I never can remember to give myself credit so I'm posting it here ... Credit: Ordering small and eating less at office lunch out. Reviewed the menu online and was (as always) shocked at the calories in seemingly light choices. Walked back from the restaurant, and wish I'd walked there - rode with a coworker as I thought everyone was headed there in cars.
No choice tonight as we'll be walking to the restaurant as downtown is packed with a convention. So that'll burn off a bit
Last edited by nationalparker; 08-15-2014 at 01:52 PM.
Hi there, I just started to listen to the BDS audiobook and so far really liked it. I will pick up the green book tomorrow from the library. Very curious about it.
I chose the SBD as a new lifestyle and hope this forum helps me to remember the BDS book. I tend to read stuff and then forget about it.
Diet Coaches/Buddies – I pulled the thermostat wire as planned, CREDIT moi. Sometimes projects work out better than expected. My history is just the opposite, finding unexpected obstacles. Perhaps, in order to make my life history of unexpected obstacles during projects reduce to average, I'll have no more for the rest of my life. Did I ever mention that unfounded optimism helps when facing a long to-do list?
DW and I saw Finding Neverland, A New Musical last night. Even the New York Times reports that it's on its way to Broadway. The overdone was over the top. A full ship unfolded on stage with dancers climbing the rigging, the music grew louder than a rock concert and the bass low frequencies were shaking the seats. It was Broadway at its Broadwayest. (For full disclosure, I'm not a fan of Broadway musicals.) Will grudgingly admit that the choreography was refreshingly new - spent the whole evening in awe at the athleticism of the dancers.
Joy (gardenerjoy) – Sending supportive thoughts as your city continues to wrestle with the situation. May you find a path forward.
maryann - Neat tip for saving spinach - we're big spinach fans here, also. Still drooling over, "still picking figs off the tree."
nationalparker – Yay for the discovery that turkey dinner can be eating without pie, LOL.
Xena31 - Great realization, "I tend to read stuff and then forget about it" - that happens to me a lot, also. Glad that you've joined us.
Readers -
Quote:
day 21Get Ready to Weigh In
Tomorrow, you'll step on the scale and find out if you lost weight this week. Weighting yourself is essential. These weekly weigh-ins can help you in the following ways:
They help you stay committed to the program. If you're happy with your weight loss, you'll feel motivated to continue doing what you've been doing. If you're disappointed, you can declare that you're going to figure out where you went wrong, reread parts of this book, and start fresh.
Judith S. Beck, Ph.D., The Beck Diet Solution (Pink book), pg 171.
I didn't end up posting last night so I'm posting for 2 days now.
Yesterday was Day 13 - dealing with cravings. I've created my chart - now let's wait for the craving! It was good to re-read this one as I had forgotten some of the strategies.
Today - Day 14 - Planning. I have experienced a lot of resistance to this in the past but tonight at least I am feeling like a convert. My main resistance comes from the time it takes - but I remembered today that I had lots of meals set up in MFP and that makes it heaps quicker.
Credits: I have my meals planned for tomorrow. I weighed my dinner tonight to make sure portions are right. Did a lovely long walk in the middle of the day - lots more exercise than I usually have. Oh and last night we went out to dinner and I noticed that the thought of having dessert was 'desire to eat' and not hunger - so I didn't :-)
Tomorrow is Day 1 of being 'on diet'. How great that how I feel about that is "great - let's get on with it"!
Xena31 - welcome! I hope you find the book useful. I think it rocks!
Nationalparker - yay for remembering to give yourself credit and for having such a credit worthy day! And it was lovely to hear of the transition to friendships with your parents' friends.
Bill - loved your vignette - I totally didn't see the Peru as town coming. What does "flatlanders" mean?
Friday Weekend Warm-up (come back Tricia - I had to go and find these): If your goal is to lose weight, then your eating on weekends is just as important as during the week. It simply doesn’t work to be careful all week and then overindulge on weekends. Doing so will likely mean you’ll maintain your weight, but it won’t enable you to lose.
Think Thin Thursday Tip: Remember, avoiding the scale has never gotten you to where you want to be. It’s important to prove to yourself that you face the consequences and get on the scale even when you don’t want to. Doing so may help hold you more accountable because you’ll know that you won’t let yourself stick your head in the sand.
Waving at CeeJay
Nationalparker - LOL at wringing every bit of celebration out of a date. I like the enthusiasm in that. Hope it went as planned
Maryann - good to see you back. And it seems that you had a great time. You are very stubborn I think to go without milk, coffee and sharp cheese! Is this an annual US thing or...
