Uncategorized 02 Jun 2010 01:16 pm
What is the Stick’n'Twig diet?
Carol isn’t the only one who was kind of freaked to hear that I was “on a diet”. I gather I have earned something of a reputation for over-enthusiasm. But here’s what I’m actually doing now.
My rules:
- Shoot for 1200-1400 calories a day. 1200 is not better than 1400.
- Write everything down in a food diary.
- Use smaller bowls.
- Weigh in daily and track the moving average.
- Get what exercise I can.
- Use trustworthy information sources to help decide how to stock the fridge and pantry.
- Money is not the issue. Shell out for tasty fresh food.
- The body is the ultimate authority.
The thing is, the body is not my enemy. My body is often a lot smarter than the rest of me. So, I figured, what if I capitalized on that? What if, instead of imposing a lifestyle on myself from without, I were to radically trust myself with my choices? As long as I hit my caloric marks, everything is fair game for eating. But here’s the catch: I have to actually want what I eat. And I mean the food itself — not the idea of the food. Not the marketing of the food, the nostalgia of the food, the cultural significance of the food, or even the supposed dietworthiness of the food. I try to engage with the food object as fully as I can, without preconceptions, and then pay attention to how I feel as I digest it.
And it turns out that — having broken myself of what felt not unlike an addiction to big piles of complex carbohydrates — what I actually want is pretty smart. I do want a whole lot more protein than I would have guessed. I love nuts, beans, olives and olive oil, shrimp cocktail, fancy tuna, fresh fruit, dry Cheerios, cruciferous vegetables, Greek-style yogurt, excellent chocolate, thin whole wheat spaghetti with guasacaca, beef jerky, highly flavored cheese, and the occasional Gardenburger. I hate cheap chocolate, and I’m surprised to find that my body thinks that potato chips aren’t actually all that. Neither are french fries. (I was all “OMG French fries yum!! want!!”, tried one, and was surprised at how much I did not care. I cared that Josh was having a treat and I wasn’t; the treat itself, eh, not really.) And as for industrialized cheese, how did I never notice how weird it smelled? Industrialized food in general — you know, it’s salty and fatty and sweet, but beyond that, it’s kind of boring.
So I’ve lost some twenty pounds by doing the me thing, within some caloric limits. You can call it a New Lifestyle if you like but la la la I can’t hear you.
ETA: okay, there’s one more part: some call it the “no asshole rule”. Nothing drives me to the crunchy snacks quite like anger and frustration. The Buddha is said to have advised that it was better to go alone than in the company of a fool, and I’m taking that advice.
on 02 Jun 2010 at 5:42 pm 1.Carol said …
Oh, I never freaked out over your recent “sticks and twigs” diet. I guess I didn’t explain very well… I was just caught up in looking back and reflecting.
The only time I’ve ever really freaked out over a diet was when it was my own. But, years ago, I did get nervous when you started talking about dieting. Because for the whole time I had known you, you had been _really_ skinny, and even though you posted about gaining weight, it hadn’t really sunk in. So when you talked about dieting it did make me twitchy. But of course everything was fine.
on 02 Jun 2010 at 6:01 pm 2.Sarah said …
Carol, I still think of Cam as extremely skinny, too, so I have the same reaction. (As Cam reminisced recently, I think I fed her as often as she would let me during the Katehaus years. But I digress.)
I am extremely organized at work, mostly because Payroll isn’t something you can fudge. I decided a while back that spinning wasn’t something I was going to be very organized about. I attended a three-day spinning workshop recently, and we got various samples to spin and play with, and other spinners were making little cards to identify them and organize them, and I did not want. I would rather just spin and have fun.
That’s how I feel about food. Tracking my calories would just piss me off, though I’m aware it is really valuable data. Two months into no sugar I am much healthier than I was before, and honestly, I don’t think I’ll ever go back to eating sugar. More fruit, maybe, but clearly sugar was the cause of my migraines, since I went from one a week to one a month. I feel better, and I feel calmer than I used to. Doing this has forced me to examine my motives for what I call The Reach. When I reach for food, what am I really reaching for? My sugar and soda cravings were borne of frustration and anger; now I have to process instead of just riding the wave and making myself nuts. 90% of my stomach issues were a combination of soda and stress; stress made me reach for the soda, which supersized my stress into stomach issues. My body’s boredom while watching tv had me eating a lot of chocolate and candy; now I’m knitting more, and switching projects when I get bored.
Trusting your body is an amazing step. There’s a book called When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies, in which some women are coached through a non-diet where for the first chunk of time, they are required to carry their favorite foods with them all the time, and snack on what they want, when they want it. Sure, the first week or so they eat tons of chocolate, but they start being able to hear their bodies, and slowly start wanting healthy food. To have that silence available, to be able to hear what your body is saying – that’s key.
I love that you’re writing about this process. Yay Cam!