Lose 22 Pounds While Eating Whatever You Want

Fulton, my good friend, and I were strolling slowly along the side-walk next to the school playground. The new girl in Grade 9 was walking in the opposite direction towards us. In spite of being a newcomer, she was very well known because she was the fattest little girl anybody in our school had ever seen. I chanted loudly "The ferry sails. The ferry docks." All the other children in the playground burst into hysterical laughter. The new girl blushed profusely and ran away. Fulton was oblivious to what was going on. Fulton was the fattest teenage boy in the entire school. His nickname was "Fat Man". I was reciting the first line in the Chinese nursery rhyme: "The ferry sails. The ferry docks. Fat Man is clumsy. Falls spilling fat oil out. Fat Woman sees. Tears flow and flow." Fulton was born in England and had never heard of this nursery rhyme.

Children can be cruel. I know. My nickname had been "Fat Boy" since Grade 4. I was the butt of fat jokes before Fulton came to our school. Fulton is two years younger than me but he was taller and bigger. So he was crowned "Fat Man" and I retained my old title.

"Heart Attack". That was the subject of an email in my "In Box". It was from Yue-Kan, my little brother. "Whom can he be talking about?" I wondered. We didn’t have any relative in Toronto except for a very young niece. When I opened the email, it stated that he had a heart attack. I thought it was a practical joke. Reality sank in when he mentioned that he was treated with stents and was placed on several medications. An air of trepidation came over me. Like a bad omen, I had talked about the risk factors of heart attacks with Law-Pan, a distant cousin, a couple of days before. This meant I had to do something about the risks, not just talk. I recalled the risk factors such as smoking, overweight, exercise, diabetes, cholesterol, hypertension, aspirin and gum disease.

I had quit smoking after more than 15 failed attempts (Now, there is a simple effective method to quit for persons who tried unsuccessfully.) The risks that concerned me personally were overweight and insufficient exercise. I recalled hearing something about the absence of calories in mushrooms as well as "negative" calories in hard-hard boiled eggs (It was rumored that it takes more energy to digest a hard-hard boiled egg than it can provide.) and a few nuts could fill a person up. I threw away all my usual snacks, and I munched on mushrooms. That was fine for a few days. Then the mushrooms tasted bland. Dips were required to swallow them down with. This lasted a few more days. Then I tried cooked mushrooms, only to develop revulsion to them in 2 days. I switched to Chinese snow fungus - in the form of a pudding or jelly favored with cherry drink crystals and artificial sweeteners - hoping that there is no calorie in snow fungi. That lasted several months but my weight stayed unchanged. Hard-hard boiled eggs (without the yolk) tasted fine, but I needed 4 eggs per snack and I ate 3 snacks then 4 snacks a day. I changed to cashews when cashews happened to go on sale in a supermarket. I was obviously gaining instead of losing weight.

Disappointed, I looked into other options. Several methods were proclaimed to work. I listed them down in the order of their perceived effectiveness:

1. Gastric by-pass or gastric banding surgery
2. Wt loss boot camp
3. The lemon-chili-water diet
4. Pre-packaged meals
5. Meticulous calorie counting

Laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding seems most promising. Even being a medical doctor, there is not a ghost of a chance that I could get on the waiting list for gastric banding, let alone the actual surgery (Canadian healthcare consists of a public system in which private care is prohibited. It is on par with a post office service in which private carriers are outlawed.) One needs the will power of "The Foolish Old Man Who Moved a Mountain" (Chinese fable) in a weight loss boot camp. The lemon-chili-water diet requires fasting, eating only lemons and chili. This seems to be much too drastic. Pre-packaged meals sound almost as bad because most of my meals consist of Cantonese food. Counting calories of Cantonese food is pretty close to impossible.

"Wouldn’t it be nice if my stomach can be satisfied with small amounts of food – just like people who had gastric by-pass or banding?" I ruminated. With few options left, I decided to try the lemon-chili-water diet. It was tough! Even with lots of artificial sweetener, the taste of lemon mixed with chili was awful. Moreover, eating lemon pieces seasoned with chili didn’t make me feel less hungry. (See my definitions of "hungry" and other terms below.) I was not surprised because chili is a known appetite stimulant. I realized I couldn’t stay on this diet long enough to lose a significant amount of weight. However, I continued to experiment with the diet intermittently. One day, I forgot where I kept the jar of chili. So I ate only the lemons. After I located the jar and swallowed some chili, something totally unexpected happened - I didn’t seem to be hungry anymore!

