This is really late for Saturday and really early for Sunday. Late Friday night, Aunt Flo came to visit and I ended up with very poor sleep. I stayed up at 8 a.m. for take-out breakfast then talked to DH for 3 hours about a book he is reading then I took a 4 hour nap in the afternoon while he walked 10 miles. When he returned I made dinner then began making muffins for Sunday morning Bible study. DH is going to cover for me since I am not going. I am going to redo his resume and apply online for him for seasonal work since his main work is very slow right now. One good turn deserves another.
I don't know if this is a credit or not but I decided yesterday that I am going to drop where I started last June 2010 when I was my heaviest and start right here and now where I am at and begin to count down to my end weight. I have managed to maintain a 50 lbs weight lose for one year, going up and down about 5-6 lbs (mostly when I eat out a lot) and I have just decided that to continually refer to that "old weight" really doesn't "resonate" with me right now.
I was taking a look at the calendar and how many more pounds I have to lose and I am going to make a year goal of being my goal weight by November 2012. I figured that it would be 9.8 lbs per month. I was able to check back over this past month since I keep my daily weigh-ins and I managed to lose 8.2 lbs in exactly one month and I was eating an average of 2000 calories a day most of the time AND half of that month I couldn't exercise because of my knee being re-injured. So, if all goes well, I believe that it is doable. Okay, I concede that doesn't leave a lot of room for injuries, error, human nature, etc but I have my mind made up so now I just have to put it into practice.
I was thrilled to death that the woman who is hosting this October Food Challenge is going to have a slightly different one for November! What that will entail is posting what our daily calories, then a breakdown of the key nutrients like carbs, fat, protein, fiber and sodium each day as part of the accountability so I will be sharing that with you here. I KNOW right now that it is going to be hard for me to stick to 1800 calories a day but I am just going to take it one day at a time (name of the thread as well) and just focus on that day only. Thanksgiving Day will be exempt from this.
Then, to "sweeten the pot" she is also getting things together to "host" a year long challenge for next year!! I said "sign me up!" I just feel that both of these will help keep me focused and on track. I am very excited about them.
The next "best news of the day" was that Daniel, our Master gardener, made an executive decision and he is now going to offer us the opportunity to extend our garden plot through December 2012. In the past, you had to have your garden cleaned out by December 15th and the next year's wouldn't be available to February 15th. Since this excessive summer heat took its toll on a lot of our summer plants (I lost my peas and green peppers since they are a little more "delicate") and many of us "folks" simply stood our ground when we were asked to remove the remainder of our summer plants so we could be "on schedule" with our fall planting. TG I did because right now my single surviving tomato plant has 2 1/2 dozen wonderful green tomatoes just waiting for them to ripen. Others did the same. It was a "silent protest" but it was felt!
Well, granted December is cold here (highs in the 50s) but, as I was telling another person, on the colder nights we can cover our plants with an old sheet and we will be fine. January can be rainy but by February 1st we have 60 degree temperatures. Daniel did say that we could put in carrots and other cooler weather plants during that time. On November 5th, we do have "mandatory tidying up" of the grounds overall. There will be guest speakers on organic gardening as well and we will also have a "community" barbeque.
For 10/22:
-pedometer went in the wash with my sweat pants and "drowned". In spite of a new watch battery, I was not able to "resusitate" it.
-ate take-out for breakfast and, yes, I had the sabotaging thoughts of "I deserve this because of the kind of night I had." I did counter that with some Beckisms but "I don't care" won out. (sigh)That choice alone shot both my daily calories and sodium up for the day. I can not do this for next month's challenge at all!
-resumed my food plan to the letter for the rest of the day and night until I decided to try one each of the muffins I made to be sent with DH. I wasn't even hungry for them. I rarely do this but, without thinking who I was making these for[they are made with organic whole wheat pastry flour, no sugar, low fat (used unsweetened applesauce instead)]. , I just panicked!
So, I quickly tasted one of each (unplanned snack although logged it) to see if a "normal person" (read:someone who is accustomed to white flour/white sugar muffins) would notice the absence of unhealthy ingredients. I don't know. I am also sending 100% grape juice along with. I am hoping the sweetness from that will "cover" the lack of sweetness in the muffins. I'll know afterwards how "receptive" they were when I see how many return.
