I'm back from Oregon. I tried to eat on plan there but was only about 1/2 successful. I guess that's better than 0 right? Anyway, I'm really having trouble getting back on track. Any suggestions? I think one of my biggest challenges is the perfectionist mentality. I know Beck tells us not to think that way but I am having trouble consciously changing that.
Today was my first "excellent" day in a long time. I did very well and stayed in my calorie range. I also exercised.
Question - can one eat something that wasn't planned if they have the calories to spare for the day? Not sure how to handle this scenario.
Anyway, glad to be back and hope to be able to regain my focus.
Diet Coaches/Buddies - Alone for dinner last night, I finally decided on take out from a Middle Eastern place that's a mile walk. Walking after dark in the cool weather is a treat. Got their combo veggie plate, CREDIT moi, that includes a stuffed grape leaf that is so much better than the one's I get at my supermarket salad bar. It came with a loaf of pita bread - I love that stuff - and was half way done when I realized that I really like the whole wheat version so much more. It didn't dawn on my to toss the stuff and take the whole wheat pita from my fridge. Not sure that I could do that - wasting food you know. Another place that needs some working on.
Did gym; CREDIT moi. A guy was coaching a woman on the mats next to me; they appeared to be husband and wife. I wasn't eavesdropping since they were speaking French, and I don't, but the eye-rolling tone of voice convinces me that coaching at the gym is probably not the best shared time for married folk, LOL.
maryblu - Yep, that "all or nothing, perfectionist mentality" does seem to creep in everywhere - thanks for the reminder. My clutter wouldn't build up if I magically developed the ability to sort a little bit every day. I still carry the fear that I could fall off the wagon just like a smoker who takes one cigarette and is immediately back to two packs a day.
onebyone - Kudos for doing a Beck Cheat Sheat on the turkey nibbling. Congrats for finding a sleeping position that works. I'm so glad that the pain is under control. I just read the other day that chia seeds are one of the super foods, so you might buy extra and try them out.
Robin (RobinW) - Really interesting that there wasn't one cleaned plate at you whole table - I'm used to seeing most plates cleaned. Kudos for making good food choices, even if helped by avoiding nuts.
Kara (Walking Princess) - Welcome to the perfectionist Sabotaging Thought thread, LOL. Yep, being half on plan is a good thing; Kudos for that. And Bigger Kudos for recognizing the perfectionist calling. I have a standing plan for the use of unplanned calories, LOL, so I have no problem with a substitution.
Joy (gardenerjoy) - Ouch for the perfectionist Sabotaging Thought, "I'm not doing this right; I might as well eat whatever I want." Boy, did maryblu peg our group right with her comments yesterday. Kudos for countering them and staying within budget. I allow myself swaps to my plan - that works for me particularly because it helps to prevent the Sabotaging Thought that "This is too hard."
It is interesting that eating a dish you don't particularly like leads to overeating. Reminds me that my weight was added from overeating mundane stuff - I'd like to think it came for glamorous eating, but it was more from supermarket cookies and vending machine candy bars. Is it possible to modify the dish more to your liking? Or to add an ingredient to your serving that spices it up for you?
zansidhe - Happy Anniversary. May you have many, many more. Big Kudos for maintaining during a five day extravaganza at Disneyland - that's a huge success, especially since the "it's not fair" Sabotaging Thought was visiting. Ouch for the lower back pain and the wheelchair. Neat that you were a good sport about it and kept going.
Shepherdess - Kudos for resisting those cookies straight from the oven, especially since you were making a huge batch. That would have been hard for me. LOL at exercising your resistance muscle as exercise - think of the body you could build by taking a walk through a bakery every day. or the rock hard abs from an eight hour shift as a cook.
Readers -
Quote:
day 2 Guidelines for a Doable Diet
Learn from your past. Think about the previous diets you've tried. Did you lose weight? Were the diets healthy, appetizing, relatively convenient to follow? Perhaps there is a healthy diet you liked that worked fairly well. You might consider trying it again.
I, happily, am in a groove with food. So credit moi for being op enough days in a row to make it happen. Exercise was also good: yoga, lower body workout, and walking Moose. For my mini-goal I ordered a dance-exercise dvd and it arrived yesterday. When younger I loved to dance, and still feel real pleasure when I do so now. With winter coming, my favorite ‘fun’ exercising will be unavailable soon (hiking, kayaking). So, I thought a dance dvd motivate me to do some spontaneous exercise. I didn’t have time last night to crack it open, hopefully today.