However, the taste of lemon pieces was still too atrocious. Acting on a hunch, I embarked on a modification of the diet. I would eat whatever I wanted and whenever I wanted. But, I would stop as soon as I felt full (Catch #1). More often than not, craving for more food developed in about 15 minutes. Then, I would swallow 1/2 heaping teaspoonful of ground fresh chili paste with cold water. (The paste is available in 8-ounce jars in most supermarkets. The burning sensation on your tongue can be mitigated by rinsing your mouth with ice water. Incidentally, chili is a well known home remedy for temporary pain relief of stomach ulcers.) The chili paste did not give me the satiated euphoria, but the pseudo-hungry craving was gone almost immediately after. I tested and re-tested this phenomenon for over 10 times. The result was replicated every time without fail. In about 3 weeks, my stomach had learned to be contented with being simply full. And, I didn’t need to use the chili paste anymore.

Having confidence in the effectiveness of chili paste, I started to spoil myself with special treats once, and sometimes twice, a week. I would eat Dim Sum until I became satiated. As soon as I felt the euphoria, I stopped. Even if I had half of a Ha-Gau left, I wouldn’t finish it. (This was attention to details - not will power, because I was already satiated). Somewhere along the line, I discovered something else that was also unexpected, perhaps not totally - FOOD IS A POTENT APPETITE STIMULANT. If I ate when I was pseudo-hungry, I ended up consuming a lot of food. Since this discovery, I snacked only when I was hungry (Catch #2).

Progress was still quite slow. I was losing no more than a pound a week. I decided to add exercise to my regimen. Exercising outdoors seemed to be too much of a hassle. I decided to use exercise machines. And, I jumped straight in with both feet. I worked out on a cross country ski machine for 30 minutes. I became stiff the next 2 days. In addition, I developed leg cramps at night. So I stopped exercising altogether. After recovering completely, I tried out other exercise machines. My buttocks hurt after 20 minutes on an exercise bike. It required too much will power to work an elliptical trainer or a motor-less treadmill. Rowing machines were not too bad. However, I found walking on a MOTORIZED treadmill required the least will power. I started walking on a treadmill 20 minutes a day for 3 or 4 days a week. That proved to be too tough as well. I ended up exercising 1 or 2 days a week and sometimes none. Then, I re-started by walking on a treadmill 10 minutes DAILY (Catch #3). After about 3 weeks, I got so used to it that I felt something was missing if I skipped a day. My exercise program consisted of:

Walking with the speed and incline set at a level so that I became VERY slightly short of breath in 2½ minutes.
Then, the speed and incline were reduced so I could fully recover in another 2½ minutes. (This is called interval training - high-intensity alternating with low-intensity activity. It is believed to be the most efficient form of exercise.)
These steps were repeated until I exercised for a total of 10 minutes. (Currently, I carry weights and exercise longer.)

My stiffness and night cramps were completely eliminated by stretching and warming up before exercising as well as cooling down after. Occasionally, I skipped a day if I had to attend a special function or simply going out.

(SPECIAL NOTES: If a treadmill is not accessible to you, I suggest an equivalent program: "Simulated rope jumping" for 2½ minutes alternating with walking for 2½ minutes. Simulated rope jumping is going through the all motions of rope jumping with a short snippet of rope in each hand. This has 2 distinct advantages over regular rope jumping: 1.The intensity can range from very low to very high. 2. It can be done in a room too small or the ceiling is too low for regular rope jumping. Do not feel embarrassed if people stare at you. They are probably not looking anyway. Besides they will realize how good it is in a few days. The exercise duration should be similar to that of walking on a motorized treadmill as described above.)

I lost the weight I gained from eating cashews as well as the 22 pounds I targeted - all within 3 months. My body mass index has been staying steady between 22 and 23 (normal adult BMI is 18.5 - 24.9). This weight loss may seem very modest by most standards, but it is PAIN FREE and entails NEXT TO NO WILL POWER.

SUMMARY: Both FOOD and chili can "EXCITE" as well as "calm" a person’s stomach. To lose 22 pound entailing next to no will power, a 3-prong approach has been used with good results. It involves: 1. Eat only to full at meal time (chili paste after meals p.r.n.) 2. Snack only when hungry (chili paste after snacks p.r.n.) 3. Exercise daily.

DEFINITIONS:
Hungry - having the discomfort associated with the craving for food.
Pseudo-hungry - having the craving for food without the associated discomfort.
Full - having the hungry discomfort relieved by the ingestion of food without feeling euphoric or distended.
Satiated - having the euphoric or the distended feeling due to the ingestion of an excessive amount of food.