four-letter word: more than you wanted to know

Okay, sorry for the delay, but I had the migraine from hell on Friday and it dribbled over into Saturday.  But even feeling peaky, I managed to take MadMax out for his first driving lesson Saturday night.  We went to the community college parking lot (lighted, and no one there on Saturday night, so lots of wide open space).  Did the two-minute overview to locate the gas pedal, brakes, gear shift, odometer, and let him go.  He did just fine.  My car has all-wheel-drive, which  makes for somewhat tricky turning for a newbie-- I didn't think about that, or we would have used Dean's car which is front wheel drive.  But it was a successful first time out.

Because:  he started driver's ed today.  How does this happen?  One minute, they're having non-stop nerf dart gun wars in the basement and cackling like loons, and then the next time you turn around, they refuse to do anything that doesn't involve sitting sullenly in front of a screen and they're DRIVING.  *shakes head* *feels old*

However, that's not today's topic.  I said I would talk about the book I'm reading (or was reading before I  misplaced it in the move), The Beck Diet Solution.  Julie has been reading Allen Carr, and when I was reading about that on Amazon, the Beck book kept popping up in the recommendations.  I figured since she was reading Carr, I would try a different one just for variety, and plus the Beck book has 103 out of 133 5-star reviews (5 stars is Amazon's highest rating)(does anyone not know that?  I'm such an Amazon addict that I can't imagine not knowing that, but I'm explaining it anyway because I'm helpful like that.)

So you're probably already shaking your head with disgust because we've already established that I don't diet, none of us likes diets, we thumb our noses at our society's obsession with thin-ness, we cheekily turn a blind eye to all that garbage.  But, the Beck diet "solution" isn't that kind of diet-- there are no food recommendations anywhere in the book, and no rules about what you can or can't eat.  The point is to change the way you think about food.

So I figured what the heck, it can't hurt to read it.  (Don't go buy it yet-- I have at least two and possibly three posts planned about it, so wait till you read them to see what you think.  It's an unusual book.  I'm only about a third of the way through it, and already it has both given me excellent, ummmm, food for thought, and also thoroughly pissed me off.)

The first strike against it is the subtitle:  "Train Your Brain to Think Like a Thin Person."  It almost kept me from ordering the book.  What the heck?  It sounds like promoting thin-ness for the sake of thin-ness, like every thin person is smarter than someone who isn't thin; no matter what thin person you find, they will have enviable mental habits which you will want to emulate.  Which sounds like an express ticket to anorexia or bulimia, if you ask me.  I don't want to be thin at any cost, I want to feel more in charge of my eating.  And I want my cholesterol numbers to come down so I don't have to take drugs.

But the description of the book sounded more interesting than that, so I ordered it, and I'll tell you about it.  After you slog your way though this setup post.

Like many people who have gradually gained weight through their adult life, I look at pictures of myself ten years ago -- when I was horrified that I weighed 145-- and I think, wow, I looked great.  Not tiny and not a size 6, but healthy and happy.  Why didn't I know I looked great back then?  which is a whole nother topic.

Beck's point, and she does have one, is that it's not just that thin people eat less than people who are heavier, it's that they think differently about food.  I hadn't ever really thought about this.  I have relatively healthy tastes -- I don't mind eating vegetables (as long as they're not overcooked), I like salad, I love fruit, I like whole grain bread and pasta and brown rice.  I almost never eat packaged foods like Twinkies and CheezWhiz and ChipsAhoy. I get the late afternoon urge for something sweet, but usually a couple of Rolos handles it.  I don't have dessert every night.

So I didn't think I needed to think differently about food, I just thought I needed to eat less food.  As I've said before, I have a hard time stopping eating once I've started.  I tend to just keep going until it's gone.  I'm often over-stuffed, even when I've eaten healthy food.  But since ten years ago I weighed *coughs* *sneezes large number* pounds less and I was for the most part eating exactly the same as I do now, it hadn't occurred to me that I needed to think differently about food.  I just thought my metabolism had slowed, so the pounds were packing on.

So she's got me thinking about this.  (I'll save exactly how she wants us to think differently for the next couple of posts.)  I'm not entirely convinced, as you'll see.  Stay tuned.