That was just amazing. In the post above, I caught myself in real time in the very act of whining about this program instead of working this program. If I caught myself doing it once, presumably I've done it before. I'll try to keep that in mind, since my take on Beck is that you gotta continuously do the work to get the benefits. Just amazing. I credit all of you as my diet coach for that, since I feel you listening as I typed. Just WOW.


Sue (CoastalSue) - What is it about Beck that draws covert hippies? Back in the sixties, I wore my hair long - it stuck out on the sides like a lion's mane. I thought we were all beautiful back then. I never thought I'd get to meet a person who was in San Francisco starting it all.

hummmmm..... isn't a diet coach bringing cookies like a Gambler's Anonymous sponsor bringing lottery tickets?, LOL.

You might look in your spam folder for the response from 3FC. When I forgot my password, I got a rather prompt response from them.

Good luck on your weekend visiting.


"Shamelessly transparent" MaryBlu - Why, yes, you do come across as a person who can think outside of the box. So, can you conjure up something more compelling than "Volvap's Bell, works just the opposite of Pavlov's Bell". We can soon all be rich.

I do hope you'll share your musings about how you stopped your weight gain; I find that a terrific accomplishment. So many postings on 3FC refer to "putting it all back on and then some." It makes me believe that the real trick isn't to prevent a few pounds from returning, but to recognize that it is happening, that it can be stopped, and then to stop it. And you've done that.


Liannie - Waving. So good to see you inching your way back. Continue to hold you in my thoughts.


CammieCam - Your response to the party is so textbook working the Beck strategies. I add my double CREDIT to those you've given yourself. You:You've sent me back to reread Day 5 - Eat Slowly and Mindfully. Seems that I never finished the several days of eating with NO distractions. So, I'll have to go back and do that. I'm glad that Beck doesn't suggest that we always eat all meals with no distractions, since dinner conversation is one of the joys of a civilized life. I do the newspaper at breakfast; personal email and browsing at lunch; conversation with DW at dinner. Snacks are always while some kind of browsing or relaxing thing.

Congratulations on what you've accomplished.

I hear you about being obsessed with food; I, too, want to replace my food obsession with overeating with no food obsession without overeating. Others on this thread are working this; let's keep up the dialog and hopefully find a way.

Good luck with Christmas; seems like you're laying the ground work to achieve the first goal - to avoid feeling like you “failed yourself.” As we get closer, let's find a way to give each other support to make it a joyful and mindful day.


Readers - Reminder: There are ten days until Christmas; today is the day to send three French hens as well as yesterdays' gifts.


__________________
XXXXXXX 7 XXXXXXX 14 XXXXXXX 21 XXXXXXX 28 XXXXXXX 35 XXXX||| 42
Completed Beck Program-day 39. 3 to go. Keep going!

Hello everyone,
My name is Heidi and I have been reading your thread here and you all are so SMART and hilarious! I especially love the reverse Pavlov's bell idea! HA!

I have been doing BDS for a few months and have lost a little more than 20 lbs-yeah me! I am going really slowly through the book-started off like gangbusters and then lost a little momentum since I went on a trip last month for a week. I use most of the skills but need to revisit some of the days periodically which is fine with me if that is what I need. I am on day 34 "Problem Solving".

My biggest struggle is to get exercise in. I have a treadmill, weights and a bench step in my bedroom, bought some inexpensive clothing to use for exercise clothing and really have NO EXCUSE to not do it but the problem is that I have not scheduled it. So I am stating publicly that I will get my $&%$ out of bed on Monday morning and get on that treadmill for 20 minutes (I am starting small)...I will be skiing tomorrow so will get some exercise in tomorrow as well.

I didn't read everything that people said about WW but I had been doing WW and had great success with it. Then I found ***********...I got on that site and followed what I was eating while following WW and recording into SP to see the nutrients, etc... I like that better now-when on WW, I would eat a whole pack of SKinny Cow ice cream sandwiches since they were "only a point each". I want to learn how to eat normally and healthfully and I think that, for me, WW was like a game but really wasn't best for my health in the long run (because of the choices I was making while on it you understand).

Anyway, I am wondering if it is okay to join you-I like to have a place to check in as close to daily as I can.

I am off to bed and have written down my plan for what I will eat tomorrow and am ready to go!

I look forward to getting to know you all.... Heidi

to the Beck thread, Heidi. And for your first post.

Collective blush for all of us for your kind words about the thread. Thanks for the comments.

