I just finished filling out my workbook with what I ate today. The totals are good but I had some tough moments. I had an evening meeting and came home starving. I thought about the salt content of my choices and stopped eating one item but then returned to the fridge to eat something else only slightly less salty. I have had ample water but it was this whole "I'm starving!" business. Sabotaging thought got me. Credit for stopping.
My throat is a little sore again but I have to go out tomorrow. Maybe I just need some sleep.
Billblueeyes: has the snow stopped there? We had a fairly mild day. But it snowed quite a bit. Didn't the groundhogs say early spring?
Nelie: : Happy to see you posting. Credit for a good day one!
KarenRN: pictures are added below this text box. Look for attachments. I have to resize everything. The sizes are small for this site. That could be your problem.
Love2garden: you asked about my painting. It's still in progress. It's two chickens on a sidewalk in Key West. We were walking directly toward each other, neither of us yielding. I'm calling it High Noon. It's acrylics on canvas. I'll post a pic when I'm done. Thanks for asking about it.
Wednesday - Puccini's opera Madama Butterfly (Milan, 1904)
Diet Coaches/Buddies – Seems noble enough that my errand during my walk, CREDIT moi, was to buy a nine volt battery for my scale. As the battery loses its umph the display stays visible for a shorter and shorter time before the LO light flashes, then black. A healthy battery displays the weight as long as I stand still. I was doing my engineer thing of seeing how long I could keep using the exhausted battery and still read the number before it disappeared. I learned that there are batteries at four different prices with no number like ampere-hours that a car battery carries. So, in the interest of a good scientific experiment, I bought the store brand ("Good as any"). The last one lasted so long that neither DW or I can remember when it was changed. I had, of course, hoped that a fresh battery would measure a lower weight and had simultaneously feared a ten pound jump because the tired battery hadn't measured all of me. Alas, the number is unchanged.
Meals were on plan, CREDIT moi, snacks only slightly over plan. Evening snack was clementines whose citrus taste keeps me from feeling hungry all evening. My best moment was when I got a glass of water when I wanted something and peanuts were calling. Our morning snow melted without shoveling; the rain didn't start until I was back from my walk - a perfect balance.
onebyone – Kudos for calling out a Sabotaging Thought. Hope that sore throat is temporary.
FutureFitChick – Slow is good when there's ice. I like the notion of marking on the ice cream container. My estimation skills around ice cream are pathetic.
Karen (karenrn) - I join you in feeling kindly toward the scale.
nelie - The Advantages Card is the strategy that shook me; there really were some things that I wanted that I felt my weight blocked. Glad that you've joined us.
Readers -
Quote:
Chapter 4 Emotional Eating Traps
#4: The Killing Time Trap
Over the next week, Beth gathered some interesting data. On evenings when she was tempted to overeat, she found she was either feeling bored (with nothing she really felt like doing) or she was procrastinating (because there was something she should be doing but didn't want to), or she was tired (but didn't feel like going to bed). She also realized that during these evening visits to the refrigerator, she didn't have an empty sensation in her stomach.
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. 77
New idea. An experiment. If I can get my food intake down to what it takes to lose a pound a week, would that make my hot flashes go away? First phase of the experiment: figure out what it takes to lose a pound a week.
Here’s my hypothesis (aka food plan):
B/ 2 wheetabix + yogurt cheese & apple butter
L/ ½ cup tempeh sausage crumbles or vegetarian chili + ½ cup rice or medium potato + giant salad
S1/ 1/3 cup of cereal, 24 chocolate chips
S2/ 1 slice of bread + yogurt cheese/mayo spread + fruit
D/ normal suppers, except no seconds on the stir-fries and only half a sandwich on the rare times we have sandwiches
3 full cans of water (27 oz each)
Test this for 8 weeks while counting hot flashes. If I don’t lose at least 8 pounds, devise a 2nd phase. If I do lose at least 8 pounds, continue for another 8 weeks while counting hot flashes and see if the number has reduced over the 16 week period.
I’ll start on Sunday, but I’ll start easing into it today.
The secret experiment behind the experiment: see if I can trick myself into following a plan by devising it as an experiment.
Hello, coaches! I actually am staying the course, despite iffy checking in here. The past two evenings DH and I just shut everything down and enjoyed the fireplace with candlelight and relaxed and talked, listened to music, occasionally reading/dozing.
Just finished my lunch and being homemade chicken pot pie, the serving was modest and I would have liked more bites. But I think I should be set.
Bill - Thought of you with dinner last night and no idea why - it's not something that you make but for some reason, I thought you'd have enjoyed. I sauteed up peppers and onions in large chunks and then cooked hot turkey italian sausages, having removed the casing to put into fresh light buns DH picked up as a treat. We counted it all and was so different from a typical dinner, more ballpark-like.
The killing time trap listed above must have been taken from my own kitchen security camera. (No, there isn't one, but ...)
Awaiting the wonderful warmup to come, though DH will be back working nights and won't get to enjoy it. I have GOT to embrace it as Lexxiss did last week and get some things accomplished. Good example to not let opportunities pass. I feel like right now I'm in winter doldrums and content with just getting to what absolutely must be done in the evenings and that's it. The gray days get to me.
Still working to assess hunger better and get more intuitive about it, but last night I chose dessert when I really wasn't HUNGRY. I'd made lowfat pudding in little vintage cups and honestly, it was the pretty cup that made it more desirable for me. It was approx 100 calories, so it didn't knock me off track, but interesting to note that it was the presentation that sucked me in. My OWN doing.
Food within calories and good exercise yesterday, credit. Today's food will be within calories because I hiked for 5 hours with a 16 pound pack on. That gives me more than a few extra calories to play with, but I vow to really limit what I eat. So far the only extra I had was a cup of cottage cheese and a mango.
