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!
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Checking Out the Other Half
Well, I skipped a week (or so) on my weight loss log, but not much happened that was different. I'll summarize: mostly I stuck to my eating plan but occasionally I indulged in a treat or two (at work, of course). When I did find myself with my wheels off the pavement, I had a little bit of a hard time getting them back on the road. It just goes to show you, those old habits die very hard.
One treat tends to lead to another, I've found, so each time I wandered towards the well trodden path I was reminded that I'm not out of the woods yet. (Boy, the journey metaphors are just piling up!) Maybe I never will be. But I do want to go on experimenting so that I can continue to learn where my boundaries are.
I still like to see what the thin people are doing (how the other half lives, you might say). I notice that they can take or leave a piece of cake or a doughnut, and are not persuaded by the pleas of food profferers to indulge. They just say, "No, thanks!" and move on. My goal is to have that attitude. It would match the one I have toward alcohol, where I slowly drink 3 bottles of beer over the course of a month. (One is still unopened from New Year's eve.) I can't imagine doing that with a bag of candy, so I'm still in thrall to treats, I guess.
But I feel self-righteous occasionally, too, when I'm able to keep on with my program despite the occasional minor setback. This blog helps a lot, more than I had ever imagined it would. It's the perfect sounding board. I can confess my difficulties without worrying about its reaction. And it never lectures me or scolds me. It doesn't praise me, either, which is fine. I know that what matters in the end is whether or not, when I reach my goal, I can stay there for the rest of my life.
I'll write more this weekend. See you then!
One treat tends to lead to another, I've found, so each time I wandered towards the well trodden path I was reminded that I'm not out of the woods yet. (Boy, the journey metaphors are just piling up!) Maybe I never will be. But I do want to go on experimenting so that I can continue to learn where my boundaries are.
I still like to see what the thin people are doing (how the other half lives, you might say). I notice that they can take or leave a piece of cake or a doughnut, and are not persuaded by the pleas of food profferers to indulge. They just say, "No, thanks!" and move on. My goal is to have that attitude. It would match the one I have toward alcohol, where I slowly drink 3 bottles of beer over the course of a month. (One is still unopened from New Year's eve.) I can't imagine doing that with a bag of candy, so I'm still in thrall to treats, I guess.
But I feel self-righteous occasionally, too, when I'm able to keep on with my program despite the occasional minor setback. This blog helps a lot, more than I had ever imagined it would. It's the perfect sounding board. I can confess my difficulties without worrying about its reaction. And it never lectures me or scolds me. It doesn't praise me, either, which is fine. I know that what matters in the end is whether or not, when I reach my goal, I can stay there for the rest of my life.
I'll write more this weekend. See you then!
Monday, January 16, 2012
Those Precious Treats
It's that time of year again, when everyone who wants to lose weight resolves to do so, and then looks for a way to make it happen. This past week, I heard a couple of coworkers talking about losing weight. They were describing methods they've used in the past that didn't ultimately work. (One was a 1,000-calorie-and- four-hours-exercise-a-day plan.) I tried to interject with my weight loss story, but they weren't paying attention. I find that somewhat disappointing. I have a method that actually works and works well, but no one wants to know about it. But I guess I shouldn't be surprised. People want a fast and easy way to lose weight, and don't want to hear about the long and difficult road to slimness. They want the benefits of weight loss but don't want to change and give up their destructive eating habits--at least not forever.
Believe me, I understand. I still have nostalgia for those pint-a-night Ben and Jerry's ice cream fests. If only such pleasures were consequence-free! But alas, an addiction's an addiction, no matter how you trick it out to make it look harmless or even wholesome. Collecting unneeded fat cells on your body is no different from collecting stacks and stacks of unread newspapers, or boxes and boxes of useless trash, or dozens and dozens of cats in your apartment. It's a type of hoarding, after all, and just as debilitating a condition, in my opinion. If you look at the symptoms, you'll see similarities, I think.
Here are the symptoms of compulsive hoarding (taken from Wikipedia):
For an obese person to learn what kinds of food are good to eat and what kinds aren't is fine, but it's more or less beside the point. Even if a compulsive eater didn't know the nutritional value of a big piece of chocolate cake or a serving of french fries (hard to imagine these days), he would not be helped by watching a TV show where a doctor describes in detail (complete with hideous pictures of ruined organs) the many hazards of eating such foods.