I’ve ordered a few things for my MIL from Amazon – microwave and coffe-maker. I stopped at Target last night to pick up a mini-fridge, and a few misc things for her room. While there I picked up a new pair of jeans – size 12.
NSV: I’ve been doing yoga since January, and my virtual teacher always says to step forward from down dog to forward fold. With my bulky stomach this has never been possible. I’d have to do some awkward waddling movement to move from one to the other. Yesterday, for the first time, I was actually able to step my feet forward into forward fold.
WI-down 1.1 lbs. I read my cards, made a plan. Food – op, Exercise –op(55m)
My son and nephew are coming for the weekend. Tonight I pick the two of them up at the airport, and they leave on Tuesday. I probably won’t be posting again until Wednesday of next week.
Last edited by ChinaMaine; 10-15-2009 at 07:10 AM.
Well, yesterday was not perfect, but it was as good as I could make it. We were busy, but I was able to sneak back to the house for a quick lunch of bean soup I had ready to go. I skipped the salad because it took a few more minutes of prep; so I need to remember to be better prepared. But I avoided the guys were munching on. I thought we would be done in time for me to go for a quick run before dinner, but, as always, more things came up. We didn't get home until 8:00 and it was too dark and I was too hungry to run. I remembered the "5 minutes of exercise is better than no minutes of exercise." I did a quick yoga routine and then made dinner. It wasn't as taxing a workout as I could have used, but it's a whole lot better than sitting on the couch.
RobinW, congrats for getting your workout in! And way to go for eating well in the seminar.
Hi Zansidhe! Glad you had a blast at Disneyland! I'm impressed that you maintained during vacation. It's good to know that habits are sticking even in difficult situations. Hope you have fully recovered from back pain.
Gardnerjoy, kudos for staying on plan when you were ready to throw in the towel. I agree with BillBE that you should think about how you could dress the recipe up with some herbs or spices. I always think cayenne can fix anything, but it's not for everyone.
Hi Walking Princess! Hope you had a good trip to Oregon. It's a beautiful state. And congrats on being half successful! It's all about small steps. Double congrats on "excellent day." You're in good company with other perfectionists, but I think it's important to remember that perfectionism is just another sabataging thought.
BillBE, I love that you think of walking in the dark in cool weather a treat. For most people, its an excuse to stay on the couch! The Middle Eastern dinner sounds absolutely fantastic. Kudos that you have found you prefer the whole wheat pita. Healthy eating is well-established. I am also a member of the waste no food club. Luckily, I have a husband who loves to throw food away. He frequently puts a trash can in front of the fridge and pulls out leftovers and asks, "Are you really going to eat this?"
ChinaMaine, huge congrats on reaching mini-goal. I love that you're thinking ahead to winter! DVD sounds like a blast. And way to go for being "in the groove." Have a wonderful time with son and nephew.
I have not started my actual "diet" yet. (I am still reading the book.... got off track w/my reading for a few days, but I'm back now.)
My problem at this precise moment: Finding a "coach". I did ask someone (a lady I work with) and she said she would do it, but she doesn't really have a clue how to do it, and I don't have a clue how to tell her how to do it. (as Frasier would say "oh dear god")
However... I am doing very well with my breakfast & lunch & snackage type foods. But dinner... well, fairly well, except last night... I had a cookie dough craving. "oh dear god". I knew I shouldn't have bought it when I was grocery shopping, and yet, I DID. WHY do I do that kind of stuff? Oh well, tomorrow is another day.
So anyhoo, I still need a coach, I think. Is this a good place to get one?
Today I made a food plan that consists solely of foods I like -- and I followed it almost perfectly. Just skipped some veggies I planned at dinner because they didn't feel really necessary with our veggie-packed chili. I think I'll do the same for tomorrow. That should help me feel like I'm working the plan, while also quieting the inner rebel that says this isn't fair. She's pretty quiet when I'm eating foods I like.
Good ideas for spicing up the dish that I don't like that well. I'm thinking tabasco sauce....
