Four Weeks: So Far, So Good

Hurrah! Another week has passed on my eating program without major mishap. Today marks the end of four weeks on the Learn To Be Thin program.  I haven't gotten this far on the program in many, many years.  But despite such success, I feel wary.  I know that I've been leading a rather controlled existence, staying away from family get-togethers, avoiding going out to eat and other troublesome situations.  I can't ever get complacent, because I know I'm a long way from where I want to be with changing my eating habits.

This situation reminds me of when I decided to stop smoking, many years ago. I had to fight the urge to pull out a cigarette (or more likely, bum one off someone) and light up, especially at those times when smoking is the normal thing to do (at a bar, for instance).  And at times I would light up, thinking that one cigarette wouldn't hurt me. But like most smokers trying to quit, I finally had to admit I was fooling myself.  One cigarette always leads to more. And more.

It's the same way with eating certain foods.  I'm not ready to have "just a bite" of a brownie or a slice of pizza.  And there's no point in going to an all-you-can-eat restaurant because there's only one way to get your money's worth at those places.  So, I stay away completely.  But I must admit a certain wistful feeling when I see what my husband calls "my old buddies," such as the mid-afternoon muffins and milk I used to get at the coffee stand on the skywalk where I now take my daily walk.  Just yesterday I risked a glance in that direction as I passed, noticing that there were a couple of muffins sitting there, waiting for someone to buy them.  I worried for just a moment that other people might be cutting back, and how would that affect the servers at the coffee stand? Would they lose their jobs?  Then I recognized that thought as a version of the Martyr Subterfuge, the one that says, "I must eat, no matter how bad it is for me, because I'm helping someone else" (22).  And I kept on walking. 

One thing I did have a little trouble with this week was practicing the "Thin Gourmet" (TG) technique. With this technique, you take a different approach to your food.  Instead of the "famished dog" approach, where you barely taste the food you're gulping down, with the TG approach, you take your time, savoring each bite.  The idea is to slow down the process, pay more attention to what and how much you are eating so that 1) you'll stop eating when you're full; and 2) you'll actually enjoy the flavor and texture of the food. 

Shirley suggests practicing the technique at times when you're least distracted, preferably when you're alone and you have time to eat slowly.  The process is this: Pay attention to how the food looks and smells. Take small bites, chewing each one thoroughly and swallowing before picking up the next bite.  Put the utensil down while you're chewing instead of prepping the next bite (maybe the hardest step).  Stop and take breaks every few bites, sip some water or just rest for a moment.  And throughout the process, pay attention to the state of your stomach, and as soon as you feel full, stop eating.  Shirley suggests you take at least 20 minutes to do this exercise.

I tried it a few times last week, but it was pretty difficult.  I'm used to eating at a steady pace, not paying attention to what I'm eating, not chewing well, not stopping when I'm full.  Just putting the fork or spoon down during chewing takes an effort.  But I'm not giving up.  This week, I'm going to practice this at least once a day.  I'll let you know how I do.

Eating Out Challenge

Well, I've survived another week of working the LTBT program, and I haven't had any major difficulties. Thursday would have been more of a challenge since I had planned to have lunch at a restaurant with a group of coworkers to celebrate someone's retirement. We had to postpone it, though, and since I didn't bring my lunch that day in anticipation of the outing, I had to eat out anyway. I was worried the cafeteria wouldn't have anything on my eating plan, but they did have plain sandwiches, so I had one of those, trying to memorize what I ate. I think I probably had more food than normal, but I stayed away from tuna salad type sandwiches and stuck with plain turkey and cheese. The bread was no doubt more than 100 calories, but other than that, I think I did well. And it was a good sandwich.

In anticipation of eating at a fancy restaurant, however, I had looked at the menu on line to see if there was anything there I could eat. I decided that I could have the salmon or the steak salad. That made me feel a little better because I wouldn't be confronted with no good choices. Plus, I would order faster, which my coworkers would no doubt appreciate. I know my husband gets irritated with my slow decision making when it comes to ordering. So now I'm ready for next week's luncheon.

