Welcome to Glutton's Anonymous

I am a glutton.  I eat too much.  Always have, even since I was a kid.

And not just some times.  I ate too much all the time.   Every meal.  Every day.

As a glutton, I just didn't seem to have the magic ability other normal people had to stop eating when they were full.   My "full" was eating so much that the thought of another bite made me feel ill.   And after that, kept on eating...

I tried diets, of course.

The Method

You think counting calories and keeping track of calories is too much trouble?  You're thinking, "I'll need to carry a notebook with me and it will take tons of time to figure out how many calories are in that peanut butter sandwich or that hamburger."

With so many different foods, so many different meals with different ingredients...I can understand how people would think that counting calories is a total drag.

But I do it, and it's not hard at all. Really.  I've been counting my daily calories for years and it takes up less than 1 minute of my entire day, even if I'm eating at a restaurant.   Yes, there is a little bit of learning involved, but after less than a week of consulting your calorie book for how many calories are in an orange or a hamburger, you'll be very familiar with the basic amount of calories in any given food.

It's easy.  Here is an average day of eating with calorie counting:

Breakfast:  1 bowl of cornflakes = 200 calories
1% fat milk = 100 calories
Bagel = 250 calories
Cream cheese =100 calories

Total calories = 650

Black coffee  = 0 calories (I don't count any calories from coffee, diet soda, mustard, hot sauce, cinnamon, or anything like that which has only a tiny amount of calories.  They just don't matter in any way. So you see, things just got easier right there).

Chocolate Powerbar = 220 calories.  I'm in the habit of having an energy bar in the morning, and once I know how many calories are in each brand, I find it hard to forget.

Cheerios = 300 calories.    I have a nice Pyrex measuring cup.  1 cup of cereal?  100 calories.

Milk for Cheerios = 100 calories.   Non fat, 1%,  to whole milk has different calories, so I read the label and measure accordingly.

Total calories for breakfast:  520  I can write that down, or remember it.

But I rarely need to write calories down.  Though when I do, I generally write them on my kitchen calendar (don't have one?  get them at your nearest 99 cent store).

So while it may seem that keeping track of calories is a hassle

How to Lose Weight (if necessary)

Here is the secret:

1)  Get established on your Calorie Ceiling.

This means, go at least a couple of weeks not trying to lose weight, but just eating so that you're staying just below your Calorie Ceiling each and every day.

This will create MOMENTUM to your idea of staying within a Calorie Ceiling   Momentum is all-important. It's the habit that builds positive re-enforcement.   That is, the more days in a row you go eating just under your CC, the more self confidence you'll have and the more natural not-overeating will be to you.  Same as if you had stopped smoking and had some time under your belt -- you think about the time away from a smoke, and don't want to throw that time away.   In a way, you are overcoming the compulsion to eat by creating an equally powerful compulsion to NOT overeat!

2)   Reduce daily calories 6 days a week,  then return to your CC.

Here's exactly what I did (you don't have to be this ambitious)

I had a 2500 CC.

On Sunday, I would eat 2500 calories.  A feast day!

Then on Monday, I would reduce my allotted calories by 100, giving me a CC of 2400 for that day.

100 calories is one orange, or 1 slice of bread.  It's not much, it's not a sacrifice that weights heavily on my mind.  Can I go without an orange or a slice a bread and not suffer?  Sure, no problem!

Then on Tuesday, I'd only eat 2300 calories.  Wednesday, 2200, Thursday, 2100, Friday, 2000, Saturday, 1900.

On Sunday, I would go BACK TO MY 2500 CC.  THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT!

I found that after I had established my 2500 CC, it was really pretty easy to cut 100 calories from each successive day of the week.

Why was it easy?  Again, because my mind knew that this cutting of calories was not severe, it wasn't going to go on indefinitely, and when the week was over, I could go back to eating a (what was now whopping) 2500 calories.

Getting Started Now

So simple!   Just choose your generous Calorie Ceiling (GCC).  Start with:

3000 calories a day if you're a man

2000 calories a day if you're a woman

Then, for today, eat just under that generous Calorie Ceiling.

CONGRATULATIONS.  YOU JUST CONQUERED OVEREATING.

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Eating anything you want, and just stay below your  GCC, one day at a time.

Just don't over eat, one day at a time, every day.  That is the entire secret.

Once NOT OVEREATING is established as the daily basis of your eating, then all problems with eating disappear!

I found that all these eating related worries eating that had consumed thousands of hours of my life were now gone, and all because of this one simple principle:  Not overeating one day at a time.

Temporary diets do not work.  They require a lot of willpower, and then after maybe losing a little or  a lot of weight, we go back to unrestricted eating where the weight comes back in no time.   All that effort and sacrifice for nothing!