I'm more than half way to my monthly exercise goal!
WI: -1.3kg (new low -- and I have no explanation for this), Exercise: +52, 683/1300 minutes for October, Food: op, Read my Advantages and Responses: yes
Walking Princess: welcome home! A book I read a long time ago, The Incredible Shrinking Critic by Jami Bernard, talked about not being "on" or "off" plan, but some percentage of "on." I'm going to start trying that. 50% on vacation sounds good to me. I'm competitive enough that I would be asking myself, could I do better than 50% next time?
BillBlueEyes: yay for walking to supper. Can you get the restaurant to keep their bread?
ChinaMaine: hope you like your new exercise DVD. Yay for the size 12 jeans! And congrats on the smooth yoga transition! Hope you have a great visit with your son and nephew.
Shepherdess: You did a great job on a challenging day!
BeachPatrol: many of us use this forum as our "coach," serving as coaches for each other. Posting here every night works for me.
A whole buncha committed Beckies, virtual though we may be, are far, far better as a coaching option than one, real, live, in-the-flesh person who doesn't know how to be a coach..not to say she couldn't learn it, but.... We are willing, able, and you will grow in grace as you coach us.
Hmmm......mebbee a priest? mebbee a priest would be a good coach in confession..it *is about accountability........
mary, i resemble that remark. seriously. i have that spreadsheet...want to see it? it tells me many things, like for instance - hmmm - my calculations and forecasts have no predictive effect on my actual body. unfortunately. also, i can tell when i'm getting too far off my path because those are the blank days in my food journaling.
went off plan tonight - was in class, and HUNGRY. two days in a row of 1000+ calorie deficits, which apparently is enough to push me from lightly satisfied to edgy and thinking non-stop about food. learning point for me - getting closer to the fine point of enough deficit to lose weight, but not so much the lizard brain kicks in. i can fight desire and cravings but i have a much harder time with chronic low-grade hunger. can't sustain that long term.
have a LOT of cooking to do in the next three days! got a last-minute cupcake order for a baby shower, so i have to figure out what i'm going to do to make peanut butter icing look baby-girly and sweet. it's a funky brown color. might go well with pink polka dots...ideas, artistes?
onebyone, you've got some major credits coming to you!!! and glad to hear the pain has abated. china, you sound genuinely excited to fix up the pad for your MIL - that's very cool! beachpatrol, ditto what mary said. y'all are the best possible coaches. my DH originally volunteered, but he's even quicker to justify my off-plan eating than i am, bless his heart. gardnerjoy, can i get an AMEN to eating food you like!!! i've been making myself low-fat chicken caesar wraps and steam-in-the-bag broccoli packs for lunch, and yummy. oh yeah, pomegranates too. those are the bomb when they're all cleaned and portioned out - nature's nerds (the candy.) shepherdess, i totally hear you on the "5 minutes is better than none"! about a year ago i almost skipped a workout because i couldn't do an entire hour, only half an hour. you wouldn't believe the crazy leap of rational thinking it took me to figure out that 1/2 an hour was, in fact, better than nothing, and just because i couldn't run 4 or 5 miles, it was still a workout. lordy. robin! back atcha. bill, agreed. an after-dinner walk with DH is lovely. not so sure i'd want to hang in the gym with the boy; i suspect he might be a little bit whiny, and i just don't want to know. kara, good question. personally i can't imagine having extra calories left over for eating - i'm thinking, if you're hungry, it's probably perfectly fine, but if you're not, maybe not? what do YOU think? or more on point, what do we think thin people do with that one? i have no idea...i should ask kim (a lady i work with who i thought was 'naturally' thin, until we started talking about it. she watches what she eats like a hawk.)
Last edited by kuhljeanie; 10-15-2009 at 09:57 PM.
I submitted my forms and images and statements to a national organization so they may look at my work against all the other artists submitting their work and maybe, just maybe, they will chose to buy mine. It'd be a Great Success for someone just out of art school. Today I completed my submission to the City for a gallery show in the coming year. I did my solo application and I did a group application yesterday with a friend. We're dropping the forms off tomorrow then going to listen to the visiting artist at my alma mater and then visiting the show around the corner to see the work of the artist who inspired my giant bus strike print. I am looking forward to it very much.