-I didn't read my cards but I knew instantaneously which ones I "goofed up on". (read above!)
Diet Coaches/Buddies - Made a specific trip to the pantry to grab some trail mix. Got there, touched the jar, and then remembered, NO CHOICE. Let it go and continued my business. CREDIT moi. A needed resistance for me.
Did OK at a restaurant with family celebrating a bunch of birthdays, CREDIT moi. I forgot to leave a bite on my plate; it's rare for me to remember to leave a bite either at home or at restaurants. Think I'll make an extra effort to do that today since I'm scheduled for another restaurant meal tonight.
Debbie (Lexxiss) Like the notion of "exercise for $$," although doing so around food at a restaurant would be hard for me.
pamaga Goodness, do you ever manage to consistently keep an inconsistent sleep schedule, LOL. Kudos for barreling forward despite that. Yay for an over-winter garden; that's a thought with no meaning around here, as you well know.
maryann - Congrats on getting the short story completed, and Double Congrats for mailing it despite the Sabotaging Thought "It is not perfect so I can't send it." I also feel much better knowing your DH is harvesting the walnuts - gives me quivers to think of a shortage.
Val (va1erie) Delayed meals do tend to thwart the planning. Kudos for stopping at half of the fish and chips. I have eaten the fish right out of their fried shell and thought myself avoiding the calories from the cooking oil; have never asked if that's so or not - does anybody know?
Readers -
Quote:
chapter 4Stage 1The Success Skills Plan Success Skill 6Overcome Hunger, Cravings, and Emotional Eating experiment 2Prove to yourself that hunger isn't an emergency. what to do . . .
To complete the experiment, you will need to create a Discomfort Scale to rate the level of discomfort you feel during the experiment. Do the following: 1. Create a chart in your Diet Notebook, like the one Phillip filled out on page 78. Label it as "Discomfort Chart." You will fill it in with your own examples. 2. Think back to discomfort you've experienced in your life. Fill in the top of the Discomfort Chart with experiences in which you felt severe, moderate, and mild discomfort. You will fill in the bottom part when you do a hunger experiment. . . . Judith S. Beck, Ph.D., The Complete Beck Diet for Life (Green book), pg 77.
report: didn't read my cards, weighed (no change), ate slowly and mindfully and sitting down, left a bite, got no exercise, contacted my diet buddy.
Debbie -- good for you for being back on track. What were you saying to yourself before dipping into "no-no land," do you remember? Was there a sabotaging thought you could come up with a response card for, for the future?
maryann -- hate those lost posts!
Pam -- 9.8 pounds per month is a LOT, especially as you start to approach your goal weight. As I approached goal, I was probably losing 2 pounds per month. Good for you for logging your uplanned snack!
BBE -- yay, you for remembering NO CHOICE and for strengthening your resistance muscle! When you avoid the fried shell of batter on the fish, you do avoid nearly all the calories from the cooking oil -- a little gets in from any openings in the batter, and the number of openings depends on the type of batter, but in general you're good. You're also avoiding the calories from the breading itself, of course, though you're probably still getting the dredge (the flour the fish is dipped into first to make the batter stick) but you can generally count this as eating fish grilled in a wee bit of oil and with a tiny amount of flour. Slightly more calories than plain grilled fish, but not an appreciable difference unless you're doing it every day.
Afternoon Coaches,
Better day today. DH, DS and I are all together for the first time in weeks - hanging out, a few chores , listening to music, reading. Terrific. Food not great yesterday - at my sister's house and over ate Mom's mac and cheese. That was always a big trigger food. Credit, ate nowhere near what I used to eat. Credit for eating enough proetein today to start getting the carbs out of my system. I am going to go full force this week getting back of the chocolate munching. No gain but not a good habit. Valerie: Good info about fried foods. A few times a year my husband gets KFC Chicken and I just pick off the skin. It really is very tender. BBE: This week I will join you and try to leave one bite. Pamatga: Congrats on 50 pouns lost and kept off. That is a lot of excess weight to be free of.
I didn't manage to post yesterday (book bloggers were busy with a 24 hour read-a-thon), but I hit a new low which, for the first time, took me to where the CDC says I'm normal weight instead of overweight. Yay! Bounced back over it today, but I'm taking the credit in my signature.