Gardenerjoy - I haven't checked in with the news from your neck of the world - hope the tensions didn't explode. Sending thoughts your way. Credit for not overeating and not giving in to sabotaging thoughts
Xena31 - Welcome. I too forget a lot of what I read and this list reminds me of what I need to know
BillBE - LOL at unfounded optimism helping DIY projects. I think that will not pass rigorous testing. I guess food is OK?
I am sticking firmly to my food plan - d5 now. That is the nice thing about low carb diets - if you eat off plan it means at least a 3 day reset so it sort of discourages that behaviour and acts as a good deterent. I am not actually hungry but want something nice for dinner. I think I have that solved. I have to plan food for the week and shop tomorrow so need to get organised
Today:
- 194.4 pounds [down 1.2] - will change ticker Sunday or Monday
- Logged my food
- Under 20g CHO - changed it to 20 g to induce ketogenesis. I am showing ketones now
- Under 1500
- Gym tomorrow - went out today
Stayed on plan through a family pot-luck (the plan: focus on veggies, tiny servings of everything else). A grand send-off for the youngest nephew going to college today. He's going to the state engineering school and announced that his preliminary major is computer engineering -- pleasing his uncle (my DH) .
Mixed news, here, over night. I'm going to focus on the positive image of protesters standing strong in front of stores to prevent looting. It's raining here this morning, that may dampen everyone's enthusiasm for being out in the streets.
WI: NC kg, Exercise: +40 595/1400 minutes for August, Food: 100% op, Read my Advantages and Responses: yes
Welcome, Xena31!
BillBlueEyes: Finding Neverland sounds like something I would like -- and my husband would tolerate. I've been researching theater (theatre) in London. If we were willing to pay top dollar and commit now, we'd probably see War Horse or The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Instead, we'll probably get discount tickets on the day we decide to see a play and take whatever we can get.
Logged all my food into my fit. Hopped on a machine at the club when my favorite class had a sub. Endured 30 mins of boring because I need to burn some calories. (Credit for good discipline)
LOL with GosfordGirl's question if it is an annual US thing to give up coffee, milk, and cheese. I don't think many people in the US try to give up many things at all if you can believe the accounts of consumer debt and obesity statistics.
Not being a martyr for the month. I am trying to force myself to look at my habits in a new way and I feel it is working. i just realized if I don't drink so much coffee my stomach doesn't hurt. And I spent yesterday making a huge pot of white beans boiled with lots of garlic cloves and rosemary. Yum! On today's new recipe I will use the beans in a white "alfredo" sauce for the guys' lunch.
The tricky part of this experiment is to effectively spend the time I am creating by NOT doing things like shopping. ForMyGirls talked about food planning. I feel that planning my food has freed up mind space as well. Now I need to fill the space left by the absence of obsession. I know I want prayer and meditation to start to fill my space. Certainly some time sitting on the couch near my boy doing some parallel reading and sharing what is happening in our respective books. Some more walks once it cools down here would be nice.
It is funny to think I am a little uncomfortable opting out of the over consumed, over scheduled culture. Everyone wears their badges of stress and anxiety so proudly. I am trying to live quietly with "enough."
BBE: Do figs picked and eaten under the tree count as calories? Difficult call.
BillBueEyes - I actually found her through a thread about book recommendations in the maintainer forum (if I remember correctly). I then saw this Beck Diet Solution Section by scrolling through the forums. I think it would be fantastic to keep remembering sections of the book. As. I mentioned - I read numerous great books in the past and thought "That's it!!!", but then I forget about it and keep going back to my old me.
GosfordGirl - the weekends are the hardest for me. Actually sad that I give myself such a hard time on days where I can do whatever I want. I should actually do better on those days I think.
Re the food planning - I need to get back into that. I used to have a spreadsheet with 20 different breakfast, lunch and dinner ideas. All calories were calculated and I only had to mix and match them to come up with a meal plan. Took me a whole day to set it up and find stuff I like to eat but then I was all set. Since all BF, L and D had the same calories I could just mix and match.
Hello! Had a good evening and am desperately trying to not overeat tonight now that DH is at work and I feel like I've overeaten too much this week. Working to stave off the - what is a little bit more - line of thought.
We had a good evening last night - walked to/from dinner and while we had planned on eating dessert, we split a slice of cake (meant to be shared) and took half of it home with us and had the rest today. We ate the fresh salad heartily (cranberries, granny smith apples, etc. with lettuce) and went light on the rest of the dinner. DH brought most of it to work for his dinner. Scale the same today as yesterday ... it will blip up tomorrow, I'm sure. We headed out on the trail around 11 and had a good walk without the moon, but with good conversation. We usually get into good conversations on our walks.
