I can do this. I can do this. I can do this. Here I am. Day 1 of being fully back on plan (and day 2 of not drinking) and I have reached what for me is the HARDEST time of day. I can generally do fairly well all day but the second I walk into my house when I get home from work is where I lose it and end up pigging out and sucking back the wine while I do so....usually in a horizontal position on my couch. This has been my routine now for a very very long time. There is no one here....my BF is not home yet, we have no children so I am only responsible to myself and need to remind myself that the calories count even if no one can see me! NOT TODAY I WILL PUSH THROUGH THIS DAY 2!!!!!! I came here instead to post. To commit to not ruining what has otherwise been an absolute picture perfect day so far. I'm going to go to the kitchen and make our lunches for tomorrow. I'm not going to eat while I do it. There is no alcohol in the house since we dumped it so I'm not worried about that. I'm going to really listen to my body and remind myself I ate dinner on the train (I was stuck at work late so I got the healthiest sandwich option to go with no sides and water from someplace that posts nutrition data so I can count it - this seemed like the less offensive option than waiting until i got home at 9pm completely starved and struggling with my hard time) and when the lunches are done I'm going to just brush my teeth and go to bed so my mind is off of it.
Where do you struggle? Is it a time of day or a certain trigger food or trigger event? How do you push through! What are some good strategies not only for the first week back on plan which is always the hardest but just in general!
I have such a hard time with night time snacking, too. It's why I try to save most of my calories for dinner. Stress is a big trigger for me as well. I would happily dive face first into a vat of Blue Bell Red Velvet Cake ice cream during the most stressful of times. Some people drink, I eat ice cream.
Try getting a sugar free gum in your favorite flavor. Ice Breakers makes a lemon flavor that's really yummy. I just pop a cube of that in my mouth and it helps when I'm stress-hungry and not legitimately hungry.
Just remember, the first few days are the hardest, then you'll start to adjust and it will get easier!
Good for you for staying on plan today, and not drinking! Habits are definitely hard to break but you're doing great so far!
I have two main times that are a struggle.
1 - Afternoons at work. I find it really difficult to resist the vending machine between 1 and 4 pm. I try to make a cup of tea instead of grabbing a chocolate bar.
2. Evenings after dinner. Around 9 or 10 pm. I don't have a great prevention plan for this yet. Sometimes I have a small snack like a piece of cheese or something. Lately I've been trying to make sure that chores are done in this time, like having a shower or putting away laundry, and sometimes the snacking mood passes. Not always though. It's tough.
[QUOTE=SunnyMac;5016682
Where do you struggle? Is it a time of day or a certain trigger food or trigger event? How do you push through! What are some good strategies not only for the first week back on plan which is always the hardest but just in general![/QUOTE]
I'm just finishing up day 8 so I hear you loud and clear!
If I'm feeling like I really want to put something in my mouth, I also find that sugar free gum can help. It's not helpful when I'm actually hungry, but more if I'm just feeling a strong desire to put something in my mouth.
I also have been going to bed really early! It shortens the evening time. Reading helps keep my mind off eating because I tend to get immersed-- especially if it's a good story.
Finally, when I started I promised myself I would stay on plan for 3 days, then I promised a week, and now I've committed to two weeks.
Going to bed earlier is a great idea to prevent evening snacking. If you are working through the day you probably actually need the extra sleep anyway. A lot of working people probably don't get enough sleep.
I have used going to bed earlier to break my habits about sleep and internet use. I'm fine with using the net in the evening now but for a while i would go to my bedroom after dinner and not even watch tv. I would read a book which would help me get sleepy.
Ubergirl, when you get genuinely hungry, its best to eat. Allowing yourself to get really hungry can lead to overeating. Its easier to notice when you are have comfortably had enough if you were not starving in the first place when you sat down to a meal. I think op did good to eat on the train.
If i was katy, and i was struggling with the temptation of the vending machine, i would have a snack like fruit or even a smallish healthy sandwich or some thing else to eat. I think if i was at work full time, i would find that time period after lunch and on the way home from work difficult because i know i would be getting hungry or tired then.
