Beck Diet For Life/Solution – November 2021 – Support, Discussion, Buddy/Coach

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  • Good morning coaches,

    We had a very successful hiking trip. We drove to Wilcox AZ to stay as it was a central location for the 3 days of hiking, but there was plenty of driving each day. The first two days we were hiking to some peaks in AZ. The group leader has a list of the 20 highest peaks that are able to be hiked and we did two the first day and three on day two. The driving and the stickers over growing the trails were the hardest part. Yesterday was the best day by far. We hiked the Big Loop at Chiricahua National Monument. It is just a spectacular place with wonderful hoodoo rock formations. I just love big rocks. It was an 8 1/2 mile loop with enough elevation gain to be a good workout. The group on yesterday's hike was way too large (24), so Joanne and I made an arrangement with the leader that we would just do our own thing and not to worry about us. He knew we had the route downloaded and were capable hikers. I'm sure we finished an hour before the others and then had about a 4 hour drive home. Dh and Otis were as happy to see me as I was them. I have a friend in town from NY today so I'm heading off for another hike. I'm feeling great, so no problem and I have the rest of the day to get some groceries, etc. Weight is down a pound, yahoo!

    Bill I've never read Coming of Age in Mississippi either, but I'm enjoying Wendy Sanford's book. Some of it got all wet in a cooler mishap in the back of my car. I hope I can get the pages apart. Your chicken sausage dinner sounds delicious. How is your little foster granddaughter doing?

    Greetings to OssaSola. Have you selected a food plan at all?

    Penny You are not weak. You just haven't come up with how you will be handling the change in your life. You'll figure it out I'm sure.

    GardenerJoy I was so happy to read your husband's lab result was good. I remember getting a little nervous each time my dh had to have his PSA checked. It's been nearly 11 years now and the once a year checks are not near as nerve wracking.
    Congratulations on such a long stretch of daily exercise.

    Curlyjax It seems good that you are acknowledging going home in the afternoon is a bit depressing and finding other things to do. Probably a good time to get any errands completed. I know you said dd is coming home Is she a sophomore this year?

    Maryann I hope you're having a good time.



  • Quick wave as I am going to pick up DS unexpectedly to hang out with DD who is also here - a long story that I won't get into. Hopefully he can help me with a little raking too and mouse traps as the mice are back. I ate terribly yesterday and am having a tough time reining it in. I hung out with a friend for a little and had dinner at her house so that was good anyhow. Glad to have an extra hour of sleep but ugh for the shorter days.
    Karen- DD is a senior, DS a sophmore. Glad you had such a good trip. I had to look up hoodoo rocks, never heard that before. They do look really cool, I definitely want to get out to the west to see them in person some day.
  • Daylight Saving Time threw us for a bit of a loop, apparently. I got up at 4am, thinking that I'd rather spend my extra hour writing than sleeping. DH got up shortly after. So, maybe, we're just not changing our time with the rest of the country.

    Exercise +60, 290/1500 minutes for November

    Welcome, OssaSola. The Scottish Terrier kind of gave you away.
  • HA! I logged in successfully for two days in a row. Both Beck-wise and cyber-wise, that is progress!

    I've decided to return to lower carb and two fasting days per week, Tuesday and Friday as my plan. I find it amazingly easy to fast, no idea why, so I'll stick with it. Brunch was a tomato, onion, peppers frittata with ham slices on the side. Waaay better than the "Sunday Donut Stop" that we'd been doing after Church.

    The dinner plan is a BIG taco salad minus chips, with greek yogurt as the sweet nightcap. If I eat that yogurt on the couch, I have the honor of a Scottie lying above me with his head on my shoulder to the tune of "Every bite you take, every move you make--I'll be watching you" as he waits to clean out the cup for me.

    Also today I'm returning to my X3 routine, which is a weight lifting device that uses bands to mitigate the wear and tear on joints. I have been walking 3-4 miles per day for my job, but haven't managed to outwalk poor eating habits.