I'm officially declaring myself in maintenance. Which means....absolutely nothing!
For those of you who haven't kept track of my changes the last few months, it went down like this:
saw 170, my "goal" weight on June 3, but I knew then that I wanted the 2 more pounds to get me to "normal" weight
gained weight in July, August, and the first week of September to a high of 180
made what I thought were small changes, but they caused a 10 pound loss in four weeks, combined with low moods and low energy
added back a small second snack to remedy the problems and slow the loss to a more reasonable rate for this stage in the game
So, what I'm doing now is what I'll keep doing. I'm reasonably happy with it since it seems to keep my moods and energy level about where they should be without causing a gain. That recent evidence shows that eating more than what I'm currently eating will cause weight gain. Continuing with my current plan, I may lose a few more pounds, which would be good. I would love for 168 or 170 to be the red line that I don't go over.
WI: +0.25kgs, Exercise: +0 635/1000 minutes for October, Food: 90%op, Read my Advantages and Responses: yes
Diet Coaches/Buddies - Left some food on my plate at the restaurant last night, CREDIT moi. Thought about having some additional food later in the evening - but didn't; CREDIT moi again.
Joy (gardenerjoy) Congrats on the new low and entrance into maintenance land, with Big Kudos for getting there by seriously working and re-working your eating plan.
maryann - Yay for taking on the "chocolate munching."
Val (va1erie) Kudos for continuing to leave a bite. [Thanks for clarifying that removing the crust on fried fish saves the calories that I thought it did.]
Readers -
Quote:
chapter 4Stage 1The Success Skills Plan Success Skill 6Overcome Hunger, Cravings, and Emotional Eating experiment 2Prove to yourself that hunger isn't an emergency. what to do . . .
To complete the experiment, you will need to create a Discomfort Scale to rate the level of discomfort you feel during the experiment. Do the following: . . . 3. In your Diet Notebook, make a heading called "Hunger Experiment." Under it, write the following and read this throughout the day you do the hunger experiment.
Hunger Experiment
It's great that I'm doing this experiment. It will be so
wonderful to get over my fear of hunger once and for all.
I deserve a lot of credit for doing this.
. . . Judith S. Beck, Ph.D., The Complete Beck Diet for Life (Green book), pg 78.
GM and GD everyone! I apologize for not posting yesterday but after I did my "catch up" sleeping, I went into my usual Sunday routine and by the time I remembered to post, I decided instead to go to bed "early" (for me that is 11 p.m.). However, I awoken several times including loud banging outside, which finally got me up and kept me up (for the time being anyway).
I had to share this with all of you because I thought it was very "enlightening" to me anyway. I had made muffins to send to the Sunday morning breakfast Bible study (which I wasn't able to attend but was still committed to providing the breakfast food). I went ahead and made my basic organic whole wheat pastry flour muffins. These are from one of my "new favorite" diabetic cookbooks.
IMO, with most baked muffins, breads and crusts, the switch from white unrefined flour to what I use is almost undetectable to the taste. However, without even thinking about whom I was making these for, I went ahead and did the low fat (substituting unsweetened applesauce for oil) and low sugar ( 2 TB honey instead of the usual 1 cup white sugar). After I had made them I realized that I was going to be sending "diabetic" muffins to a group of people whom I wasn't sure would "go for this". Much to my astonishment, all were eaten but two!!
It brings up all kinds of thoughts for me but the main one is simply is that the argument that is often used by people who are reluctant about changing their food choices to more healthy ones based on taste and texture really do not hold up in reality. When given a healthier alternative without their knowing beforehand, people simply do not know the difference. This "experiment" was done by sheer accident but it was nice to see the empirical evidence that resulted.
gardenerjoy: thanks for sharing your personal stategy with your food plan. I am finding that I am doing the same thing to mine as well, via this present challenge I am in since it forces me to make sure that I get in one healthy fat a day (something I don't do often enough), to eat smaller meals and thereby smaller portions at one sitting, and to consciously include plain water as one of my ways of hydrating myself.
Val My goal weight is 122.2 lbs away so I am not as close as you may believe. I do believe losing 2 lbs per week at my present weight is actually quite "normal". I was not as careful as most of you here regarding my food plan either so that tells me that I can do better and that is my hope "moving forward".