Because i don't go to a 9-5 job anymore but am home most of the time, i can easily avoid hunger. But some days when i go to the city, i notice i am always more hungry and that's when i could be most tempted to do the wrong thing. To avoid it i would take fruit and carrots and sometimes a sandwich with me in the car. And when in town, go and have a sit down meal at somewhere i like such as korean takeaway, or a japanese restaurant. Mainly i would endeavour to eat proper savoury foods because these satisfy me and don't trigger binge action.
AT home, when i get a bit like wanting to eat before meal time, i just have fruit. I figure its not high in calorie, i can eat less at my meal if i have eaten a big bowl of fruit salad etc. Sometimes i have a glass of wine earlier than dinner but i haven't got an issue with wine. If i did i'd cold turkey quit.
For me it was all about developing coping mechanisms for my weak times. You know, 'forewarned is forearmed' - so since I knew when I was going to really struggle, I prepared for it. For me, the hardest time was mid-morning. I had to force myself to change my routine so I didn't trigger those cravings so much, started eating my lunch at 11:15 - 11:30 so I didn't have too much of a gap between breakfast and lunch, and added a snack with 2 glasses of water every 2 hours so I always felt full. This has helped a lot. I hope you are able to push through it! Coming here to post instead of eating is a great idea!
I keep on-plan snacks in my desk, so I don't feel tempted by the vending machine at 3:00. There's NOTHING in there that's on-plan for me.
I also keep a higher amount of calories for dinner than I have for breakfast and lunch. My husband sometimes surprises me by making dinner, and while most of the time he cooks on-plan foods, if he's in the mood for mac & cheese, I need enough calories to absorb that without too much of a hiccup.
And if not, I have coping mechanisms in place to enjoy whatever he made even though it's not on-plan, and to not have it dismay me so much that I jump under the wagon.
OMG I forgot to subscribe to this thread so I wasn't getting the reminders about everyone's responses! How great it was to find them all at once at the end of the day Funky carrot is excited!!!!
I'm happy to report that I SURVIVED! I made the lunches - I make us super veggie protein salads with lots of colorful veggies, grilled chicken or tuna, homemade dressing with no added sugar or crap, and usually a boiled egg and skip packing the croutons or the bread. I didn't snack at all and made a b-line to the toothpaste and the bread. I read before bed too - right now I'm reading 'The Shift' which is about a weightloss journey so that was an awesome help! I even left the day yesterday with a few calories to spare (I'm balancing in at 1200 net calories a day per my doctor and trainer - but eating most of my earned exercise calories so this was extra earned exercise calories).
Right now I'm on seltzer. I switched out my bottle of wine for a 1 liter bottle of seltzer and am just dragging that around with me all evening. zero calories, same size, same volume and booze free. That worked well. I'm also happy to report that this morning I got my butt up and out of bed on time at 5am and went to the gym and did 40 minutes of high intensity cardio and I'm also at 7259 additional steps for the day and counting (I wear an Up band to track) so I should hit 10000+ steps for the day no problem.
I had a little struggle this morning....I commute to the city by train and well...my train actually hit a pedestrian and we had a 3 hour delay stuck on the train - all and all my total one way commute this morning was 4 hours. I missed snack time and all my snacks were at the office. I get off the train basically in a food court and I was STARVING. I resisted. I got my regular not fancy morning coffee and came to work and just ate my lunch salad a bit early. I am 100% on plan again today and trucking along. I think I need to be pro-active here and even if all my food for a couple of days is left at the office i need to keep portable snacks in my purse just in case.
The office is also a struggle place. I bring snacks, try to stick to them and have 'back up' snacks I keep at work. We don't have a vending machine but we do have office snacks...which is kind of worse since they are free and out in the open for the taking. I'm doing ok with these but I work in the live entertainment industry where my world tends to be full of food and booze - cocktail parties, sales meetings, travel, events, conferences - it's miles and miles of food on trays and open bars. I have some downtime now between events so I'm trying to get in the groove before my next one comes up so that I'm prepared. I'm terrified of the events.
