Step 6: Breaking the Eating and . . . Chains

This past week has been fairly ordinary, with no outstanding challenges, although I did fall behind a few times with my recording, waiting until the end of the day or even the next day to write down what I ate.  That concerns me a little, since I don't want to get away from keeping my eating notebook, even though it it might seem like I don't need to do it.  Once I start forgetting to write down foods, I start forgetting how much and what I ate during the day, and that inevitably leads to overeating.

For example, yesterday I didn't write anything down at all, and even though I thought I followed the eating plan, today, when I tried to remember everything I ate, I didn't remember the cereal I ate around noon, which was counted for a protein meal.  I didn't eat extra, but if I'd been looking at the list at the end of the day yesterday, I might have figured I could eat another meat or bread choice.

It's very easy to eat unconsciously.  Writing down consumption makes me pay attention to it, even though sometimes I forget or don't want to take the time.

This week I'm going to start the next step in the plan: eating in a designated eating place and there only.  This is step six of the plan, and part one of the "Breaking the 'Eating and . . . ' Chains" (141) segment. Part two is eating only, without doing anything else but conversing. The idea behind these steps is that "Eating should become as pure an activity as possible" (142).  If eating is linked to other activities or a variety of places, then the place or activity will trigger the impulse to eat, even if it's not time to eat.  So that if you always read while you eat, for instance, you'll want to eat when you read, too.  And if you eat in the car, then every time you're in the car, you'll want to eat.  Eating and . . . chains can become powerful stimuli, causing me to reach for food automatically before I realize I'm doing it.

So I'm going to try to eat in only one place--the dining room, at the table--for my meals at home.  At work, I'll eat in the cafeteria, I think, since eating at my desk is not a good idea.  Where I normally eat at my desk is also where I do other things, so I wouldn't want that place associated with food.  This will become tricky for breaks, since I now don't normally take breaks but still need to eat.  Maybe I can go to the employee break room for my breaks.  I should probably be taking breaks away from my desk anyway, but that cuts into the time I want to spend getting some exercise.  I may have to do something different there too. Exercise at a different time, maybe early in the morning.

At any rate, we'll see how it goes.  I have to make a check mark for every time I eat in the designated place, which will give me a record of my progress.  I'm certainly not looking forward to the next step, where I can't read while I eat, since that is how I get most of my reading done.  Well, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it, I guess.

I did lose weight over the two weeks I was on vacation, and I lost about 1/2 pound this past week. I'm still on track to lose about 5 lbs every month, which is slow but steady progress toward my goal.

I've been enjoying getting gradually smaller.  The difference is probably imperceptible to my coworkers, however.  I imagine the moment in the future when they will suddenly realize I'm no longer fat and ask me what happened.  I plan to tell them about this plan and refer them to this blog.

And I'll tell you all about it here.