[BillBlueEyes]

Welcome to the discussion group, support group, Diet Coach group, Diet Buddy group relating to the two books by Dr. Judith S. Beck:

The Complete Beck Diet for Life

and the first book

The Beck DIET solution: train your brain to think like a thin person.

The Beck Diet Solution is a psychological program, not a food plan. It provides a step-by-step program to learn specific techniques to stay on our diet, lose weight, and maintain our weight loss for life. The program is based on Dr. Beck's clinical research in Cognitive Therapy (CT).

The Complete Beck Diet for Life expands the earlier work and includes a food plan with suggested menus. From the cover:

With The Complete Beck Diet for Life you'll discover the 5 stages of successful dieting and maintenance. You'll learn how to motivate yourself, give yourself credit for every change you make, create time and energy for dieting, and handle hunger and cravings. Dr. Beck eases you into changing one step at a time. You'll master one task before moving on to the next. And you'll learn techniques to deal with challenging situations, such as sticking with ou plan at celebrations and dealing with "food pushers." With Dr. Beck's skills, you'll achieve a lifetime of healthful eating and lifelong motivation.

This is a place to discuss the Beck strategies and our daily efforts, to receive and provide support, and, for some of us, is where we serve as on-line diet buddy (coach) to each other.

If you’ve arrived from a search engine, you've landed at the site of 3 Fat Chicks (3FC), a remarkable place for those interested in a healthy life style, including mindful eating, exercise, and weight loss. More about the site, including how to register so that you can post, can be found here.

The books are available on Amazon through the 3FC store by clicking their names above; buying through 3FC helps to cover the costs of running this site.

You can find the list of previous (or more current) monthly Beck threads here on 3 Fat Chicks via:

List of Monthly Beck Threads for Support, Discussion, Buddy/Coach

[BillBlueEyes]

Diet Coaches/Buddies – Good gym class, CREDIT moi. The instructor still makes us do planks. I hate planks. The treadmills face a wall of TV's with at least one of them playing football reruns so I can distract myself from the treadmilling.

Food was better, CREDIT moi for that, although snacks are still larger than my plan. Lunch was a turkey sandwich with cranberry sauce - just about my favorite lunch ever. I do, however, seem to compensate for the low calorie turkey with a gallop of mayonnaise. But this will end when the last bite of turkey is gone.


Joy (gardenerjoy) – Yep this dry house air is a sure sign that winter is here. May your "icky drift away on its own.

maryann - Thirty Kudos for a November without sweets at work. Good luck ducking all the homemade goodies showing up in the break room at school

nationalparker – Yay for a new ticker - whatever it takes to kick the brain into supporting the plan. Kudos for starting monthly cards.

Karen (karenrn) - Great goal, "to be diligent with my food plan," Kudos.

curlyjax - Ouch for the "bleagh" - hope it isn't flu since that settles in for a spell. Kudos for planning for a week without desserts.

Ani (dailypractice) - Smiling at Joan Baez, "You who are so good with words And at keeping things vague." Kudos for recognizing that vague is a Sabotaging Thought that stands to be addressed. It's a good moment to restart.

Readers -

Chapter 2 Foundation Strategies to Escape Your Traps

Putting it All Together: How to Create Escape Plans

At the end of each trap chapter, you'll devise a personalized escape plan for specific situations you expect to encounter. You will find a blank escape plan template in the appendix, or at www.beckdietsolution.com, so you can make copies. For each trap, identify each situation that is likely to arise and create an escape plan for each one. Here are the steps to create your escape plan:

1. Specify the trap at the top.
   
   
2. Describe a specific situation in which this trap might arise.
   For example:
   • Super Bowl party at Daniel and Hillary's - they'll expect me to eat and drink a lot.
   • All-you-can-eat buffet when we go out with the kids. I'll be tempted to eat too much.
   • Feeling anxious about the results of my blood test. I'll want to soothe myself with food.
   • Not enough time to eat lunch on Friday, so I'll have the urge to snack throughout the afternoon.