In fact, the past couple of days I have been doing some reflecting on where I am at within the framework of my weight lose goals. I have decided that since I have managed to lose and "maintain" that weight lose of 50 lbs in spite of a lot of up and down with my food plan, that with careful and disciplined efforts on my part, I could lose 8-10 lbs per month from here on in and reach my goal weight sometime in November 2012.
It is something that I both want to commit to and then put into action.
maryann Congrats on getting that short story out. So where exactly is "out"? Is this part of a school project like a dissertation?
Bill GJ on identifying another area (leaving one bite behind) that you can work on.
Credit: -spending some alone time examining and reflecting on what I am doing well and areas that I need to improve on as I look forward to this next year.
-having the right frame of mind to accomplish this long held goal of mine.
-dealing with disappointment by saying "Oh well" and then getting on with things without nary a thought towards attempting to "fix my disappointment" with food. I am so beyond doing that. TYG!
I will briefly share with you the overview of that last bullet. I am hosting a Buddy Challenge. 1/3 of the people who post regularly joined it. It has been fun and I have enjoyed it this past week. However, I have gotten a few remarks from some of the people who did not join challenge that I am trying to separate the group and that I am "secretive" about what we are doing. I responded this morning by saying that first of all, everyone was invited so if they are feeling left out, that is not my fault. That is a choice they made and I respect it. The "secretive" part is simply because this is being done as part of a team competition and if any one knows anything about competitive sports you do not reveal your strategies to the other team if you have any hope of winning. Once we finish our team challenges I intend to post the results. If I posted individual results before hand, it would be discouraging to those who might feel that if they gave it one final push they could win. It would be a morale "killer".
Anyway, I am so way beyond eating over any of the "nuisances" in my life, that I just said my piece and let it be done with that. I use my mouth now for something other than eating. I am definitely no longer a people pleaser. That part of me died some time ago and I have no intention of resurrecting her either.
Report on Beck skills:
-revamping my cards to reflect my current stage in my weight lose journey. Many seem "outdated" to me (I made them in April).
-working specifically on "enriching my life" (from pink book)
-tweaking my food plan and already warming up for the November Food Accountability Challenge I have signed up for. No time like the present.
report: didn't read my cards, weighed (down .6), didn't exercise and didn't get up this morning to go to class because I had another bad night with insomnia. Oh, well. Maybe I can get in some spontaneous exercise today.
maryann -- credit for not eating as much as you used to eat of the mac & cheese! Re: leaving a bite -- this is a habit I try to keep up with because it requires me to notice how much I've eaten, which feels helpful in keeping me eating mindfully.
gardenerjoy -- yay for being normal weight and being in maintenance! And for realizing that maintenance means Nothing Really Changes. It sounds like you are tweaking your program really well to get yourself centered on your goal. I have a red line, too, and my "maintenance" plan has slowly lowered my weight over the course of five months to a point 3 - 5 pounds below that red line. To me this feels very, very good, as approaching that red line makes me anxious, and feeling anxious is a trigger for me.
BBE -- yay, you, for leaving food on the plate!
Pam -- I think you're right that with a good recipe, people won't necessarily notice that the muffin they're being offered at some event is lowfat, low calorie, more nutrient-dense. The problem I think is when people refine their own recipes to make them healthier. They know exactly what these recipes taste like, so they notice that the muffin, for instance, has a different color, a different texture, is less sweet/unctuous, rose differently, cracked differently, etc. They "miss" their old experience of THAT muffin. But if it's a muffin that's new to them, they aren't expecting that exact experience, so they can enjoy the new muffin for what it is and not "miss" the previous experience because they aren't comparing this experience to that one. I think this generalizes to all sorts of things. A coke drinker might think diet coke tastes terrible, but if they aren't used to drinking sweet tea that same person might find plain iced tea with lemon very refreshing because they aren't comparing it to their old drink. This past weekend I had a fantastic spaghetti squash casserole at the fm from a woman who was doing a cooking demo for us. After I'd raved about it, she told me she'd halved the amount of sausage in it for reasons of economy as she was serving so many. I absolutely did not detect that the casserole was less meaty than I would have expected, but she told me that to her -- she'd served this recipe many times to her family -- it felt as if there was hardly any sausage in it at all. I took the recipe and made it last night for my family, but in addition to halving the amount of sausage I also halved the amount of marinara and nearly doubled the amount of veggies...and my husband LOVED it.
