Good morning everyone :)

I finally made it to the 2teens! Weighed in today at 219.2! That was my first goal in Jan 2011 when I weighed in at 255 lbs. I started eating healthy/exercising, but I didn't give it 100%, then ended up stopping all together. July 1st, I decided to give myself the best birthday present ever. A new healthier me! I was determined never to go back, to keep going forward, and work on myself, body and mind. July 1st I weighed in at 244.4 that is the weight I decided to offically count. So far I have lost 25.2 lbs and feel amazing! Best thing I ever did! :) My next goal is onederland, I can't wait!

I hope everyone has a great productive day. Keep pushing forward! We can do anything we set our minds to.

Transforming--fantastic progress!!

Not a great day for me today. Started out by having a breakfast meeting with a client. I wanted bacon and a ginormous carmel pecan roll. I had a veggie omelette (650 cals). I had this afternoon off, and I had decided to visit COSTCO to stock up on some good stuff--chicken breast, Greek yogurt. Good thought but bad idea. I had a mini chocolate chip cookie they were sampling. Then there was 1/2 of a mini-cinnamon roll. That one bite of a cinnamon roll was 42.5 calories. Seriously.

If that was all the damage I did, it would have been OK. But, alas, I did not resist the chocolate dipped ice cream bar (870 calories). So as of 2:00 this afternoon, I have eaten all of my calories for the day. I'm not hungry, but I am suddenly having a craving for fried chicken and mashed potatoes with gravy. Yeah. That's not gonna happen. There is no need to eat any more today. I am looking at my Beck's Diet Solution first day index card with all the reasons I want to lose weight. I am willing myself to REMEMBER conviction I had when I wrote that card. This day will pass. This urge will pass. I do not need any more food today. I won't fade away. Just because I ate off plan already today, doesn't mean I need to keep digging the hole deeper.

Positives for today: I did not eat a big-as-your-head carmel roll. I am posting here and telling you all what I've done (Costco ice cream bar 870 calories!), what I am thinking of doing (fried chicken, mashed taters and gravy), and how I am going to approach this differently. I can do this. Today. I'll worry about tomorrow tomorrow.

Hi all!!

Well I went away and did a bit of BECK research after you guys mentioned it. A lot of it sounds great - the mind set stuff - so go to keep you focussed and motivated - but she looses me on the every day write a food plan for tomorrow.
I don't know about you guys, but for me I do not think its in my best interests to stress so much about what I am going to eat? FOOD is not my life. I don't want to spend so much time thinking about it???
I plan ,yes, I make sure I have grain bread, I get a fresh fruit/veggies delivery once a week, I buy a weeks supplies for work lunches, I make sure the fridge has yogurt and skim milk, but I cannot see the benefit for me in planning what to eat 24 hours in advance? What if you don't feel like eating the tuna salad you planned for? Or is that the idea? To stick to a plan ALL the time?
Not for me that bit.

Hi MrsTee! I am one of the one’s reading Beck’s Diet Solution. Funny, though, I haven’t gotten past Day 1. I’m also reading Life is Hard, Food is Easy so maybe that’s why I’m slow on the BDS book. Anyway, I totaly agree with you that I don’t know what I am going to eat for lunch let alone for the whole day tomorrow! I’ve heard that “tip” before and when I have tried to plan the next day’s food, 9 times out of 10 I end up chucking the whole plan!! I wonder if the point of that exercise is to evaluate whether you have yummy healthy options available, and it sounds like you have that worked out. Kudos! I’m kind of a grazer of diet info—I read a lot but I don’t ever follow one plan. I seem to pick and choose what makes sense for me. Time will tell if I get much out of BDS, but it slowed me down on Friday and helped me to turn around a potential full-on binge so I’m happy for that.

MrsTee - I agree with you about the food thing. I keep a very well stocked fridge, freezer, and pantry. I like to have choices. I like to change my mind often.

I think I need to sit down today and do some serious thinking. There have only been three times in my life where I really, truly tried to lose weight. The first time when I was trying to get pregnant in '03. I wasn't on any particular food plan but I was exercising at least an hour a day six days a week. I managed to lose maybe 30lb and got pregnant with the twins.

For the next 5 years I would flirt with my diet a little. I would go in spurts of having daily exercise or go a few days watching what I ate. I don't remember ever losing more than 5 pounds.

The fall of '08 I attempted WW completely on my own. I lost a few pounds but figuring points quickly lost its appeal. The beginning of '09 I got serious about counting calories. That April I started walking and in May I started my own version of C25K. I lost 30 pounds and hit my pre-pregnancy weight for the first time. It was also that May that my FIL, whom I had never met but still took a toll on DH, died. Then DH lost his job. And I think looking back I was terrified of being any thinner. I was still 230lb.

I quit running. I quit counting calories. In the next 18 months I gained over 60 pounds.

So here I am starting over and weighing more than ever. And I'm not saying that losing weight is ever easy but I'm eating 2000 calories a day and I am a slug. My fitbit proves that. But yet I am losing weight quite easily. I know it won't always fall off like this but I think I need to start thinking ahead.

What exactly are you thinking about?