That's one thing the internet has done for dieters. Back in Shirley's day, there were few ways to know what a restaurant had on their menu before actually eating there.

Other than that challenge, I did pretty well this week. And I exercised nearly every day. My husband helps a lot by making nutritious dinners that are on the menu plan. I get home around six and find supper ready to be served, which really helps since by that time I'm very hungry and would have a hard time making supper quickly enough if I had to do it myself. And I might be tempted to eat something to tide me over.

Though I don't dwell on weight loss, I was able to lose 1 1/2 pounds last week, which doesn't seem like a lot, but is about what I should be losing, so that's fine. And I can feel my clothes fitting slightly better, even though the changes don't show up in the mirror.

This coming week a new behavior will be added: what Shirley calls the "Thin Gourmet Technique" (121). I'll write about that in my next post.

Learning to Be Thin: The First Two Weeks

On February 27, I began the "Learn to Be Thin" diet, or the LTBT diet, I guess you could call it.  I acquired all the food I needed, dug out one of my old notebooks to record my eating, and began.

It's been two weeks now, and I feel pretty good about what I've accomplished.  I didn't have too many challenges to cope with, although there were a couple:

1. Despite the diet's claim of containing enough food to prevent hunger, I did get hungry a number of times in the first week.  For that reason, I did add a bread and a fruit to the menu plan, and that helped somewhat, especially during the late afternoon, when I have six hours from lunch until dinner.  I decided, though, that doing more exercise would probably cut my appetite, so I tried to get in more walking, and it did seem to help some.
2. The challenge in the second week was the potluck "tea party" those in my work group gave to one of our members to celebrate her retirement.  Fortunately, the organizer gave an idea of what kind of foods people should bring, and I brought cheese and grapes, both foods I knew I could eat.  So I was able to formulate a plan to prevent eating everything in sight.  I must say things went quite well; although I didn't measure as carefully as I could have, I mostly ate foods on the menu plan (home made scone excepted) and avoided all the "outsider" foods such as cake and chicken salad that were offered.  And perhaps what was most surprising of all, I didn't feel as though I had to be constantly shoveling food in my mouth to have a good time. In fact, I was able to participate more in the conversation and look at the people I was sitting with, which turned out to be very relaxing.  I struggled a bit with allowing all that good food to go "to waste," but it passed after a while.

I have to admit that I did "tinker" a bit with the menu plan, although Shirley warns against it, saying that it could lead to wholesale "fooling around" and end up derailing your whole menu plan.  I took that warning to heart, and do try to monitor my response to the foods I've decided to include, despite their not being on the menu plan.

Foods I think I can handle are oatmeal, lunch meat, dried and canned fruits, peanut butter, and jelly.  I haven't detected much problem yet with them, so I'll continue until I see they're causing me trouble.

What I have noticed is what I'll call "measurement creep"; this happens when I decide I can fudge a little on the weighing or measuring of foods.  That can quickly get out of hand, and I constantly have to be vigilant lest a half-cup gradually becomes a full cup of food or a teaspoon becomes a tablespoon.

Another challenge is making sure I write everything down.  I forget now and then, though so far I've been keeping it up pretty well, even writing in the last food of the day, which is tempting to skip since it seems like it doesn't matter at that point.

I've weighed myself only twice during the two weeks, as suggested.  I didn't lose any weight the first week, but I suspect I'll make up for it the second.  What matters the most is how much control I've exhibited over the two weeks, and in that I think I've done well.

Well, that's all for now. I'll write more about how I'm doing in my next post.

Chapter 6: The Basic Program

Well, I've finally arrived at the moment of truth: working the program.  It's a complex program that is best taken in by reading the book, but I'll tell you its central tenets:

Keep track of everything you eat, no matter how small the morsel. By keeping track, I mean weigh or measure everything that is accountable.  Write it down in your eating log every day.

Eat only during meals (maxi- or mini-meals) and at the table or other designated eating spot.

Weigh only once a week.