Re: the 9.8 pounds per month w/re: the 122 pounds to goal. Yes, I do see that in your stats. And I think that for many months to come, you'll probably have no trouble losing that much per month and maybe even get ahead of schedule on that for several months. But as you approach goal, you may find you start to lag behind your monthly schedule, and I want to make sure you don't set this goal up in a way that is going to make you feel like you're "failing" if you don't get to goal exactly as scheduled. If next September you're still 20 pounds from goal and your losses have started to average 5 pounds per month instead of 10, I want you to feel GREAT about where you are and that you are having fantastic success. Losing slowly, ESPECIALLY as you approach goal, is more likely to help you achieve long-term success, so if your losses do start to slow down at some point, recognize it as a silver lining. If as you approach your goal weight you find that each month you weighed less than you did the previous month, you are a success.
I have a very busy morning with lots of decisions to make. I stuck with my plan yesterday, which included not one bite of restaurant food during my 8 hour shift yesterday. It's certainly great exercise! Perhaps I'll get back later today.
BillBlueEyes, great job leaving a bite. It is small number of calories yet a big step towards lessening our attachment to food.
Pam(atga), great that you are taking the time to reevaluate many of your goals. I agree, it often changes as we progress on our journey. Coming from a higher weight (upper 200's), I do agree that your 8-10 pounds/per month is doable.
MaryAnn, I think it's valuable to know that something is a trigger (Mac and Cheese) but to also celebrate a success that overeating it is different now than it used to be. Improvement seems to facilitate yet more improvement.
Val, thanks for asking a question of me regarding unplanned eating. I am pondering it. Sometimes my life is simple, other times it is extremely complicated. Right now it's complicated. For me, as I work BDS alongside South Beach Diet there are times when I eat On Plan with SBD, yet I call it off plan with BDS, because it was unplanned eating. For the most part it is still pretty sane. I am acknowledging that I may, in fact, need to modify my daily food if I continue working this new job because it's bumped me up to an entirely new level of activity. I need to decide FOR ME, IF, it's ok to have an extra snack in the evening when I've worked a 10 hour shift entirely on my feet without a break for lunch (which just won't happen).
Hey everyone! May I join in here? I'm using this program as well and love it! I have a Pandora bracelet for every 5 lbs lost and have all my motivators and cards programmed into my phone.
Looking forward to getting to know you all!
Donamari
Last edited by fyreflie24; 10-24-2011 at 11:31 AM.
The weekend got away from me and I never even ventured near the computer. Was busy getting the yard winterized, put away the patio furniture, pulled out the sunflowers and sweet peas, sorted out the shed to fit everything in and hopefully did not bury something at the back that we'll need mid-winter! I am holding out on pulling the last of the onions and carrots from the garden. It seems to be my new hostess gift when I go to someone's house, "here, have a bag of fresh carrots and onions". No complaints yet!
I read my cards today for the first time since last week. Weight is the same, was up and down a bit over the weekend but I think it's from the Vietnamese noodle soup I had for dinner on Saturday night as I'm sure it has a high sodium content. Drinking lots of water to try and flush that out.
I've been eating mindfully and slowly, not taking seconds, I don't seem to leave a bite as I try to take a smaller serving to start with. Planned exercise was my Zumba class on Sunday and spontaneous was all the gardening I did.
Now onto some long overdue personals
fyreflie24 Welcome to our group!
pamatga I agree with va1erie on the muffins and someone's expectations of them. I guess I'm selfish because if I'm doing the baking or cooking it's somewhat restricted to what I would choose to eat. And a good healthy alternative to all the bad white stuff is a great thing.
BBE Thought of you on the weekend when I was making banana bread as my DH wanted walnuts in it. Not something I seem to have often in my pantry and had to make do with slivered almonds. Still quite tasty but not quite the same as the walnuts would have been.
gardenerjoy Credit for reaching maintenance and knowing that it does not give you free reign to dive back into old habits.
va1erie Good info to know on battered food like fish. Often I don't want to eat at those places because of the deep frying. I can now consider going knowing I would have a good plan in place.
