Well, it's been almost two weeks since I've posted. Last week I was doing some other writing instead, and since I have limited time on weekends, I decided not to post.
But not too much has happened since my last entry. I was challenged once again by free chocolate treats (There are certainly a lot of them around my work place!), but otherwise I puttered along with my normal routine. There was a luncheon out with my coworkers, but I chose a nice piece of salmon instead of something fattier, and stopped eating when I was full. And I tried to concentrate on conversation instead of eating, which was a good strategy since I got to know my coworkers a little better as a result.
One thing I found challenging this past week or so was keeping up with my food journal. I found myself forgetting whole days of recording, which was annoying, since after about a day I no longer remember what I ate. Someone might say that I should quit recording, but I'm not ready to do that, since it helps me pay attention to what I'm eating. And I need that daily reminder because I'm still likely to veer off the pavement and head for the ditch, as it were.
I'm not using it as completely as I should, though. One of the diet diary's purposes is to reward myself for good behavior. Those little check marks every hour are supposed to help me stay on the road to thinness by giving me an "attagirl" for eating what I should. When I forgo that reward, it seems that maybe I don't need it, that I'm confident of my ability to get through each hour successfully. Perhaps that's true, at least as long as I'm in my routine and not faced with any challenges. I think I need to do more to make myself aware of the choices I face, though. I should probably start writing about those choices in the columns available for that. We'll see . . .
Meanwhile, I still have 25 pounds to go, and I think those pounds may be the hardest to take off, especially since I tend to get hungry more often now. But I'm not giving up--not ever. Not even when I reach goal weight. This is the end of the line for Fat Cheryl. I'm no longer going to be obese, fat, or even slightly pudgy. Those days are over. Over!
See you next week.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Another One of Those Pesky Pig-Out Holidays
I'm at week 51 now and still hanging in there, though I gained a half pound this week, making my total weight loss over two weeks 1.5 pounds, or about my average of .75 pounds per week. I knew that was going to happen, so I'm not disappointed.
This week so far I've had to deal with Valentine's Day, a traditional pig-out holiday (there seem to be quite a few of those!). I did pretty well on the day itself with eating a bit of cake, a cookie and some little bits of chocolate offered me at work. But I do find myself craving the chocolate, after only a small piece. I did okay with the cookie, though. I think I'm over cookie addiction pretty well, but chocolate candy is another thing altogether, it seems. Maybe I'll never get over that addiction.
Today I found myself thinking about the chocolate I still have (one piece), and how I can "get rid of it" (by putting it into my stomach, of course) so that I can stop thinking about it. These are all signs of addiction, of course. So I guess my coping level with chocolate is still at the "keep it away from me" level. Well, maybe I'll try again at the next chocolate-eating holiday (that would be Easter, I think).
Otherwise, I'm puttering along with my eating plan and my daily exercise. I'm telling more people about it, too, these days. That's a good sign, I think. It means I feel pretty confident that I'm not going to slide back to my old ways. If I weren't so confident, I'd be afraid to tell people because they might be disappointed with me later if I fail once again to get slim.
These are all familiar feelings to those of us who struggle with our weight. But I still think I can win this battle and stay slim, despite all the challenges. I'm really starting to understand what it means to be "recovering" instead of "recovered." It's never over; I'm never going to be completely free of eating addictions. But as long as I know that, I can continue to keep them at bay.
Until next time . . .
This week so far I've had to deal with Valentine's Day, a traditional pig-out holiday (there seem to be quite a few of those!). I did pretty well on the day itself with eating a bit of cake, a cookie and some little bits of chocolate offered me at work. But I do find myself craving the chocolate, after only a small piece. I did okay with the cookie, though. I think I'm over cookie addiction pretty well, but chocolate candy is another thing altogether, it seems. Maybe I'll never get over that addiction.
Today I found myself thinking about the chocolate I still have (one piece), and how I can "get rid of it" (by putting it into my stomach, of course) so that I can stop thinking about it. These are all signs of addiction, of course. So I guess my coping level with chocolate is still at the "keep it away from me" level. Well, maybe I'll try again at the next chocolate-eating holiday (that would be Easter, I think).
