Beck Diet For Life/Solution – August 2018 – Support, Discussion, Buddy/Coach
 

Welcome to the discussion group, support group, Diet Coach group, Diet Buddy group relating to the two books by Dr. Judith S. Beck:and the first bookThe Beck Diet Solution is a psychological program, not a food plan. It provides a step-by-step program to learn specific techniques to stay on our diet, lose weight, and maintain our weight loss for life. The program is based on Dr. Beck's clinical research in Cognitive Therapy (CT).

The Complete Beck Diet for Life expands the earlier work and includes a food plan with suggested menus. From the cover:This is a place to discuss the Beck strategies and our daily efforts, to receive and provide support, and, for some of us, is where we serve as on-line diet buddy (coach) to each other.

If you’ve arrived from a search engine, you've landed at the site of 3 Fat Chicks (3FC), a remarkable place for those interested in a healthy life style, including mindful eating, exercise, and weight loss. More about the site, including how to register so that you can post, can be found here.

The books are available on Amazon through the 3FC store by clicking their names above; buying through 3FC helps to cover the costs of running this site.

You can find the list of previous (or more current) monthly Beck threads here on 3 Fat Chicks via:

Wednesday - Joseph Priestley discovers oxygen (1774, Wiltshire, England)
 

Diet Coaches/Buddies – Blueberries for breakfast came from Canada - not a good sign. We watch each week as the origin of our blueberries at the supermarket come from a region further north. Michigan and Nova Scotia plant the latest and then they are gone. (Blueberries from Chile then become available but we stop buying when they need to be shipped that far.) Food was on plan, CREDIT moi, with only a small snack during the day and a sane volume of Bing Cherries for evening snack. String beans from our plot in the community garden were part of dinner. They were awful - tough. We'd ignored them until they became old on the vine. We blinked and missed the crop for the year.

I'm currently wearing the first pair of glasses I've ever owned - maybe five years old. The lenses are damaged from the case I keep them in in my pocket making them partially useless. So, thought I'd just pop in to my optometrist to get a current prescription. Felt like a responsible choice in life. Well, 'pop in' is a phrase only a guy who knows nothing about optometrists or the health care system would use. I'm now scheduled for September 7th. "We'll put you on the list to be called if there's a cancellation." My annoyance is tempered by the awareness that I could have made this call a few months ago but waited until now because I have some spare time next week. My walk, CREDIT moi, got interrupted when two neighbors joined me in supervising the set of condos being built nearby. Each of us has a different petty complaint about the design: underground parking is too small; rooms are too small; too many balconies that look right into bedrooms of existing houses.


Joy (gardenerjoy) – Yay for "exploring my own idiosyncrasies." We try to teach teenagers to accept themselves yet struggle with that notion as adults.

silverbirch – Me first, me first when you do your tour of the U.S. decluttering the beckies. Ouch for dental drama. Teeth should just do their job with just a couple of brushings a day to keep them happy.

maryann – Astoria, Oregon looks super neat. Wiki points out that John Jacob Astor made big money from his Pacific Fur Company (PFC) right there at Fort Astoria on the Columbia River. Good to hear that you're currently free from the fires.

Karen (karenrn) – Easy to believe that air conditioning maintenance matters in the Arizona summer. Kudos for having a goal of being "able to jump 200 single unders in a row." [Love the notion of Silverbirch traversing the U.S. getting each of us under control.]

curlyjax – Congrats for recognizing that you have to work on your body sooner rather than later. It's hard to believe that your DD is leaving for college in just a month.

Beth (bethturnaround) – Congrats on an impressive level of organization. [Love the notion that 25 jumping jacks could be a diversion instead of peanuts.]

Penny. – Congrats for "down 10 and holding steady" - sounds like a good place to be.

Readers -

New month and I feel like a new start. I want to start paying more attention to what I eat (not just what I write on my plan, because they don't always match) and how that impacts the next day's scale reading. I've been much more aware of that in the past than I am right now. This will require scribbling down differences between the plan and the reality and paying attention to the daily weight.

Weigh-in: -0.25 kgs, Exercise: +45, 1200/1200 minutes for July

Hi everyone!

I'm feeling re-energized--and it was after only a short time of feeling I was losing control. I've been through this cycle before. I wonder if the lesson is "minimize the time between feeling out of control and feeling energized again"? I'm going to go through cycles--recovering from them faster seems like a really good goal.

