Everything still on plan, including food and work. Super credits galore!
I got an email saying the town needs to refurbish Santa's North Pole House for the Santa Claus parade. It needs painting and maybe a new roof
I was asked if I wanted to take that on and it pays money, but I don't know how much yet
I said I was interested so, yet another opportunity comes my way. What a year.
Diet Coaches/Buddies – Dinner was a modest serving of lentils, CREDIT moi, making me a vegetarian for the day. DW was worried that she wasn't getting enough fiber so she did the calculations to find out that our diet gets plenty with the fruits and grains that we consume. Vitamin C and fiber are plentiful in my diet. It's moderation that is sometimes in short supply.
Walked with DW in the evening to a lecture on Well Being, CREDIT moi. Folks are still trying to get the word out that our bodies and minds are thoroughly connected; our mindset affects our health and our health affects our mindset. Addiction to Internet games and Internet social websites is a new issue that needs attention. Facebook Anonymous will have to be invented some day for those who are sucked in beyond their ability to make limits. The use of Big Data in in a Fiduciary manner rather than an exploitive manner was a new and very encouraging idea to me.
onebyone – Repairing Santa's North Pole House will look good on your resume - not many opportunities to do that. Kudos for staying on plan.
silverbirch – I hadn't thought about our Kindle readers not being able to identify the Beck books as Pink, Green, or Blue - you modern folks are ahead of me. [Yep, 'portage' has the connotation of a short diversion along river travel. Lewis and Clark weren't prepared for the magnitude of the Rocky Mountains. If banana and walnut bread appeared in my house I'd have a problem - sounds so yummy.]
nationalparker – LOL at "wholly guacamole" - I want me some. [Class only runs 12 sessions - 12 weeks. Then I might have to go read some more on my own.]
Karen (karenrn) - Ice cream for Otis - that dog is so beyond spoiled. Yay for occasional fish tacos.
curlyjax - I'd send you a Happy First Colonoscopy card - if Hallmark made one, LOL. [Yep, huggable a two year-old is.]
Readers -
Quote:
chapter 4 How To Use the Beck Diet Solution
The Two-Week Wait
I encourage you to follow the program as written, by giving yourself a full two weeks to prepare. But I've worked with enough dieters to know that you might not want to wait that long. I also realize that you may have picked up this book because you're already on a diet and want to learn how to stick with it. Whether you decide to wait until Day 15, want to start dieting tomorrow, or are already dieting or maintaining your weight, you still need to prepare your mindset. Start on Day 1 and do each step in sequence.
Judith S. Beck, Ph.D., The Beck Diet Solution (Pink book), pg 46.
Today will be a long day. Much to do to get my work ready for the kiln tonight and there is no wiggle room. What goes in is what I have got for the upcoming show a week from Friday. Such is the timeline in the world of ceramic art. In painting world, I could be working right up to the Thursday night.
I also have to drop off work to an artist so the gallery space in the tea room our guild runs is clear to set up the next exhibit. This deadline is Friday 12:30. I have some help on that though.
The scale has moved for me but it was vexing me this morning. 258.2, 258.2, 256.8, 258.6... it's moving down is my conclusion. Oftentimes when I see the scale not want to give up the lb or two I feel like my body is asking me how deeply committed I am to my foodplan. Will I see it through? Will I stick to it today? Answer: yes. I am more committed everyday.
Better go.
Billblueeyes: North Pole Santa House Painter is indeed a very narrow niche. More likely I would emphasize "working for the town", a much wider, and well-known niche. I was told the roof may need to be re-done and I immediately thought of an adobe house with the clay tile roof which would be a poor choice for Santa at the North Pole. He would need the roof done next year as well....and who could they ask to do that I wonder.....??? LOL
Silverbirch: BBE suggested that the portage is a short traverse over land with a canoe over your head. To me is is always long and arduous and you become more of a saint the farther you carry that thing. Not a fan of the portage having done a couple. https://portagestore.com/shop/
An early morning eye doctor appointment pulled me off track for posting, but eating is still reasonable. Today's adventure is a dentist appointment followed by a noon meeting. This isn't a lunch meeting, unless someone is more energetic than I anticipate to provide it. It was just the convenient time for three busy people to meet.
Writing down a plan that anticipates I will be unusually hungry at lunch time so I'll want food that is quickly prepped.