Foodwise I am re-starting the new Beck book and I think I'll follow her plan. why not? Start new. I did print out Dr. Weil's inflammation food pyramid so I may use that as a food guide of sorts. I got some extra walking in today and yesterday so credit for this. My old cat was not as growly today but both cats seemed to be sleeping most of the day as well. Sleep = unconsciousness = no growliness.
All in all an exhausting but productive day.
BillBlueEyes Your wholewheat pita story reminded me that I pushed DH into buying this "smart bread" at the drug store last night. He'll only eat white bread, (he loves wonderbread) and the package promised the smartbread was
brown bread but looks like white bread. I thought it's better than wonderbread. DH had some and told me it "smelled like brown bread" and I countered that the label was "all marketing to please parents" and that the brown bread smell was from the extra thick crusts. I don't think DH will get the bread again cause it smells yukky to him. But he didn't think to throw it away either.
ChinaMaine Extra Big Credits to you on all levels! Congrats on the smooth yoga transition. I feel the same about the plough. I used to do it easily now my stomach prevents it completely... you give me hope!
Shepherdess Congrats on doing 5 min of exercise when you could have easily just skipped it. You're definitely breaking that black and white thinking and staying on track. Credit!
Beach Patrol I brought a bag of cookies into the house today and I ate 95% of them. Oh well. We just move on from this kind of thing. As for coaches we coach each other here. Just post and ask questions and jump right in. We are all on the same journey.
RobinW My BFF was in Niagara on the Lake and saw a real estate thing that showed houses in Buffalo for $19,900.00. We mused about how for the average home price here, $300,000, we could buy 15 houses there and we'd have an instant artist commune/refuge/neighbourhood. Since neither of us have a hope in H-E-doublehockeysticks of buying a home anywhere here in the near future we schemed of taking out student loans and pooling them to buy as many houses as we could. We'd never get a mortgage but a student loan? Uh yeah. Anyway. I spend a lot of time dreaming as you can tell.
gardenerjoy I am so happy to hear you say you are eating what you want and you feel good about it. Awesome. It just seems so obvious a strategy to hold to if you want to stick to a foodplan to life. yay!
maryblu I am taking your words to heart from the other day that we need not kill ourselves with exercise to become a smaller version of ourselves. Thank you for the reminder.
kuhljeanie Re: cupcake decorations ideas
1) bright blue dots with pink dot middles
2) white daisies with yellow middles
3)one big bow with dots on it? Yellow bow + white dots?
whoa time for bed. to everyone I missed and who lurks.
Today was off plan completely. What the heckle is wrong with me? One day on, one day off? I did fine for most of the day until I was scheduled to go out to lunch with a friend. Ended up eating my whole plate which to date I had only been eating 1/2. I knew I was going to be out for the rest of the afternoon so I couldn't take the other half home and l, like everyone else here, can't seem to waste food and throw it away. So, I ate it. I'm not the brightest bulb on the tree. From there, we went shopping and stopped in and got some chocolates. I got a peanut butter cup that was like a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup on steroids. The thing was huge! I only at 1/3 though so at least I stopped there. I didn't eat dinner as I was still stuffed from lunch (literally). Hopefully that evens it out a little bit. I did do quite a bit of walking so I kind of count that as my exercise today.
BillBE - I think you did great in walking to go get your food. That is a 2 mile walk! Great exercise. Kudos for recognizing your weakness towards not throwing the food away even though it is mediocre. What I thought was really interesting was that you actually prefer the healthier bread. Isn't that great? I have found I actually prefer healthier versions of some foods more than the original. I guess that's a sign of progress! Great job!
ChinaMaine - you are doing fantastic! Enjoy the time with your son and nephew.
Shepherdess - hi Yes, I think perfectionism is another sabatoging though - you are absolutely right. Great job in getting in a short workout even though you didn't have time for a full one. Who cares if it wasn't the most challenging one. The important thing was you did something and you weren't just sitting on the couch. You kept your exercise habit in check. Great job!
Beach Patrol - let us be your coaches! The people on this site are so supportive and knowledgeable. They are the best ones to have as a coach. They are my coaches too and I'm honored! Welcome! :-)
Robin - hope your day gets less busy!