I have some major credits today:

• I knew that my evening meeting was going to have food that wouldn't be on plan and that I'd find tempting. So I rearranged my schedule and had my "real" food for lunch and so had my meal replacement products before and after the evening meeting and totally avoided the sandwich wraps, chips, and cookies.
• I got home as it was getting dark but really still wanted to walk, so I walked to the library (just before it closed) to tell them I didn't want the two on hold books that just came in (5 books came in at once). I could have called but the 40 minute walk was way nicer--and I really enjoyed it.
• I brought two sippy cups of water to the meeting, drank one on the 45 minute drive there, drank the other during the meeting, and then drank a water bottle from the meeting on the way home. Yay for water!
• I filled out my sheet and even made some new cards :-). I recorded my weight and sugar--it really does make a difference to see the history of the numbers

My diet book (one my daily checklist items is to read 5+ pages of a diet/motivation book) is "Thin for Life: 10 Keys to Success from people who have lost weight and kept it off" by Anne Fletcher. Beck is becoming too familiar so I thought I'd try reading something new. Fletcher calls people who have maintained weight loss "masters". I think reading about people who have maintained weight loss keeps me remembering that people do succeed at maintenance.

joy: Even though we know we don't have to wait until a new day/month/year to start something, it does feel as if it's easier when there's a clear demarcation. Congrats for making your July exercise goal!

BillBlueEyes: Produce is best when it travels least, isn't it?

G'night all!

--Beth

Good morning. A cooler day today, it seems. I'm seeing the trainer/fixer for hip work. Yesterday was OK except I fell for chocolate at the supermarket. Then I realised I'd woken up at 5 and so it had been 5 hours or so since I'd eaten.

Beth, some years ago the Maintainers forum discussed Thin for Life, a chapter at a time. A different thread for each chapter. I've had a very quick look for it but can't find it. It can't have been scrapped. Bill, do you remember that?

In a bit of a hurry this morning but I wanted to come and say hello.

Thursday - James Baldwin, "Go Tell It on the Mountain," born (1924, Harlem)
 

Diet Coaches/Buddies – Exercise was chase the (2.5 yo) DGD day, CREDIT moi. She just doesn't slow down. The day's adventure included the playground where she traversed the hanging slide "all by myself" due to the minor help of her granddad holding her up, LOL. At the library's sing-a-long, from the song box she drew the card with a picture of a spider so that "Itsy Bitsy Spider" was the next song sung. So proud of herself! Then a visit to the local fire station where "I saw firemen. When I grow up, I'm going to be a fireman. I want to drive a firetruck." The guys at the station were amazingly welcoming to a toddler who wanted to walk around both firetrucks touching each polished piece of equipment with toddler-permanently-sticky fingers. The last stop was at the backyard garden of a friend. DW laughed at a marijuana plant, "Is that a native?" "Well, it's actually being grown by my neighbor, but he has teenagers living next door to his house, so he grows it here." Really unexpected.

Evening entertainment was hearing Verdi's Requiem on the lawn in front of the Boston Esplanade Hatch Shell. There must have been 300 performers between the orchestra and the chorus (most of the chorus out front since that many folks can't fit in the Hatch Shell). Just glorious. To thwack our brains, at one point the horns blasted from two directions behind us. Physical exercise came when the escalator from the subway was under repair causing us to need to climb 100 steps to get out. Reminded me that I'm not in mountain climbing shape. Eating was on plan, CREDIT moi, because there was never time to snack, but I take credit anyway.


Joy (gardenerjoy) – Yay for a new start on mindfulness of your eating. By-the-by, today is also the anniversary of George Eliot starting Middlemarch in 1869 in London. I'm not prone to choose that as the thread title since I still feel guilty that I've not read it and, judging by its size of 646 pages, will likely keep it on the bottom of the Bucket List. Congrats to you women writers who now use your own name.

silverbirch – Ouch for supermarket chocolate. When I become czar, chocolate will be available by prescription only. I found this thread from 2005: Thin For Life discussion questions.

Beth (bethturnaround) – Congrats for getting to "re-energized." Kudos for walking to the library. Are you guys under the same heat wave that we are here?

Readers -

Good morning,
Food is at the top of the calorie range for me and therefore no weight loss. I need to tighten things up a bit. Exercise was Crossfit yesterday and today will be the Y. I'll be leaving shortly for that. If I don't do it in the morning it seems I just don't do it. I am really looking forward to my driving trip because I am just tired of the heat. Thank goodness for air conditioning. It was 88 or so when I walked Otis an hour ago and that's the low for the day. It just gets old. I'll attempt to get back to personals later.

Karen

Thanks, Bill. That led me to Rethinking Thin - a book discussion from 2007, which is the one I was thinking of. Hope this is useful to you, Beth.

I've only called in briefly and now I must get on.

I was going to take my usual 40-minute walk yesterday, but they're working on the roads in our neighborhood. I stopped where I'd have to walk on wet asphalt.