Looking forward to your contributions to the discussions. Being on Program-day 35 - Problem Solving means you're pretty far along toward the 42 days. Congratulations for accomplishing that.

__________________
XXXXXXX 7 XXXXXXX 14 XXXXXXX 21 XXXXXXX 28 XXXXXXX 35 XXXX||| 42
Completed Beck Program-day 39. 3 to go. Keep going!

from The Beck DIET Solution – Available from Amazon thru the 3FC StoreBeck’s example is a client who is putting off going to the beach until she loses weight. My obvious first thought is that this chapter doesn’t pertain to me; I’m in maintenance; I go to the beach.

Ooops… Second thought is that there are some other things I put off until I had lost weight that aren’t done. So, I made my list – stopped at ten things. Yep, there’s stuff here for me.

I chose one – clearing the dining room so that it can be used for dining (duh!). (Clutter is a biggie for me.) I listed the steps. Gave today as the date for the first step, which is to remove the 21” CRT monitor that had wandered into the dining room for a project that’s since concluded. That should take about 2 minutes I thought. Then, with the thought of you guys watching, I got up and did it. Took about 2 minutes. Been sitting there for a month. Started on the Sabotaging Thoughts about not doing it before. Interrupted those with giving credit for doing it now. CREDIT moi for moving the moinitor. CREDIT moi for stuffing the sabotaging thoughts.

You know Dr. Beck, you might be onto something here.


__________________
XXXXXXX 7 XXXXXXX 14 XXXXXXX 21 XXXXXXX 28 XXXXXXX 35 XXXXX|| 42
Completed Beck Program-day 40. 2 to go. Keep going!

Missed my gym and my walk yesterday, a bit disappointed, Oh Well. I interrupted my planned day to accept an invitation to go with DS to his favorite Indian food store and his favorite Middle Eastern food store, neither of which I've been to before. It was fantastic.

The Indian store had uncountable numbers of pickles and condiments and chutneys and spices and fresh vegetables that I didn't know what they were. Bought a jar of Korma sauce for DW and several others for me to make vegetable curries to take for lunch at work.

The Middle Eastern store had roasted pepper hummus, regular hummus, 10 different kinds of feta cheese, dozens of breads with killer aromas, and pomegranates bigger than grapefruits.

We could barely carry all the food we bought for under $140 total. Came home and split some of the Indian spices, replacing our stuff that was growing stale. It's easier to discard stale spices when you buy large bags for $1.99 each rather than small glass jars for $4.99 each. Described it all to DW over tea while tasting some of everything. [Ate standing, didn't put food on a plate, didn't plan the amount I was about to eat. BUT, it was a glorious social moment, and the total calories weren't much over my planned morning and afternoon snacks; I'd do it again in a heartbeat.]

I am not obsessed with food. I am not obsessed with food. I am not obsessed with food. I am not obsessed with food. I am not obsessed with food. I am not obsessed with food. I am not obsessed with food. I am not obsessed with food. I am not obsessed with food. I am not obsessed with food.


Sue (CoastalSue) - Hope your visit to the Bay Area is going well.


Heidi (hbuchwald) - Looking forward to hearing how you skiing goes today. Hopefully you aren't on the East Coast since our forecast is for sleeting rain.


CammieCam - Yesterday, after pondering your efforts on Day 5 - Eat Slowly and Mindfully, I ate breakfast without reading the newspaper. Just sat, thought about each spoonful of granola, thought about how far the banana traveled to arrive at my supermarket for about a quarter, thought about how much joy I get from the dried figs that travel from California, tasted the sunflower seeds, smelled the almond aroma from the almond extract, crunched the oats, noted that the squirrel was also enjoying breakfast outside in DW's bird feeder, thought about how many layers of defense DW had constructed on that feeder that the squirrel had, one by one, overcome to sit fat and happy eating the seeds that she had put out for the birds in the snow, thought about being a Buddhist monk spending his day thinking about one bowl of food, thought about how much I wanted to be reading my newspaper and how happy I was that I only intended to do this exercise once.

Taking Buddhist monk off my list of possible second careers; mindfully is hard.


Readers - Reminder: There are nine days until Christmas; today is the day to send four calling birds as well as yesterdays' gifts.

__________________
XXXXXXX 7 XXXXXXX 14 XXXXXXX 21 XXXXXXX 28 XXXXXXX 35 XXXXX|| 42
Completed Beck Program-day 40. 2 to go. Keep going!