But using proven recovery principles behind just not overeating one day at a time will end the futile see saw, and bring us back to normal eating.

(If you really feel you are an exception to those Calorie Ceiling suggestions, then by all means adjust it.  For example, if you're a 25 year old carpenter who is very tall and has a large frame, and you find i't hard to get through the day on 3000 calories, then change your Calorie Ceiling to 3500 or 4000, or if necessary, even more.  You may not be familiar with how many calories you really need to not overeat.  But you will learn it quickly, in a few days to a week.   Remember, the general guideline for everyone -- pick a Calorie Ceiling that you think you can COMFORTABLY do every day.

Problems you are no doubt very familiar with, like 1)  Worrying about having enough to eat, 2) Stressing over a complicated diet where you are forced to give up foods you like 3)  Worry about being fat.

I found that all these eating related worries eating that had consumed thousands of hours of my life were now gone, and all because of this one simple principle:  Not overeating one day at a time.

Choosing a Generous Calorie Ceiling

What is a Calorie Ceiling?  It's the amount of calories that you are able to eat without being hungry, feeling deprived, or quickly gaining or losing weight.

In other words, it's the amount of food that's neither undereating (dieting)  or overeating (binging, pigging out, stuffing your face).   It's just plain normal eating.

How to choose the Calorie Ceiling that's right for you?

Here is how I chose mine:

I knew a guy whose Calorie Ceiling was 2000 calories a day, and tried that.  But I found that while 2000 calories was possible for me, it required a certain amount of willpower to keep it going.   That means mental stress, which in respect to food, must always have an eventual reckoning (that is, quitting the "diet" for a binge).  Also, I was losing weight on 2000 calories, a pound or two a week. So this amount of calories was, for me and my metabolism, just a bit too low to be a reasonable and effective Calorie Ceiling.

So what did I do?  I decided to add on 500 calories.  Now my Calorie Ceiling was a COMFORTABLE 2500 daily calories.

Choosing a comfortable, do-able daily calorie limit MADE ALL THE DIFFERENCE IN THE WORLD!  Having a calorie limit of  which that I was fearlessly confident took all the stress away from the idea of limiting how much I ate.

But what about you?   How will you find your own Generous Calorie Ceiling?

The first thing is to realize that not everyone has the same metabolism.   A petite female professional who has a fairly sedentary job is going to have a much lower Calorie Ceiling than a tall construction worker.   So there is no way I or anyone can say that there is a Calorie Ceiling number that is right for everyone.

Should you use one of the online "Calorie Calculators" that, with inputs on your age, gender, and height, purport to tell you how many calories you need?

I have checked out several of these calculators, and in my opinion,  they were all wildly inaccurate regarding what works for me.

So here is what I suggest to begin, right now.

If you're male, begin with 3000 calories as your Calorie Ceiling.

If you're female, 2500 calories a day as your Calorie Ceiling.

Probably some of you are saying "that is too high!"  (Also, some of you are saying it's too low!)  But these are good initial Calorie Ceilings for virtually everyone, whether you're built on the small side, largely sedentary, or whether you're a very active 6' 6" guy.

How it Works

Here is the program:

1)  Choose a Calorie Ceiling that you can live with every day of the year.

2)  Keep track of your calories every day, keeping the amount that you eat just below your Calorie Ceiling.

That's it!

Does it seem hard, complicated?  I assure you it's neither.  It's easy, it's simple.

Let me show you how I did it, and how you can easily duplicate what I did.

Applying Proven Recovery Principles to Overeating

There is a saying, "Nothing succeeds like success"!    And to succeed at anything, from being a great basketball player to learning chess to Having finally stumbled upon an already known doorway to success with other compulsions, I began to consider what principles of recovery I'd been ignoring.

1.   Quitting FOR GOOD AND FOR ALL.

This is a key AA principle, perhaps the most key to my long term recovery.   It means that once embarked upon abstinence from alcohol, there are no "off" days where one can drink.   Complete abstinence.   This is probably the first thing everyone learns about the AA way of life, that there are no occasions -- none whatsoever -- where it's OK to have even a single sip of alcohol.    The idea of "well, just one won't hurt me" is one of the old ideas that AA says must be smashed if any kind of recovery is desired.

I readily saw I'd been blind to following this principle concerning overeating.  I would begin a diet of calorie restriction, and then with some meager days of success, tell myself I deserved a "holiday" of going off that diet (of course, with the notion that I could jump right back into the diet the next day).
I'd done this countless times, and of course on that next day, I had no will to begin again on the diet.

But there was a problem here.  I'd been on a 2000 calorie a day diet, like Gene.  But Gene was quite a bit older than me, and of slighter build.   The 2000 calorie limit surely made me lost weight, but

Problem of the mind.