Credits:

• weighed two days in a row
• examined what I ate yesterday that contributed to today's drop
• posted two days in a row

Weigh-in: -0.25 kgs, Exercise: +35, 35/1200 minutes for August

I'm home from the Y and feeling better. I was a little crabby before I went. I decided I would just do cardio today so I did 40 minutes on one elliptical and 30 minutes on another that is a little more difficult. The more difficult one has a variable stride length depending upon what you want to do. It's kind of fun to feel like a gazelle for a bit before being too tired to take those long strides.

Bill I love that you take in so many wonderful performances. Occasionally I buy tickets to something, but I pretty much have to call it a "command performance" to get dh to go.

Beth I loved reading your post that you are feeling re-energized. I truly believe getting back on track quickly is the answer. You really did some good planning to keep yourself on plan too.

I have been allowing myself to eat enough calories that it amounts to 1200 calories, plus any exercise calories I have earned. I know that the estimates of the calories for exercise are more than my body actually burns and therefore too much. I know some of my eating is out of boredom even though I tell myself I need a snack because of my hard workout. If it were really that hard, I would be losing weight. I'm just saying this out loud to you and myself, so that I can acknowledge this and change it. By going to the Y a little later today, I came home knowing lunch is less than two hours away. I am not hungry and can easily wait that long. I did read my advantage and response cards earlier today and read some of the book. I will be working on this weight loss/maintenance thing for life!

Take care everybody.

At home but out and about. Scale was only 2 pounds from ticker. Credit. My friends insist on 3 meals a day sitting down. I thought I would be extremely high on the scale. But I focused on lots of salads and steps.
So glad I don’t have to play extreme catch up.
Weather here is horrible. It is hit and smoky. Bleh!
Wave to all.

Hi everyone

Today was an OP day---didn't really have a food plan for tonight but since all the leftovers were from OP foods, I knew I couldn't go too wrong--and I didn't. We definitely need some groceries--primarily produce. Farmers Market on Saturday morning!

Exercise today was yard work again--we pulled down a lot of small trees. It was unbelievably hot--especially since I was wearing jeans and a long sleeved shirt of my husband's. I assume that it's poison sumac that I'm reacting to--and I didn't want to risk additional exposure. We still have yard work to do--including chipping all that stuff we've cut down. DH was surprised when I told him I didn't have any long sleeve shirts of my own--I gave away all of my clothes that size and haven't bought winter clothes in this size.

My spreadsheet is all filled out for today. It feels good to have a plan. I read some more from "Thin for Life". She focuses on the benefits of low-fat, which is not the diet plan I'm using, but the emotional and practical advice is still really good. There's also a great section of the accountability needed to not let a lapse become a relapse. As someone who has let lapses become relapses and regained 40/50 lbs, the idea of only allowing a small range and responding to it immediately really spoke to me. DH said we could go over my spreadsheet together every week and make sure I'm staying on track, especially with the weighing and recording--which is what keeps me honest. I really don't want to cycle again.

Exercise for the week: 280/150 (Yard work!!!)
maryann: Great for concentrating on salads and steps. It can be really hard to follow someone else's food schedule and plan--2 lbs from ticker sounds like a success.

karenrn: Eating out of boredom can really do someone in. It sounds like a "at loose ends and so I might as well eat" kind of thing. I wonder if it would be helpful to think of distractions for that feeling, rather than for eating, since it's the feeling that leads to the eating? Big credit for morning exercise--I shocked my daughter (23) when I told her that before she and her brother came along I was at the gym about 6 or 7 every morning--she said it was at odds with everything she knows about me :-). How do you motivate yourself to get going in the morning?

joy: You get credit for posting two days in a row--and I'm always so glad when you do! Wet asphalt is not conducive to walking--I guess that's why you're at 35 minutes and not 40 today :-)

silverbirch: I'll add Rethinking Thinto my reading list. My doctor suggested a book for me, too. Bright Line Eating by Susan Thompson. If I do all this reading, I'll have to start doing book reports! I hope your hip treatment went well.

BillBlueEyes: It sounds like you had a wonderful day--DGD and a concert. Credit for no snacking--we can always make opportunities--and you didn't!

G'night all!

--Beth

A good day with my trainer yesterday. He thinks the hip starting to ache again was a new exercise involving the other hip which we added last time. We went over my mobility (every day) and resistance (every other day) exercise routines to change them slightly and to improve form. It was really good to hear how impressed he is that I can stand on one leg (each leg) for three minutes and do a range of dumbbell movements at the same time. Very good to hear that something is going very well. Next time we'll probably move that from the resistance category to the 'mobility' category.

Another good night's sleep which brings the total to two. Because my hip doesn't like my lying on one side or the other I've started lying on my back. It's so interesting the way my face and mouth relax, and my digestion system gurgles quietly. Like anyone, I move around in the night and find myself on my side in the morning but starting off on my back feels good. Nice to change things around once in a while.