Judith S. Beck, Ph.D., Deborah Beck Busis, The Diet Trap Solution, Train Your Brain to Lose Weight and Keep It Off for Good (Blue book), pg. 42

[karenrn]

Good morning coaches,

Credit yesterday for food on plan, no sweets and no alcohol. No credit for no exercise yesterday, but I will be heading off to my class at the Y this morning. It's working well to have my cards right beside my bed and I read them before getting up, credit.

I've got something social with food for the next three days. Today is happy hour, tomorrow lunch with former co-workers and Thursday a Holiday party with my volunteer group. It is going to be difficult to keep my calories under control, but I'm going to do my absolute best and try to be very focused on making good choices. This could be a week of really strengthening my resistance muscle. I guess the good news is dh is out of town so I can balance the calories I eat when out by limiting further what I have at home.

Bill Planks are hard, but they sure do help the mid-section. I love turkey with mayo and cranberry too. Sometimes I just mix them together and use for a dipping sauce and have it without bread.

Ani Welcome back! How was Washington? I was up there for about 6 weeks this summer and of course love the temps compared to Arizona in the summer.

I hope those of you who aren't feeling so great will be on the mend soon.

[gardenerjoy]

Continuing slight improvement in how I feel. I've got a day that I don't need to leave the house except for a walk, so I'm looking forward to gentle activities.

WI: +0.25 kg, Exercise: +40 1205/1200 minutes for November, Food: 90% op, Read my Advantages and Responses: yes

Welcome back, dailypractice! Good to see you here.

curlyjax: hope you're on the mend, too!

[love2garden]

Gardenerjoy Glad you can stay in to recover.

Karen Strengthening that resistance muscle is as hard as a Plank

Bill Back to my Beck notebook and cards. Glad to be able to come here and begin again. Sure did get off track.

After 3 Thanksgiving dinners I was afraid to get on the scale. Must do so and face the news, beginning again.

[millie56]

Haven't posted in a VERY long time. Credit - ate only on plan food yesterday and so far today. Going to square dance class tonight so plan to stay away from the food table as it is in a separate room and I just don't need to go in there. Started back with drinking water this morning. Was off track for most of November but managed to have a 2/10 lb weight loss this morning. (The program I am in we only weigh in once a month) so must have not done as poorly as I imagined. So a new month to continue (rather than begin again) and to forgive myself for all the mis-steps last month as the new month I can take it one day at a time and pass on the unplanned eating habits.

[nationalparker]

Good day (so far) OP and dinner is planned - have choices of three menus. Will depend on when I finally get home. Planned to run two errands and now want to add one more, quite a distance away, but it's not necessary, just wanted to try out some shoes that looked comfortable (and one pair that just looked good ... because the coupon is off TWO pair. umhmm). Suspect I can wait for tomorrow for that and if the coupon isn't valid then, it's a sign I don't need them now. Who prints a coupon without an exp date? I downloaded it and hope it's valid.

Was in a bit of a rush and washed my hair over the tub this morning, then put on conditioner. Realized there was still lather and re-rinsed, and reconditioned. What the heck? Why do I still hear bubbles? Re-rinsed again, and conditioned the ends. Worked the conditioner up and hands came away with more lather. Finally I looked and I was "conditioning" with the Dove bath wash, not conditioner. So rinse, lather, repeat was the name of the game this morning. I had to laugh because I was not quick on the draw there.

I think the line best to let sleeping dogs lie also means don't get on a scale twice. Take the first number (176) and don't get on again (176.6). I have got to rein in some control here. Today went well, though. Saved part of a large breakfast for lunch = credit.

Welcome back, Millie! Good to see you here and that's pretty impressive for the month after Halloween with the leftover candy and Thanksgiving! Nice work.

Bill - I used to hate planks. Not any more. Mainly because I don't do them any more. I like your reminder that they must be done. I'll aim to get down with them this evening. I used to try to say as much of the Gettysburg address as I could... I only know to the line "It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task..." and I stop. Can you work in something to task your brain and not think about the torso pain? (that could be a slogan - involve your brain/ignore the pain? well, i guess not...)

