No More Mister Fat Guy

 

As I’ve gotten a little older, and hopefully wiser, I’m struck with how small, intelligent changes can pay huge dividends regardless of the enterprise. This is most evident in the three racket sports I’m fairly obsessed with (tennis, platform tennis, and squash) whereby winning and losing is the accumulation over time of small advantages that translate during a long match into more points won than lost, and therefore, in most instances, a victory.

 

So, for example (at the risk of alerting my tough opponents), a strategic change of hitting an approach shot down the middle versus wide to someone’s backhand, and actually reducing the baseliner’s angle of creating a passing shot as I charge the net can swing a match suddenly in my favor; or hitting fewer boast and drop shots from behind my opponent on the squash court, only using such shots when I’m in front of him. And simply stepping up in the box in squash, or closer to the net in tennis, when returning service, can create an entirely different dynamic to the point and therefore the outcome of the point.

 

During this no more mister fat guy blog/enterprise when I’ve been attempting to lose the last five to ten pounds that most middle-age white guys like myself seem to carry around until their grave, people often stop me in the street and say, “Wow. You look great, Chris. How are you doing it? What’s your secret to losing the weight?”

 

Okay, that never happens, not even with my own family. But still, in all the time I’ve been blogging about this, I don’t think I’ve really discussed what I’ve actually been eating. And it’s been of interest to me (if not others, judging from the scarcity of inquiries) that ten pounds have, if not melted away like last night’s snow, come off a lot easier than I thought it would with relatively few changes to my diet.

 

Given that this is the eve of Berkshire Living’s Food and Dining Issue, I’m less curious about what incredible food is out there in our region and more interested in what others eat. And how aware most of us even are (or are not) about what we actually do eat every day. Most diets, regardless of strategy, work at first only because it makes people aware for the first time of what they’re really eating, so it creates mindful eating as opposed to mindless munching.

 

In sum, these are the minor changes I’ve made:

 

Instead of eating oatmeal with blueberries and a generous helping of maple syrup in the morning, I usually eat two soft-boiled eggs, and if I do eat oatmeal, it’s now without the maple syrup.

 

For my ten, ten-thirty snack, instead of eating two bananas before lunch, I now eat a piece

 

of cheese. For lunch, instead of eating a more-than-the-occasional burrito, or sandwich, or Indian or Chinese food buffets, the latter two with lots of rice, I stick to a Cobb salad with chicken, with an occasional switch over to some fish or chicken.

 

Afternoon snack, it’s more cheese or fruit, something low glycemic, however, such as an apple instead of a banana. (Sometimes I think I might have lost the weight doing nothing else but cutting out bananas from my diet, a fruit that I love, but that raises blood sugar quickly and therefore drops it down just as quickly, as well as lowers eyebrows, see photos above.)

 

And then for dinner, I eat pretty much as I always did. A lot of chicken, lot of fish, using good portion control, no flagrant carbs, lots of low-glycemic veggies, salads. No alcohol, though I’d certainly allow for the occasional glass of wine. No sweets. Later in the evening, if I get hungry, some nuts, or dried fruit such as apricots.

 

While this may sound restrictive to some, it’s hardly been a sacrifice on my part. Other than one incredible but guilt-ridden dream of eating a huge piece of bread (not unlike the dreams I used to experience repeatedly after quitting smoking when I would find myself inhaling deeply and deliciously on a cigarette once again only to wake up relieved I hadn't started to smoke again), I really haven’t been aware of feeling deprived in anyway. I never did have a sweet tooth, so that makes the cutting back on sugar not really much of an issue. I do put some honey in my tea occasionally, but drink coffee more often, in which I only add a little milk.

 

The result, apart from losing the weight I really wanted to lose (and all those imaginary amazed folks stopping me in the street to ask me how I did it) is that I’m far less hungry than I was before; have far fewer food cravings and mood swings; never experience the kind of indigestion I could be prone to before; and I feel much more in control of my weight and my food intake.

 

After years of it feeling so complicated, making so many decisions throughout the day about what to eat and what not to eat, I now don’t have to spend time thinking about any of that, freeing up my brain to obsess about other trivial matters such as whether lobbing more or less, or perhaps hitting with more or less slice, fewer or more drop shots, will bring me more victories out there on the tennis court this summer.

 

Anyway. It’s working for me. What works for you?