Hello again,
Thanks for the welcome and the kudos on my hard work.

Nice job on removing that monitor Bill! I know the clutter thing and babysteps is what will do it-way to break it down into a 2 minute task! Totally doable.

It is funny you say that you are working on decluttering the dining room. I JUST this past week had mine decluttered enough to earn the "reward" of getting a new tablecloth and candleholder/centerpiece thingie. I am a single mom to a 5 yr old daughter and wanted to make our eating area special and make meals "events". IT WORKS! Talk about slowing down and eating.... she dressed up like a princess tonight-all blinged out to the maxx for dinner. We are even using cloth napkins to make it special. So many good things that are modeled to her too-using table manners, slowing down and making meals special is meaningful, etc... Kudos to me!

Skiing was GREAT!!! I live in WA state so no problem with the major dumping of snow that the midwest got today. Hope any of you in that area are all safe/mobile, etc.. I was actually taking my daughter up to learn to ski along with a friend of hers with her mom. Basically the mommies were lugging the kids up the bunny hill over and over and over and over again! I got my heart rate up and my muscles are sore tonight-I LOVE that! We are going to Mt. Bachelor for a week after Xmas so I will have more opportunity for this fun workout (although it will be even more fun when she can get up the hill on the lift and I can ski too!).

I got a new dry erase board that has the days of the week on it with boxes... I am committing to what is for dinner on that publicly visual thing..I am a big computer dweeb and love to use Outlook for scheduling, etc.. including menus. That was NOT working for me with the menus-so I am trying this. I also am posting my planned eating chart on it (it has a small corkboard section on the bottom as well). I feel so good with sore muscles and having eaten food that is nourishing and delicious tonight!

Til tomorrow, Heidi

Ate on plan yesterday, including a cup of hot chocolate between bouts of shoveling snow. Working on all the food that I bought yesterday. There is a disconnect in my brain between the amount of food I plan to eat and the amount of food I want to buy. Note to brain: reconcile thyself !!!
Much snow. Much shoveling. Shoveling was my upper body workout yesterday; I went to bed tired. After the rain fell for a while, the snow was wet and heavy to toss over the tall stacks which were the only available space to put it. It's bitter cold out there now.


Sue (CoastalSue) - Hope you made it home safely from your journey to the Bay Area.


Heidi (hbuchwald) - Congratulations for decluttering your dinning room. I love your story of your daughter dressing up as a princess for dinner. Double CREDIT for you for creating the mindful dinner experience.

Glad that you went to bed with tired muscles. Sounds like your "skiing" was super fun for the daughters and great exercise for the mommies.

CREDITS for you for setting up the dry erase board so that you can plan your menu's. Hope that works.


CammieCam - Apparently, we are forming a "clear the dinning room table" club. Care to join?


Readers - Reminder: There are eight days until Christmas; today is the day to send five golden rings as well as yesterdays' gifts.


__________________
XXXXXXX 7 XXXXXXX 14 XXXXXXX 21 XXXXXXX 28 XXXXXXX 35 XXXXX|| 42
Completed Beck Program-day 40. 2 to go. Keep going!

LOL!! I did get around to clearing the table, but I've decided that I just don't know if I can sit in silence at the table and eat. I just don't know if I can do it. I'll compromise with Beck... I'll sit at the table, without the computer and without the TV.. but I'll just catch up on all the magazines that have cluttered my mailbox as of late and that I have yet to read.

I know that it's something that should be done and I know that more often than not these days I'll do my best to create an environment for eating that doesn't include TOO many distractions, but silent chewing and watching my bowl of oatmeal disappear is not my idea of a fun time. I'll just move on to the next steps.

The weekend was EH. I surely did have some sabotaging thoughts that I let take over. I had a craving for the popcorn at Target, but when I got there, they didn't have any. I then proceeded to overeat popcorn at three different times and at three different locations over the weekend, probably because my craving for this specific Target popcorn had yet to be satisfied. I didn't think them not having popcorn would affect me so much, but apparently it did. But I went to bed last night and told myself "tomorrow is a new day!" And it is. I certainly don't want some popcorn craving to prevent me from reaching my goal weight, I'm SO close!

Still frigid here. The residual snow is making it hard on the UPS trucks trying to catch up on Christmas deliveries - they have no place to pull off the street. If you get behind one you have to wait for him to deliver his packages.