Karen - Good luck with the social activities. They sound fun! Is it still dark there in the mornings until late or without daylight savings time how does that work for you?

Maryann - I'm going to join you in nothing eaten at work from work. We have a lot of food that will be coming in, and I'll bake/cook some of it. Well, honestly if we have a potluck lunch, I'll eat from that, but that involves us getting organized and we might not. My biggest challenge - and it sounds silly - is that we receive HUGE bins of the delicious Chicago-style popcorn - not the cheapo tub of $5.99 cheese/cheddar/butter corn, but this is gourmet stuff. And we've received it since i first started here 15 years ago. I remember before, I'd measure out a one-cup serving and SAVOR it, piece by piece. And add 250 calories eaten in my food log. Now I learn that it's much less but I counted it and savored it. I might still do that but take the cup of it home and savor it when I'm not tossing it in my mouth while at work and not paying attention now. I need a plan. Thank you for letting me work that out here.

Joy - I hope you're feeling better - kudos to keep checking in while feeling not fully with it. Hope you're able to kick back and relax a bit.

CurlyJax - You, too, take care of yourself and hopefully you're on the mend as well. Glad to hear that your DH has been able to do some contract work. I think that's good for his self-esteem as well. It's such a difficult time with so many younger folks out there job hunting and willing to start at lower salaries so employers go that route. It makes us really think over DH looking to change jobs.

[onebyone]

Coaches

Phone check in so forgive weird punctuation if it happens. Screen is small for my fatigued eyes.

Food continues to be good. Still holding with lower carbs. Still consuming raw veggies. Still saying no to extra servings so I can feel hungry vs. too full. Credits.

Heard from sister re: father's estate. Surprise! There is one. Trustee involve. We have to make real contact with estranged sister. We=Me . Not thrilled. Got email reply to my informational email to her about father dying. It was masterful on her part. It succeeded in being a) confusing b) accusing c) I'm a victim-y and d) angry. All in about 8 sentences. I thought whoa, she's still really angry. Stay away from her. And then immediately felt I was being so mean and unfair. Sigh. My life is better without her in it. Sigh again. But I need to send her info to settle the estate. Anyway, today I did not eat over it except for three leftover chocolates from the sale. I consider.this a.good.day.

Really tired now. Time to rest. Bye!

[BillBlueEyes]

Diet Coaches/Buddies – Fun walk in the dark that arrived in late afternoon, CREDIT moi, that included stops at Trader Joe's for almonds, at Dunkin' Donuts for bags of coffee, and at the sports store that still has 'Black Friday' sales (where I bought no clothes since that would require determining my size and trying them on).

The painful part of the day was initiating the application for medical insurance for DW. I'd already entered my data. This requires entering every drug and doctor which then has to be found in the data base accepting my inputs. It had low ability to distinguish doctors with similar names and drugs that come in pill, liquid, and paste forms. It insisted that DW's skin cream that she buys a tube of every year would cost $4000 per year since it had insisted that she'd be buying it 30 times per month. Fortunately, it was wrestled into submission. I love computers and technology, but HATE HATE HATE user interfaces that are made to make it easy that require one to reverse-engineer the presumptions of its authors.


onebyone – Yep, it's a good day that includes the phrase, "today I did not eat over it."

Joy (gardenerjoy) – Happy Gentle Activities Day.

nationalparker – One of the Black Friday ads was for a discount off hiking boots, "Limit Two." I nearly died laughing as I pondered if they really meant two boots or two pairs. Then I was stumped at the thought of buying two pairs of the same hiking boots at the same time. Then I turned the page. [Thanks for the tip for distraction while doing the hated planks.]

millie56 - That sounds like solid Cognitive Therapy strategy to avoid the room with food at the square dance. Kudos for recognizing that you can forgive yourself and move forward.

Karen (karenrn) - Kudos for making plans for that series of food opportunities.

Sandy (love2garden) - Three Thanksgiving dinners would challenge anyone. Kudos for "beginning again."

Readers -

Chapter 2 Foundation Strategies to Escape Your Traps

Putting it All Together: How to Create Escape Plans

Here are the steps to create your escape plan: . . .