The movie I saw yesterday, Rams, was very interesting. Only 90 minutes, subtitles but not much conversation, so that was easy. An interesting story that would be fine on video, but I was glad to have something to do with dh out of town.
GardenerJoy Did you say you know of a way to renew audiobooks from the library on Overdrive? I'm sure I'm not going to finish Paris in time, no matter how many hours I spend walking and hiking. As you know, it is a very good but long book. Good luck with your experiment, with both the hot flashes and the weight loss.
Nationalparker I wish I could send you some of my weather, right now, before it's any hotter. You would be over the those winter doldrums in a flash.
Waving to everyone else. I'm going to go put my feet up for a bit. They carried me a long way over the rocks today and they deserve a break.
It was a very busy, but good day. Food and exercise were on plan, and without pain. Credit for increasing my walk length as well. I could do a better job at paying attention to my food, but given my work hours, I will take what I can do at the moment. I must get off the computer, as my eyes are protesting looking at a screen any longer!
Bill Blue Eyes, great job getting in your themed (scale) walk. I have noticed on my rechargeable batteries different mAmp (max) between brands and time between purchases. Extra credit for choosing water over peanuts.
Gardener Joy, good luck on the hot flash experiment! I am intrigued.
Karen, RN, great job hitting your goals for food and exercise!
National Parker, congratulations on "staying the course"!
One by One, excellent job for working through those "tough moments" you experienced today.
Today I counted my food and used my workbook but I didn't eat any veggies. My green thing consumption has drastically fallen the past few days. I need to pick it up.
I did my walking again. This time to and inside and back from the library. I went in for one. Book and came out with eight. Of course!
I have three deadlines approaching at the end of the.week. I'm feeling the stress.building. I'm not eating over it.
Time for bed. See you tomorrow. I'm in for an AZ meetup anytime BTW...
hi coaches- i posted something yesterday then went i hit reply, it said the website was down for maintenance, so i lost everything- i'm doing a quick test here to see if it works!
yes! okay, back in business-
can't remember that much of what i said- our pipes didn't bust thank goodness!! but just thawed nicely on their own, so that is a huge relief!
credit for going to the gym yesterday and making a stirfry with veggies -but i have been eating way of a homemade dessert and feel icky today. National parker- I feel like right now I'm in winter doldrums and content with just getting to what absolutely must be done in the evenings and that's it. The gray days get to me. This!! i'm not getting anything done at all...although i have been enjoying sitting around and reading. Winter is the perfect time to vegetate a little! you make the best sounding food! Bill- good job avoiding those nuts, i know they call to you!
Waving to all!
Diet Coaches/Buddies – The evening walk with DW, CREDIT moi, was to hear about continued efforts to preserve the ruins around the Egyptian pyramids. The archeologists get so excited when they find a fragment of linen or clay with hieroglyphics. I listened as the speaker calmly read an English translation of a string of hieroglyphics. Even more amazing is to recall that translation of hieroglyphics didn't happen until 1822 when decoding began with help from the Rosetta Stone. Yay for folks who take our past seriously.
Eating was helped by going out for the evening - no evening snack. DW and I stopped at a Greek sandwich shop for takeout for dinner. Good enough, though larger than needed. I wish I'd stopped about the 3/4 point and put the rest aside for a lunch. I finally finished Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs: The Astounding Interconnectedness of the Universe by Lisa Randall. The issue is that since we know so little about dark matter, perhaps it's worth considering that it has a minor attraction to itself. From this it follows that it will form a disk in the plane of the Milky Way and when our Solar System passes through this disk about every 32+ million years the comets in the Oort belt will get shaken. Perhaps even the comet that created the Chicxulub crater and wiped out the dinosaurs. Fun speculation.
onebyone – Yep, go into a library for one book and come out with a handful - there oughta be a law, LOL. Kudos for recognizing that approaching deadlines make the brain think about eating.
Joy (gardenerjoy) – My take is that any trick that helps compliance is good Beck-like Cognitive Behavior Therapy.
FutureFitChick – It's that getting tired of a computer screen that keeps me from getting a Kindle. Yay for very busy.
nationalparker – I love the notion that vintage cups make the puddings more desirable. I'm a sucker for neat glasses. Kudos for observing that you weren't really "HUNGRY."
Karen (karenrn) - Rams just got added to by Movie List. Would seem like you would need rest after you "hiked for 5 hours with a 16 pound pack."
Readers -
Quote:
Chapter 4 Emotional Eating Traps
#4: The Killing Time Trap
Even though she labeled what she was feeling as hunger, she wasn't actually experiencing symptoms of hunger. And no wonder - she had usually just finished eating a substantial dinner an hour or two before. "I hadn't realized it, but the desire to eat was coming from my mouth," she said. "That surprised me. I guess it wasn't hunger. I just wanted to eat." She made a reminder card about this:
If I feel like eating in the evening, remind myself
that I'm probably just at loose ends, not hungry, so
eating isn't the answer. Find something else to do. If
I eat, I'll reinforce my giving-in habit, feel bad about
myself, and stay overweight, and I don't want that.
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. 77
One night of data suggests that eating less makes more hot flashes. But I think that's probably because it got warmer and we have too many blankets on the bed.
WI: NA kg, Exercise: +40, 690/1200 minutes for January, Food: 90% op, Read my Advantages and Responses: yes
Having a lazy day today. Drove up to some outlets to purchase fleece jackets for dh and myself, then went for a visit and out to lunch with a cousin. More lazy the rest of the day
and a good hike of about 10 miles tomorrow. It's warm here today but cloudy, so it feels like a cozy do nothing day and I'm doing it.
Late check-in
business. Sabotaging thought got me. Credit for stopping.
Welcome nelie