Off to do exercises now. Sending you all good vibes for the day. (Have used 'good' rather a lot in this post but perhaps it reflects that I'm feeling a little better.)

Friday - USS Nautilus travels under North Pole from Alaska to Iceland (1958)
 

Diet Coaches/Buddies – Eating was on plan with a minimalist snack day, CREDIT moi. The big success of the day was quite minor, but felt so good. At Trader Joe's I accepted a sample of a spiralized zucchini (courgette) dish. Good enough, it was one bite and I called it morning snack. Next to it was an oreo-like cookie. With great internal discussion, I turned it down. The discussion was to try to make an Oreo cookie rare and unusual since I haven't had one in months. The counter argument was that I've eaten so many Oreo cookies in my life that they can never become 'rare'. I left Trader Joe's with my pound bag of dry-roasted, lightly-salted, almonds feeling like a winner.

Exercise was lifting a hefty bag of potting soil from the trunk of DW's car. A local garden group has a plant sale coming in September and DW needs to start potting plants to donate for the sale. My anticipated walk to the library got converted into a drive when the temperature crossed into the 90's F. OK, I'm a wimp, but it felt really hot. Picked up Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup. I've been waiting to hear the story of Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes since the book's announcement. It's a gripping tale. I was searching for the story of simple over optimism of a naive young lady; it's not. It was a real scam flying under the flag of over optimism. Some seriously experienced folks went down with that ship


Joy (gardenerjoy) – Yes, wet asphalt doesn't sound like a welcoming walking surface.

silverbirch – Yay for two good nights of sleep. Three minutes on one leg puts you in the Flamingo category. And they seem quite healthy.

maryann – Congrats for surviving your trip with three meals per day.

Karen (karenrn) – Congrats for walking Otis in 88 degrees F. Neat to time your exercise so that a snack isn't needed before lunch.

Beth (bethturnaround) – Thanks for "accountability needed to not let a lapse become a relapse" - useful thinking for me.

Readers -

Forgot to weigh. I'm confident that habit will return.

Credits:

• completed my full walk yesterday, on newly paved roads
• posted three days in a row
• planned today, and then re-planned it when things changed before 10am

Weigh-in: NA kgs, Exercise: +40, 75/1200 minutes for Aug

Good Morning, Coaches.

Weight down to ticker. I am very grateful for the habits I have learned through Beck, you folks and other sources. Just the fact that I can say I have been ten pounds down from 2009 means a great deal to me. Beth writes about preventing the rebound. I 100% agree. Maintenance and loss is the same set of skills. In other words, I am in this for the long haul.
gardenerjoy: Posting is a great habit. It doesn't feel like a big deal when I skip it but then I start to drift. Insidious. This is a wonderful forum for practicing telling the truth. Sometimes I don't know something until I have written it here.
BBE: Your book sound interesting. Maybe I will give it a shot.
Silverbirch: credit for persevering through an injury. So frustrating.

I did stretches this morning. OP breakfast.

Hi Coaches! Feeling a little blue for a few days. I hope I have shaken myself out of the funk. There have been a few things that I hear about or discover that I want to share with DH and of course I can’t. A new biography about Shirley Jackson came out and we both had an appreciation of her writing, and some other older writers. The loss of a shared history is a huge thing.

It occurred to me the other day that the salad I eat most weekdays doesn’t have that many calories in it, which is probably why I do have a legitimate hunger a few hours later. I include some kind of protein, but its not like eating a sandwich. That makes me feel like my mid-afternoon snack is fine, as long as it is healthy.

When I have a light lunch (300 calories or less), I have to have a 3 pm snack. I plan for it--about 150-200 calories. I was just reading something that suggested that eating every 3 hours or so is way to avoid the "starving" feeling which can so often lead to overeating.

--Beth

Hi everyone.

DH and I saw Cat on a Hot Tin Roof tonight. He'd never seen it before, so I've been trying to figure out how I saw it within the last few years and he didn't.

I tried to make good decisions at dinner before the theater. I made good main dish decisions, but ended up having two bao, which were much higher in calories than I expected--surprised me when I put them in My Fitness Pal. On the credit side, I did put them in MFP! I should have had just one. There were sweets out to buy during intermission. DH had a cookie. I had a water. No sweets. I saw them and thought "those don't have anything to do with me". Big credit for that.

No exercise today but will get a lot this weekend continuing to work on clearing the lot.

G'night all

--Beth

Saturday - Anne Frank and her family found hiding (1944, Amsterdam)
 

Diet Coaches/Buddies – At the supermarket, I found myself dawdling over choosing a watermelon from a bin of fairly identical ones. I finally realized that my objective wasn't getting the best watermelon but was to dawdle in the air-conditioned store for a while longer. I didn't buy anything remotely resembling bad snacking food, CREDIT moi. Gazpacho made with our garden's cukes was an exquisite dinner. Our first full-sized red tomato arrived. So amazingly different from shipping tomatoes.

