55 Pounds Down: The Attack Plan

THE ATTACK PLAN

I started paying attention to what I eat, and when, and how much.

The primary goal, the number one intention, was not weight loss. I’d been diagnosed with diabetes, and that diabetes still flowed in my veins (like rust will), so when I got home from the hospital I needed to get my blood sugar under control.

Fortunately, dropping weight and controlling blood sugar are related, and each can lead to the other, so I’ve got a happy little co-conspiracy going on. When I work on one, I’m also working on the other. Everyone wins!

Well, everyone except the diabetes. And the blood sugar.

1 — Numbers

To control blood sugar, I need to watch my intake of carbohydrates. My plan started with a per meal goal. I’m going to tell you my goals for every meal, but I’m also going to take this moment to remind you these are, in fact, my goals, and might not necessarily be the same as your goals. I’m not a doctor. I don’t even play one on TV. I don’t even watch one on TV. I’m just a guy telling you what’s worked for me, and hoping you can take parts of what’s worked for me and make it work for you. This is one of those parts you may want help with. If you’re going to limit your carbs, you should probably check with a doctor or a nutritionist (I had both), you should probably do it properly, because your needs and my needs cannot possibly be identical.

That said, I aim for three meals a day, two snacks between them, and peanut butter. (See the section on Peanut Butter.)

• Breakfast: 30
• 10am Snack: 15
• Lunch: 45
• 4pm Snack: 15
• Dinner: 60
• Peanut Butter

It’s a simple day. Also, the numbers are completely interchangeable; if I want a big breakfast one morning, I can use the 60 from dinner and have only 30 then. I can even them out and make the 45’s throughout, though that seems somewhat boring. I can fall a little short or I can go a little over.

However, I cannot simply eschew carbs.

These are the primary sources of carbs I needed to restrict: pasta, bread, potatoes, corn, peas, and bananas.

(Yes, while a serving of most fruits is an easy, round 15 carbs, a serving of banana doubles that at 30.)

2 — Tracking

To accomplish this, I got a notebook and a pencil. Simple little things you can get at any corner shop, grocer, shopping center, mall, or mail-order catalog. And then I tracked everything I shoved into my mouth. I tracked times and basic descriptions of what I was eating and carb counts.

If I ate, say, yogurt for breakfast, my entry might look like this:

• 6:30 Sugar X
• Breakfast Yogurt 22
• Peanuts 4/26

X being whatever number the test strips read my sugar as, and 22 being the total number of carbs in a single serving of the yogurt I was eating. That 4 is the total number for a single serving (generally one ounce) of peanuts, and 26 is the total for the meal. A little shy of 30, but it works.

The important thing was not to cut carbs entirely, but to manage them, to track them, to keep them in line, to make them work for me. Also, it keeps me honest.

3 — Portion Control

That’s where I started. It meant paying attention to portion size. Yes, portion control. If you write peanuts and count 4 carbs but eat an entire jar with 22 servings, that’s way, way more than 4 carbs. You don’t need to be a mathematical genius to figure out where you went wrong there.

Really, who’s controlling what you eat? You, or the person who decided that store-bought lasagna lunch box you’ve been eating contains 2.5 servings? How many servings are in your average drink?

I only drink water.

Well, I only drink water and, most nights, a glass of wine. And the occasional whiskey.

Yes, I can get away with whiskey, so long as I don’t mix it with things like juice, soda, or sugar.

I don’t drink coffee, tea, sports drinks, milk, juice, beer, anything that may have carbs. I have an advantage; I didn’t drink much of that before. If you’re going to drink it, you have to count it. Write it in your little notebook with your little pencil.

(Also, this is important and shouldn’t need to be said: don’t lie to your notebook. You’re not required to hand this in for a grade, or give it to your doctor, or show your spouse or partner or the people you work with or the people at the bus stop. It’s for you, and only you, and can only be useful if it’s got all the information.)

In this country, and in many other countries, we’ve gotten used to bigger and bigger servings. What used to be a large fry at the fast food joint is now a small, and they only grow from there. When the serving size goes up, so too much your pant size. That’s just a fundamental law of nature.

I eat out rarely. At the start, I didn’t eat out at all, except at places where the nutritional information was easily available on-line and I had some control over the number of carbs I was ingesting, until I get better at estimating. The first trip out was tough. There was all that bread I couldn’t really have and all those mashed potatoes on the plate. I managed. I also skipped dessert.

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