Worry about one hour at a time; if you slip up, record it and forget it. Strive to do better the next hour.

Focus on your eating behaviors, subterfuges of fat, the 5Ws of your eating problems and be aware of how they are sabotaging your efforts.

Use water helpers and chewy helpers and sweet-tooth satisfiers to make the diet more satisfying and filling.

Practice good eating habits until they become your normal behaviors.

Add troublesome foods gradually as you gain control until you are eating almost everything, but in smaller quantities.

The food plan is basically a diabetic diet: high protein, low fat and complex carbohydrates.  It's well balanced and nutritious.  But it doesn't allow the foods overeaters have trouble controlling, such as sweets, high calorie snacks, fatty meats--at least, not at first. 

It's a tough program to follow, especially in the beginning, but it has the capacity to really effect change.

In my next post, I'll tell you how I did my first two weeks working it.

Chapter 5: Analyzing Your Eating Problems

Well, it took me a while to get to my next post, but here I am, with a synopsis of Chapter 5, "Analyzing Your Eating Problems," the last chapter in the section called "Understanding Your Problems."

A Vocabulary Aside: Lately, for whatever reason, the media has decided to ban the use of the word problem. We no longer have problems, it seems, but issues or challenges.  Unfortunately, when people talk about solving issues or challenges, the verb doesn't make sense. You can discuss an issue, or meet a challenge, but if you want to solve something, what you're solving needs to be a problem.  Since I'll be talking about solving problems, I just want anyone who wonders about the word problem to know why I'm using it.

Chapter 5 is about analyzing your own particular eating problems.  The previous chapters talked more in general about eating problems that are common to most compulsive eaters, but in this chapter, Simon wants us to zero in on what specifically gives us trouble on a day-to-day basis.  Then, once the problem eating behavior is identified, we determine the 5 Ws: who, what, where, when, and how of that behavior.

For instance, I have a problem with eating calorie-laden snacks in the late afternoon.  The 5 Ws of that situation are:

Who:  Just me
What:  Muffins or cookies or other cake-type snacks
Where: At my desk at work (but also the skywalk where such goodies can be found)
When:  Late afternoon, usually around 3:30
Why:  Ostensibly because I'm hungry, but also because I have a craving for sugar and fat

That's all there is to it.  Shirley recommends we list all the eating problems we can think of and analyze them in this way.  She suggests using index cards, one for each problem.  Once all the problems are analyzed, then patterns may begin to emerge which will help us figure out the best way to solve them.

In the case of my problem above, I see that hunger plays a part, as does my going out to the skywalk in search of a treat.  I think, too, that I look forward to the boost I get from seeking out the treat as well as the sugar infusion I get from eating it. As a result of this behavior, the doldrums of the late afternoon are perked up.  Now that I'm thinking about it, my biological clock seems to always wind down about that time of day.  But maybe I don't need to eat cake treats to give me a boost.  Maybe a piece of fruit will do.  Of course, I won't find any fruit on the skywalk, at least not at that time of day.  But I bring fruit to work, so I always have it on hand and don't really need to go outside the office to get a snack.  So maybe there's also a bit of rewarding myself with a treat and a break from the office that comes into play with this behavior.  I don't feel rewarded by eating a piece of fruit at my desk.

As you can see, thinking about the problem causes the true complexity of it to come to light. I may not be able to change the fact that I need a boost mid-afternoon, but maybe I can change my attitude toward what I choose to give me that boost.  Maybe I can admit that fruit will do me more good than cake, at least physically. Psychologically, I can convince myself that eating cake is really no reward at all.

Though it may seem like this exercise is tedious and kind of mickey-mouse, it's actually helpful to understand all that goes into a destructive behavior that is largely unconscious and seemingly automatic. With understanding, the danger of impulsive eating can be lessened.

I did this step very diligently (this time), and came up with a number of eating problems that I analyzed. I found it helpful, and the knowledge I gained from doing the analysis bolsters me when I'm tempted to fall into old habits.

In my next post, I'll finally talk about the program and how I'm doing so far working it.  So stay tuned!