Otherwise, I'm puttering along with my eating plan and my daily exercise. I'm telling more people about it, too, these days. That's a good sign, I think. It means I feel pretty confident that I'm not going to slide back to my old ways. If I weren't so confident, I'd be afraid to tell people because they might be disappointed with me later if I fail once again to get slim.
These are all familiar feelings to those of us who struggle with our weight. But I still think I can win this battle and stay slim, despite all the challenges. I'm really starting to understand what it means to be "recovering" instead of "recovered." It's never over; I'm never going to be completely free of eating addictions. But as long as I know that, I can continue to keep them at bay.
Until next time . . .
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Week 50: Step 10 - The Zeroing In Technique
Week 50 is here, which means it's been almost a year since I started my eating plan (a little more than a year since I started this blog). I haven't lost nearly as much weight as I'd hoped to (not even a pound a week), but I've made great progress on learning the behaviors I will need to stay thin for the rest of my life. And for the first time, I'm below 160 pounds, which means I've reached another milestone.
This past week I was challenged by lunch out with my coworkers at a restaurant that featured large quantities of high-calorie foods. I would have liked to have met the challenge more successfully, but I did learn some things. The first challenge was the cost of the meal: it was much higher than I'm willing to pay normally. This by itself was not bad. The problem was that with a meal that expensive I wanted to get my money's worth, but to do that meant eating more than I should. So I had to decide whether I would be happier eating less than my money's worth, or eating more than I should. Was there a way to compromise? I tried to find one by eating from the salad bar first so that I might be too full to eat much of the meats that were offered in quantities limited only by the diner's appetite. Since the idea of going to a Brazilian steak house is to eat the meat, I felt I was at least going to get an experience for my money by choosing both the salad bar and the meat.
Well, the first part worked pretty well. I ate from the salad bar some nice veggies (asparagus was one), but also ate some of the creamy soup and bacon chunks (they were much bigger than bits) and a little pasta roll. The second part was also moderately successful. When the meat started to arrive, I ate small slices, but it was so fatty that even a small slice was probably high in calories. It was tasty though, and I tried to eat slowly and enjoy it. I ended up not eating everything I was served, but I was still pretty full when I pushed the plate away. When the dessert cart came around, I said no along with my fellows.
Interestingly enough, when I saw the dessert cart, the first thing I asked myself was, "Is it included?" Of course, that should make no difference. The proper question should be, "Do I want any dessert?" Once again the old "waste not, want not" subterfuge (in one of its variations: "I have to get my money's worth") came into play, tempting me to ignore the fact that I'd already had more than enough to eat. Even then, I might have gone for it if someone else at the table had offered to share a dessert (no one did). The cakes and puddings looked very rich and were probably delicious, but again, that was not the issue.
But this is the kind of eating behavior problem that persists in showing up to try to take me down just as I'm getting close to my goal. And they're not going to go away without some extra effort. In her book, Learn to Be Thin, Shirley Simon offers what she calls "Extra Help Techniques" to deal with the more stubborn eating problems that prevent people from succeeding. I've already outlined the first technique that was introduced in Step 9: The Clue-Finding Technique. Step 10 describes the "Zeroing-In Technique" (160).
In the Zeroing-In Technique, we choose the eating problems we want to work on and then find and employ the best way to solve them. In this step she also introduces coping levels 1 through 7. The coping levels outline how well you deal with temptation when faced with it. For instance, if one of your eating problems is that you can't stop eating ice cream once you start, you might not be able to cope with ice cream at level one, the highest level, where you are face-to-face with your nemesis without any help--that is, the take-it-or-leave-it level. The lowest coping level, seven, is where you can't even stand to have it around and so to avoid temptation, you have to keep the problem food out of your life entirely. In between are coping levels 2-6, where you can have it around, but have to do something to avoid eating it, whether it's facing it under controlled conditions, or keeping your hands or mouth busy without eating it, eating something innocuous instead, or making it difficult to get to it. In psychology terms, the process of moving through such coping levels is called successive approximation.