Walked at lunch yesterday - until frigid high winds drove me back. Boy, it felt cold. Ate on plan, but missed gym due to another pressing thing. I've got this pledge in my pocket to do a full gym session and I'm having trouble scheduling gym at all. I do admire all of you parents of young kids who are keeping up with your exercise, I suspect it's a real stretch of your multi-tasking skills.

For my lunch yesterday I cooked up a big batch of curried long beans and ham using stuff from Sunday's trip to the Indian grocer. Turned out really yummy; I'll bring another batch for lunch today. Not a big deal except that I'm a beginner cook, so anything is a big deal. By "long beans" I mean those green beans that are about 18 inches long, I don't know their real name.

Feeling the pressure to get Christmas shopping started.


CammieCam - OK, your dining room table is already cleared, LOL. It helps me to know that you also find it a stretch to eat with full attention only on your oatmeal. I tried this morning, the frigid cold led me to my first oatmeal of the year. I thought of the oats, then the (formerly) frozen blueberries. Then of the oats, then of the blueberries. Then about how long this was going to go on. Then about getting a banana to balance it out. Then about everything else in my life. Yep, mindfully is difficult!!!


"The weekend was EH." What does EH stand for? LOL, doesn't sound good. It's kinda interesting that you craved exactly Target popcorn. Boy, can cravings be specific. Wonder what Target puts in it ?


Readers - Reminder: There are seven days until Christmas; today is the day to send six geese a-laying as well as yesterdays' gifts.


__________________
XXXXXXX 7 XXXXXXX 14 XXXXXXX 21 XXXXXXX 28 XXXXXXX 35 XXXXX|| 42
Completed Beck Program-day 40. 2 to go. Keep going!

Hi Folks and welcome Heidi! I am on Day 3 of the Beck book and I observe that I am the most rebellious person I know. I will give myself credit for following several of her suggestions and I wonder why I will not commit the time and effort to follow through on others. I am telling myself that I will gather helpful tools as I move forward and can always go back and pick up the other tools as I am ready to apply them. Do I need a shrink? I do not understand why I am so stubborn. If anyone has any insights about these hurtles I would appreciate your sharing them. Arrgh.

Hello to all,

Heidi-welcome!!

Some great posting which I need to catch up with.

Yep, mindful slow eating is a pain-but I have the knack to eat HUGE amounts of food without even realizing it. I go into a caloric blackout state so to slow down and eat aware has been one of best and easiest changes for me in my own home, but can easily slip into a caloric feeding frenzy at social gatherings. Since it takes all of my consciousness to focus on changing my old eating ways. I think that I slip in to my old habits when out and about. But one huge change is I am better able to deal with my emotions with out over eating when at home. There I work on that everything does pass-anger, hunger, sadness, fatigue with out eating, But at a gathering I get into to let the good times roll attitude or at least I am paying to everyone else and likely what I am going to say next that I can’t seem to remain on food alert and would rather be relaxed enjoying all of the festivities. Seems to be a consistent problem for me.


SuchATwin-I also am a very slow processor thru the book-I kind of have both Diet and Beck plateaus and then I make more progress again. Give yourself credit for just reading the advantage cards. I understand what you called rebelliousness at times I felt I had a little girl in me stomping her feet that she worked so hard to follow everyone else rules that no one was going to tell her what she could eat. It was like what and when she ate was one of few areas of control and nobody was going to tell her what to do. It has taken me a bit of time to work that attitude thru-not being mad at feeling rebellious but rather accepting the attitude and telling the little girl that now it is time to get healthy. I know this sound a bit goofy but that is what I have working on-along with a ton of other unwise food attitudes.

Heidi, loved how you turned dinner into such a celebration- and your daughter dressing up for it. I have to remember to clear our dinning room table of clutter of mail, magazines ect and use the placemats and light the candles more often. Skiing sounds like so much fun-love being outdoors and in the mountains.!

CammieCam-I had one of those crazed craving eposides after I went to the local bakery-didn't get any treats but then the taste got "burned" in lusting part of my brains for days. For days all i wanted was some baked good. I managed not to get one, but literally I thought about over and over again at the oddest times. Anybody knows what works for this mental food complusion.-At times out of sight does not work for me at all.