3. Record your sabotaging thoughts. What could go through your mind when you're in this situation? Here are two examples of Jessica's thoughts:

• It's Molly's wedding. I should enjoy myself and eat and drink whatever I want.
  
  
• I should be able to eat whatever Ethan is eating.

Review the relevant traps in the chapter to see if there are additional thoughts you are likely to have that you should add to the chart.

Judith S. Beck, Ph.D., Deborah Beck Busis, The Diet Trap Solution, Train Your Brain to Lose Weight and Keep It Off for Good (Blue book), pg. 43

[karenrn]

Good morning coaches,

Yesterday wasn't perfect, but it wasn't Happy Hour. It was the nuts and raisons that I snacked on before I went to Happy Hour. Hopefully the small portion I ate for dinner made up for it pretty well. Credit for class at the Y. Happy hour was very fun with 4 friends up until I realized my mother's wedding ring had slipped off my finger. It was a colder day and my fingers were smaller. I checked a clothing store I had been looking in, the restaurant and even went thru the garbage in the bathroom. It is a wide gold band with five diamonds across the front of the band and I have worn it for 10 1/2 years since she died on the same finger as my wedding band and engagement ring. Even worse is that I hadn't insured it. I will go back and check again today just in case. I'm trying to remind myself that even though it is a sentimental item it is still just a thing, no one is sick or dying.

This morning I woke up to hearing some dripping water. Dh is still out of town so I decided I had better get up and see if I left a sink running. It was the coffee maker at 4:20. I spoke with dh to see if he put it on the timer mode and he hadn't. The light on the machine looked like it had just been turned on like I always do it, when I get up. I'll look it over again in a bit, but I don't see that it was on the timer function. Weird. I must have a ghost in the house.

Bill Your medical insurance application sounds like a very frustrating time. Glad you don't have to do that too often.

Onebyone Here's hoping you don't have to have too many exchanges with the estranged sister. Good for you for not eating over it.

Nationalparker I just looked to see what time sunrise and sunset are. They are at 7:14 a.m. and 5:19 p.m. Of course it's light a little before that time. I like not having daylight savings time. I just have to remember my friends in WA are one hour earlier this time of year, so not to phone too early.

Welcome Millie!

Love2garden You've been doing so well, what's 3 Thanksgiving dinners. I have faith you will be right back at it.

Gardenerjoy Glad to hear you're feeling better.

Heading out for a hike this morning and then lunch with former co-workers. We're going to a restaurant that has healthy choices, yahoo. Then home to start the Christmas cards. Have a good day everybody!

[gardenerjoy]

Definitely feeling better today, yay! Grateful for DH and his ability to get a little humidity into our house in the winter.

I'm feeling determined to get near to my low of the year by the end of the month. Determined enough to make lighter choices than I feel like I should have to make. But the scale says that I need to eat less if I want to weigh less. I feel like the weight should drop off when I'm not overeating -- but, no, stopping the overeating means no gain.

WI: -0.1 kg, Exercise: +40 40/1200 minutes for December, Food: 80% op, Read my Advantages and Responses: yes

BillBlueEyes: good for you for wrestling the insurance program into submission. Your experience makes me really worried for people who don't have your reverse-engineering skills. I know that some libraries and some government agencies will help, but I don't know that their people will have the wherewithal or the patience to solve that kind of problem.

karenrn: I hate the sick feeling of losing something irreplaceable. It takes a while to make peace with that -- a grieving process. So, I'm sorry for your loss and I'm still hoping that it turns up.

[dailypractice]

Hello coaches. Thanks so very much for the warm welcomes back. It has been soooooooooo long, and it is very heart warming to stop here, say hello, and receive such a nice welcome.

I have been so OFF plan for so long that I am so pleased to be able to report that Mon and Tues are back in the saddle. Last 2 days of OP eating. And reading cards.

And ordered Beck pink book from the library (my "very own" copy of the book is back in WA). I also ordered Beck's new book, so that'll be a nice fresh start. When I keep returning to Beck over and over, I think it's helpful to find SOME way to keep it fresh and interesting.