Educational remedies are well-intentioned but not very realistic, especially when dealing with addictions. We can see that's true, I think, when we watch the therapists on Hoarders try to get a hoarder to throw away just one thing. Though the hoarder agrees that she and her family are being destroyed by her mountain of useless junk, she still resists. And for those of us watching, the magnitude of the task seems overwhelming, nearly impossible. We want to opt for the quick and easy solution: Put a match to the place and walk away. But I think we all know that even if everything the woman hoarded were destroyed, she'd be building another, probably bigger pile of junk as soon as she recovered from the loss of her current one.
So, too, with us fat-cell hoarders. Giving up even one piece of pie or serving of french fries or box of chocolates--no matter how old, cheap, dried up, badly cooked or tasteless--presents a monumental challenge. We resist, we offer excuses, we lash out at those who would deprive us of our "precious" treats. And if we get desperate and go for the drastic "put a match to it" solution (with some crash diet/exercise plan), it isn't long before we start over, building a bigger and better mound of fat cells.
Like the hoarders, compulsive eaters can't get over their addiction in one day (or in one half-hour television episode). Such drastic change takes time and lots of hard work, and the outcome is never certain. This past week, I went back to my relatively restricted diet and tried to increase my exercise, and I lost .8 pounds, or about what I should be losing. I'm making very slow progress, but I'm sticking with it, as monumental a task as it seems. And each week I'm learning more and more not what I should be eating, but how to be thin.
See you next time!
Believe me, I understand. I still have nostalgia for those pint-a-night Ben and Jerry's ice cream fests. If only such pleasures were consequence-free! But alas, an addiction's an addiction, no matter how you trick it out to make it look harmless or even wholesome. Collecting unneeded fat cells on your body is no different from collecting stacks and stacks of unread newspapers, or boxes and boxes of useless trash, or dozens and dozens of cats in your apartment. It's a type of hoarding, after all, and just as debilitating a condition, in my opinion. If you look at the symptoms, you'll see similarities, I think.
Here are the symptoms of compulsive hoarding (taken from Wikipedia):
Compulsive hoarding (or pathological collecting) is a pattern of behavior that is characterized by the excessive acquisition and inability or unwillingness to discard large quantities of objects that would seemingly qualify as useless or without value. Compulsive hoarding behavior has been associated with health risks, impaired functioning, economic burden, and adverse effects on friends and family members.If you substitute the word "objects" with "fat cells" and "hoarding" with "eating," you gain a different perspective on compulsive eating, I think. Hoarders have excuses for why they must collect and save all these useless items, but they don't really bear scrutiny--any more than do the excuses given by compulsive eaters for why they must buy, prepare and consume thousands of calories that will not be needed to fuel or sustain their bodies at any time in the near future. Shirley calls such excuses "subterfuges" because they attempt to conceal the true reason for eating--that we can't stop ourselves. Hoarders must face the same truth: they continue to hoard because they can't stop.
For an obese person to learn what kinds of food are good to eat and what kinds aren't is fine, but it's more or less beside the point. Even if a compulsive eater didn't know the nutritional value of a big piece of chocolate cake or a serving of french fries (hard to imagine these days), he would not be helped by watching a TV show where a doctor describes in detail (complete with hideous pictures of ruined organs) the many hazards of eating such foods.
Educational remedies are well-intentioned but not very realistic, especially when dealing with addictions. We can see that's true, I think, when we watch the therapists on Hoarders try to get a hoarder to throw away just one thing. Though the hoarder agrees that she and her family are being destroyed by her mountain of useless junk, she still resists. And for those of us watching, the magnitude of the task seems overwhelming, nearly impossible. We want to opt for the quick and easy solution: Put a match to the place and walk away. But I think we all know that even if everything the woman hoarded were destroyed, she'd be building another, probably bigger pile of junk as soon as she recovered from the loss of her current one.
So, too, with us fat-cell hoarders. Giving up even one piece of pie or serving of french fries or box of chocolates--no matter how old, cheap, dried up, badly cooked or tasteless--presents a monumental challenge. We resist, we offer excuses, we lash out at those who would deprive us of our "precious" treats. And if we get desperate and go for the drastic "put a match to it" solution (with some crash diet/exercise plan), it isn't long before we start over, building a bigger and better mound of fat cells.