    Here's to a new day. Best wishes to all.
  • Monday - The album "Led Zeppelin IV," including "Stairway to Heaven," released (1971)
    Diet Coaches/Buddies - Walked, CREDIT moi, and played with DW, DS, and the (19 mo) DFGD at a playground near their house. She has grown so much more agile over the month with them. Naturally, as a proud grand, I see it as due to their stellar parenting. It's also a time period of motor growth for kids and it's the month of her coming out of COVID quarantine. Nevertheless, it's fun to observe. She can climb up a structure and slide down the slide non-stop until time to go home. Babbles continuously in the stroller there and back. Always happy.

    Eating was on plan with no daytime snacks, CREDIT moi. Dinner was first dip from a big pot of chili made with real hamburger and beans from the package sold for 13-bean soup. Served with tortilla chips and green salad. Dark came quickly as did bedtime. It felt odd to drive home in the dark after our 'afternoon' excursion in the park. I'm jealous of Arizona-types who don't have to switch their clocks twice a year.


    Joy (gardenerjoy) - I join you in adjusting slowly to the time switch. LOL at "The Scottish Terrier kind of gave you away."

    Karen (karenrn) - Such spectacular places you hike: Chiricahua National Monument. Also had to googe hoodoo rock formations. Can understand, "I just love big rocks."

    curlyjax - Neat that you have both kids together this weekend. Maybe we should have a Beck Forum reunion among the Arizona rocks!

    OssaSola (VertOlive) - Kudos for having an eating plan and an exercise plan in place. LOL at your Scottish Terrier, "Every bite you take, every move you make--I'll be watching you."

    Readers -
    Quote:
    Success Skill 8 Follow Your Plan, No Matter What

    resistance technique 7
    Meditate, pray, or relax.

    Try one of the following breathing techniques: . . .
    • Change your breathing, inhaling very shallowly through your nose (so your chest does not rise) and s-l-o-w-l-y count to four. Then exhale shallowly as you s-l-o-w-l-y count to four. Do this for two to five minutes. If you start to think about food, gently bring your attention back to counting and breathing.
    Judith S. Beck, Ph.D., The Complete Beck Diet for Life (Green book), Pg 101.
  • Exercise yesterday was raking leaves, which was a lot easier with help from DS. I also went to a thrift shop connected to a church that I forgot about, and scored a few items. I chatted to the ladies running it about covid precautions in their church, and they leave the doors open (and mask and socially distance) which sounds cold but better than nothing I guess.
    After 20 years in the same church, my church is starting to feel a bit stagnant. I may take a break from church for a while.I need to find new ways to make new social connections, whether during the pandemic or beyond.
    Bill-it is a real bummer to have the dark so early. Such fun to have a 19 month old to watch-that you can enjoy and then go home without the responsibility. I guess that's what grandparenting is all about!
    OssaSola-it's great that you find fasting easy, there seem to be such benefits from it.
    Gardenerjoy- ugh, that is really early. But the early morning is such a special time too, its nice to have more of it.
  • Our schedule is still shifted early. I wrote over a thousand words before breakfast.

    DH decided that fruitcake needs to be part of our late fall season. I thought I didn't like fruitcake. It turns out that if it's dark and spicy and doesn't have too many candy cherries, I like it fine. Oops. Even a sliver a day may be more than I can have, if my goal for late fall is to lose a half pound or so per week. I may need to kick that habit before it takes hold or find a place to adjust my food plan somewhere else in the day.

    Exercise +50, 340/1500 minutes for November

    BillBlueEyes: Stairway to Heaven was the theme of my senior prom. By far, not unique, among teens from the 1970s.
  • Good evening coaches,

