Eating Out and Losing Weight

About 20 years ago, I won an audition to play trombone in an Air Force band. I was overweight, and so I lost 60 pounds in two months to qualify for Air Force basic training. Yes, I literally lost a pound a day over the course of two months! There were several factors in my favor. First and foremost was a job waiting for me as soon as I met the physical requirements. In addition, I was playing in the Ohio Light Opera. The Ohio Light Opera is a summer lyric theater festival that houses and pays its musicians. After an initially heavy rehearsal schedule, the workload is pretty light. With food and housing taken care of, my only responsibility was to show up for rehearsals and shows. That left a LOT of free time. I walked 8 miles and worked out every morning, practiced the trombone, played shows, and spent a lot of time being hungry. Looking back, I can see that my circumstances were absolutely perfect for someone motivated to lose a lot of weight. It was surreal to step on the scale every morning and watch that number go down every morning.

I also had the benefit of a 26 year old's metabolism.

These days, as I lose weight once again, I don't have any of the benefits I enjoyed that summer with the Ohio Light Opera. My schedule is erratic as I juggle gigs, rehearsals, music engraving, lessons, and a church music job.

The biggest challenge is trying to lose weight while eating out. It's tricky, but it can be done. I eat mostly at home, but I often eat out when gigging, teaching, and working at the church. The key for me is to plan ahead so that I make good choices.

When you play gigs, particularly restaurant gigs, you usually get fed. Since a meal is often part of the payment agreement, you sometimes feel like you want get your money's worth. It's not that different from the mindset most of us have when we pay for a buffet. We want to load up that plate! Instead of searching the menu for a hefty meal, I'll go for a salad and a low calorie appetizer.

There are a couple restaurants that I visit regularly: a local Mexican place across the street from where I teach lessons, and a Blimpie near my church. The Mexican place is fairly inexpensive, and I used to order three tacos, rice, and refried beans. (And then I would leave, feeling like I'd eaten a bowling ball.)  Now, I just order a couple fish tacos. My meals at Blimpie have always been healthy…except for the cookies I always ordered. Now, I skip the cookies.

So far, in spite of a crazy schedule with a lot of eating out, I've managed to lose 19 pounds. My biggest challenge this summer will be the UUMN conference in Dallas. I'll be eating on the road, staying at a hotel for four days, and meeting lots of other musicians and music directors. There will be an enormous temptation to indulge. Just as I do at home, I'll have to plan ahead, seek out restaurants with healthy foods, and be vigilant.

Fighting the Urge

In my last blog, I wrote that one of my goals is to weigh 185 pounds by the end of the year. Even after having to stop running due to a knee problem, I've been good about exercising. It's the diet the kills me. When I was training for half marathons, I could eat what I wanted without gaining weight. When I had to stop running, I still had a runner's appetite, and I kept on eating as if I were still burning through lots of calories.

My diet is back under control, but it's being sorely tested these first couple weeks of 2012. Like most dieters, my willpower is weakest at night. It gets even weaker after a gig or rehearsal. You can really work up an appetite performing. There's almost nothing that tastes better than Waffle House or Mexican food after a gig!

I've been rehearsing for a production of Xanadu. The next two weeks are filled with night after night of rehearsals and shows. There is an IHop, a Waffle House, Mexican restaurants, three grocery stores, and several convenience stores on the way home. The temptation to stop and grab a late night meal grows each night.

I know that I'm not alone in craving foods at night, and that, like me, some of you may also have unusual schedules and find yourself traveling in the evenings.

You may have your own strategies. The way I deal with it is to plan ahead. First of all, as I'm watching my diet, I plan my meals for the day. Rather than obsess about what I can't eat, I focus on what I'm going to eat. If I have an evening show, timing is a factor. I'll usually eat dinner about 60 minutes before a show (90 minutes if I'm singing). I'm still hungry after a show, but not as hungry as I would be if I had eaten dinner earlier.

I'm also diligent about choosing restaurants. I prefer to eat dinner near the theater to avoid rush hour traffic and the potential of being late (my biggest pet peeve). It's easy to blow your diet when you're eating out. I always choose a restaurant before I even leave, otherwise my stomach will steer me toward Mellow Mushroom Pizza or Five Guys. I'll usually go with Subway or someplace I can order soup and salad.

I steel myself before each rehearsal or show, knowing that someone usually bakes cookies or brings treats. Today I succumbed and accepted a cupcake (yum!). After the show, I do my best to resist the urge to stop for food. I'm not beating myself up over that cupcake, I resisted Waffle House on the way home, and I pedaled 60 minutes today, so I'd say it was a good day overall. Tomorrow is another day and another rehearsal, so I'll be doing this all again…minus the cupcake.

Balancing Act

Last month I blogged about relapsing back to my old dietary ways, snuggling up at night with some chips and my two best friends, Ben and Jerry. After some recent struggle, I feel like I'm getting my weight under control again.

These last couple months have been about regaining balance. This past summer, I was exercising a lot, and I mean a lot! Pedaling the stationary bike for up to two hours some days, and walking 10-12 miles, I had it in my head that I would try ultra-marathoning at some point. (Frankly, this still sounds like a cool idea.) The problem was that when I took a church music director job, I didn't have time for this amount of exercise when you also factor in music engraving, practicing, and hustling up gigs.

