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:

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.

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.)

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