Chapter 4: The Right Frame of Mind

This chapter is about the serious subject of preparing ourselves for battle. Embarking on a life-changing plan like this one is going to be difficult and painful, and requires that we approach it as such.  So Shirley shrewdly includes in this chapter such topics as: Finding the Time; A Sense of Self Worth; Developing Willpower for Changing; Making Free Choices; Diet Enemies and Allies; Losing Weight--How Much and How Fast; and How to Work Alone or with a Group.

Each topic deals with some aspect of preparing mentally for what is to come.  For instance, tell yourself that you have that few minutes a day that it will take to write down what you eat, to weigh and measure your food; tell yourself your health and well being are worth the changes that you will be making to your own lifestyle and that of your family. 

The topic of willpower is a sensitive one for most people who overeat.  Critics often tell us to just stop eating, to push ourselves away from the table, to exert some willpower--it's that simple, they say, to lose weight.  But as we know, willpower is not something you can suddenly deploy.  It has to be developed over time, by making the healthier choices over and over until they seem more natural, more routine.  But it has to start with the desire to control eating, or as Shirley says, "to give up the comfort of learned helplessness" (57). But even when you make the decision to change your behavior, you will still have difficulty, and you should expect set backs.  As Shirley says, "Temper enthusiasm and commitment with some practical realism" (58).  Change doesn't happen overnight, but you can learn methods of coping with those times when you're faced with temptation, when your old habits kick in and you want to just give up, put off changing until some more "convenient" time. 

Part of developing willpower is knowing that you have a choice.  You don't have to eat every last pretzel in the bag, or every piece of leftover cake that no one else wants.  You can choose to not eat, or to eat only the amount that is reasonable, or to eat something more nutritious and less calorie-laden than you would have eaten in the past.  Freedom to eat whatever you want becomes instead freedom to choose.  As Shirley puts it, "Real freedom comes from learning to control your actions and your environment" (61), and not allowing them to control you.

One topic Simon touches on in this chapter has to do with those people in your life who may not want you to change, and who see your new attitude toward eating as frightening in some way--"diet enemies," as she calls them.  Maybe those people are more invested than they realize in keeping you fat and eating.  She offers some helps for such obstacles.  And she also tells how to help those who really do want to help so that they don't end up making things worse.  We've all had those friends who, the minute they know you're on a diet, feel they should constantly police you and point out to you when you're slipping up.  Shirley gives us this advice about such would-be "diet allies":

Much as [the diet ally] may want to help, he cannot do the job for the dieter.  He should neither lecture nor scold, for these reactions will only produce negative effects by encouraging subterfuges like the Unloved or the Failure.  Instead, the diet ally should take an honest and adult position.  He should not feign ignorance, but he must at the same time insure that he doesn't pass judgment.  The dieter knows it's wrong. If asked for advice or assistance, the ally should give it, but he must not allow the buck to be passed to him. . . . He should help the dieter to become solution-oriented.  (63-4)

In this chapter Shirley also touches on the issue of losing weight.  Of course, the main reason to change eating habits is to lose weight, but Simon believes we shouldn't dwell on weight loss unduly.  Instead of checking your weight every day (or every hour), you should only check once a week.  And you shouldn't put too much stock in the numbers that come up from week to week.  That way, she believes, the emphasis stays on behavior change and not on weight loss.

The last part of the chapter covers working with weight loss groups.  She has some handy advice if you want to follow her program with others or while being involved in a group like Weight Watchers.  Not all groups are helpful and may even make changing behavior more difficult.  She advises caution and gives some tips.

Chapter 5 is the final chapter in the first section, "Understanding Your Problems."  I'll cover that chapter in my next post.

Chapter 3: Who Are You?

Chapter 3 of Learn to Be Thin asks you, the reader, to "examine your Eating Self," the you who eats too much and regrets it afterward. What is the main behavior pattern that you use to succeed in overeating?

In this chapter, too, Shirley talks about "food-related stimuli" (39)--those things in our environment that are triggering the eating response.  Learning about what is triggering overeating can help us to either eliminate the triggers or head them off some way.