    I had a nice long post including personals written early this morning and then I saw this evening that I hadn't hit the send button. Anyway food was on plan yesterday and weight was lower today. I hiked this morning with Hiking Suzanne and then we went to lunch at the Four Seasons. We ate at the casual restaurant on the patio and it was lovely. I had tuna pokey with a few bagel chips and I'm sure I was within my calories. Tomorrow morning I have my first volunteer shift at the food bank and then movie in the afternoon. I'll get to personals tomorrow.
  • Tuesday - World Freedom Day (Fall of the Berlin Wall, 1989)
    Diet Coaches/Buddies - Eating was on plan with no daytime snacks, CREDIT moi. Dinner was a new recipe made from lamb chunks, garbanzo beans, onions, dried apricots, cumin, paprika, and other spices. A real North African feast. Quite good. A bit sweet from the apricots that disintegrated to become a thickener. There's another serving of it tucked into the fridge for another meal. Sadly, when we came down to breakfast yesterday, there sat the two containers of chili that had been put beside the fridge to cool down for a few minutes before being put inside. Got forgotten. In an abundance of caution, DW tossed them. I offered her a pair of meals out or takeouts as compensation. We'll survive. Although I'll drool thinking about the chili.

    Excitement was hauling a step ladder from the basement to the flat roof to look up at the edge of the steep roof. Moisture is getting in the house in one spot. There's a chunk of roofing shingle that's broken at a vulnerable spot. Time to call a qualified roofer. As usual, we observe that the entire roof needs replacing. Which leads to thinking about other maintenance items that are due. Old houses are charming to be sure, but charm comes at a price. We see crimes against sane construction that were committed forty years ago by us when we were seriously naive, and some committed 150 years ago by the original carpenters. The trick is to find a way forward that avoids the desire to tear the whole place down and build it right.


    Joy (gardenerjoy) - Alas, fruitcake has more calories than anything. It was common at Christmas during my childhood. Loved it back then.

    Karen (karenrn) - LOL that you're having "lunch at the Four Seasons." Can't get past the picture of the garden center where a notorious press conference was held a year ago.

    curlyjax - Yay for scoring items at a thrift shop - just the best feeling ever. Kudos for exercising with your DS with leaf rakes.

    Readers -
    Quote:
    Success Skill 8 Follow Your Plan, No Matter What

    resistance technique 8
    Read your Advantages Deck.

    After you read each card, ask yourself the following questions:
    • How important is this advantage to me?
    • How important is eating this food to me?
    • Which would I rather have: this advantage or this food?
    Judith S. Beck, Ph.D., The Complete Beck Diet for Life (Green book), Pg 101.
  • Exercise was zipping around a mall yesterday in hopes of finding some bargains to spruce up my work wardrobe a bit. I find a few things but rediscovered that I need to lose weight I really do want to be able to wear some cute dresses so that should be my goal. Once more I say to myself, how did I let myself gain 40 pounds?? 10 was the pandemic but still. And my feet are still killing me, which probably is related, but I do have to functionally walk. Ugh. Anyhow, all is not lost, I CAN do this, even with the holidays coming up. I did stay out of the candy yesterday at work so credit for that.
    Gardenerjoy; I used to have the same negative feelings about fruitcake, but a really good one swayed my opinion, sadly.
    Karen- great that you are volunteering at the food bank, that will be fun. Yay for a lunch out on plan.
    Bill-ooh that lamb stew sounds fabulous. I hate it when I acccidently leave food out too long-once i left a chicken in a crockpot all day and forgot to turn it on. That went right into the trash for sure.
  • I had the house to myself for a couple of hours yesterday for maybe the second time since March 2020. DH and a friend took advantage of an unseasonably warm day and met for lunch in a park. Unfortunately, my first thought for the time alone was "what can I eat?" Sigh.

    There was a time in my life when I created solitude for myself in order to eat what I wanted without outside judgment. (Or maybe it was the other way around, I set up solo eating opportunities to create solitude for myself).

    At any rate, that hasn't been a usual part of my life for many years now, but the thought still crops up on occasion. I did do a little off-plan eating, but not much and put a stop to it pretty quickly.

    If the thought isn't going to go away, then I want some strategies for enjoying solitude that has nothing to do with food. I wished, later, that I'd turned on some music and held a little dance party for myself.