DW and I watched a DVD of the 1967 film In the Heat of the Night which I was drawn to see after reading its criticism by James Baldwin. It's hard to face that I've known our country when the male citizenry as depicted in the fictional Sparta, Mississippi actually existed. Baldwin, of course, criticized that the only way a black man could be in a movie script was when he was smarter, cooler, and grander than life - so different that it was OK. I must have seen it sometime over its 50-year life since I remembered what was going to happen in each scene just before it did. Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger both played their stereotype roles with enough nuance to be worth the show.


Joy (gardenerjoy) – Yay for paved roads for walking.

maryann – Kudos for doing your stretching. I might need to increase my efforts there since my feet seem to be getting further and further away.

curlyjax – Poignant thought, "The loss of a shared history is a huge thing." The loss of my sister hit me hardest when I wanted to tell her about a trivial encounter with Carnival King Cake.

Beth (bethturnaround) – Good grief! Cat on a Hot Tin Roof premiered 12 years before my movie was made. Hope the weather is mild enough to help you clearing your lot.

Readers -

I weighed and it was up. But I'm not letting it bug me today. I have so many other things to be bugged about that are a whole lot bigger than one day's scale reading. And, there's one or two that I can actually do something about, so I'm going to focus on those. In Beck parlance, I have Day 40 work to do.

Credits:

• posted four days in a row
• planned today, taking into account that I want to do something differently than yesterday since I want different results

Weigh-in: +0.5 kgs, Exercise: +25, 100/1200 minutes for August

Yesterday was a bit of an off plan day for me. I was only over by about 200 calories, but I also didn't exercise. When I checked my phone to see what the scheduled workout would be and also got a text from a gym friend saying she wasn't going, I decided to skip too. I know I would be scaling the workout to my level, which is not uncommon, but I just didn't feel like doing that yesterday. I know how well things go when I do things the way I feel like doing rather than just being disciplined and doing it, but that was what happened. I did read some of my Beck book and my cards and did some things around the house and a Costco run. I got on the scale today and it is not going up or down, today I'm thank full for that. I've also read some of the book and my cards. I was careful with breakfast and will be with lunch, because we are meeting friends for a beer and a burger for dinner. I've been watching the Crossfit Games on the computer and enjoying watching the super fit young people competing.

Waving to everybody and hoping you all have a good weekend.

Quick check in to say I'm still reading your updates.

The scale is in a holding pattern and today will mark 52 days on plan. I use the Lose It app, which came out a little bit before MFP, and it counts the days I check off as complete. It's a nice feature they've added to keep me motivated.

Your posts made me realize I haven't read the green beck book, only the red and the blue ones. I'll have to check that one out too!

Have a nice weekend, everyone!

Hi everyone!

Spent an exhausting day doing yard work at our lot--I really hope we sell it easily because now that we know we're not building, I just want it to be done with. We were doing some woodchipping and a neighbor walked by and told us that the village picks up brush the first week of every month in the summer. Checked the website--sure enough. So we dragged brush instead of woodchipping it--I'm sure it will save us hours of time (not to mention an incredible amount of gasoline)

Food was totally OP. I had 3 products (as planned) and just what I'd planned/was supposed to for dinner. I'm actually a bit low on calories today but don't need another snack tonight.

As we were working hard today (second 2 hour chunk of time), I thought "I deserve ice cream" and then I thought, "no, food in not something you deserve. You don't need ice cream. Ice cream is a treat you plan for, not something you just decide on because you deserve it". So, I talked back to myself well, and no ice cream occurred. So, major credit for that.

Tomorrow--more yard work. I'm traveling for work next week and looking forward to NO yard work. I'll have to figure out where to walk--I know there aren't any great places to walk right near my hotel.

penny: Thanks for checking in. The green is probably my least favorite of the three.

karenrn: Credit for cards and reading. And credit for recognizing that you do best while disciplined rather than doing what you feel like. I find recognition is the first step on the path to solution.

Joy: 4 days in a row is great--big credits

BillBlueEyes: Since I'm on a low carb plan, watermelon isn't on it. This time of year I could live on watermelon. Maybe I'll plan a treat for myself :-)

G'night all!

--Beth

Sunday - The US, Britain, and the Soviet Union sign the limited Test Ban Treaty(1963)
 

Diet Coaches/Buddies – Lunch was a tomato sandwich, CREDIT moi - first of the season. Unbelievably good. The tomato was HUGE so that one slice covered a slice of bread. It felt low calorie, but might not have been given that the bread had to first be covered with mayonnaise. There are a few more tomatoes that big coming along. Seems late for this to just begin in August. It was a zero snack day; CREDIT moi for that alone.