BillBlueEyes-Learning to food shop in a different way. For awhile we had three teenagers sons-all in sports- the amount of food was increditable, then they moved away and we still got too much for years, then changing the types of food still too much-Only during the last 6 months have I really undertood how little we need and how I want the amount we do have to be fresh. All that measuring out what 4 oz of meat sure makes it goes alot futher. Glad you are enjoying cooking. Your middle eastern store sounds great. I have cooked for so long-started making the family meals at 13yrs that I was getting very bored doing it and started hated to do it. So now I work at being mindful while chopping, dicing and cooking. Instead of thinking oh I got 12 more step before I am finished, I now try to enjoy each step. It is sort of working. Plus I have actually enjoyed new veggie and soup dishes with all of the produce deliveries.

That weather sounds tough for you folks-shoveling snow-WORK

We had a great time with family and our youngest grand daughter-what a joy.
I did my common pattern of overeating when out. But already today I am back counting cals and have a low cal dinner planned. I thank Beck for the tools to so I get right back on the diet versus beating myself up and continue on over eating for months. I Did drink much less wine than any other time in the bay area. It is now no longer such a common habit-I appreciate it hard for Dh not to have wine with fish or some meats but he is a good sport.

Take care and best wishes to all

sue

Hello everyone, hope you all don't mind if I jump in and join this thread.

I bought this book a couple months ago and am still trying to stick with it!

Coastalsue - I know that little girl who stomps and doesn't want to give in very, very well! I think part of me is afraid that this won't work, and I'll be disappointed with yet another failed plan.. But, if I never try then I am definitely putting myself at a disadvantage. I'm having the most trouble with eating everything sitting down. I never realized until then how much I was eating with my hands, while standing up. I just randomly pick at things. This also will usually lead to a binge for me, especially if I convince myself I can have "one little nibble" of (insert any sugary or carby food here).

I have definitely conditioned myself to respond to certain emotions and actions in very predictable ways - with food. I am hoping the beck diet solution will help me pull out those mental response cards so I can start to change my behavior.

So, I'm going to read my advantages list tonight and tomorrow morning!

Quick question - for those of you that work - do you carry your response cards with you?

Hi there,
I can relate to the rebelliosness. Something about this program is different for me though. I think of it as "tough love" that I couldn't/wouldn't take from a person! I am choosing to use the tools. It helps that I have had cognitive behavioral therapy before with a therapist to deal with some other things in my life... it REALLY helped fix things from the inside out and enabled me to see things with better perspective. So, I had faith before I began this-moreso than with other angles I have taken to lose weight.


What do the little icons below our profiles mean? Like the egg with yolk yellowed in? At the red exclamation point?

I am about done reading the book...who else has finished reading it? What did you do after that? I have lots of reading material that is inspiring to me and am thinking that I can pick that stuff up and also keep the BDS book handy to use as needed (for problem solving or tune ups of other skills). I would love to hear how others have dealt with or are dealing with this. The training wheels are coming off!

tofulover to the Beck thread, and to being a poster on 3FC.

Not only do we not mind, we're glad you're here. Just jump in wherever you like.


__________________
XXXXXXX 7 XXXXXXX 14 XXXXXXX 21 XXXXXXX 28 XXXXXXX 35 XXXXX|| 42
Completed Beck Program-day 40. 2 to go. Keep going!

from The Beck DIET Solution – Available from Amazon thru the 3FC StoreThe today’s to-do list … of this chapter [not entered here] is the one I use every day; it’s a superset of all the ones in the previous chapters and it's similar to, but different from the lists above. I entered it in an Excel spreadsheet where I read it and check off compliance or non compliance so I can see at a glance how I’ve been doing. Beck suggests doing the checklist daily for several weeks, weekly for several weeks, and then monthly for a very long time; these recommended frequencies are also similar to, but slightly different from the recommendations above. Both are vague enough for me to choose how often I do do them, so the differences don't matter to me. I’m still in the daily phase.

To complete the description of how I handle all the paper work of TBDS (TMI really), I have my Response Cards in another page of the spreadsheet where I read them daily. On a third page I enter my daily measured weight, pedometer step count, and measured percent body fat which are automatically plotted. My journal is in Microsoft Word where I track compliance with my eating plan and exercise plan. The paperwork required for TBDS led to an earlyIt works for me; I’m comfortable using my computer first thing each morning and it works for me to view my data as charts.

__________________
XXXXXXX 7 XXXXXXX 14 XXXXXXX 21 XXXXXXX 28 XXXXXXX 35 XXXXXX| 42
Completed Beck Program-day 41. 1 to go. Keep going!