I'm wavering in my commitment today - not sure what is behind this. Probably because I'm in my "fat" pants and frustrated. Have done so-so. I wiggled in a snack that wasn't on plan (a few sweet potato chips and also five peanut butter m&ms) and also had more tortilla chips than I planned. Not a bunch, but I strayed from my plan. We did enjoy our lunch catching up and I ordered a small lunch meal and skipped the flour tortillas - asked them to not even bring them because they're so, so soft that even though I don't need/want them, I end up tearing pieces and mindlessly popping in salsa and eating one...credit there. Credit, too, for breakfast and dinner 100% on plan.
More than halfway through the week! Yay! Now on the downslide to the weekend. I am looking forward to some more downtime in the winter, but it never comes until late January - personal downtime I mean. It's always so busy through the holidays. I want to get my outdoor cushion project going here when we have everything back together in the house and I can set my sewing machine up and get at them, and also some dinner napkins. Goodness knows, I don't need more of those, but I love them. Have ample material to make some for my SIL for Christmas. I need to set a drop dead date that if I don't get them done, I buy her some and get those in the mail anyway, so she can use in December.
I feel like I need to start my Oct/Nov/Dec page lists for things that I need to get done and the other side is things I'd like to get done. Then I do a marketing list for the baking/holiday meals/gift cards for pet sitter/12 Days of secret Santa for a coworker (this year it's a friend who lost her husband earlier this year), etc., so I can stretch out the purchasing.
Thursday - The Beatles release "Love Me Do" (1962, Britain)
Diet Coaches/Buddies – Exercise was chase the DGD day, CREDIT moi. For obvious reasons I was more impressed than was DW with this sentence, "I go help grandma peepee in the potty." Such a long sentence; so well constructed; so clear as to its intentions. DW, an otherwise kindly and loving person, has grown accustomed to peepee alone, LOL. Climbing at the playground goes higher and gets more daring. Wisdom and safety are still sorely lacking.
Walked crisply with DW in the evening, CREDIT moi, to hear Dava Sobel speak about Williamina Fleming, Henrietta Leavitt and the "Harvard Computers" - the group that led to an understanding of the composition of stars and the distance to the galaxies. Edwin Hubble acknowledges their work led to his calculation that Andromeda was a million light-years away - far outside the Milky Way. We were not the center of the Universe. It's so hard to believe that that was less than a hundred years ago. Dinner was cheese and crackers while looking at old telescopes and plates of the stars that the "Harvard Computers" examined. I ate fruit in an attempt to feel like a balanced meal. Took better care of my curiosity than my body.
onebyone – Kudos for "yes. I am more committed everyday." [It's hard to imagine a 'right' kind of house for Santa at the North Pole. Methinks you'll use a tad of artistic license to make everyone happy.]
Joy (gardenerjoy) – That takes courage to plan a meeting right after a dental appointment.
nationalparker – Yep, Kudos for 100% on plan and for conscious eating. You do seem to make a busy holiday season for yourself.
Readers -
Quote:
chapter 4 How To Use the Beck Diet Solution
A Task a Day
You'll have a new task to complete every day for the next six weeks. You'll perform some tasks only once. Others you'll do daily or weekly. The program is designed for you to progress one day at a time so that you can learn one skill before moving on to the next.
Judith S. Beck, Ph.D., The Beck Diet Solution (Pink book), pg 46.
Just today. No, I think I'll talk about what's going on.
I've got to the stage in the [which colour? I think pink] Beck book where the author loses my trust. She thinks she knows where I've come from and she thinks she knows what I think. But she doesn't. I'll keep on reading but it's the same block, each time I start to read the book. I don't believe it's my fault, by the way! People just respond differently.
I bought the pink book first (and I think my Kindle one is the pink one) and then I bought the green one because the pink just didn't chime with me. So I'll look for the green one and give it a go as well.
I can be a fairly argumentative person and I don't like being patronised. There's a distinct possibility that self-help books are not for me, because I'm out there helping myself anyway. Beck has some good ideas but they aren't put over in a way that works for me. In the past I have wondered if it's a cultural thing.
I can't remember whether I've talked about this before although I think I probably have.
Oh Bill - I can't stress how excited I am that you were able to hear Dava Sobel in discussion and how envious I might be about that! I loved her book, Longitude, and first enjoyed Galileo's Daughter but haven't ventured into her others yet. What an experience! You're right; I do add in too much through the holidays ... this year we'll host for Thanksgiving again but I can't get DH to commit to what he wants to do over Christmas. I just want to look for flights if we're flying...