    Exercise +40, 380/1500 minutes for November

    BillBlueEyes: That's a very sad feeling to see food in the morning that was meant to go in the fridge the night before. It happens to us just often enough to be an annoyance. Forgetting once will keep me vigilant about it for months.
  • Wednesday - Henry Morton Stanley, "Dr Livingstone, I presume?" (1871, Central Africa)
    Diet Coaches/Buddies - Schedule got jammed because I had an afternoon Zoom meeting where an organization reported back to my committee about how they had spent the grant we'd awarded. They had specific plans for the calendar year 2020; then the pandemic hit and all plans exploded. We'd told them to go forward with new plans; the grant remained. Well, they'd survived the maelstrom of the first months of the lock down, loss of income, loss of staff. They soldiered on and survived. A heartwarming story of survival.

    Excitement was attending a real-life performance, Macbeth in Stride. Outside of our usual music - in a refreshing good way. Never thought much about how little stage time Lady Macbeth got in the play, but correcting that was the theme of this performance. Warms my heart to hear long ago remembered Shakespeare lines: "Out, out, damned spot;" "It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

    Eating was on plan with no snacks whatsoever, CREDIT moi. Dinner was a quickly prepared frozen Trader Joe's shrimp and veggie dish so we could get out the door for our theater. I'd quickly stuffed my salad in the fridge, uncovered, when I rushed from dinner the night before. Alas, results were limp. Looked limp; tasted limp. Gotta rethink that move.


    Joy (gardenerjoy) - Ouch for the Sabotaging Thought, "what can I eat?" So annoying that after so many years of sane eating it's still hidden in there to arise when an occasion beckons. Kudos for choosing a response.

    curlyjax - Congrats for getting some clothes at the mall. I think it's crucial to buy clothes that fit to feel good enough about ourselves to get to the size we want to be. Ouch for that abandoned chicken crock pot story - must have hurt.

    Readers -
    Quote:
    Success Skill 8 Follow Your Plan, No Matter What

    resistance technique 9
    Do a negative fast-forward.

    Imagine, in detail, how you will feel 10 minutes after eating the unplanned food. Visualize the situation: Will you feel weak and out of control? Disappointed with yourself? Nervous about getting back in control? Hopeless about ever losing weight? Discouraged that you have undermined your hard work? . . .

    Judith S. Beck, Ph.D., The Complete Beck Diet for Life (Green book), Pg 101.
  • Good morning coaches,

    Food was on plan yesterday and today I will see the nutritionist. I'm not losing at the rate she expected, but I am following the plan, feel good and weight continues down. My plan is to see her once a month since I feel pretty confident that I am working the plan and know what I'm doing. Yesterday morning I did a 3 hour stint with the St. Mary's food bank at a local senior apartment area. They were very organized and there were a total of 8 volunteers to set up tables and distribute the food. We had boxes of produce, boxes of dry goods, orange juice and a meat stick (that looked disgusting) along with some cheese (?). I learned from the other volunteers who also good to the main distribution center that it is quite an impressive operation. I will try that soon. In the afternoon I saw a movie at the Scottsdale International Film festival.

    I'm going to post this now and come back for personals as I see I need to have some breakfast and get out the door to meet my friend for a hike.
  • Did better with eating yesterday and stayed OP except for two popsicles at night when I was hungry. I moved some equipment and files around at work so I got a little exercise in that way. Somewhat uneventful day, I didn’t get much done at home other than dishes. Tonight I have to pack and prepare as I’m going to visit my dad tomorrow. I want to avoid eating candy as I drive- which I sometimes do to keep myself alert-so will get some popcorn and grapes etc tonight. I’m not craving sugar at all which is great.
    Gardenerjoy: I can understand that feeling of being able to eat anything with no one else around.
    Bill-yay for real live theater indeed, looks like an interesting show. Great to hear stories of nonprofits rebounding.
  • DH is back into genealogy. We spent a good part of yesterday working to translate an 1838 document from Alsace into English. With Google Translate and a list of French words for genealogists, that's not as hard for non-French speakers as it sounds. The trickiest part is reading the 19th century handwriting.

    CREDIT for sticking to my food plan, even though the above project messed with every other element of my plans for yesterday.

    Exercise +50, 430/1500 minutes for November

    BillBlueEyes: That show looks fabulous. One of my most memorable theater experiences in St. Louis was inspired by Macbeth: Trash Macbeth #BriFri – Joy's Book Blog (joyweesemoll.com)