Entertainment was watching a DVD of all three episodes of The BBC’s Casual Vacancy miniseries by J. K. Rowlings. After I got over waiting for Hermione to appear to make it all better, I was glued to the screen. Eloquent visuals of the English countryside and a gripping tale that isn't trivially predictable. Don't know how Rowlings has the imagination to keep producing new ideas. My Beck accomplishment was to add an item to my list of Advantages: I want to look and feel good for an anniversary event next summer when I'll see folks whom I've not seen for years. It's embarrassing that that feel more motivating than my doctor's warning that healthy living leads to a longer life.


Joy (gardenerjoy) – Thanks for the reminder that day 40, Enrich Your Life, is a part of the changes that Beck recommends to keep on track.

Karen (karenrn) – Only 200 calories over plan on a day that includes a Costco run is a win from my perspective. FREE samples at Costco are a big challenge for me.

Beth (bethturnaround) – "You don't need ice cream" is just terrific. Kudos for an OP day.

Penny. – Super Kudos for 52 days on plan. That's big. Beck's Green Book has its own slightly different approach.

Readers -

After three salads yesterday, I hoped to see the scale go down instead of stay virtually the same. One was a restaurant salad -- walnut avocado. Next time, I'll try leaving half of the walnuts and avocado, because I'm guessing that's way more calories than I estimated.

Credits:

• posted five days in a row
• planned today, including making meal plans for the week and shopping

Weigh-in: +0.05 kgs, Exercise: +45, 100/1200 minutes for August

Good morning coaches,

We had a great time out for dinner with friends last night and I ate exactly what I planned. They are both retired so they aren't here much in the summer. I look forward to the time dh is retired and we will be out of here all summer, or most of it, also. I'm sure I was over calorie wise for the day, but breakfast and lunch were good and no snacks. I got on the scale this morning and I'm actually down a smidge. Today I'm making lasagna so I can put it in the freezer for dh. He wants lasagna, macaroni and cheese and enchilada casserole for the time I'm gone. Those are easy things to make and freeze in single or double servings for him. He has been losing a few pounds here and there so having a little higher calorie meals will be nice for him. Actually he is 10 pounds lighter than when he ran the Boston Marathon in 1996 and thinner than I've ever known him to be. Men! , except you of course, Bill. I'm just glad I don't have to also cook for the dog before I go like I did when Harley was alive.

I've read a bit of the book and my cards this morning. I also found my older set of Advantages cards so just shuffled them in to the deck even though some of them are the same. I haven't purchased the pink or blue books. I only have the green one because I saw it on sale at Borders years ago. I think I may have borrowed the pink book from the library some time ago. Maybe I'd better get the e-book and reread it.

Meals are planned for the day, including spaghetti for dinner with a little of the left over sauce. We have pasta so seldom that it will be a real treat. My goal is to really mind my portion. I'll let you know how that goes.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

I have a new cookbook, put out by the Mennonites in 1976 called More With Less. The meals are very frugal but the "pizza rice casserole" I made today is higher calorie than I had hoped. Ha! That must have been why I was drawn to it. Pizza! Everyone loves it. I'm going to beef up a half portion with my garden tomatoes and a drizzle of balsamic for dinner.

Heading out for the dog walk and plan to pick up the green beck book. Btw,I liked the red one more than the blue but they each contribute to keeping the focus. ;)

Hi everyone,

This is the end of my first week of my new tracking spreadsheet. My intent is to post it here every Sunday. I have not planned the week's meals because there's nothing to plan. I am traveling for work this week Mon-Fri, and then traveling the weekend to see my mother-in-law.
Food was OP today but I just wasn't up to cooking, given the yard work, all the stuff I needed to get done for my volunteer work, and laundry/packing to leave. But I made exactly the choice I intended to (fajitas), decided not to eat any chips and didn't, decided to only have one tortilla (so I told them to only bring one). I never ask to not get the rice but I only had a few forkfuls.
http://bweiss.com/pictures/weightloss/2018-08-05.JPG

I think my decision to start a new spreadsheet was a good one--and every so often I'll switch it up and re-define what I track. For now, this seems pretty good.

G'night all.

--Beth

Monday - Hiroshima (1945)
 

Diet Coaches/Buddies – Ate reasonably, despite two opportunities to do otherwise. We brought dinner from Whole Foods to the house of our DS and his SO to catch up on their renovation. I carefully chose a quart of grilled veggies and only a pint of tortellini. I had one small serving of the tortellini, one small serving of the lean roast beef, and two servings of the tomato salad and veggies. I left the extra roast for DS to make lunch today. I limited myself to rational eating at a noon community lunch that was based on a hot soup. Hot soup in these temperatures just feels wrong. And their renovation? Their version of the unexpected was to discover that the old plumbing was the best cast iron pipe ever made - the kind that lasts hundreds of years. Unfortunately, it wasn't designed correctly with venting to meet modern standards so it all has to be replaced. Ouch!

