The meetings didn’t always do it for me, and I felt like a bemused spectator much of the time. When I was on Weight Watchers, I never got a huge boost from the support elements. Weight Watchers has two basic components: 1) The System, and 2) The support (the meetings). But I felt like I was smart enough to do the same basic activities on my own. I remember at this point, toying with the idea of going back to Weight Watchers, and I could have, it probably would have been fine. Most importantly, I thought about what I was doing. I didn’t starve myself, but I definitely didn’t gorge, and I stayed away from between meal snacks. So I made sure to have a little breakfast, and then I ate more sensible foods for lunch and dinner. I remembered that it was better to have 3 moderate meals, rather than the 2 giant ones I was used to. From my previous experience, I knew roughly how I used to eat when I was on Weight Watchers, so I mimicked that. Sun, 239 egg muffin, large cafe au lait w non-fat, home-made sandwich on thin-sliced bread + veggies, chili with celery, fruit)Īt this point, I was simply weighing myself every morning, and keeping track of what I ate. omelet,fruit,corn tortillas, 3 tacos, trail mix, popcorn) Here’s the first few lines of that spreadsheet.įri, 240.5 cereal+milk, 12 oz salad / minestrone soup, bbq chicken salad, tequila) I started logging stuff in a spreadsheet. Around March 1st, I made health and fitness my primary hobby. This year, in many respects, the change has been very similar. I don’t know when because when it happened, I was already asleep at the wheel. At some point, I don’t know when, I stopped weighing myself. My other hobbies increased, and at some point, the amount of mental energy I devoted to Weight Watchers dropped to zero. Over time, the Weight Watchers routine because easier, and I didn’t have to devote as much mental energy to it. The log shows that my other hobbies didn’t go away. I gained a lot of insight, much of which I later forgot, and some of which I relearned this year. I worked out the 1999 version of the Weight Watchers points formula, and wrote little pieces of software to do conversions. I remember I had a PDA (Palm Pilot) during that period, and I used it to log stuff. I devoted a lot of intellectual energy to it. In other words, during that period, I made weight loss my hobby. ![]() This obsession lasted for a few months, and I managed to lose about 50 pounds, getting down to the same weight I am now, in the first few months of 2000. What I see is that for a period of time – basically starting in October 1999, I made losing weight one of my obsessions. This is what my obsession journal looks like from that period:Ġ8/99-09/99 Computer Chess MuChess (reprise)ġ0/99 Losing Weight, Weight Watchers (lost 50 lbs, down to about 185 lbs)Ġ2/00 Constellations, Astronomy Trigger: Barnes and Noble – browsing science rack, “Stars” by H.A.RayĠ3/00 Apache/Perl/Website (big website update) The last time I lost a significant amount of weight, when I was approaching my 40s, I joined Weight Watchers. So, because I had engineered such a perfect system for avoiding thinking about my health, and my impending demise, it has always been extremely unpleasant for me to contemplate improving my health, because it runs counter to my basic life coping strategy. Thinking about my current living situation. 3) They tend to be fairly abstract.įor most of my adult life, these obsessions were the tool that kept me away from the things I disliked. The topics cover a fairly wide range, but there are a few common factors: 1) computers are usually involved. Automata, mechanical music instruments, computer chess, mockingbird song analysis, electronic music, puzzle construction, and so on. This very blog has been a document of some of these obsessions. Then something new (or a revisit of something old) comes along, and then I am obsessed anew, and the wave crests again. ![]() I am interested in a few things simultaneously. ![]() My intellectual life is a cycle – when I’m at the peak of an obsession, I’m learning about something, I’m buying books about it, I’m building things. I’ve kept a journal over the years that logs these obsessions, going back to 1985. ![]() My adult life has been a series of intellectual obsessions.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |