Hi all of my fabulous coaches! I have another busy weekend ahead -- golf, track, dinners out...fun! I looked at the menus for the restaurants we're visiting, and though they have no vegetarian selections, they do have fish, so I'm okay there. I used to be petrified of eating out, but that seems kind of silly, doesn't it? The food isn't going to jump into my mouth, after all.
maryann -- good resistance on the snack bar. I always long for those big pretzels. I'll be 47 in August -- we're the same age!
chefjoona -- I get so annoyed with myself when I eat food that I didn't really enjoy. I always tell myself that next time I will throw it out! Sometimes I actually do it.
Heh BillBlueEyes -- every time I see your avatar, I think, "Huh...he looks like Van Gogh...then I realize that oh yeah, it's not really him!"
pamatga -- 3 dozen Beck cards -- whoa! That's a lot of work.
onebyone -- I hate unpacking after a move. You can't find things for weeks.
Another super stressful day and I'm happy to report I made some pretty good choices despite some very sabotaging thoughts which were not even justifications, but more "I don't care right now." I talked myself out of the giant slice of pizza and instead went to Starbucks and enjoyed a cup of tea. Dinner is an OP pizza, with my homemade whole wheat crust, which has less sodium than the store bought. NO CHOICE does work but I have to do the footwork.
Dinner is ready...it was important to check in. I may get back for personals.
BillBlueEyes, ouch for three oranges...possibly a semi legal sugar fix. It does beat donuts. We're ready for the rain to be done, too.
Beverlyjoy, I'm sending supportive thoughts your way.
pamatga, kudos for going through the feelings this past week while you work your Beck program. Not an easy task.
Susan(wife2abadge), I've been eating vegetarian/pescatarian for about a year now. It does narrow down some of the restaurant choices.
maryann, great when you can resist and not sneak one snack from the snack bar! lol BTW-My smoothie: I start with a chunk of ginger root, add an apple, whatever greens need using (spinach, cabbage) add cucumber and a dash of protein powder and greens powder.
AnneWonders, thanks for checking in! Great the last few days have been better.
ChefJoona, nice that you feel you can avoid an food experience in the future because you didn't enjoy it. It is a learning experience, for sure.
Lauren(bigknitter), you will find great support here as you resist those Costco samples in the future. Yay for good days!
Woodland, nice credits! Have you planted yet?
GardeningDeb, great that you are building in a SF chocolate. I think it is a great Beck tool.
onebyone, I hope you are feeling better.
gardenerjoy, lol when it doesn’t take 7 questions for the solution to appear. Relaxing is a good solution.
CeeJay, I like your line, just forget it right now, think about something else. It helped today.
RubyJan, yay for supper without heart stopping dessert.
I'm tired but I need to finish logging my food. It's important today. I'm feeling I've gone over but it could have been far worse and I'm grateful to hold onto a healthy day.
Had another good, but very tiring day! I woke up way too early, 5:15, I usually sleep until at least 6:30. My major credits for today, doing my weights workout before breakfast and going for a 4.4 mile hike/walk while my dd was at Spanish class. I did not mean to go that far but I didn't really know where I was going and didn't want to try and find my way through a cemetery. Luckily it was a rain-free walk. I changed my food plan because I just wasn't fitting my meals in, and I decided I should really have a treat on my high-calorie day so I won't feel deprived tomorrow. So I had a bit of ice cream and some cake leftovers. I'm feeling really good about this whole new way of dieting, I always do for a bit and then run out of steam. I'm really trying not to overdo it with the exercise even though it probably doesn't sound like it. I think I go gung ho with working out and then burn out, which leads to dieting burn out. So I will do my best to work up to the activity level I want to be at, slowly.
Good Evening Everyone,
My day was mixed with some highs and some lows. Ate 4 of my sugar free graham cracker cookies. I think I should just skip the treats until I get more control. Did my workouts: 30 min walk with my pup and Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred. I am on day 5 and am determined to complete the challenge. I'm altering some things but still doing the workout.
Still haven't preplanned my day but going to try to get that done in a few minutes. I tend to change my mind all the time but will try to stay on course tomorrow. I feel like I have lost weight but the scale is saying no.
Well be back in the morning. Hope everyone is doing well.
Diet Coaches/Buddies - Eating was on plan, CREDIT moi. Dinner found our table loaded with meat at the local BBQ restaurant with our Groupon expiring in 10 days. So much meat for $30 that we each took about two thirds of it home. I had to ask the waiter to bring on a side of cole slaw to try to tone it down, LOL. Skipped the hush puppies, fried okra, fried catfish, sweet tea, and massive desserts. Still had more meat than I'd normally eat. I did, however, stop at one (1.0) orange for dessert.
Did gym, CREDIT moi, not able to repeat my previous new high, but tried just the same. I accept that my scale reading jitters about, but still am surprised that my gym abilities jump about also.
Anne (AnneWonders) - I trust you still have your perpetual sunshine down there. We've been stuck in a solid week of rain; today is iffy.
Debbie (Lexxiss) - I love being reminded, "NO CHOICE does work but I have to do the footwork."
maryann - Yay for surviving as a mother of a learning violinist. BTDT. It can hurt the ears.
ChefJoona - Kudos for dealing with the work-at-the-office day by using your packed salad to go with a small portion of pizza.
GardeningDeb - The scale doesn't always get the message, but your body knows. Kudos for sticking with Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred.
Susan (wife2abadge) - Kudos for looking at the restaurant menus in advance - good way to get the old neurons thinking on plan. [My brother Theo thinks my avatar looks just like me.]
Lauren (Bigknitter) - Kudos for being aware that you have to find your own level in order to stick with your eating plan and exercise plan for life - which is a long time.
Readers -
Quote:
chapter 3 Get Ready to Lose
Before you start, however, I would like you to do the following 10 essential tasks. task 10 Make Response Cards
Throughout every stage of the Beck Diet for Life Program, you will be creating Response Cards - 3x5 cards with important messages you need to remember. They are one of the conerstones of this program, and you will read them every day.
Judith S. Beck, Ph.D, The Complete Beck Diet for Life (Green book), pg 42.
BBE So, you and Vincent both have brother Theo? Hmmmm. I have a nephew, Theo, he is our youngest. A spitfire. Named after an Irish great grandfather. BBQ places are tough to manuever. I don't know if I would have been up to that and I am pretty skilled at eating out. Kudos for taking the beast on. Gardeningdeb I think you are going about your food plan in the right way. I find myself tweaking it all the time. I have noticed that when I don't make a special effort to get those 3 fruits/4 veggies in each day I allow myself to have my sugar free "treats" instead. I've had a few days where I have had sugar free desserts and missed out on my veggies. That's a no no. I was doing really good until I discovered these sugar free cookies. Although they are not causing me to overeat, they are causing me to tip the balance of my aforementioned healthy eating into one where I am counting calories and not paying attention to balanced eating; both are equally important with the later being essential because that is what drives the car: the right kind of fuel. I credit myself with having eating 3 fruits/4 veggies every day for 6 1/2 weeks without fail. Now, is not the time to let that slip. bigknitter By now I think we all realize that all of this takes consistency, work, patience and applying these techniques day in and day out. It is daunting at times, especially when in the past I either just counted calories and/or worked out like a fiend. I hear what you are saying about burn out. I think all of nothing efforts are very common among those of us with food issues. It is learning to walk the center line that takes more effort in the long run but I believe is essential to a life time of weight lose maintenance. You have the insights in your own stuff. I think you will find how to work through another crash and let down. No turning back for any of us. We've set our hand to the plow.... GJ in seeing where you were and where you want/need to be.
Speaking of which, today I am resuming a daily work out routine. I have so many new (and older favorite) dvds that I am hoping to do two a day. I also do my free weights every other day. I am going to ramp up a lot of this. It is time. I am very determined to do this in moderation since I have a long history of really knocking myself out and then unable to do anything because I have strained or sprained or pulled or tore or broke something in my body. Now, to follow my own words.
Today, I am going to make black bean chili and oatmeal raisin scones from one of my many cookbooks that emphasize low fat/low or no sugar but lots of taste. Yes, it can be done! I made cold potato salad from these same cookbooks and thought that was quite tasty. I'm in the mood to cook today so I might just go down the list and make other things as well. DH has his monthly Carmelite meeting followed by a birthday celebration at a French bakery and cafe. I reassured him he could find chicken on the menu but I was afraid to tell him it might not be done the way he likes. No, I am passing. I could have tagged along since I have had all of his large Carmelite community here for a sit down dinner during the holidays two years ago but I don't need to see what I wouldn't need to eat. Nuff said.
Tomorrow, we are going to have our first cook out. I am really looking forward to that. It is time!
Well, the new low was unexpected. Although I had kind of been seeing it in the mirror, I just wasn't willing to believe it. So, the message is I need more fine dining, more stress, and less exercise? Uh. Maybe not.
Day 36: Believe it
I do have problems believing in my weight loss, sometimes, and it's been a lot more than the five weeks that I've been doing this. I'm so aware of the times when I think, with some regret, about the way I used to eat. But this chapter is making me aware that I choose not to act on those thoughts, that even when I'm way off plan like I was in Chicago I was also leaving much more food than I used to and making many more good choices while ordering, and that I always end up back here reporting to my diet coaches and recommitting to doing what it takes to lose the weight and maintain that loss. I am a different person from who I was in 2009, making my way in the world in new and exciting ways that are healthier and support my weight loss.
WI: -1.9kgs (new low), Exercise: +0* 555/1200 minutes for May, Food: 80%op, Read my Advantages and Responses: yes
Great Day at the zoo yesterday. Beautiful Weather. DS loved it. He is a natural reader and told me lots and lots about all the species. Then a trip to Fairytale land which has lots of memories for us and I wondered if it was the last time my 8YO would hold my hand past the crooked mile to Mr. Mcgregor's Garden. Substituted a gardenburger for a balance bar and shared a Reese's with my son but It was quite a day nonetheless. I'll be careful today and do an hour exercise to get my weekly minutes. Did I mention our new favorite juice is Spinach, apricot and carrot? You can't taste the spinach at all. It is amazing. DS drank it all up. Wife2abadge: Age sister! It is a great age. I have never been happier. Lexxiss: I am going for the ginger root today. I'll let you know how it turns out. Gardenerjoy: I agree that on a daily basis I eat much differently than I use to but am not always conscious of it. The terrific part of that is I have created a new "norm" from which I can add even healthier choices - like juicing and counting exercise minutes like you do. Pamatga: The "I eat sugar free desserts instead of vegis" is a very familar tune for me. It reminds me of my old Weight Watcher days when I ate 3 Skinny Cow Ice cream sandwiches instead of 6 oz of salmon because I "could"
BBE:Congrats on the orange for dessert. Sometimes I think of our old huntergather days when people scrounged hours for a few ounces of meat. HMMM. That it was we were evolved for - not for being handed platters of the stuff. No wonder people are having problems.
Bignitter: Congrats on the long walk. I used to not count any exercise that wasn't extreme aerobics. Now I count everything and it avoids the burnout. During a convention, once, I walked up and down the stairs of the multistory building for 15 mins every break and felt great about sitting the rest of the day.
GardenerDeb: Congrats on the shredding. I am going to shred this afternoon plus a walk.
Gardernerjoy I am doing Day 36Believe It and I have the same sentiments, memories and feelings that you do. Did I mention that since 2007 I have lost and regained the same 35-45 lbs over and over and over again? It not only impacts my body but it also erodes my self-esteem and belief in myself that I can honestly finish something I started. I have told my DH and I will tell all of you now that when I hit 240 lbs I will "believe" the possibility exists that I am going to really do it this time.
Not only do I want to lose the weight, I want to regain credibility and believe in my own words and actions in this area. No other area in my life have I failed to live up to my word than in this area. I would never dream of letting others down like I do myself. And, yet I do. I think along the way I have lost my self-respect for myself when it comes to doing what I say I am going to do. You heard it here first. I am going to make a public stand and statement.
I am going to do this, fellow Beckies. I am not going to lose and regain like I have done in the past. I understand the normal fluctuations of hormones, the day after eating Chinese and even swollen muscles but those are temporary weight gains. I am talking about not being entirely honest with myself regarding eating at the upper end of my calorie range when I am not being active enough to burn up those extra 200 calories each day. I am talking about saying NO to all empty calories (I'm even eyeing those sugar free cookies and brownies I brought into the house earlier this week-they've begun to do battle with my veggies as in they are winning and the veggies are losing).
No, I never thought I would have to draw a line and then keep drawing it but if that is what I have to do then I must. Yesterday was my third week of weigh in and my second where I did not lose any more weight. "Don't cry for me, Argentina". I am about as active as a snail strolling on a Sunday afternoon. My sleep is all messed up. I'm sleeping right through lunch. and, now I am eating two portions of sugar free cookies, brownies, Klondike bars and/or fudgesicles: one for my morning and one for my afternoon snack.
I don't remember who was mentioning here about burn out from working out but I think I have burn out from eating so healthy. Could that be possible? I have kept seeking out more and more variety when it comes to food, spending a significant amount at the grocery store, and last night I almost gagged eating an apple. My mind was saying, "Not another piece of fruit!" There's a part of me that wants a delivery pizza followed by a hot fudge sundae (which I haven't had in years). I recognize this as a desire to eat but I also see it as a desire to have food taste like it used to taste. Greasy. Salty. Overly Sweet. Boy, my demons are coming out full force today.
maryann yes I used to do Weight Watchers point system and I was losing weight but I took the liberties to eat fudge and then figure out how points I would need to exercise so I could burn it off. I did that for five months. My blood sugar, which I wasn't monitoring at that time, was going all over the place. I could just feel it. My hair was getting really thin. I have a photo of me then and the back light from the photo shined through my hair! In other words, I was eating 1400 calories of non nutrient foods. I naiively thought that was okay since I was staying in my points and in fact creating a negative balance with the amount of exercise I was doing.
Well, thanks for listening to me rant here. I am irritable about where my head and body are right now but I will say this: No more ups and downs. Only downs. When it comes to my weight. I mean.
Stress eating got me. I went on the hunt for food and I found it and I ate it.
I just let all kinds of things pile up on me and without looking for an alternate release I ate.
It's behind me now. I had an OP dinner and I just move ahead.
I've had lots of triggers going off all around me for over a week. I am facing my clutter again. I can't find anything and I don't know where to put anything and when I ask DH for help he says "just open a box and empty it." Well, if the shelves were up, maybe I could empty it. Oh, to get the shelves up I have to move all the boxes. Oh. then some stuff will go on the shelves but where does the rest go? And where are the shelves going? Even the kitchen is falling apart. 4 more boxes, maybe even 5 or 6 are still waiting to be unloaded and they go where?
I'm just a mess.
And it seems that everyone I meet is fit and active and athletic even. In this town I am a real anomaly as far as I have seen. I feel very out of place.
And now I am hearing that my mother is really getting that I am not there anymore. I used to see her every week and take her out for the day, and while my brother visits her every 2 weeks, he takes her out for 2hrs or so but he doesn't connect with her you know? When her stories morph, as they do now, I am always fascinated by what she now believes to be true (my mother has alzheimers) but my brother uses these moments to distance himself "Oh that's cause her brain is misfiring and the brain needs to make sense of things." He doesn't feel a need to interact with her. She's just a diseased brain to him now; certainly not a whole person. I'll never change his outlook on this, and he won't change mine. Anyway, my mother is now very depressed and feeling very alone. I can't get there to see her until June 1st. It's making me feel bad.
So, I feel inadequate on several levels and then I simply FORGET that if I stay OP I have ONE concrete thing to be happy about at the end of the day. I haven't written down any ARC cards in ages. I think I need to go back to basics: make a list, follow a step by step plan, move on.
I also really need a scale. I haven't weighed in for over a month. My scale completely died. I may get one tomorrow on a department store credit card. I just feel inadequate on many levels tonight.
Diet Coaches/Buddies - Only so so for eating today. Lots of tension because there's only two weeks left to get stuff out of here. CREDIT moi for eating bounded and only at scheduled times, even though too much dinner.
onebyone - Ouch for all the stress trying to reach the end of the month. I can understand the feeling of overwhelmed as I look at all the boxes stacked up. How can humans come to own so much stuff. Keep the faith - you're putting one foot in front of the other.
Joy (gardenerjoy) - Congrats on a new low. 'Tis music to my ears that the way to achieve this is, "fine dining, more stress, and less exercise" - no question but that will sell well to any magazine where you wish to publish.
maryann - Good grief! I thought this was amazing, "our new favorite juice is Spinach, apricot and carrot" but was blown away with, "DS drank it all up." Good for him.
pamatga - Would love to still have scones in my life. I used to have a scone from Starbucks at the airport - until my DD clued me in that they weren't so health friendly. Kudos for being clear that you are moving forward this time.
Readers -
Quote:
chapter 3 Get Ready to Lose
Before you start, however, I would like you to do the following 10 essential tasks. task 10 Make Response Cards
Below are three sabotaging thoughts that most dieters have. I would like you to create the corresponding Response Cards so that you will have them on hand once you start Phase I.
sabotaging thought:
Dieting should be easy and short term.
It's no wonder people have such crazy ideas about weight loss. Magazine articles, TV segments, books, Websites, commercials, and advertisements continually tell you that you can lose weight quickly and without much effort. Well, they are partially correct: If you want to crash-diet and lose some weight in just a few days or weeks, you can. But you won't keep it off. As soon as you begin to eat more calories, you will start to gain back weight. It's a biological certainty.
Judith S. Beck, Ph.D, The Complete Beck Diet for Life (Green book), pg 42.
Well,onebyone, if it is any consolation, I had a rough "meltdown" kind of day yesterday as well. I have 3 dozen response cards and just the night before I was working on diligently but do you think I actually went through yesterday and read any of them. NO! I had had an entire 5 nights of whacked sleeping and the frustration was building. I was feeling vulnerable, spacey and emotional overload. Now, I understand why one of the first things they do to break down resistance in P.O.W.s is to deprive them of sleep. I've run out of secrets to tell so I would be pretty boring to anyone trying this on me.
In my defense I did do my spiritual exercises and that really did help BUT I still had some residual "wanting" and although I wasn't necessarily physically hungry (I still had 400 calories left for the day) I just threw up my hands and said "What the Heck!" and had a mini-binge. However, I knew that emotional eating is what got me where I am today and that brought its own added feeling of desperation, failure and disappointment in myself.
For me, these days, the definition is eating OP (hey, there are no offenders in our kitchen except my DH Snicker bars and I just can't touch his stash--I know how he needs these when he is stuck in traffic and hasn't had lunch--that would be like stealing candy from a 5'11" baby-I would loath myself too much) but not pre-planned and certainly missing the masonry of my healthy food plan: I had whatever I could grab without having to figure out "am I eating balanced?" This was my evening "binge". You can see that it wasn't balanced: I had half an Irish regular ale, 1 sugar free Klondike bar, 2 bowls of oat crunch cereal with soy milk, 1 reduced fat chicken hot dog and 1 cup 100% grape juice.
I went to bed at 11:30 p.m. and I got up a few times but I slept until 5:30 a.m. I think how I feel right now is I have a lot of weight to lose and if this is going to be any indication of what I am going to be up against, OY! Mama mia! I weighed and no weight gain.
Three years ago, I traveled back to MN to spend the last 3 1/2 months of my mother's life with her. I set up a home office in my parents' old bedroom at a considerable expense (had to rewire it for one thing) then I visited her 2x a week. It was the best that I could do. I didn't have a car there and she was in a nursing home 1 hour away so I had to bum a ride when I could. My sister and Dad couldn't "stand" to visit her. She had suffered many medical mistakes and she was literally dumped off 2 hours from where she had entered a hospital for cancer treatment. It was a travesty beyond rational comprehension but she was My Mother and I wanted to be with her as often as I could. I still had to work 40 hours a week so I could afford to stay there.
Like you onebyone dealing with Mom was much easier than dealing with my sister and Dad. Dad was inconsolable and my sister was bitter and angry. I have some wonderful memories of Mom and I alone, wheeling her out to watch some golfers at a club facing the property. I stayed there as long as I could afford to. I missed my DH terribly even though we talked every night. When I left I had a tiny bit of hope she could recover although I knew it would take a very long time to mendfrom what she had already bravely overcome. Then, she got pneumonia almost immediately after I left. She was so weary from fighting: two types of cancer, 2 heart attacks, 2 strokes, repeated bouts of pneumonia and not once did she say "Why me?" She was incredibly strong beyond belief. Six weeks after returning for the third time in nine months, I returned for her funeral. Her body gave up before her spirit did. I gave the eulogy. That was November 2008.
Do what you can. See Mom when you can. Talk to her on the phone if nothing else. She knows you are trying to do your best. And, know that everyone deals with pain, suffering and grief differently. There are no winners nor losers in that game. We react to lose and separation based on who we are. Just love her. That is all you need to do. She will know it and feel it.
Take care, onebyone, I get it.
PS BBE the scones are from a diabetic cookbook and no white anything. Made with oatmeal and low fat buttermilk. I know I couldn't eat the ones they bake up in bakeries, or Starbucks, I would be a squirrel on crack, if I did.
I'm not have a very good Beck weekend and I'm feeling a lot of guilt about it. Things were going ok... I went to a German themed event at my parent's church and said No to the bratwurst and chose healthy sides to make up a lunch, and I took only a couple small bites of the German Choc Cake my sister got. Things got bad later in the day when Dfiance and I went to a board game party at our friend's. There were many bowls of snacks around and I gave in... I don't feel good physically this morning at all. Blah!
I'm moving on and planning for a healthy day today!
Moving on here, too, Chef Joona! I did some stress eating yesterday but do have to report something interesting. In the past, I had a "list" of my favorite candidates for stress eating. Yesterday, I was so agitated, and when I would think about my old favorites they no longer seemed so appealing...in my brain I seemed to understand that they no longer hold their previous power to distract me from my stress. I think that is progress.
I know that this stretch of yucky weather has been difficult. It's a blue sky day here and I'm going to take advantage of it. We're headed out to walk the pups and I'm planning on riding my bike to town for church.
Good Evening Everyone,
Stopping by to post before I do my 30 Day Shred. I am procastinating as usual but I have managed to do the workout every night so far. Tonight is night 6. 24 more to go.
I am way tired tonight. Two times this week I have not been able to fall asleep until 3AM. I am thinking it is because I am doing the workout so late in the evening. Just never seem to find the time to do my workouts until after the evening dinner and all are happy. Need to go read the book again about taking care of me, doing what I need to do. Hard learning not to take care of others first as that has always been my way and it feels totally natural to me.
I did succumb to one of my mom's chocolate chip muffins today. Again, totally my doing. I didn't touch the container of jellied candies or the cheese cracker snack packs. Maybe next week I will be stronger and just drink my Chai Tea.
Well, need to get that workout done as turn in early. Have a nice night everyone.
Saturday
Only downs. When it comes to my weight. I mean. 
gave in