Zinke, what occurred to me while reading your post is how much I understand the whole not trying to lose weight thing. I'm sure many would be incredulous at the thought of being over 300lb and having only tried to diet two or three other times, but there you go. I am not a chronic dieter. I am a fat person who was (and still is) very, very comfortable with being in a body she knew and felt safe in.

So it's from that perspective that I ask if you're putting the cart in front of the horse with all this thinking. When I start thinking (and rationalizing and "understanding") it usually means I want to avoid something or be in denial about it. When I start planning for possible future scenarios that I can genuinely imagine happening (I'm cool with unattainable fantasies) I end up freaking myself out.

It does work for me to think about how to deal with situations that precipitate binges - the sort of if x, then what is my y. Above and beyond that, I can't think ahead because that is my bizarre and unique form of self-sabotage.

If this is relevant for you, awesome. If it's not, then I'm glad I got a chance to think about these behaviors of mine. It would never have occurred to me before reading your post.

it's not something I worry about - being slim. I can imagine being at goal, and it feels good! I suppose it helps being 53 and married for 25 years...

So why am I not there??????

I think because eating is my reward, my comfort, my way of looking after me. I know - DUMB - but we can't change those ingrained thought processes easily. Clearly this goes back a long way - I won't bore you with exactly why.


I have to want to be there (slimness) more than eating and for most of my life, I haven't, eating has been more rewarding...

So, with that in mind, but adding " the look" episode ( see a few days ago) and also health issues that occur now in my 50s perhaps I do want to be slim more than eat? For the moment anyway.

It's complicated isn't it - delving into one's mind to see just WHY we all ended up here!

I always love your posts, MrsTee. I just got an epiphany about my eating thanks to what you wrote.

I also use eating as comfort (I write as I nomnomnom on carrots and feel very comforted). It's not wrong of me to expect to be comforted when I'm distressed. It's not wrong for me to want love and support and affection in my life. It is wrong for me to think that I'll get that love, support, and comfort from food. You get that love, support, and comfort from intimate relationships, from your work, from living the life you want to live... and food doesn't allow that for me.

Ok. Free association done for the moment. Have a nice day ladies!

I've got so many thoughts. From the why I ended up so fat to the what am I going to do when I'm thin. Those thoughts do include comfort eating as well. DH and I have a spat and I want to eat the refrigerator. The kids and I have a hard day and I'm piling pasta on my plate. So here I've been for the last few days thinking about my relationship with different foods and my varying levels of fatness. I'm slowly coming to realize that sometimes a small serving of what I really want a much better alternative to randomly shoveling stuff into to fill that hole. I'm coming to terms with the fact that I do enjoy male attention as long as it isn't from one creep I knew during puberty. I don't have to hide from him and that situation any longer. So while some of me does have my cart out there the rest of me is right where I need to be. :)

Thanks for letting me ramble.

MrsTee --- DING DING DING! You took the words out of my mouth, RE: food as a way of taking care of oneself, looking after yourself. Thank you for writing that, because it's also very true for me (although I couldn't quite pinpoint it until I read your post).

I need to find new ways to reward and take care of myself!!

And I will need to ponder what I'll "do" when I'm thin. I'm not sure yet, but I have a feeling I will want to do it all. :) Doesn't Terri Clark have a country song called, "I wanna do it all"? :) Well, that's me. I want to live ... instead of watching others live while I go through the motions.

Hope everyone had a relaxing and safe weekend!! I dropped a couple pounds since my last weigh-in, so I'm a happy camper (268.4 to 266.4).

Hey guys! :grouphug:

I popped in to give a quick "hello"! I'm a bit busy this morning, I'm about to work out, get some food and then get ready for the dentist, and I have to finish cleaning up to prepare for my family's visit late tonight (Brother decided to show up early!).

Quick note about planning food: I do that now to a loose extent.

Here's how: In my food tracker online I have something like 6 different saved breakfast meals. I simply click them into place for the week. I then write down my dinner plans for the week in a similar fashion (though there are far more than just 6 different choices, it all depends on what I have on hand).

WHY I do it: I'm a person who finds it easier to just go off the list of what I have. Plenty of times (before I planned) I would stand around my kitchen for 30 MINUTES trying to decide what to make, and waste a lot of time fretting. Now, I just look at my list and say "Ah hah! It's crab cakes tonight. I'll get started on that."

Now if I didn't feel like crab cakes at that moment, I just switch meals with a different night. It's not a big deal, it just helps me get along with my day without standing around trying to figure out what to prepare.

I'm not at the point in the book where she discusses planning days ahead. Only on Day 5. But, at the moment I'm just trying to keep an open mind, and I'll see what I think/do when I get to the point about planning ahead. :)

Have a GREAT day everyone! :D

Good for you Lovely - the trick for us all is to find a new way of living/eating that we can form a way-of-life around.
If this is for you then great!
I agree pgh - find a new way of rewarding ourselves - I'm trying all sorts of tactics, hair done, new clothes, all sorts.
BUT I know there will come a day when only chocolate mud cake will do - but on that day , if I can just have one piece or even just two pieces, and not have that lead to a total break down of eating - that will be a giant mental leap forward.

THE SCALE IS FINALLY MOVING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :dizzy:


k. just had to share.

-Kiki

MrsT - Super, completely agree! :yes:

Kiki - Congrats! Woohoo!!!!