Silverbirch - I've not finished the pink or green books either, but I'm not sure at what point I stop the buy-in. I do like and use (and need to be reminded) of some of the thoughts to help myself, such as "No Choice" - succinct! Where were you in the pink book where you cut off? I go through phases of liking parts of self-help books, but then I step back and realize if they worked, we'd all be perfect with little effort on our end - just wake up earlier to do more, be grateful for everything - good and bad, get rid of everything that we don't use in a day while verbally saying thank you to it as we donate it, and get abs in 8 minutes. Ta dah! I guess you can see what books I've started
GardenerJoy - Hope the dentist visit went well! That's never a favorite appt. of mine.
My day is starting out well - a completely rainy, dreary one with gray skies, low clouds to obscure the downtown skyline ... but I've used my "fancy" umbrella that was my mom's last gift to me; it arrived after she passed. It's always a conversation starter wherever I go ... today was no exception walking into work. Sometimes it beats a big golf umbrella or a tiny Totes one. I decided to take the rainy afternoon off work, run a few errands and, like Maryann, shop in my closet to put together a few more outfits that work for the autumn weather when it comes. I DO, though, want to pick up a pair of pants ($17) at Sam's that will fit to add in another option.
Last edited by nationalparker; 10-05-2017 at 09:06 AM.
Hi coaches! Liquids and similar day, how exciting! I’m afraid I’m going to forget and start eating something. Its kind of interesting to have an enforced fast. Maybe that’s what I need, and outside influence to make me stop eating occasionally. Nationalparker- DD has narrowed it down to 7 colleges, two private and the rest state schools but only two in our state, sigh. It will all be down to the money ultimately which she does know. She is thinking of teaching so that could be good. Bags of candy in the office is so not helpful to anyone! I like your sentence of self help books, I can identify some of them for sure! Wow, 12 days of secret santa is a lot! Karenrn- I’m allowed yellow jello, Gatorade and yellow popsicles, and broth, so that is at least something! Just not red blue or purple colors I guess. Happy Birthday Otis!! My goodness, the first year flew by!. I hear your DH , I used to not like fish either. Salmon is good since it isn’t as fishy and you can cover it with mustardy marinades or sweet chili sauce, that is my favorite. Bill- you cracked me up with the DGD potty thing! I’m sure she would find it much more interesting to observe you, LOL! Its fascinating to view the world from a fresh, two year old perspective. Silverbirch- I haven’t find Beck to have a patronizing tone but I certainly have that reaction to other authors. I do the old “ take what you can use and ignore the rest”. Like Flylady drives me crazy but I have used some of her ideas.
Friday - Charlotte Bronte publishes Jane Eyre (1847, London)
Diet Coaches/Buddies – Walking was limited as I choose to attend a technology exhibition at a local company. It's fun to watch engineering solutions get smaller and smaller. I saw an atomic clock small enough to fit on a chip (albeit a BIG chip). I ooogled a self-driving car. There's only one section of Boston where it's legal to drive itself alone. The test drives are conducted with an engineer behind the wheel.
Eating was on plan, CREDIT moi. It was warm enough for yet another dinner on the patio. I added Lizano Sauce from Costa Rica to part of my pork chop. Then added our standard apple sauce to some. Then tried both at once. Conclusion: either works alone but they clash together. Duh!
silverbirch – Would love to know the exact text where Beck loses you in the Pink Book - you can PM me privately if you wish. Since I'm visibly a grey-haired member of our society, I've had to develop a thick skin toward the patronizing attitude. It's nearly impossible to ask a question about my smart phone without getting asked if it's turned on. And if I have a phone plan. And if I've paid my bill.
nationalparker – That umbrella is certainly a show stopper - what fun! Kudos for making a good day despite the dreary rain.
Karen (karenrn) - Waving goodby for the couple of weeks. Hope the house completes as desired.
curlyjax - Yep, I do know that odd fast before the colonoscopy. An outside influence is certainly convenient.
Readers -
Quote:
chapter 4 How To Use the Beck Diet Solution
A Task a Day
What if you feel very motivated and want to move more quickly? You can try this approach, especially during the first week of the program. For instance, you might be able to create your Advantages Response Card (Day 1), choose a primary diet (Day 2), and commit to eating sitting down (Day 3) all at once. But, most of the time, you'll do much better if you stick to one day at a time. I don't want you to take on to much too soon and end up feeling overwhelmed. Err on the side of going slowly. It takes time to let new ideas in and to become proficient at changing your ideas and behavior.
Judith S. Beck, Ph.D., The Beck Diet Solution (Pink book), pg 46.
Good question, nationalparker and Bill. That is, at what point did I give up? The book I'm reading on the Kindle is the Beck Diet Solution, that's train your brain to think like a thin person, published 2007 in US, 2008 in UK.