GardnerJoy - you are doing so great! Congrats on finding a plan that works well for you. I agree, I think deprivation just leads to failure. I'm in the process of re-working my plan right now to make it a little more practical. Congrats on being 1/2 way to your exercise goal and for reaching a new weight loss low. You are doing great!
Maryblu - wise words you have given Beach Patrol. How are you doing?
KuhlJeannie - how have you been doing? I hope your heart is healing. Hey let me know what your friend Kim says about using extra calories if you haven't used them by the end of the day. This seems to be rare for me these days but hopefully I am on my way to being back on track.
OnebyOne - kudos to you for re-starting the Beck book. I am in the process of doing the same thing right now. I am going to keep doing it until I've got this down pat. Good luck with your art work. You are very talented so they would be foolish not to choose your work!
Diet Coaches/Buddies - Took my walk after work, CREDIT moi, wearing a jacket, lined warm up pants, and cotton gloves. So there, I'm admitting that it's cold.
I packed my lunch for work by emptying 5 - yes, count them, FIVE - containers with small fragments of left overs; Big CREDIT moi. There are serious points in this house for clearing out the fridge. It was a wild assortment for an office lunch to be sure, including Broccoli Rabe with a wonderful sharp taste that feels like it's biting back, LOL.
maryblu - LOL, I just love it - a separate confessional for dieters; "Bless me Father for I just ate a whole sleeve of Girl Scout Thin Mint cookies."
Jean (kuhljeanie) - Congrats on the cupcake order; good to hear that the baking remains an active business. Interesting observation that a cumulative low level hunger builds up to lead to off-plan eating. Our fighting back, like a two year old, seizes any opening.
onebyone - Monster Kudos for getting in both your application and your submission since my assumption is that paper work is evil to the creative mind. And Kudos for giving yourself credit for the extra walking. LOL at "smelled like brown bread" - you've got a hard case there.
Robin (RobinW) - Waving back at the busy blur.
ChinaMaine - Yay for the extended movement in yoga - a super NSV. Kudos for planning your winter exercise. (Are you a snowshoe person?) Have a good visit with your DS and nephew.
Kara (Walking Princess) - Ouch for that conundrum of being in a restaurant when a doggie bag is not feasible. I was so annoyed with myself the first time on my journey that I ate over sized portions at a mediocre restaurant for that reason. It's still hard for me; I just work harder to avoid the situation.
Beach Patrol - Kudos for getting back on track reading Beck's book. It can be really difficult to avoid stuff like cookie dough once it's in the house - easier to fight it back on the grocery shelf. Did you remember to eat something before going shopping? The easiest way for junk to get into my shopping cart is to shop while hungry.
I'd be pleased to be one of your Diet Coaches and ask that you be one of mine.
Joy (gardenerjoy) - A food plan of foods you like sounds like one stellar idea. Beck should emphasize that more in her Choose a Diet chapter. Drooling at the thought of your "veggie-packed chili." Thanks for the suggestion of leaving the white pita bread at the restaurant; that's an idea that'd work for me - before it got to my house where the "starving children in China" hold court.
Shepherdess - Kudos for bean soup instead of whatever the guys were munching and BIG Kudos for "5 minutes of exercise is better than no minutes of exercise" which is a great stopper to the perfectionism that was spreading around this thread. Do you think your DH would mind dropping by my house once a week to do his fridge cleaning thing?
Readers -
Quote:
day 2 skipping meals
Are you tempted to speed weight loss by eating as little as possible or by skipping meals? Don't do it! Several studies have linked skipping meals, particularly breakfast, with weight gain, rather than weight loss. If you skip a meal, you'll probably compensate for it later on. For example, research has shown that people who habitually skip breakfast tend to seriously overeat at night. You might be better off, in fact, if you plan to eat up to six small meals a day.
The Beck Diet Solution, pg 66.
Last edited by BillBlueEyes; 10-16-2009 at 08:13 AM.
Hi All,
I'm gearing up for an outdoor(!) craft show--set up is today in the rain. Then the forecast is rain, rain, rain and 40 degree temps. My saboteur is chanting "hot chocolate hot chocolate, you deserve it." Tomorrow night after the first day of the show I am going to a charity auction--I mosaiced a chair for it. Of course, there will be food and drink. And dh is off on a retreat. So I really need to make a plan, and I'm resisting it. Sigh.
