Journaling

Radical Honesty and Examination

Brandy’s question lands in my mind with a searing thud.

“How much?”

A quick litany of reactions flow through me. Skin, heart, follicle responses wax and quickly wane. Momentarily poised to react, sensing the scorpion tail in my mind drawn up in defense and ready to strike. But this passes and I relax into the paradigm my mind had been using for years.

“Fats don’t matter.”

Brandy has never cared about my weight. That idea comes with a mountain of skepticism and scrutiny from me. I have thoroughly questioned her from as many angles as I could muster. It’s certainly more nuanced than sheer carelessness, she wants me to be healthy, she wants me to be happy, but it has not been a motivating factor in her decision making with me.

Years ago, I asked if I was some elaborate project for her? Even to this she seemed to be genuinely surprised by the question. She’s either playing the greatest long con, or she really just loves me in a way that makes me completely at ease. So much so that when she asks how much olive oil I’ve put on my salad, my initial panic quickly dissipates.

When eating in front of friends in my adolescence, I’d obfuscate as much as possible. I could feel their judgement, because it was my own judgment. Nothing you or anyone else could think or say of me, would approach the brutality of what I thought of myself.

But Brandy’s ideas landed differently, she seemed to approach my weight from the position of helping me with the goal I’d set for myself. I say “she seemed to,” but this is quite literally what she did.

When my parents questioned my actions, a wave of revulsion washed over me. Their question implied that I should be following a plan to achieve their goal.

I wanted thinness and its miraculous benefits, but in an intangible way, like wanting to be the president or winning the lottery. It would be great, but it seemed entirely unrealistic for me.

Brandy’s intent has always been to assist in the thing I wanted, in the manner I’d chosen, with no judgement.

In 2017, she stood her ground. “I think they might,” she said with some resignation.

I’d been stalled out at 330 pounds, deep into a cycle of keto, the mother of all plateaus. I’d added cardio, and then hunger, but the plateau persisted.

I began conjuring my spiel on the insulin model of obesity, I was going to lay it on her thick. But looking down into the pool of olive oil in my bowl, recognizing that my actions were not getting me where I wanted to get, I recognized that I had unintentionally broken my rule of absolute honesty with Brandy.

“I don’t know how much.”

“Well, what did you intend? How much olive oil would you like to be having right now?”

This was not a new conversation for us, this wasn’t the first time she questioned my heavy pour of the ol’ omega three nectar. Though it was the first time we’d gone down this new branch of possibility.

My actions, over and over again, had not gotten me to where my intentions were sighted. There was some slight resignation to the idea of a feast and famine life. Many months of pain and effort to lose weight, followed by those glorious months gaining it back. The real problem with this was that every time I ventured back to lose it once more, it was way harder.

And not just psychologically harder, though it was surely that as well. The weight came off slower, it was much harder to lose weight on my 10th real push, than it was on the first few. In all the years of dieting, I’d never approached a weight I was happy with. (It turns out this isn’t in the cards for me, and I say that having been at a satisfactory weight and body fat percentage for the past six years.)

“A tablespoon?”

“That’s not a tablespoon.” she said, pointing down at my bowl.

Photo by Mikey Frost on Unsplash

The calculus I’d been operating by since I’d begun dieting, was either of two systems.

1. Remove the foods that contributed to my obesity.

2. Eat so extremely little that weight loss was inevitable.

I opted for these two systems because they required as little active thought as possible. Autopilot was the goal. I wanted that thing I perceived in others: mindless, thoughtless normalcy. I didn’t see “normal” people applying more thought than “good and bad,” so that was where I aimed. I just gravitated or was sold on these structures and adopted them.

The first, allowed me to blame the food, to believe I was being at worst poisoned, at best consuming something I was allergic to. The second promised me the shortest path to my goal. My goal was a generally nebulous thing though, “weight loss.” I figured some internal click would accompany this, and I’d know when I was done and had achieved this bold new divinity.

Neither was necessarily easy. They required effort, sacrifice, determined persistence. They weren’t easy whatsoever.

Avoiding carbohydrates/nightshades/ultra-processed-foods was difficult. Eating under 1000 calories a day was extremely difficult, but on a much shorter time-frame.

Brandy took my bowl and gently poured its liquid into a measuring cup. What remained in the bowl was still covered in oil, and the measuring cup had a quarter cup of oil in it. She then filled a tablespoon from the measuring cup.

So, I was way off.

People are bad at reporting what they eat. And as it turns out, I’m no better than “People.” There were many factors involved with why I underestimated what I was eating. Not the least of which was, I guess I didn’t actually know what a tablespoon really looked like, nor was I likely to come close to accidentally pouring one out.

After a long plateau, I’d decided that if I tried to always be a little bit hungry, I’d lose weight that way. Even still, I really had no idea how much I was eating.

My first day keeping a diet journal was a nightmare. A waking dream of horrible mathematics with no reliance on my own perception. I wanted specificity and therefore had to measure everything, and look up their corresponding values. It turns out, I had no real idea what a serving of any of the things I was eating actually were. I didn’t know how much protein, fat, carbohydrates or calories were in any of it, and I had no idea what my body needed.

Part of how I chose the diets I did, was they shut off my active thoughts about how any of this worked. The more I bought into the systems I was adhering to, the less I had to consider any of the other factors that were possibly contributing to my undesirable condition.

If it was just ultra-processed-foods, then the amounts of non-ultra-processed-foods didn’t matter. If it was just the carbohydrates, then fats didn’t matter. Every time I bought into one structure, all other possibilities faded into the background.

Taking very detailed notes on everything I ate was really eye opening.

On day 1 I learned that 400 grams of broccoli, 120 grams of chicken breast, 160 grams of potato, and 14 grams of olive oil each deliver about an equal dose of energy to the human body. On day 1 I learned that I could be full and still in an energy deficit. On day 1 I learned that I could utilize the Hawthorne Effect to my own benefit.

The Hawthorne Effect suggests that people change, improve, their behavior when they are being observed. The majority of my life was spent intentionally unobserved, with much of my relationship with food hidden, and I was not winning the fight.

Journaling allowed me to pull back the curtain and shed some light on what was happening behind the scenes.

I don’t believe that the only factor is calories, if that was true I’d eat nothing but the most delicious calorically dense foods available. If that was true, I’d probably be eating mostly fast-food, and I don’t really mess with fast-food at all.

While diligently tracking my overall food intake, I’ve played around with both low-fat and low-carbohydrate schemes. I didn’t feel great on either to be honest. For me, the model that’s worked best has been prioritization of protein, and a mix of moderate fats and carbohydrates. I’ve found that when I have my carbohydrates earlier in the day I seem to have more energy throughout and that on days that I don’t go to the gym I’ll tend to lower my carbs by a smidge and increase my fats to compensate.

Beyond taking energy into account, I was fascinated to learn what standard portion sizes were. I began to be able to recognize when I was eating out of anxiety versus an energy need by my body, to spot bored eating, and even when some advertisement was causing my body to generate hunger hormones to sway me from my path.

Years of maintenance were unlocked for me when I began writing down exactly what I was eating. Investigating for myself how I felt when I ate, with full knowledge of the food’s properties.

It required more analytical effort up front, but truly inconsequential when weighed against the years I spent chasing my tail on the yo-yo cycle.

Today I can answer any of Brandy’s questions, not only with accuracy, but with the full picture of my day in mind.

So yes, Brandy, I am having a half an avocado with lunch today, your eyes don’t deceive you. But it’s intentional and part of the plan.

---