#1 - First thing in the morning. I want 2-3 cups of coffee and I want my splenda blenda and my sugared flavored creamer. My only option is to remove these from the house. I've tried allowing myself just one cup in the morning, then stay on-plan all day. That does not work well!
#2 - In the evening when relaxing before bed. This has always been ice cream time. Now, I use Weight Watchers single serve desserts or sugar free butter pecan ice cream.
Good job finding a healthier alternative to your wine, and avoiding the food court.
One of my favorite portable snacks that's pretty high in fiber and protein (it's also carby because it's cereal, but it's yummy) is the Fiber One maple and brown sugar cereal... 1/2 cup + 1oz of nuts (usually cashews or pistachio kernels) it's crunchy and a little sweet and a little salty. It's about 270 calories... but it's filling and keeps me going for a while. A lot of times I'll eat it with fruit and call it breakfast.
I also like to keep carrots and other crunchy veggies divided into serving sizes. Zip lock baggies have become my friend. (I like crunchy snacks, can you tell?)
I find that I settle into the routine of my plan (moderate-to-low-carb, within the Insulin-Resistance Diet link-and-balance framework) fairly easily, and after a week of pretty low carb, I'm no longer tempted by treats and sweets.
Then about a month or so later, I start getting complacent. And I slide back up the carb and calorie ladder... and regain.
So for me it's not a particular time of day, or a particular temptation or food. It's more a burnout. I need to find things to keep motivating me after that first month or so, when weight loss slows down again.
Synger, have you tried looking at the low carb recipe section? I've been low carb and gluten free for about a year now and whenever I start feeling bleah... I just want a potato I try some new recipes, eating the same ol' same ol' everyday gets boring and makes my head start craving something off plan for me.
I am pretty consistent ... I bring lunch and snacks every day - the challenge was on Tuesday I didn't eat my snacks and left them at work and didn't bring any new ones with me on Wednesday when I got stuck. My regular meals have been on a pretty consistent schedule for a long time (now I just need to not eat extra between and guzzle wine - so far so good) I'm up pretty early and eat breakfast pretty early so I know I need a snack at 10am or I'll want to eat my hand. I need to be better about having the 'emergency' snacks separate from my regular lunch/day snacks just in case I'm stuck on a train.... problem was I was hungry and had nothing to eat then had to just hold my breath and blow through the food court until I got to the office where my food was being held hostage by the office fridge
As for a book - about 70% of my job is on the road so my life is pretty mobile. Between my ipad, iphone, kindle etc I'm never without anything to do. As for events - well - I'll get into that at another time when I'm mentally preparing for my next one. They are not 'normal' events by any means, my industry is a little over the top but I think that's a story for another day and another thread
As for watching what others in the office eat - Shockingly the majority do not hold back (I think I've always watched what other eat because I'm secretly so self conscious about food especially as I get older) - most people never skip the treats (cupcakes, happy hour, lunch out, catered in, event food on trays etc). No one really holds back except 1.5 people - I actually hold back more than most - but to put it in perspective there are under 20 of us in the office and the vast majority is support staff that are in their very early 20s just starting out (and very obviously none were heavy children) Even though I was heavier all my life I've been working on packing on my 60+lbs of professional life weight for 10 years - so I worry more about where the kids will be when they get to my point in this industry.
Yesterday was another habit win too. I'm doing really well substituting my giant bottle of seltzer. Today I have to eat less because I did not get up and work out this morning and that is when it is prime office snack minefield. Even though it's raining out I think what I will do is try to get up and out and go for a walk to take my mind off of it when I hit the mid afternoon slump!
Synger, have you tried looking at the low carb recipe section? I've been low carb and gluten free for about a year now and whenever I start feeling bleah... I just want a potato I try some new recipes, eating the same ol' same ol' everyday gets boring and makes my head start craving something off plan for me.
Thank you for the suggestion! For LC support, I tend to focus on another board, but I never considered looking at the LC threads at 3FC. I'll go check them out. Thanks.
The Challenge of Breaking Bad Routines