Here's something new I started today. A youtube "30 days of yoga with Adriene" class: a 30 day challenge of a slowly ramped up yoga routine (only 34 minutes the first day)... each day a different routine (again to keep it fresh and interesting). I like how the teacher says several times "just take it this far, you've got 30 days to take it farther. One thing that had kept me AWAY from the yoga class at the gym was the full ONE HOUR commitment. I like the idea of half an hour. When I tried to be my own teacher, do my own routine, I paved the road to **** with my good intentions... I'd stretch a little for maybe 3 minutes, get bored and stop. So this'll be good.

So ... my best to each of you ... I'll write some personals a little later in the day. In the meantime, I'm committing to posting SOMETHING out here every day or two ... more to come.

and thanks again, all y'all.

Happy Wednesday, everyone
Ani

[karenrn]

I found my ring. While out hiking this morning I had this feeling all of a sudden that I needed to check the laundry room. I had put things from washer to dryer right before I left yesterday. Anyway, it wasn't in the dryer or the washer, but it must have slipped off my finger and landed in the dirty clothes basket. Since it didn't hit the tile floor, it didn't make a sound.

You may all think I'm crazy, but I think God was feeling bad for me and nudged me on where to look. I am so grateful. I will get it appraised and insured . . it still wouldn't be the same, but at least I could get something to wear. I'm used to having this wide band on my finger after my wedding band and engagement ring.

I was trying to come to terms with it, but so grateful that I don't have to. It's been a bad week with jewelry, because I lost a gold hoop earring too. The good news on that one is dh bought a second set when I lost one of the first set, so I still had two.

Have a great day, mine will be much better now!

[maryann]

Phone check. I am swallowed up at school. Credit for mostly OP. Two pounds from ticker. Still on a winning streak with no sweets at work😄

Wave to all.

[BillBlueEyes]

Diet Coaches/Buddies – The stars aligned so that the late afternoon lecture we attended ended just in time for me to walk to my evening event. I was offered a ride to get there by DW and a ride home by a friend but refused, CREDIT moi, since this was my daily exercise. I carried a full service umbrella but never opened it.

These two events spanned dinner time, so I planned some crackers and hummus at 5:00 pm as a basis and some cheese and crackers during the 90 minutes that I sat around a table laden with snacks. It all worked out. CREDIT moi for thinking it through even if it wouldn't qualify as a balanced meal. The hummus is left over from Thanksgiving and sits in the fridge waiting to spoil for lack of attention. I get credit around here for working on it.


Joy (gardenerjoy) – I hate the profound truths of life like, "But the scale says that I need to eat less if I want to weigh less."

maryann - I shudder at what it might mean for a middle-school teacher to be "swallowed up at school" - hope we see you again. Kudos for continued "no sweets at work."

Karen (karenrn) - Yay for a wedding ring found and Yahoo, indeed, for "a restaurant that has healthy choices."

Ani (dailypractice) - Two Kudos for "2 days of OP eating" - a seriously good start on December. That yoga sounds fun.

Readers -

Chapter 2 Foundation Strategies to Escape Your Traps

Putting it All Together: How to Create Escape Plans

Here are the steps to create your escape plan: . . .

4. Write a compelling response to each sabotaging thought. For ideas, look through the reminder cards you've already created and review relevant material in the current chapter and other chapters. You can also imagine what you would say to a friend who was in the same situation.

Jessica answered her sabotaging thoughts this way:

• If I stay on plan, I'll leave the wedding feeling great. I'll feel so proud of myself.
  
  
• If I want to lose weight, I have to get really good at sticking to my plan. What Ethan is eating is irrelevant. He doesn't have a goal to lose weight like I do. I can always plan to eat what he's having tomorrow, though probably in smaller portions.

If you get stuck and can't create a compelling response, ask a friend or fellow dieters on an online forum for help.

Judith S. Beck, Ph.D., Deborah Beck Busis, The Diet Trap Solution, Train Your Brain to Lose Weight and Keep It Off for Good (Blue book), pg. 43