"douglerner" wrote in message
...
Yes, all good advice. And I appreciate the time you took to write
the
messages - and the fact that you remember my menus and messages from
the past! And I agree with your suggestion to keep journaling no
matter what.

One thing I don't understand, and have a different impression than
you
have, is that my diet seemed somehow unsatisfying and deprived to
you.

While I was on my diet and losing weight, I think I can honestly say
that I never felt deprived or unsatisfied. I always made sure there
were "bonus calories" left over so if I felt like snacking more on a
particular day I could so without actually going off my diet. My
goal
was the average of 1800 calories per day, not a rigorous limit of
1800
calories a day that I could never exceed.

And that's what I don't understand. Why I could go about 700 days
and
drop 100 lb and never feel deprived or tempted to go off my diet and
then let it all fall apart.

It starts insidiously slow and creeps up on you. First I keep
journaling but rationalizing to myself that certain foods have less
calories than than really do - clearly underestimating my intake.

Then I start saying, well as long as I can stay under 90 kg I'll be
happy, so I don't have to keep track quite as much.

Then I say, well at least I'm still under 100 kg, and that's what's
really important.

Eventually the journaling notebooks gather dust and I look forward
to
seeing what kind of deep-fried things they have in the home-made
corner of the supermarket today.

It's like driving by a car wreck in slow motion. You can see it
happening in detail, but for some reason the switch you turned on to
get yourself started has gotten turned off. That's the situation I'm
in now.

I think last time I started was because of a double health scare.
First, my oldest friend in Japan - who was 5 years younger than
me! -
diet of heart failure. Then the doctor told me my blood sugar was
way
up.

Then, also, I tried Atkins at first and my blood sugar came way down
(you have to grant Atkins that much). But I couldn't continue to
lose
weight on it, and even started regaining, which is when I switched
to
my calorie control plan, mirroring WW.

Truth be told, even with the extra carbs on my low-calorie plan, I
ended up with all the same benefits of Atkins as I continued to lose
weight: my blood sugar continued to drop, cholesterol levels
returned
to normal range, etc. Plus I have detailed graphs showing that I
lost
weight at a more regular pace with low-calorie than with Atkins.

I recently felt short of breath and visited my doctor. He
immediately
scheduled a bunch of tests for me at the university hospital he is
affiliated with and I had a bunch of tests.

The good news is that even at my current weight, most things are
normal: the ultrasound shows normal heart size and proper valve
function, the stress test showed me returned to base level normally,
my blood pressure is normal, they have this test for hardening of
the
arteries and I am on the good side of the normal range for a 52 year
old male. But my blood sugar is way up again, and my cholesterol is
over 200 now too. Plus they saw something in the EKG that makes them
want to do a heart catheter test of some kind, which is what I'm
checking into the hospital for. I don't even want to think about it.
shudder

I am 100% positive that the food I get at the hospital will not be
based on Atkins. I'm sure it will be close to a WW/low
calorie/low
fat kind of diet.

Maybe this latest health scare will be the impetus I need to get
started again for real.

But:

What can I do differently than I did last time to make this time
work
forever?

That's what I still don't have a grasp of.

doug


The angiogram isn't bad. It was kind of interesting actually, since I
could see a monitor showing the images (at least when the xray thing
wasn't in front of my face) and could see my heart and the puffs of
dye. I probably could have seen the blockages if I knew what to look
for.

On the other hand, they don't do those for no reason, since they do
have some risk.

The american heart association recommends a diet with relatively low
fat, low saturated fat, whole grains, and limited red meat. (low salt
and sugar of course).

del