Same Dedication, Different Goal

Hi,

I got an e-mail today that set me to thinking. The e-mail was from a guy doing some selling of a weight-loss program from another guy. Actually I have already bought both of them, but sometimes after you get on their mailing lists they send out information that is useful.

What they were talking about was the Sumo Wrestler Diet and how "not to eat." They proposed the idea that since Sumo wrestlers have a goal to weigh about as much as humanly possible for an athlete it makes sense that if you do not want to be as fat as a Sumo, you should do the opposite of what they do. So I went looking around to see what Sumo's do.

What I found is that it appears that Sumo wrestlers, who are fantastic athletes, only eat two times a day, but when they eat, they consume gargantuan amounts of food. When they are first starting out and are still thin, they practice increasing the size of their meals, but they may end up throwing up from forcing all that food into their gullet, because their bodies are not used to it, yet.

So this points out something to me. The size of our meals is a habit. We tend to eat in whatever way we learned to eat at some time in the past. We tend to eat amounts that are comfortable for us and "acceptable" to our brains. It could be based on "serving size" like a restaurant or fast food serving. It could be based on what mom and dad gave us to eat. It could be based on whether our parents monitored our eating as a child, or simply let us eat what we wanted when ever we wanted it. It does not really matter how we got our current habit. What matters is realizing that what we eat is based on familiarity and habit, or what we have grown accustomed to.

That might be the simplest explanation for why people eat the way they do. Whether a person follows a diet plan from a doctor or diet guru, or family eating habits, or religious eating habits, or cultural eating habits, we eat according to the familiar or acceptable plan in our heads.

So, what if, the plan in our head is distorted in some unhealthy fashion and we are not aware of it? We comfortably think we are eating OK but we have a tire around our middle and our blood glucose levels are in the danger zone. The only way to know if our own eating habits are "distorted" is to examine our health and our body. If you are not happy about the state of your health or body size, and you are sure that it comes from your eating habits, then approaching the subject from the point of view of changing a habit makes it easier than thinking there is "something wrong with me." We really don't have to change who we are, we just need to change what we do.

Sumo wrestlers only eat two times a day but they consume as many as 20,000 calories every day. They also exercise every morning before eating. In between exercising and eating they rest, nap, or sleep. So they get up at 5 a.m., and fast during the mornings hours. They also work out during this fasting period because it is easier to move around when the belly is empty. Then at about 11 a.m. they eat an amazingly huge lunch, then take a nap. When they wake up they eat another meal as huge as the first one, and then go to bed for the night.

Sumo wrestlers do not eat junk food. They eat many bowls of good healthy meat, chicken, and fish, boiled into a stew with vegetables from an ancient Japanese recipe (with the usual individual variations) along with as many as five bowls of rice and six bottles of beer to wash it all down. As they eat, the bowls begin to stack up in front of them, and are taken away by those who are serving. When they are done eating, the wrestlers go to bed.

I can understand that. All that eating is hard work. Remember how you felt after a Thanksgiving feast? They eat more than that two times a day, every day. Hard work, indeed. Wow.

Sumo wrestlers work hard at exercising and eating. As odd as it sounds we need to be as dedicated as they are to the exercise and eating plans that we think are the right ones for us. Most of us normal people do not have a goal of being fat. We already know that eating fabulously large amounts of food makes a person fat, so those of us who want to be thin, need to choose a different eating plan. Oddly enough, a healthy weight loss plan does not have to be any different from a Sumo Wrestler's except for the size of the meals.

Getting up at 5 a.m. and exercising until 11 a.m. is what many modern trim athletes do.  Eating healthy protein and vegetables is a good idea for normal people, too. Even fasting for part of the day and eating only two meals could be a plan that works to lose weight -- just as long as you don't eat 10,000 calories per meal. If you want to cut down on the carbs, then don't eat any rice or beer with your meals, but one bowl of that same stew might be an excellent choice.

This has all been on my mind because I have had trouble with losing weight. I want to find the perfect eating habits for my body. This new habit I am trying out of fasting for 16 hours a day was easy to do the first two days but seems a little harder today. I have to remind myself of why I am doing this. I have to remember that during the hours I am not eating my body is working hard to keep me going. I am burning the fat from my body because I am not giving it food to burn during this time period. I also need to be a little careful when I eat, to make sure, I'm eating food that is good for my body and also will not start packing on the pounds.

It seems odd to think that a person could fast every day and pack on the pounds, but that is exactly what Sumo Wrestlers do. They have that as their goal. If I have a different goal, the one about losing weight, then I need to eat enough to sustain me without packing on the pounds when I break my fast. A salad and a pork chop would be a good meal for me.

Getting used to the feelings that I feel while I'm not eating, without succumbing to my old habits will help to build a new habit. Beginning Sumo wrestlers have to work hard to learn to eat gargantuan meals. I need to work hard at fasting and then consuming meals that will get me to my goals. Here's to new habits!!

Be back soon, Lord willing,

Marcia