In the Eye and Mind of the Beholder

I have good news for my friends.

I read in the newspaper a few months ago that if your friends get fatter, you will tend to get fatter. And if they get thinner, you will tend to get thinner, too. The theory in this article was based on the idea that our perception of what is "normal" alters depending on what we see around us. Shortly after reading this article, I witnessed what could be considered a confirmation of that idea when a person mentioned that another person I consider to be a good thirty pounds overweight is "not overweight at all."

And, no, it was not in reference to me. I would never use myself, because I know how we women lie to each other about that stuff. To each others' faces, at least. And, we lie to ourselves.

Since then, I've thought a lot about this, and I've extended the theory to include not only what we "see" as normal, but what we think of as normal.

I'll explain.

Since I started eating an orange--a real orange that I have to peel--every day, I have lost ten pounds. I'm almost halfway to my goal.

I am not suggesting that merely eating an orange will make you lose weight. It's more about what eating that orange a day means to me and how it has changed my thinking. A couple of months ago, I posted an article about how food, by nature's design, should take some effort to obtain and prepare. Calories should be burned before being consumed. It's not necessarily so in fat America anymore. Only if we so chose do we have to physically work for what we eat.

And America is fatter. I remember as a child that there was a fourth-grade teacher at my school whose girth was truly amazing, but, other than that, I only knew a handful of "fat" adults. Today, I can sit in almost any meeting and look around me and see that about half of us are.

One thing that helped me extend my theory was noticing that whenever my daughter plays with a certain friend, she comes back with reports that they visited an ice cream parlor. And often had cake, soda, and popcorn, too, between school and dinner. Shocked at first, I realized that, to this family, having treats every day--several, apparently--is normal.

So I started eating an orange every day and thinking more about what I was consuming and what effort I was putting out. Small changes can create great benefits.

Instead of sticking merely to a list of foods that were "in" or "out," as I had been doing (with some occasional cheating along the way), I started fueling my body with foods that I knew to be naturally good for me and avoiding those that are not. I no longer have an "in" list and an "out" list. I have a "better for me" end of the list of food and a "not so good for me" end of the list. Instead of pretending I'm not eating much, I think about how much sugar and fat is in everything I eat. Not in a ruminating, self-defeating, worrying sense. In a self-educated, I'm in charge sense.

I select most of what I eat from the "better for me" list. The idea is that if I am busy eating the things that are good for me, I won't have as much time (and room) for the things that are not so good for me. I focus on low-fat proteins, fruits, vegetables, fiber, and whole grains. If I do have something from the other end of the list, I keep my portions really, really small. Like, a bite.

Doing this, I made my box of Girl Scout cookies last seven weeks. Unbelievable! I know!

When I had "in" and "out" lists, if I ate something from the "out" list, I tended to go "out" of control and eat more of it.

Now, I think differently. I think not about whether or not I should eat something, but about how much I want to eat of something loaded with sugar and/or fat, or, in other words, empty calories.

I had a very small piece--a half piece--of chocolate cake at a staff meeting. Naturally, I wanted more, but, first, I calculated how many extra calories were in that half piece. I had made it myself, so that was easy to do. I added up the calories from the amounts of white flour, sugar, oil, and butter I had used in making the cake, divided that by the sixteen pieces I had cut the cake into, then divided that in half. I had had about 212 extra calories.

I know well from daily experience how long it takes me to burn 212 calories. Did I really want to add ANOTHER 212 calories to that in the same day? Did I want 425 extra calories to worry about? This really helped me say no and turn to the apple I had brought instead.

In the past, I probably would have had two pieces of cake. Maybe even a third by the end of the day. Making myself acknowledge how many extra calories I used to eat really helps me see how I came to be overweight.

I watch portion sizes and exercise daily. I know, I know. Wouldn't it be nice if it could be about something other than diet and exercise?

If I think of one piece of pizza as a dinner portion (instead of three), with a little self-talk, I can stop at one. (Much to the amazement of my husband. And myself!) Do I want to eat three dinners in one night and have to worry about burning those calories? No! So I tell myself that's enough and turn to my tall glass of low-fat milk and salad to fill me up the rest of the way instead.

When Easter came, I was really worried. I gained seven pounds last Easter. I tried to simply have less candy in the house this year, but I still had a portion of it in the basket I share with my husband. I thought about what amount of candy a day would not make any difference to my weight loss. I decided one piece would do no harm. So I told my brain over and over that one piece was a days' worth of candy. I could have my day's worth, but not more.

It's all in how you think.

You might eat an apple, but would you eat three? Or would you drink three glasses of milk at dinner? Probably not. I ate my piece of candy, then reminded myself (repeatedly) that I didn't want to eat two or three days' worth of desserts in just one day.

It's like the theory from the news article--readjusting my thinking about what is "normal." If I thought that four or five handfuls of Easter candy a day was a normal portion, I would have gained weight again.

Really, I lucked out tremendously doing this. By the fourth day, my candy was all gone. I couldn't find it. I had only had three pieces, but some family members had helped me. Annoyed, I was also secretly relieved. No weight gain this Easter.

If you've gone from the two cookies your mother let you have to a half-dozen as a "normal portion," try cutting back to two. If you load your bowl with six scoops of ice cream, try letting yourself have just one. You wouldn't eat a dozen eggs for breakfast, would you?

We have only "super-sized" certain foods in our minds and not others--and usually the worst ones. Changing the picture in our heads of what's normal for us--particularly with the not-so-good-for-us foods--could change the view in our mirrors of what's normal for us, too.