I weighed myself, CREDIT moi. I've been back to weekly weighing for two months now. I had stopped for no good reason. The results were a weight gain. Guess what - monitoring my weight is a necessary strategy to keep on my path. Who'd have thunk? That needs to be written down somewhere.


Joy (gardenerjoy) – Walnuts and avocado sound great - even if you have to leave half.

Karen (karenrn) – Congrats for being down a smidge despite an evening out. You're a hero for making a freezer full of food for your DH while you're away.

Beth (bethturnaround) – Forkful is a new word for me but you and the Cambridge dictionary are enough to make me a believer. Encouraging sentence, "But I made exactly the choice I intended."

Penny. – Your More-With-Less Cookbook sounds neat. It's such a challenge to be frugal without just falling into pasta.

Readers -

I'm not sure why I got a loss this morning. Yesterday was good eating-wise, but no better than the day before. Oh well. It's helpful for me to check my daily consumption against my daily weight because I sometimes learn things. But it's also helpful to remember that my body is not a machine.

Credits:

• posted six days in a row
• planned today, including washing greens for a healthy supper
• worked through some feelings that made yesterday hard, so today might be easier

Weigh-in: -0.7 kgs, Exercise: +20, 165/1200 minutes for August

Walked Otis, Crossfit and vacuumed all the floors this morning. I still have a little more housework to do today and all I can say is I'm not in the mood for it. I better not wait until I'm in the mood though.
Food is on plan. I'm hungry now but will wait until at least after 11:30 which is only a little over 10 minutes. The lasagna I made yesterday turned out great and it's all wrapped and in the freezer now. We did
enjoy some spaghetti for dinner with some of the left over sauce. I am giving myself credit for keeping my portion in line. I think it was about 1/3 of what dh had.

GardenerJoy Glad the scale is going down for you.

Bill You're right, this isn't the time of the year for hot soup.

Beth I hope the travel goes smoothly and it doesn't make following a plan too difficult.

Penny It does seem that some of the lower cost foods are pretty high in calories. Anything that tastes like pizza is good in my book.

Okay, time to go fix lunch. Have a great day.

I'm having one of those "this is going to take forever, I'm still so heavy" days. I'll get through it and keep plugging away.

Beth, the chart is a good idea! Nice work making a plan and following through.

Bill, kudos for eating well for the two occasions out of the house. So many opportunities for slip-ups.

Gardenerjoy, congrats on the weightloss.

Karen, kudos for keeping the pasta portion controlled. I have a hard time getting any satisfaction from healthy portions of pasta. Lol

Phone check in from Pismo Beach. Beautiful and hot. Scale here says I am below ticker. Hopefully there is a match on my scale at home. Credit walking and small meals.

Wave to all.

Hi all

My 2:15 flight was finally cancelled about 7 pm. I now have an even later flight on another airline—and it’s delayed to. I’ve been at the airport more than 8 hours.

Big credit—I had a Salas with salmon for dinner and have been very firm with myself about not having any treats at the airport. I’ve always tended to eat junk while journeying. Today—no junk. No unplanned food.

I’m going to be pretty darned tired tomorrow.

Exercise was 3 gate changes followed by a terminal change. I’ll be glad to get to my hotel tonight.

—Beth

Tuesday - Astronomer Johannes Kepler's mother arrested for witchcraft (1620)
 

Diet Coaches/Buddies – Walk, CREDIT moi, was planned to manage four errands on one trip. Despite choosing to walk as exercise, my engineering brain insists on planning the minimum walking distance between the four points as if it were a test question, LOL. The great adventure of the day was submitting passport renewal forms at the post office. The post office camera made the background of the ID photos too blue according to the guy taking the pictures so we had to walk around the corner to the CVS drug store to get them taken there. We're renewing because we've heard the horror stories of folks with current passports trying to travel only to discover that some destinations require your passport to show at least six months remaining even if you're traveling for a week. It was a great deal easier than it seems, meaning that I could do it again quickly and painlessly. However, when I renew in 9.5 years it'll seem difficult again. The kind lady behind the counter showed up that we could put both applications in the same shipping envelope to save $6.90 postage. However, we had to enclose separate checks because <standard bureaucratic mumbling that made little sense>. And better news: while parked, I plugged my car into a FREE charger to get an hour's worth of electricity.