2)  SINGLENESS OF PURPOSE  See Page 190 BB:  "Don't you believe  you are going to have all you can do to get rid of that"?  "Let's forget about all those other things, that is, trying to eliminate them all at once, and concentrate on the drink."

We forget about trying to fix every aspect of our diet, making it perfect, adding on rules for exercise, etc.   Singleness of purpose is a principle that, for our purposes, means we only pay attention to ONE thing:  keeping just below the # of calories daily.

3)  FEAR  This is the main problem behind all problems with overeating.  That is, the problem isn't choosing the perfect diet with just the right correct foods, but the fears that "I won't get enough to eat to make me happy."  I don't know how else to explain that feeling of alarm, loss of hope, when the seeming need to overeat is something we are strangely powerless over.

4)  EFFECTIVE AND SUSTAINABLE.  This is an AA principle that isn't quite spelled out in the AA literature, but nevertheless, it's the very foundation of the program.  That is, if AA wasn't truly effective for stopping drinking, then what is the point of the program?  And, if that program isn't sustainable -- meaning, its only something a person can do for so long before, for whatever reason, they can't stand it anymore and need to take a drink --  then again, what is the point of even trying AA?   But as most everyone in AA knows, the program is both effective and sustainable.   How do they know this?  Because of the number of low bottom drunks who have gotten sober, are comfortable in their sobriety (don't hanker after having a drink and are otherwise relatively content human beings) and go on like this for decades.

In the same way, this program of GA, by focusing on the daily amount one eats with at LIBERAL daily calorie allowance, is both effective and sustainable.

5)  TIME TAKES TIME  As in any successful recovery program, "time" (recovery) must be a process of one day at a time, plus  one day at a time, plus one day at a time....without any breaks.  That is "time," meaning, everything to do with satisfaction and progress and results and happiness is directly linked to that series of days without a break.  It can't be stressed enough:  For the true compulsive overeater or glutton, there is no way to take a break, a vacation, a reward, a binge for even one day.  All success comes from "time" -- the consistent, unbroken abstinence from going beyond your calorie ceiling.

Also, "time takes time" is about avoiding the greed for fast weight loss.  This is a frequent impulse for many people who are frustrated with overeating and being overweight, and therefore their methods border on the extreme.   So they go on diets of very low calories or inconvenient and complex plans to avoid certain foods, thinking that this deprivation and suffering will pay off in fast results.  Of course, 99 times out of 100, their plans will fail and all their suffering will have been for nothing.

Extreme measures are not necessary!   That is a golden truth of applying this program.  Instead of extreme measures, I found that all that was necessary was to AVOID OVEREATING ONE DAY AT A TIME.  Please read that carefully -- it doesn't say GO ON A  VERY RESTRICTIVE DIET THAT WILL MAKE YOU SUFFER...no, just avoid over-eating.  That is really all that is necessary to quickly overcome all the problems, both mental and physical, that come with overeating.

6)  KEEP IT SIMPLE  Simple works.  Complex plans for food, whether they involved special kinds of food and lots of rules, or plans that change depending on certain circumstances, or (worst of all) plans that involve depriving your self for days or weeks and then stopping the plan once your ideal weight has been hit....all such plans are bound to fail.

But keeping it simple really works.  It worked for me.  All I need was one skill -- keeping track of my daily calories.  All I needed was one plan - keeping my daily calorie below my Calorie Ceiling of 2500, and doing this every day.   I had tried all kinds of complicated formulas, and they all failed. But this simple formula produced success.  100% success!

7)  EASY DOES IT  The test of whether you're doing it right is that it's easy.  If it's hard -- you're doing it wrong!  You probably have chosen a Calorie Ceiling that's too low.  That's OK.  In fact, it's good news!  That will serve as a great learning experience that you were eating too little, and -- good news -- you can now up your Calorie Ceiling, say by 500 calories.   This was exactly my experience.  I had a Calorie Ceiling of 2000 calories, and while I "could" do it, doing it was a challenge.  It required me constantly thinking about food and using willpower to make it through every day.  But when I upped my CC to 2500 from 2000, I found that willpower was no longer necessary to get through any day.   I could RELAX AND TAKE IT EASY, as the AA Big Book says.

I discovered an amazing truth:  To win at this game, all I had to do was NOT OVEREAT!   That was an incredibly profound revelation to me.   Before, I'd thought that my problems with food required adjusting myself to complex and difficult diets.    But now, I'd found out that if I just took care to avoid overeating,

a)  I now longer had the fear of deprivation of not eating what I wanted, or as much as I wanted.

b)  I never had to deal with hunger or craving (hard to believe, but true!)

c)  My weight became stable.  I was no longer gaining weight, and (more on this later), I found a base for a truly sane way to lose weight, if I wanted to.  And I could lose weight EASILY as well!