Just a quickie during lunch (really more of a placeholder for later).
This may be a bit of a duh, but it occurs to me that it’s worth thinking about the differences between impulses and compulsions.
For example, I consider that I’ve been pretty much on track since Sunday. That makes today day 5. However, I had […]

I mentioned last week that I picked up the June issue of Oprah. And at least one of you (hi Debbi!) took me up on the suggestion to buy it, since it was an issue that focused on the body.
They now have the June issue online, though what’s there is just a few of the […]

I managed to snap this pic on my way to work. The water on the left is the Potomac River, and since there is greenery all along it, it gets really overpopulated with geese when they are doing their migrations.
But ya gotta love spring and goslings! It’s a bit fuzzy since this is a tiny […]

Jimmy Moore (of Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb) turned me on to Jimmy Morris (of Bread and Money) a while back. Both are low-carb evangelists who have lost lots of weight low-carbing.
The latter Jimmy recently wrote an article on the relationship between emotional eating and diet that really resonated with me.
In Is Emotional Eating Another Chicken […]

Okay, maybe in hindsight, going to two happy hours the same day I gave up Diet Coke was a mistake. I did fine at happy hour #1 (ordered a virgin Mary), but wound up ordering a beer at happy hour #2.
Big mistake.
That one led to a second, and then on my way home, to […]

So the comment spammers have found me. Sigh. While it’s easy enough to delete comment spam, I guess it’s worth experimenting to see what I can do to keep that manageable. First effort: installing the autoshutoff plugin.

It is day six since I gave up Diet Coke (BTW, that post drew a record number of comments here!). I’ve been drinking iced tea, so I haven’t wound up with a major caffeine headache.
Anyways, so far so good. The jury is still out, as this habit is one that’s proven tough to stick with […]

Okay, so here’s the followup inertia post I promised the other day.
I’ve been thinking about this for quite a while, and have been meaning to post something about it for a month now, ever since coming across this post from Rantings of a struggling fat chick:

HOW do I change my mindset so that […]

Post-recovery, I started to try and respond to the most recent comment in the intellectual dishonesty thread. I typed up a few paragraphs, and debated about a comparison to religion and abortion before thinking better of it, and just trashed my response.
But watching yesterday’s Oprah got me thinking about this in a different way. […]

Earlier this week, I talked about my a ha moments in my journey of choosing health. A number of people had very interesting comments, and a discussion about the pros and cons of “personal responsibility” led me to consider a different concept: one of personal power.
Here’s the difference I see:
personal responsibility: Accepting responsibility for […]

Last Sunday, Amanda asked the following in a comment on the persistance post:

I’m just wondering, since I can’t seem to “get it” myself…what got you to the moment when overeating ended and the new lifestyle began? I mean, the real moment, the light bulb that you knew would never burn out?

I sat on this […]

Earlier this month, AlterNet posted an article that looked at the why the idea of an “obesity epidemic” is flawed: One Big Fat Lie.
The article is really good, so please go there and read the whole thing. But I want to highlight one part (emphasis mine):

There is a slippery slope from dieting to disease, as […]

If you were following the fat and food posts, you know that I recently have been doing some soul-searching with regards to the fat acceptance movement. I have a lot in common with many in the movement:

I believe that dieting is harmful, and figure dieting is largely responsible for my gaining as much […]

I mentioned the other day that I ordered the Drs. Hellers’ The 7-Day Low-Carb Rescue and Recovery Plan. The book is meant to help low-carb dieters who have gone off track. I picked it up just to see how their plan has changed over the years.
I’ve skimmed the book, and see that the Hellers are […]

Geez, four posts in one day! That’s gotta be a record for me. But I just finished reading The Hungry Years and wanted to blog this passage:

I don’t think there’s any real answer to the obesity crisis. Getting fat–it’s in the system. In a way, it is the system. I heard an item on the […]

Say what you will about me, clearly I’m not overly obsessed about my online reputation :).
Two weeks ago, Debbi tagged me from her blog, The Shrinking Knitter, and I just found it (via Technorati).
What a neat blog! Debbi and I have lots in common: we’re both Geminis, we’re both in communications, and we’re both Jills-of-all-trades. […]

So I’m still on track to weigh in a week from now. But boy, I’m not as on track as I really should be. I’ve not fallen off the wagon, but I’m sure hanging over the edge!

What probably isn’t helping me is that I added cereal to my diet last week. If you’re new to […]

Well, technically I’ve been back for over a week now (got back into town on the 10th). I did go off-track while I was on vacation, but not in a binge-eating way, mostly in a “I don’t normally eat this” kinda way.
And then once I got back, I did do the one more day […]

Regina Wilshire recently reviewed a JAMA study (published a year ago) that compared the Atkins, Ornish, Weight Watchers, and Zone diets.
The study authors summarized their study conclusions this way (emphasis mine):

Each popular diet modestly reduced body weight and several cardiac risk factors at 1 year. Overall dietary adherence rates were low, although increased […]

I meant to make a note of the Chinese New Year yesterday. This is the Year of the Dog. According to the Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco:

People born in the Year of the Dog possess the best traits of human nature. They have a deep sense of loyalty, are honest, and inspire other people’s […]

Well, what a difference a week makes! I cut back on the eating out/takeout (from 5 to 1), the Diet Coke (from 1/2 gal each day to 1/2 gal for the week), and added in a tiny bit of exercise (an hour total on the treadmill).
I lost a little over 4 […]

From Weighty Words, emphasis mine:

I know it isn’t the first time I’ve said it nor am I the only blogger to say it, but if doing the right things feels so good, why don’t we?

Good question!!

So I got an email from Adam Brook; he’s written The Golden Gate Diet. You can read the first two chapters of his book online, which is nice.
Based on that, it appears that this is Dr. Brooks’ version of Volumetrics. Both diets focus on eating more foods that have a low energy density (less […]

All I can say is huh?! I gained nearly a pound and a half from last week.
I normally don’t weigh myself from week to week, but I’ve been experimenting with a way of tracking how well I’m doing with eating a varied diet. So I’ve been writing down generally what I eat each day […]

I caught the first part of this past week’s episode of YOU The Owners Manual on Discovery Health where they talked about weight and gastric bypass. The overall impression of the surgery was favorable, highlighted by a woman who’d lost 120 lbs after hers.
But what struck me as amazing was what Dr. Mehmet Oz said […]