Weight Woes

As anyone who has read this blog for a while knows, I struggle with a weight problem. I have struggled with this problem most of my adult life, yo-yoing between brief periods of thinness and longer periods of fatness. Almost three years ago, I started Weight Watchers and lost about 54 lbs. Then I lost the plot and started gaining the weight back again. After gaining about half the weight back, I claimed that I had new resolve to try again. I really thought I did. I went to Weight Watchers again another couple of times, but then I never went back. I just got tired of driving across town in the evenings after working all day to go to the weigh-ins and meetings.

Now I'm ashamed to admit that I've gained back all the weight I lost, and a few more pounds.

I have no energy, I feel awful all the time, and it is making my back pain and my knee problems worse. I get out of breath very easily when walking up the stairs to work. When I had lost all that weight, I went up the stairs with no problem, and I remember how wonderful that was. Now, when I huff and puff after climbing the stairs, I feel terrible.

I usually don't read Instapundit that much, but a few weeks ago, I surfed over there and noticed an offhand mention of this book: The Shangri-La Diet. I clicked on the Amazon link and was intrigued enough to buy the book and read it. It sounds crazy and unconventional, but yet it makes a weird kind of sense. Especially when you read some of the scientific research about the association between flavor and calories.

Basically, the Shangri-La Diet is not so much a diet but rather a method of attempting to suppress your appetite and make you feel full with less food. It is also supposed to help suppress cravings for certain kinds of foods (like sweets). This is done by consuming up to 400 flavorless calories a day consisting of sugar water and/or extra light olive oil (not extra virgin). The oil is flavorless, and while the sugar is sweet, it doesn't really "register" as being associated with calories unless combined with other flavors. The theory is that if you eat a certain amount of flavorless calories, the "set point" for your appetite will be lowered and you will eat less. Conversely, the more flavorful calories you eat, especially when it's flavors that you are very familiar with (like processed food), the more the set point for your appetite goes up, which leads to obesity. The appetite "set point" is compared to a thermostat in the book. It can be set up or down by the kinds of foods you eat.

I tried doing the Shangri-La diet a couple of times, and while it did seem to suppress my appetite and reduce cravings, I found that it took more discipline than I could muster to stay with it. You see, you have to not eat, drink, chew gum, smoke, brush your teeth or do anything where you taste flavors for an hour before and an hour after consuming the oil and/or sugar water. My sister borrowed the book and read it and decided not to go with it for the same reasons. (She's a smoker, so that makes it even more difficult.) She says her life is complicated enough and she needs to diet in such a way that she doesn't have to think about it so much. I'm in pretty much the same situation.

Another problem with the Shangri-La diet is that oil seemed to work much better than sugar water. However, I no longer have my gallbladder, so taking the oil would give me some unpleasant side effects. I would get very belchy and sometimes a bit nauseated after taking the oil. The sugar water just didn't seem to work as well.

I may revisit the Shangri-La diet if I the next thing I'm going to try doesn't work out. I'm going to try NutriSystem for a month and see how it goes. I've already ordered the food and I should get it this week. This will be good because you only eat the portions allowed for each day. There is a huge variety of food that you can pick and you supplement it with fruits, vegetables, whole grain breads and skim milk. They also have sweets -- like chocolate cake and caramel popcorn -- so I will be able to satisfy my cravings. The Shangri-La book mentioned "good" carbs, which are those with a low glycemic index. The NutriSystem diet is a high protein, low fat, and high good carb diet. This will work out great, I think, because I really don't like to cook. My Mom is tired of cooking too, and she says that she will just have soup and sandwiches while I do my thing.

If I like the food and if I lose weight, I will stay with NutriSystem. If it doesn't work out, I guess I can go back to Weight Watchers and combine it with the Shangri-La diet. But I really hope and pray NutriSystem works out. I'm thinking of keeping a diet blog to track my progress. Doing this publicly may be a good way of keeping me honest and motivating me. I'll think about it. One thing I won't reveal, at least not until I reach my goal, is my weight. Why? Because it's just too embarrassing.