For some reason, my mind cannot get off the thought of what we will be doing after Christmas. I have always spent Christmas holidays with my family. Always. So this year without my folks, I want to not just be melancholy here with DH ... I have been pricing everything from Italy to Aruba to San Antonio to cruises to San Diego to Iceland to ... anywhere and everywhere. I don't want to drive from here, though, because I'm not a snow driving lover. Everything is so expensive, of course. Then I come back to the thought of making it fun HERE and save money, etc. But my heart is yearning to go somewhere...somewhere to watch the waves crash in on the sand... DH said he's heard Venice is gorgeous around Christmas, so of course I glommed right on to Italy again ... but I know he'd like to have our next overseas trip be somewhere else. I understand that. End of complete non-Beck thought train.
Cups of hot tea will get me through until bedtime!
Welcome Xena31!! Looking forward to your posts and hearing your challenges and tips for moving past them.
Last edited by nationalparker; 08-16-2014 at 09:26 PM.
Day 6 on-plan - still not up to Maryann's 2 weeks on plan! [Didn't quite mean go without coffee etc - but there seemed to be a few conversations around Austerity August before the name change ]. I am going OK - forgot to say that yesterday afternoon I sat around a table of snacks that were totally carbohydrate with zero options - not even nuts. So I didn't eat - credit moi! But some of my behaviours are wanting - eating standing up being the biggie.
Planned food [well, wrote a shopping list anyway] and shopped and have food for the week. Didn't get to gym - I seem to be chasing my tail but just need to get through next week and it settles a bit. Xena31 - I reckon you could market your meal spreadsheet idea here - it is the holy grail for me as I keep thinking if only I could get it together to do it. You will have to track it down as I am sure it will make your life easier. Mind you - I do something similar in MyFitnessPlan where you can enter the components of a meal and it will calculate values and then you can save it as a meal [Scramble egg breakfast for example] - works well
Have a good Sunday coaches
Today:
- 193.6 pounds [down 0.8 - 3.4 pounds over the week]
- Logged my food
- Under 20g CHO
- Under 1500
- Gym - didn't happen
Last edited by GosfordGirl; 08-17-2014 at 05:11 AM.
Day 15 - "start the diet" - and also the day about monitoring everything you eat. Given that my diet is calorie counting - with the pre-planning of Beck land - the writing down part is a no brainer. I did lots of measuring today and it was eye-opening - no wonder I haven't lost (in fact I have gained) during the "getting ready" phase. My portions are way out of whack - and there are lots of 'little things' where I am loading up uncessary calories - eg: the heaped tablespoon of mayonnaise in an egg salad sandwich - as opposed to 10g, which is less than half of that!!!
Credits for my day: lots of times of exercising my resistance muscle - contemplating yoghurt after lunch (that would not have been within calories); offered cake at an afternoon tea visit; DESPERATELY desiring fruit juice at dinner. Resisted them all. Even managed to notice that the fruit juice was a craving and stopped to notice the intensity and deliberately choose anti-craving techniques. Thank you Beck.
The "imperfection" for the day is that I didn't do my scheduled exercise. It was a miserable wet, cold, windy day and the thought of getting out in the weather was too much for me :-( I did do a lot more exercise than intended yesterday so I'm not giving myself too much grief - but it is important that I be clear with myself that skipping today was OK - but skipping tomorrow will not be. So - the message for tomorrow is: "There is no such thing as bad weather - there is just bad clothing!"
Thanks Maryann for your ruminations about the discomfort of giving up the 'busyness' of modern life. Over the last few years I have learnt that I am not a person who 'thrives on pressure' as I once thought I was and that in actual fact peace and tranquility suit me far better. Many of the old habits of creating stress continue to surface though! Your comments put a new and welcome light on it all.
Xena31 - your spreadsheet sounds great - I use the "meals" function on MyFitnessPal in a similar way - as you say - it makes planning your day superfast. I have just discovered that the input system for recipes on MFP has improved heaps in the last few months so now it is even easier to use!
Nationalparker - I reckon that if you can afford to have a spoily holiday this year you should - you can focus on a bargain Christmas next year - but I figure that for your first one without your parents you should prioritise looking after yourself!
Internet has been poor...I've been around and reading but posting has not been great although I did manage to get my post in on the South Beach forum yesterday. Eta-it didn't post, either. I've been crazy busy preparing for family and have still found time to focus on my food plan. Credit. Lots of spontaneous exercise, too. I talked to moms neighbor on Thursday about taking our firewood. He was eager to roll so DH and I staged firewood down on the street Friday and Saturday and he took every piece. I even got up on the ladder and sawed off a dead branch that had been bugging me since the prospect of having it go away immediately was a reality. As always, I'm so grateful to be able to do what I do now as a result of weightloss. It's so motivating to me to keep focusing on food since I really enjoy my new way of life. I'm reading "TheHappinessProject" right now....semi interesting as I always learn something new.