I got to chapter 4 and then shied (you know, like a horse). A number of things made me feel uncomfortable and shout back.
From the introduction. "You'll be able to face challenges with confidence because you'll know exactly how to get through, and each time you do, dieting will become easier and easier." 'Dieting' is a problematic word for me as it just doesn't fit with how I see food and the world, but gardenerjoy told me years ago that she replaces it with 'food plan' and I've tried to do that as well. I don't always manage to do that and if I'm feeling weak, it annoys me.
Chapter 1 opens with a para about blame. I don't see things in terms of blame and guilt so that annoys me too. It also talks about 'cheating' which I know is part of some people's losing weight vocabulary but it is not part of mine. To be fair, there is a box about the concept not appearing in the book again but the damage has been done.
Chapters 2 and 3 keep mentioning that if you follow the steps of the programme you will keep off the weight permanently. I did try to do this but it did not work 'permanently' so my confidence in the programme has already been dented. Ch3 is about characteristics of people who want to lose weight, none of which I recognise.
By the beginning of chapter 4 I've had it. Too much annoyance and a certain amount of lack of belief. In brief, and I think I've said this before, I don't like Beck's voice. It doesn't speak to me, and worse, it often feels unpleasant. The 'expert to patient' model feels dated. We're talking about something quite intimate and I'd like some degree of shared ground and warmth.
Curlyjax, I do like 'take what you can use and ignore the rest' and I've been doing that for a while, more systematically recently. No lasting good effect. I suppose I thought that I could give the whole programme one last bash but I now don't believe it's going to work. Back to the drawing board, which is no bad place to be as it's where something entirely bespoke (you like that, Bill?) can be designed.
nationalparker, you've also signed out of the books before the end? I hadn't realised that before.
I'm not sure where I'm going now. Perhaps I should look more systematically at the bits I can use and put these into my daily/weekly planning (which is coming together reasonably well). Where I fall down is when there are too many little things happening, and when I'm tired and/or ill. I am too tired and/or ill more often than not these days, it seems. I need something to help me do what's necessary, and I'm looking for an alternative to food. Closing my eyes, having a drink or reading a bit are all on the list but food keeps making an appearance even when I've tried these.
In writing this, I've been wondering how many people have worked through the programme and actually lost weight. Do most of us just take the bits that work for us?
Last edited by silverbirch; 10-06-2017 at 04:46 PM.
Another dreary day here, but I have my desk lamp on at work and it's a bit cozy. Probably the fact that it's a Friday afternoon and not Monday helps. Our plans for the weekend are good: Food truck festival tonight - I'd bought tickets back in March or April - it's held the First Friday every month ... and we've missed it EVERY MONTH! Either strong storms, being out of town, other plans, me driving us down on the last Friday of a month and not the first Friday (yes, I did!) and then last month, no parking anywhere due to concerts. So we'll see how it shakes out. I know DH will enjoy it because he can choose from a wide variety of ethnicity.
Bill - OMG at the questions re: phone issues. That would drive me bonkers. BUT I have to confess every time my IT folks ask if I've restarted my computer before calling with an issue, sometimes I do a mental eyeroll and other times I say, "oops, nope...let me try that" and then end up calling back five minutes later with the same issue. As a non-techie, I am convinced it's what's said to give time to google the issue. I am one who will not trust a driverless car. Period. If an accident, who is at fault, insurance-wise? The car maker, the owner, the one who created the driverless stuff? It's too advanced for me.
Silverbirch - First off, let me say that even if you pull from the Beck books' line of thinking, please stay with this group! I enjoy reading your posts and love what you bring to this group. I know you pre-date me here, so I know I'm a relative newbie compared. I suppose when I've read that same Beck book, I let things slide in/out of my mind fairly quickly if I don't agree. I am with you on "dieting" and "cheating" but I do use "diet" for my food choices overall. I use healthy eating program when referring to just that. I get agitated with society's use of "good" and "bad" as far as eating - "I was good today." Oh, really? Did you volunteer at a community event? Did you... oh, you ate fewer calories. OK. I have spoken with my brother about that because I don't want that good/bad reference to be used with his grandkids' eating and their choices in food. Healthier/indulgent are more in line with my thinking. Maybe just using some of the thought processes that work for you from Beck - setting your plans in place before facing a situation where you may be encouraged or tempted to eat more than what you'd plan to ... or crediting yourself to reinforce good choices?
OK I've rambled and typed and erased way too much off and on this afternoon.
Goal tonight - Smart choices and enjoy the evening.
