Self-Awareness and Self-Monitoring

I think the greatest revelation I had was when a patient told me (long after she had lost a lot of weight), that in the beginning she would come for a "weigh-in” and then stop for a pizza on the way home. For two years I couldn't understand why she was not losing weight or size, because everything she told me suggested her food intake was good, and I assumed she was becoming more active! She believed her lie; I believed her lie. I see myself doing similar things. Using a web tracker I find myself not including some obvious extra calories. A few handfuls of nuts here (300 calories), milk in my coffee (let's see, 4 cups of coffee with enough milk to make it the colour I like; well there's another 200 calories); and gosh , that small bowl of popcorn surely doesn't add up to much, so why enter it? The trouble is it doesn't stop there. Getting on the elliptical for an interrupted 45 minutes, it says I burned 500 calories so; surely I can have a small bowl of ice cream.

I laugh at my own mindlessness. I know for certain that I did not burn 500 calories on the elliptical. My heart rate wasn't that high and my perceived exertion was low. So, in reality, maybe I burned 300 calories of effort and consumed 400 calories of ice cream. Yet, I wonder why I'm not losing weight and belly fat.

Maybe eventually will be an accurate way of estimating exact nutritional composition of the food we eat, such as an app on our phone which, when taking a picture of your food, accurately tells us what we're eating based on quantities and food types. (Presently studies show that we are off by about 30 per cent in our calculations of calories eaten; and that we overestimate calories burned by at least 20 per cent).

Yet I say to myself, just as my patients say to me; "I can't understand why I'm not losing weight.” I know a lot of people indeed have slower metabolism, hormone issues, and many other medical/metabolic problems that work against their weight loss efforts. In these cases, looking at carbohydrate (in the form of starch & sugar) consumption and/or significantly increasing exercise are the only solutions. (Walking the dog is great for fresh air, but some of us really should wear heart rate monitors to see if indeed we are pushing ourselves to the point of metabolic benefit).

We tend to have pretty selective memory loss when trying to guess everything that went into our mouths; it's not dishonesty, it's just that we truly don't think about the extra calories that might be going in.

Lastly, when it comes to exercise, don't forget that it's important to move above and beyond what we might perceive is "enough.” Just because we might spend 30-60 minutes in the gym three times a week, doesn't mean we should sit the rest of the time. Get up, and move off and on. A short walk, a trip to the basement and back, moving some lawn furniture, cleaning up your den; just move around. We have become so very sedentary. I've told some of you about the Australian study comparing the weights of men who were all doing 180 minutes of formal exercise a week. The interesting thing is that the group of men at lower weights were the ones commuting to work without a car. It seems that an added walk to the bus stop and taking the bus to work had significant additive impact on weight loss above and beyond the formal exercise.

Be honest with your intake. If you're not losing weight, re-assess what might be holding your body back. Try switching one of your starch portions to an extra protein portion. Try adding 5-10 minutes of extra movement every day. Most importantly, learn to be extremely self-aware and self-accountable. Studies show that self-monitoring (either with food, exercise, mood, sleep or whatever else) is the absolute BEST way to change lifestyle habits long-term. For me, it's always about the extra evening snacks. Even if I consider them "reasonably healthy,” these added calories (and the TYPE of calories i.e. carbs vs. protein) seem to stall out any weight loss effect I want. And now that I'm writing about this topic to you, it's time I entered the 200 calorie snack of cashews I just ate. (Not eaten out of hunger, simply out of desire.)

For all of us, this weight loss journey is not easy. Keep checking in with yourself and realize that, yes, ultimately you WILL be successful! Just keep on trying and never give up.

Dr. Doug