BBE, a belated thanks for your sharing of your trip to the Adirondacks! There are just so many wonderful places to visit! Yay for pulling your thermostat wire. A simple joy compared to some of your previous projects!
Xena31, Welcome and kudos for your hard work with your spreadsheet which makes planning so much easier!
ForMyGirls, kudos for getting to day 15 start the diet. Your posts have been so interesting to read as you took time to prepare yourself even though you have done Beck steps before. Yay for resisting the juice with dinner. I remind myself the juice is just sugar.
Cheryl(GosfordGirl), kudos for day 6 on plan and associated loss on the scale. Tall credit for eating nothing at the table of snacks because there were 0 options.
nationalparker, thanks for sharing your wonderful evening, especially your walk and conversation, even without the moon. Thinking about the reality of the holidays is a really good thing. By planning ahead you will come up with what is right instead of getting to the point where you have no options. Becks emphasis on planning works in other areas of our life, too, and those decisions do affect our food (down the road).
maryann, yay for 2 weeks without going to the grocery store! I'm doing quite well excepting fruits and veggies, which I don't have any other access to. We've used up many items that would have remained untouched otherwise. I'm grateful not to waste.
gardenerjoy, yay for another successful family potluck accomplished using your standard potluck plan!
Diet Coaches/Buddies – One of the day's to-do list was to re-install a bamboo shade and two wall hanger-hooks put in with screws going directly into the plaster without the anchors that add some strength. Great - since that meant a walk, CREDIT moi, to the hardware store. The ones I bought worked for the hanging screen but were too small for the hooks. Great again, another walk to the hardware store for the larger size anchors. I even entertained the thought of buying ones that were too big so that I'd have to take a third walk, LOL. All went into the wall as planned.
Food was only OKish. I'm still working on extra snacks. I talked to a friend who had just returned from backpacking up to Franconia Ridge in the White Mountains. My simple solution to snacking is to go backpacking so that planned food is all I get. (Except, of course, blueberries found along the trail.)
Joy (gardenerjoy) – Yay for computer engineers - there's still a bunch of work to be done to get computers past their nanny roles to be more helpful. [I have a friend who plans her trips to London with tickets in hand for her theatre visits. My style is more like your suggestion - buy what I can get on the night that theatre pops up as the thing to do.]
Debbie (Lexxiss) – She's a lumberjack, also, per: "got up on the ladder and sawed off a dead branch" - love that you seem to have no bounds on what you can do yourself.
Cheryl (GosfordGirl) – Five Kudos for your fifth day firmly on plan. Congrats for "showing ketones now." Adding Six Kudos for your sixth day on plan.
maryann - Yay for "garlic cloves and rosemary" - even sponges cooked with them would be tasty. [Absolutely NOT! Figs eaten directly from the tree have no calories and don't even count as eating standing up. But that's from a guy who doesn't have access to a fig tree, LOL.]
nationalparker – Yay for making four servings out of one slice of cake. Always love hearing of your night walks with your DH. Seems like such a good idea to plan a Christmas that will help you through the reality that it isn't with your folks. How is your brother going to do his Christmas?
ForMyGirls - Terrific response, "noticed that the thought of having dessert was 'desire to eat' and not hunger - so I didn't :-)" [I use 'flatlanders' as a generic term for 'outsider' - don't recall where I picked that up, but recently encountered it in The Arsonist, by Sue Miller where it was used derisively for people not from the Green Mountains of Vermont.] I do love the adage, "There is no such thing as bad weather - there is just bad clothing!" But I, too, have a hard time using it when facing "a miserable wet, cold, windy day."
Xena31 - Kudos for devising a spreadsheet based plan so that calculating calories isn't a burden.
Readers -
Quote:
day 21Get Ready to Weigh In
But be careful. Weighing yourself can erode your motivation more than it helps if you step on the scale with the wrong mindset.
Judith S. Beck, Ph.D., The Beck Diet Solution (Pink book), pg 171.
On plan -- the weight is up because last night's supper was our stir-fried greens dish. Healthy, but higher in calories and sodium than most of our meals. I usually, but not always, get a bump after that dish.
The national headlines are a bit worse than reality this morning. Lots of positive protests yesterday and lots of church-going today.
WI: +0.6 kg, Exercise: +50 645/1400 minutes for August, Food: 100% op, Read my Advantages and Responses: yes
Lexxiss: love your story about sawing off a dead branch!
Welcome Xena31