Diet Coaches/Buddies – Walk, CREDIT moi, included stopping at the library to pick up three books for DW. She had asked me if I had heard of Alison Gopnik, an author who writes about how young children learn. I hadn't; so I used my library's very convenient web site to order all three books so that we can find out which one we want to read. It's fun to get books for DW because she immediately grabs one (The Gardener and the Carpenter: What the New Science of Child Development Tells Us About the Relationship Between Parents and Children) to take to her reading spot to dig in. My skim read of one book is that we're all still stuck with some part of thinking that infants are born as a "blank slate" that doesn't recognize that infants are busy hypothesizing, studying, and experimenting in their daily life. This learning business never ceases to amaze me.
Meals were on plan, CREDIT moi; snacks were too large. I tried to trade off lunch calories to compensate for the large morning snack - with some success, but still with a wandering off plan that isn't useful. I couldn't coach DW out to the patio for dinner because it was dark already. The sun does this every year and every single year it catches me by surprise. But it reminds me that I'm also annoyed at near-equatorial places like Costa Rica where the sun rises and sets at 6 without fail.
Joy (gardenerjoy) – Waving with Dr. Seuss update. 1) The Boston Globe ran an article stating that the Dr. Seuss Museum had removed one large poster that included a stereotype "chinaman" (I think from Mulberry Street from 1937) at the request of three librarians. 2) The Cambridge Chronicle ran an article stating that the Cambridge School Department did not authorize returning books; it was the sole action of a single librarian. 3) My favorite librarian told me yesterday that she didn't agree with returning the books. Zillions of kids have grown to love books via Dr. Seuss. She can't stand the notion of banning books (this happened during Book Banning Week), and she, like all librarians, knows plenty of kids she'd love to give a book to that would be the first one that they owned.
silverbirch – Thanks for taking the time for your thoughtful comments. I, too, am bothered that Beck's first book devolves into the words of the 'Diet Book' mentality. We're on the same page with the words 'diet' and 'cheat' that invoke a mindset that isn't useful for the long run. 'Food plan', 'way of eating', and 'planned indulgences' all work better for me. (I discovered Beck six months after I'd lost the weight using a bespoke program of my own making. I was looking for a long-term way to keep it off.) What I did from my first day was to grab the strategies which are helpful for me and to ignore the words that don't fit. I do use her notion from near the end of the Pink Book of making a weekly food plan. That fits my life because I don't plan my own dinner; I plan to eat a moderate portion of what DW serves. My eating changes what she plans over time. Now, for example, when she serves potatoes she only makes a small portion for me.
All self-help books need shifting for me to read them. "I want you to ..." loses me in a book just as it does in real life at the doctor's office. My long time personal physician does a better job with the words than most. I was on the verge of murder when a young medical assistant told me, "You need to take your health seriously," when I objected to her suggested way of going forward.
I do hope that the path that you find for yourself includes continuing with our forum here. Your posts are a valued contribution to me and I suspect to the rest of the posters. Here's hoping that you'll bespoke a Beckish program that fits you. Even if it requires verbing an adjective.
nationalparker – Hope you made it to the Food Truck Festival. The aura of food trucks wins me over. I miss them in my daily life; they were a short walk from my office back then. [You're spot on with the concerns for driverless cars; to my knowledge, the answers are still being debated.]
Readers -
Quote:
chapter 4 How To Use the Beck Diet Solution
A Task a Day
On the other hand, if you find that one task a day is too much for you, implement changes more gradually. You can spend a week on each task, if needed. I don't mind how long it takes you to finish the program as long as you eventually do every step in order.
Judith S. Beck, Ph.D., The Beck Diet Solution (Pink book), pg 46.
Hello! Crazy day on this end - up and down throughout the night, not sure why. Ended up awake for good at 6:30 a.m. and figured I'd read in the quiet of morning. instead, I got onto laundry, cleaning and misc stuff that I could do quietly. The morning zipped by and we headed to the Garth Brooks concert this afternoon - SUPERB. Even better than I hoped. Our seats were beyond great, just a few rows back from the stage. Danced the whole three hours. We met friends before the concert for lunch and then ate dinner out later tonight. YIKES. I made some good choices and some that weren't on plan but nothing crazy. This day's meals will set me back a bit though. PLUS we ate out last night, too, at the food fest! I couldn't attend as much as you do, Bill, without being off plan a lot. You do an amazing job of picking and choosing.
CurlyJax - I hope your procedure went well yesterday!
Niche Master
today. No, I think I'll talk about what's going on. 