Shirley breaks the Eating Self into three categories: Bingers, Nibblers, and Hearty Eaters.

Binge eaters eat normally most of the time until they get to the binge; then it's off to the races until the binge is finished.  Shirley examines the "dynamics" of the binge: "what gets it started, what keeps it going, what makes it gain momentum, and why it won't end" (39).  What seems to be true with all binges, she says, is that the person is not aware of what the trigger is and before he or she becomes aware, it's too late.

For me, a binge often starts with an overindulgence of some kind.  I allow myself to have a hot fudge sundae, or I go to a dessert buffet and decide to sample it all.  Then when the sugar rush wears off, I'm looking for another hit.  Often times, when I can't find the good stuff, I'll settle for the mediocre sweets, which of course doesn't satisfy the craving, so I go looking for more.  Eventually it ends, but it may be weeks later.  Mine is more of what Shirley calls a "binge-stop-binge pattern" (41).

I agree, though, that not thinking is what makes it carry on.  But I also think there's more to it than that. I can feel the craving coming over me sometimes. I may have gone without eating sweets for several days, then in a moment of not thinking, or of telling myself "one won't hurt," I go ahead and eat a donut or a piece of chocolate.  Almost as soon as I do, I feel a little "rush" that makes me take a mental step back and think "Uh-oh; here we go."  Sometimes I'm not aware of the rush and I go with the feeling for a few days or a week.

The Nibblers are those who overeat in bits and dabs. They can tell themselves they're not eating too much because they're just taking a few of this and a bite of that.  It seems like it's nothing, but it adds up.  And once again, it's unconscious eating.  If you're at a party, you're talking and not noticing how much you're putting into your mouth.  But it ends up being a lot, and then you can't account for why you feel so full. 

I've been a Nibbler at parties where there are bowls of chips and dip, or fancy little stuffed mushrooms or other hors d'oevres, or at Mexican restaurants where they bring me a bowl of taco chips and salsa, and by the time the meal arrives I'm so full of chips the meal seems almost unappetizing.  But of course I eat it anyway.  Eating in front of the TV when watching a movie or a game also should be included in this category.  Nibbling, I think, is particularly unconscious eating and therefore particularly insidious. 

The Hearty Eater is someone who claims to love eating and wants to eat a lot and does so at every opportunity.  It seems well planned, but is it really?  The Hearty Eater needs an excuse, like any other overeater, and can find one readily enough.  There is always a reason to overeat if we go looking for one.

I fall victim to this when I go out to eat, or when eating at other people's houses.  My friends and family know I like to eat and want to please me, so they serve delicious food.  They know I'll appreciate their efforts more than their skinny friends who say "Oh, no, I'm so full I couldn't eat another bite."  I can't tell you how many times I've been praised for my "good appetite." They want to please me, I want to please them, and so I go ahead and eat that extra bite and the next and the next.  Everybody's happy, everybody's got a valid excuse for me to eat, and I just get fatter.

What Shirley is trying to get across in this chapter with her analysis is that in order to change our eating habits, it's crucial that we become aware of them, not just when we're reading the chapter, but at the moments when they are actually operating on us.  My awareness of the rush that I get when I eat sweets after not eating them for a few days is the kind of attention I need to pay every time I put food in my mouth, or even think about eating.

Have you ever noticed how many commercials there are on TV for highly caloric food? Who do you think is the target of those ads? Ah, yes, it's us, the food addicts.  Pay attention to them sometime and notice what they're using to get us to eat.  They're going for the subliminal approach, making it all so enticing.

There should be warning labels for these foods that follow the ads, like the ones prescription drugs are forced to include in their ads.  Maybe that would make us aware of what those ads are triggering.  It's a thought.  Is it going to happen any time soon? Not a chance!  So we have to do it ourselves, to mentally include the warnings, the list of side effects to that 1/2 pound bacon and cheese burger that looks so good!

So this week, we gain more understanding of our eating behaviors. One step closer to freedom from eating tyranny!