Dieting For Dummies Like Me (Who Eat Too Much)
The shirt I chose to wear today did a fine job of accentuating the uni-curved mass growing just above my belt. Wow! I had been doing really well for the past six months. The past six months prior to this last month that is… Suddenly, I need to run out and buy a copy of Dieting For Dummies.
It’s amazing how quickly I have fallen back into poor eating habits. The strange thing is that I prefer to eat healthy foods. So why then, is my belly suddenly growing at this horrifyingly rapid pace?! I think I know what my problem is. In fact I DO know what my problem is.
I am not an uncontrollable eater who feasts on junk food all day long. My problem is that I fail to plan ahead. The past four weeks have been VERY busy for me. I have been burning the candle at both ends – going to bed too late and getting up early as well. I rarely get more than five hours of sleep in a night. Studies have shown that sleep plays an big role in maintaining a healthy weight. Too much or too little sleep, and your waistline can pay the price for it.
Lately, when I wake up, I am so tired (due to a lack of sleep) that I am getting out of bed too late. I begin my frantic morning rush and eating is always an after-thought. In fact, I have rarely been eating anything before I leave the house. What I have been doing, is stopping at McDonald’s way too frequently mid-way to work (about the time my stomach is nagging me like crazy for some fuel). So I stop and do a quick breakfast in the car on the road. Too many calories that could have been avoided had I planned better. Perhaps I should have had my breakfast ready to go the night before, waiting for me in the fridge to grab and run.
After work, I again find myself starving and ready for some food. Many of the nights these past weeks, I have had functions or other commitments to attend directly from work. Again, I have not planned ahead for this and I find myself stopping for fast-food. It’s truly not that I prefer to eat this food, it’s just that it is fast and convenient. Unfortunately, it’s another caloric-blast that quickly finds its way to my midsection. It’s really not an eating problem for me, it’s a planning problem.
So, if I had to re-write Dieting For Dummies (from my perspective), I would make certain I included a chapter or two about planning ahead. It’s about being smart and looking at your schedule and remembering that we are human beings and we need a source of energy to keep going. Right now, I plan to look at my calendar to see what my next couple of days ahead look like. I need to remember that somewhere between all these commitments, I have to eat. I have a peach and yogurt waiting in a little bag in the fridge, if I can only remember to grab them in the morning…
I wonder if Dieting For Dummies has a chapter on eating enough calories for your body.