anything yet.  Just keep an honest diary.  I’ve already done that, and here are the main things I’ve found:

1.  Eating a healthy breakfast that sustains me to lunch is rarely a problem.  I don’t have to work on eating too much or too little or eating the right things.  I do it close to 100% of the time.

2.  I start getting hungry about 11:30-12:00 whatever I eat for breakfast, and I am suffering from a downright severe loss of energy by then if I’ve been particularly physically active.  My husband is not hungry before 12:30-1:00, so I am tempted to binge at 11:30, grabbing whatever is to hand, especially if it’s sugary.

3.  I am not necessarily voracious at midday, but enjoy food at that time.  My temptation is to eat more than I really need to sustain me until the evening.  The most frequent reason I give for doing this is to finish up leftovers before they go bad.  Besides I usually enjoy them, and I think I would naturally adjust to eating my main meal of the day at this time if it were possible.

4.  At the end of the day, Peter and I usually sit down for a pre-dinner drink.  He has a glass of wine, and I struggle with virtue.  Wine makes my joints ache and I drink very little in recent years.  Until very recently, though, I could drink a single gin and tonic without negative consequences.  Now, though, even a single G&T makes me tired and grouchy, and increasingly I have preferred to have a cup of hot bullion or glass of cranberry juice.  But sometimes the pull for a G&T is still there, especially when something good, bad, unexpected, puzzling, or worth celebrating has happened.

5.  Dinner time and the hour following is by far my most vulnerable period.  More often than not I throw caution to the winds, and when I’m doing the dishes, cap off my wild indiscretions with whatever form of chocolate I can find.

That’s pretty much it.  Tomorrow I’ll describe my next step.

Oh, by the way, I’ve lost 1/2 pound – again.  And today I got off track at lunch, but managed not to use that as an excuse for giving up on the rest of the day.  The way I see it though, by the time you’ve reached my age, one can’t afford ever to get off track.  As you say, “it’s hard work.”