Suddenly, I felt like I didn't have time to exercise at all. The music director job is only a 10 hour per week commitment, but that's about how much time I was exercising each week. In many respects, I'm an all or nothing kind of guy. Sometimes that plays to my advantage, but this time it got me in trouble. I just stopped exercising, thinking somewhere in my all or nothing brain that if I couldn't exercise for hours at a time, I couldn't exercise at all.

This was wrong, of course, and I've finally found my balance. I may not have time to plop on the stationary bike and pedal for two hours, but I have 30-40 minutes. If I have time to mess around on Facebook or write a blog, I have time to exercise. I can't eat as much as I did when I was working out 90-120 minutes at a time, which is a crying shame, so I've had to regain my balance there, too. It was hard to give up the Ben and Jerry's (again!), but I feel a lot better now that all the sugar is out of my system.

At this point, my newest "skinny clothes" are too tight, but give me a couple months and I'll be wearing them in style again!

Balancing Act

I don't know if there is such a thing as a foodaholic, but if there is, then I am one. Believe it or not, losing 124 pounds was fairly easy. I'm extremely goal oriented. Once I've set my sights on achieving something, there's usually not much that can stop me. Now that I've met my goal and am at a healthy weight, I'm finding food to be a challenge again. About a week after reaching my target weight, I found myself bingeing, telling myself that since I'm doing so much distance running, I'll automatically keep the weight off. This is the kind of mindset that reversed my weight loss efforts the last time. I may be running a lot, but it's still a numbers game. No matter how much I run, if I consume more calories than I burn, I'm going to gain weight again. Having learned from past mistakes, I put a stop to the bingeing right away.

I can certainly consume more food than I've been able to eat in the past year, but not so much that my middle starts to expand again. I'm not counting every single calorie anymore, but I'm still mindful of the types of food I eat and my portion sizes. I don't bring junk food into the house, and my cupboard is potato chip free. My will is weakest at night, so I'm maintaining my "don't eat after 6:00" rule as often as practical. In general, if I eat four small meals per day of around 500 calories, I'm in pretty good shape.

While I may always be dealing with food issues, at least I've rekindled my love of running and exercising in general. Running was originally a means of shedding pounds, but now it's a passion nearly on par with my love of music. I'm planning on running two half marathons this year, I want to be able to run 20 miles straight by the end of the year, and next year I'd like to run a marathon. After that, who knows?

I just love food! While I don't have to be as restrictive now as I was when I was in weight loss mode, I still have to be vigilant. The adjustments in my eating will take some experimentation, but I'm confident I'll find the right balance.

Changing Tastes

As of today, I've lost 120 pounds. I only have three more pounds to lose before I reach my major goal of 200 pounds. As I continue to run and work out, I'll probably lose another 10 pounds or so. Once I dip below 200, I don't have a specific weight in mind. Through healthy eating and plenty of exercise, my body will gradually settle down to its own ideal weight.

Most people will tell you that when you lose this much weight, you can expect to be more energetic, have greater mobility, and feel more confident. This is all true, but one surprise is that my taste buds have changed. Last April, when I first began a concerted effort to lose weight, I constantly craved all the foods I had been gorging on for the past 15 years: chips, pizza, burgers, fried foods, sweets of any kind, and my favorite treat of all, Ben and Jerry's ice cream. For about a month, I fantasized about these foods constantly. It took real effort to avoid these foods and switch to a cleaner diet.

Somewhere along the way, I actually began craving foods that were good for me. At first, I attributed this to sheer hunger. It's not that I'm starving on my current diet (far from it), but when you're running a caloric deficit, you're going to get hungry. I just figured that if you're hungry enough, just about anything tastes good. I first noticed this when I went for sushi with a friend a few months ago. I never used to like sushi, but I gave it another try, and, lo and behold, I like it now. Later, I noticed that I was craving vegetables. These days, when I go out to eat, I walk into a restaurant hoping they have good salads or a wide range of grilled entrees.

It's not that I wouldn't want to snarf down a bag a chips or a pint of Ben and Jerry's if someone brought them to me, but I just don't search out these foods anymore. I think part of the reason I didn't enjoy eating the healthier foods was that the super rich junk food interfered with my palate. When I first changed my diet, my fantasy was that after I reached a certain weight, I would treat myself to Ben and Jerry's or some pizza, but even that has changed. Instead, I'll be treating myself to some new clothes and running gear, and once it warms up, I'll get my bike fixed up so I can use it for weekend rides and local errands. I'll certainly enjoy ice cream and other treats now and then, but in moderation.

All you dieters out there take heart. If you've just started watching your calories, you're probably craving junk food right now. Keep the junk food out of the house so it's not easily accessible. If you go out to eat, order a salad instead of fries. I know you're longing for some candy or some tasty fried goodness, and unfortunately, you're going to continue craving them for a few weeks. Such is life. Just focus on making good choices from meal to meal. Stick with it, and you'll eventually discover that healthy eating has become a habit.