For each problem eating behavior, you choose which coping level you are at currently, then gradually try to move up to level one: face-to-face without any help. So take my problem of not eating responsibly at a restaurant, for instance. To change that behavior, I need to work on getting to level one, where no matter the occasion or the restaurant, I will eat only those things that are appropriate to eat and refuse those that aren't. Before I do that, though, I need to decide what level I'm at now. I'm not sure about it, but I'm going to do some research and find out.
So that's what I'm going to do this week coming up. I'll report on my results next week!
This past week I was challenged by lunch out with my coworkers at a restaurant that featured large quantities of high-calorie foods. I would have liked to have met the challenge more successfully, but I did learn some things. The first challenge was the cost of the meal: it was much higher than I'm willing to pay normally. This by itself was not bad. The problem was that with a meal that expensive I wanted to get my money's worth, but to do that meant eating more than I should. So I had to decide whether I would be happier eating less than my money's worth, or eating more than I should. Was there a way to compromise? I tried to find one by eating from the salad bar first so that I might be too full to eat much of the meats that were offered in quantities limited only by the diner's appetite. Since the idea of going to a Brazilian steak house is to eat the meat, I felt I was at least going to get an experience for my money by choosing both the salad bar and the meat.
Well, the first part worked pretty well. I ate from the salad bar some nice veggies (asparagus was one), but also ate some of the creamy soup and bacon chunks (they were much bigger than bits) and a little pasta roll. The second part was also moderately successful. When the meat started to arrive, I ate small slices, but it was so fatty that even a small slice was probably high in calories. It was tasty though, and I tried to eat slowly and enjoy it. I ended up not eating everything I was served, but I was still pretty full when I pushed the plate away. When the dessert cart came around, I said no along with my fellows.
Interestingly enough, when I saw the dessert cart, the first thing I asked myself was, "Is it included?" Of course, that should make no difference. The proper question should be, "Do I want any dessert?" Once again the old "waste not, want not" subterfuge (in one of its variations: "I have to get my money's worth") came into play, tempting me to ignore the fact that I'd already had more than enough to eat. Even then, I might have gone for it if someone else at the table had offered to share a dessert (no one did). The cakes and puddings looked very rich and were probably delicious, but again, that was not the issue.
But this is the kind of eating behavior problem that persists in showing up to try to take me down just as I'm getting close to my goal. And they're not going to go away without some extra effort. In her book, Learn to Be Thin, Shirley Simon offers what she calls "Extra Help Techniques" to deal with the more stubborn eating problems that prevent people from succeeding. I've already outlined the first technique that was introduced in Step 9: The Clue-Finding Technique. Step 10 describes the "Zeroing-In Technique" (160).
In the Zeroing-In Technique, we choose the eating problems we want to work on and then find and employ the best way to solve them. In this step she also introduces coping levels 1 through 7. The coping levels outline how well you deal with temptation when faced with it. For instance, if one of your eating problems is that you can't stop eating ice cream once you start, you might not be able to cope with ice cream at level one, the highest level, where you are face-to-face with your nemesis without any help--that is, the take-it-or-leave-it level. The lowest coping level, seven, is where you can't even stand to have it around and so to avoid temptation, you have to keep the problem food out of your life entirely. In between are coping levels 2-6, where you can have it around, but have to do something to avoid eating it, whether it's facing it under controlled conditions, or keeping your hands or mouth busy without eating it, eating something innocuous instead, or making it difficult to get to it. In psychology terms, the process of moving through such coping levels is called successive approximation.
For each problem eating behavior, you choose which coping level you are at currently, then gradually try to move up to level one: face-to-face without any help. So take my problem of not eating responsibly at a restaurant, for instance. To change that behavior, I need to work on getting to level one, where no matter the occasion or the restaurant, I will eat only those things that are appropriate to eat and refuse those that aren't. Before I do that, though, I need to decide what level I'm at now. I'm not sure about it, but I'm going to do some research and find out.
So that's what I'm going to do this week coming up. I'll report on my results next week!
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