Eating was on plan, CREDIT moi, with the only snack being watermelon after dinner. Seems like overkill to have both watermelon and garden-fresh tomatoes at the same meal. Mother Nature would do well to have one of them arriving in February, LOL. Lunch was, again, a tomato sandwich. DW suggested that we could have broiled tomatoes for breakfast (like we had in England and Wales) to make it a three meal sweep.


Joy (gardenerjoy) – Ah yes, the scale goes where the scale goes.

maryann – Yep, Pismo Beach looks like a serene place to be.

Karen (karenrn) – LOL at the thought of waiting to do housework until in the mood for it.

Beth (bethturnaround) – Monster Kudos for surviving 8 hours at an airport. Hope you finally get a flight.

Penny. – Kudos for recognizing negative thoughts as just thoughts.

Readers -

Good morning coaches,
Yesterday's food was on plan and today's has all been planned and tracked. Now all I have to do is stick to the plan. I'm kind of sore today but I actually like the feeling. At Crossfit yesterday we did pull up practice (for those of us that can't do a pull up) and enough squats and lunges to make for a sore behind too. I'll head to the Y this morning and do an hour on the elliptical and then some strength training. After that the housecleaning chore for the day will be the bathrooms. I'm planning to take some food with me in the car when I leave here in a couple of weeks. I have a really good cooler, but it takes up more room than I want, so I'll take the one that isn't as good and hope it's good enough. I'm going to make sure I have cut up veggies and enough to get me by for the first couple of days. I don't like to eat in a restaurant by myself and I don't want to do fast food although it's an option for dinner the first day if I can find something that is healthy.

Yesterday a friend invited me to do a backpack in October called Thunder River/Deer Creek on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. I just love having something to look forward to, especially something that requires physical ability. I really hope to do lots of backpacking next year, but there are so many fires in California I know I have to be ready to change the plans and consider another area. It is so sad to see so many fires. I just spoke with my cousin who I camp with every year. She was driving to school in CA and said it looks like a foggy fall day. The kids probably won't be able to go outside for recess. Her son is working on the Ferguson fire near Yosemite.

Bill I am just loving the watermelon too. I'm trying to watch my portion sizes of fruit, but also enjoy having it while it's in season.

Beth I hope you finally got to where you were heading and got some sleep. What a nightmare.

Maryann Yay! Below ticker with all your travels. You are a rock star!

Penny I always try to remember that when I'm losing weight I'll be looking and feeling better all along the way, not just at the end. The other thing about it taking awhile is that the good habits you form will be in place. As you said, keep plugging away!

Well I guess I had better get into my gym clothes and head out the door. You all have a great day.

The current phase of my creative project is going slower than anticipated. But I'm not eating over it. I hope to get through it today and then speed on through the rest. I have a self-imposed deadline, but I've shared the date with others, so it feels more solid than usual.

Credits:

• posted seven days in a row
• woke up to a rain storm and decided not to be down about it -- it's cozy!
• made a plan to vote in our primary because people who make a plan are more likely to vote

Weigh-in: -0.05 kgs, Exercise: +50, 215/1200 minutes for August

BillBlueEyes: To my surprise, I loved tomatoes for breakfast in Ireland and England. And, have never fixed them at home. It would be a great addition, especially at the peak of tomato season.

Hi all

I got to my hotel at 03:30. I wish I’d driven. Oh well.

I was so tired this morning I forgot to have my morning shake. Fortunately there was protein for breakfast so I had eggs and bacon and no carbs. I brought bars for lunch and snack so didn’t have any of the pasta or sweets that were out. Ate a bit too much dinner. I really need to start getting half portions on my plate—even if I throw the other half out!

No exercise tonight but I will tomorrow.

G'night all

Yesterday the DB and I continued our series of big discussions about applying to university. I did my exercises, fiddled about with a website, continued to try to get my new business bank account working properly (!), made a fruit cake and meals, walked out to meet the SO from the bus. The best bit was the walk so I'll try to go out for more of those. The blackberries are early this year and are looking lovely against the harebells (bluebells in Scotland) and the heather. They look even lovelier in dull light. I'm going to the dentist this morning and will go to the best charity shop for books. We're looking for a couple of books which are ridiculously expensive to buy (because they are oldish and rare) but I have a feeling they might turn up in this shop. They're translations of a Welsh poem from some time between the 7th and 11th centuries. Always fun to have something to look out for.

Wretched travelling, beth. Credit for sticking to the plan, more or less.

gardenerjoy, Bill, I didn't realise you didn't eat fried tomatoes for breakfast over there. Other things I can take or leave but they really make a cooked breakfast, in my view. My ideal cooked breakfast is bacon, sausage, scrambled egg, black pudding, tomatoes, mushrooms. Then I can keep going for ages.

karen, I like that muscle soreness too.

Wave to all. I have to clean my teeth and get going.