I've been thinking about the perfectionist thinking we've been discussing. Perfectionism promises me a lot of things it can't deliver, and it's very seductive. "If you do what I say, you will be ok, have value, succeed. If you don't, then you are damned." The perfectionist voice has no flexibility, no understanding of the present moment or real world success.
If I look at the actual results of perfectionism in my life, I see how it impedes me from getting anything done. I become frozen, I do lots of research, I spend all my time in my head--it promises me success, but in fact delivers failure, causing the very things it says it will fix. It's not offering anything real, only an illusion, and uses fear to scare me into listening. Real progress is in fits and starts and imperfect, messy, frustrating, and absolutely acceptable. Sometimes I wish Beck would more emphatically emphasize the destructive nature of perfectionism.
I need to go gather my art up. But I did want to do a shout out to Kara for only eating 1/3 of that peanut butter cup on steroids--my goodness! My brain would've been in total "that's one serving, I must eat it all" mode.
I went for an extra long run yesterday PM. It doesn't totally make up for missing a run the day before, but I figure a little bit helps. I ignored that little voice telling me all the things I needed to get done. I just told myself, it's only 20 minutes extra, and if I can't spare 20 extra minutes I am in serious trouble. Besides, I deserve it.
Yesterday was going well foodwise. . .then I started to make dinner. (Maryblu, this is my confession!) DH left a bag of chips out on the counter and I was distracted. I just grabbed a few and ate them before even thinking about what I was doing. Blurg! The total mindlessness is so frustrating. So, after reminding myself that this is not the end of the world, I had to think about why this happened and how to keep it from happening in the future. I reminded my DH that if he is going to have chips in the house he needs to put them back in the @#$% cupboard when he's done. He may not have a problem with automatic eating, but I do. I also decided that it would probably be a good idea to read the response and advantages cards in the late afternoon. I often have a lot of other things on my mind and my willpower is waning.
For my fellow perfectionsist friends out there, this is something I am finding helpful. That perfectionist, all-or-nothing mindset often doesn't allow for mistakes and so when I make them, the inner perfectionst just wants to ignore it. I was tempted to not fill in my food log. But these mistakes are an important part of learning. So when I did fill in my food plan, I saw a lot of successes and one small mistake. Now I am making a plan to avoid that mistake and that's the real progress.
Beach Patrol, first big old kudos for staying on track with breakfast, lunch and snackage! Dinner is frustrating, but a learning experience. I diddo BillBE about shopping when hungry. Always a sign of trouble. I was also thinking maybe I need to make a card to read while I'm grocery shopping; something like "If am more likely to stick to my plan if I shop on plan." I think it's important to remember that we're not only learning to eat differently, we're also learning to shop differently, manage our emotions differently, socialize differently, etc. Food intersects all aspects of our lives.
Gardnerjoy, sounds like a great idea to plan a menu filled with things you like. Congrats on progress towards exercise goal!
Kuhljeanie, good luck on all the cooking. I love onebyone's ideas, particularly the daisies. Good insight that eating too little. There is a reason Beck says not to cut your calories below 1600. I have spent most of my life trying to cut as many calories as possible and it only sets you up for failure! That's why I am here. There are many studies linking calorie restriction and eating disorders, food obsessions (usually part of eating disorders).
onebyone, great job on all the art submissions! Kudos for walking. Huge credit for re-starting the Beck book! Sounds like you have a good plan.
Walking Princess, restaraunts are a huge minefield! It just takes lots and lots of practice! Good job for not eating all the peanut butter cup!
BillBE, love how you cleaned out the fridge, didn't waste food and still stayed on plan! I just hope the Broccoli Rabe was biting back in a good way--I've never cooked with it, but am totally curious.
Nuxmaga, hope there is at least a little sun during your craft show. Good luck with the weather, the show, and the charity auction. the chair sounds so cool! You are spot on about that perfectionist mindset.
Thursday
WI-down 1.1 lbs. I read my cards, made a plan. Food – op, Exercise –op(55m)
(as Frasier would say 
Oh well, tomorrow is another day. 
just tryin' to keep up today!
also, i can tell when i'm getting too far off my path because those are the blank days in my food journaling. 
update
