May 24, 2016

2016.05.24
Been back on the diet path, starting a few weeks ago, having coming dangerously near the "200" mark that's my self-appointed trigger for action.

So the plan is what tends to work for me: nerdy calorie counting (See: The Hacker's Diet, the book "Chubster"), carefully monitored yet still almost daily small indulgences (Hello, free Good Humor freezer at work! Talk about a "Frenemy"), lots of salads, gum and atomic fireballs. If I have an early enough lunch, I'm ok with just having iced coffee for breakfast, and that gives me another 200-400 calories to play with.

Also, semidaily weigh-ins are crucial for me. I know they aren't for everyone, but I find it much easier to cope with the frustration of the noisy data, spikes and dips and all, than to be rudely awakened when a week hasn't been nearly as close to plan as I had imagined; it's SO much tougher to claw back from that week than it is to buckle down for a day or two.

So it's going well, albeit slowly, one 1900-calorie day at a time. I guess some social event days become inadvertent "cheat days", but I try to be more strict in the daytime when an uncountable meal is coming in the evening. (And a few times I really impressed myself with sticking to a single slice of pizza...)

diet.kirk.is/ is my 16 year graph - Actually I'm proud that I haven't been above 200 since mid-2013; its taken mindfulness to keep me there.

I've been wondering what could keep me in the 180-190 range (or even sub-180, though that might be a pipedream) - I'm starting to wonder if I should be calorie counting every day, like forever, except again on those social days when I don't. I've actually come up with a kind of stupid mantra, "Every Day I'm Dietin'" (sung in the stile of LMFAO's shuffling refrain )



At the moment the "Every Day (Forever)" seems encouraging and empowering, rather than miserable, I suppose in a kind of "eating disorder / sense of control" way, but (I'm trusting) significantly less intense / problematic.
Yarr.... kids, remember: the sea is a cruel mistress. But Medford is worse, so you'll be fine.
The Old Sea Captain from the Simpsons...
Tufts had Hank Azaria as its 2016 commencement speaker, he ended channelling advice from some of his better known Simpsons voices.
[The Copernican Principle is] sometimes badly stated. A lot of history and philosophy of science covering the Middle Ages gets the Middle Ages very wrong. For instance, you'll find most astronomy books stating that before Copernicus, people thought the Earth was the center of the universe; then Copernicus showed it was just another planet, as if this was a demotion. And that's completely wrong. In Middle Age cosmology, the Earth wasn't the center; it was the bottom, the worst place. All the other planets were exalted above it. So when Copernicus said it was just another planet, this was in fact a promotion.