Dealt with a last-minute lunch out in a reasonable fashion -- brought home half of the duck flatbread (which proved to be a duck, green grape, date, and mozzarella pizza -- better than it sounds) for tomorrow's lunch.
WI: +0.35kgs, Exercise: +35 670/1000 minutes for October, Food: 80%op, Read my Advantages and Responses: yes
fyreflie24: Welcome! You are off to a flying start!
Diet Coaches/Buddies - CREDIT moi for completing the installation of two ceiling lights that, like most simple tasks, turned out to be more difficult than expected. As our project nears completion, I'm finding my tension level increasing, perhaps because I see the zillion small things that remain to be done. We're contemplating having a large family gathering before Thanksgiving - that will certainly be a motivator to get the furniture back in and finish up the details.
Joy (gardenerjoy) I was surprised recently when I ordered something "flatbread" and a pizza arrived. I had no idea what to expect. Kudos for being on track with your exercise goal for the month of October.
Debbie (Lexxiss) Kudos, Kudos, Kudos for working an 8 hour shift at a restaurant without a single bite. You've certainly set the standard for yourself to be able to work there and stay your course.
pamaga Yay for covertly introducing rational food into the food chain that might be expecting the standard confection of sugar, oil, and salt. Kudos for working on "enriching my life" - so neat that the good doctor prescribes that we bring joy into our lives as part of this process.
Tazzy - You'd be a welcome guest at my house anytime with a bag of garden fresh carrots and onions. Kudos for organizing your environment, which in your case, means your garden shed so you'll be ready to go next spring. [Yep, almonds are great, but nothing substitutes for walnuts.]
Val (va1erie) Ouch for insomnia - may the sandman work with you tonight. Thanks for the discussion that our expectations can prevent us from experiencing a new taste. I've read posts on 3FC stating that spaghetti squash didn't taste like spaghetti at all! Well, no it doesn't, it has its own unique wonderful taste to be savored.
Donamari (fyreflie24) Yep, join right in. Which of the Beck books are you reading?
Neat to have your reward system up and working with that Pandora bracelet. Congrats for that chunk of weight lost already. I'm glad that you've joined us.
Readers -
Quote:
chapter 4Stage 1The Success Skills Plan Success Skill 6Overcome Hunger, Cravings, and Emotional Eating experiment 2Prove to yourself that hunger isn't an emergency. what to do . . .
To complete the experiment, you will need to create a Discomfort Scale to rate the level of discomfort you feel during the experiment. Do the following: . . . 4. If your health-care provider approves, tomorrow you will eat breakfast and dinner, but nothing in between. It's important to know that this experiment is not designed to help you reduce calories for weight loss; it's designed to get you over your fear of hunger. It's fine to drink a little water during the day if you're thirsty. Just don't try to fill up with it, or you will negate the point of the experiment. . . . Judith S. Beck, Ph.D., The Complete Beck Diet for Life (Green book), pg 78.
Tazzy: Thank you I took my first Zumba class on Sunday.... whooaahhh that was a work out!
Joy: Thank you! Im so ready to do this.
BBE: WOW! Im humbled I actually attended the Beck Institute in Philadelphia in my late 20s. I googled A Cognitive Therapy Approach to weight loss and up came Judys book. I didnt work with her directly, but did meet her a few times. So since I was working with the book anyway, the beck forum jumped out at me on the main page/diet central area. I have the book with the pink cover and the matching work book (yea that helps right?).
Funny about enriching your life conversation... I need to go back and check that out. im such a stress puppy about this process b/c I have a hard deadline (in my blog if youre interested) but yes, I need to find ways to make this fun! Definite to do list material
I said "sign me up!" I just feel that both of these will help keep me focused and on track. I am very excited about them.
, I just panicked!
Sunday
Oh, well. Maybe I can get in some spontaneous exercise today.
It sounds like you are tweaking your program really well to get yourself centered on your goal. I have a red line, too, and my "maintenance" plan has slowly lowered my weight over the course of five months to a point 3 - 5 pounds below that red line. To me this feels very, very good, as approaching that red line makes me anxious, and feeling anxious is a trigger for me. 