Like the hoarders, compulsive eaters can't get over their addiction in one day (or in one half-hour television episode). Such drastic change takes time and lots of hard work, and the outcome is never certain. This past week, I went back to my relatively restricted diet and tried to increase my exercise, and I lost .8 pounds, or about what I should be losing. I'm making very slow progress, but I'm sticking with it, as monumental a task as it seems. And each week I'm learning more and more not what I should be eating, but how to be thin.
See you next time!
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Week 46: Time to Do the Math
This week I gained a pound, so I had to do some research to see what happened. I know I ate small amounts of food not on the diet plan--more of the chocolate that was available--and fudged on measuring some foods. But those seem like relatively harmless transgressions. I decided I needed to "do the math" to see what's going on.
What I discovered is that my caloric intake (even when I'm going strictly by my menu plan) is very close to what I would need to maintain the weight I carry now. Moreover, it is exactly what I will need to maintain my goal weight of 135 pounds. The 1700 calories I'm allowing myself per day is designed to take off only 0.81 pounds per week. But my weight loss over the 45 weeks I've been on the program has averaged only 0.75 pounds per week. At this rate, I will not get to goal weight for another eight months. Suffice it to say that it wouldn't take much "fooling around" (as Shirley puts it) to slow my progress even more.
So, what to do to change this? Well, I have two choices: eat less or exercise more. My relatively high level of caloric intake is based on a fairly low level of activity. Changing one or both of the two factors should make a difference. But as it is, my current menu plan is barely adequate to keep me from being hungry, especially in the afternoon. I could tinker with my evening meal, though, or cut my evening snack to pare off some calories. I'm the least hungry at that time. Or I could delay breakfast and have it at work in place of my morning snack. Usually I'm not hungry early in the morning anyway.
Getting more exercise is also a challenge. I do a half hour of dancing in the morning, but then don't exercise much after that. I walk around the office some, but it doesn't amount to very many minutes, and the rest of the time I'm sitting. I could try to incorporate more activity into my day--walking every time I go to the bathroom, for instance, or moving my arms and legs as I'm working on the computer. Those are possibilities. Finding the time for additional workouts is a problem, though. I don't think I can stay later at work, since I have so little time at home as it is, and getting up earlier would mean going to bed earlier, which would cut into my time with my husband.
The third option is just to leave things as they are, and be content with the amount of time it will take to get to my goal. And if I can cut down on the excess, I will at least stay on target to make weight by mid-September. That's not a bad thing, because if I continue to eat 1700 calories a day for another eight months, I'll be used to it by the time it becomes my maintenance plan. By September, I will have learned how to eat like someone who weighs 135 pounds. And that's the ultimate goal, now, isn't it?
This week I'll do some experimenting with cutting calories and adding exercise and see how that works. I'll let you know the results in my next post.
Until then . . .
What I discovered is that my caloric intake (even when I'm going strictly by my menu plan) is very close to what I would need to maintain the weight I carry now. Moreover, it is exactly what I will need to maintain my goal weight of 135 pounds. The 1700 calories I'm allowing myself per day is designed to take off only 0.81 pounds per week. But my weight loss over the 45 weeks I've been on the program has averaged only 0.75 pounds per week. At this rate, I will not get to goal weight for another eight months. Suffice it to say that it wouldn't take much "fooling around" (as Shirley puts it) to slow my progress even more.
So, what to do to change this? Well, I have two choices: eat less or exercise more. My relatively high level of caloric intake is based on a fairly low level of activity. Changing one or both of the two factors should make a difference. But as it is, my current menu plan is barely adequate to keep me from being hungry, especially in the afternoon. I could tinker with my evening meal, though, or cut my evening snack to pare off some calories. I'm the least hungry at that time. Or I could delay breakfast and have it at work in place of my morning snack. Usually I'm not hungry early in the morning anyway.
Getting more exercise is also a challenge. I do a half hour of dancing in the morning, but then don't exercise much after that. I walk around the office some, but it doesn't amount to very many minutes, and the rest of the time I'm sitting. I could try to incorporate more activity into my day--walking every time I go to the bathroom, for instance, or moving my arms and legs as I'm working on the computer. Those are possibilities. Finding the time for additional workouts is a problem, though. I don't think I can stay later at work, since I have so little time at home as it is, and getting up earlier would mean going to bed earlier, which would cut into my time with my husband.
The third option is just to leave things as they are, and be content with the amount of time it will take to get to my goal. And if I can cut down on the excess, I will at least stay on target to make weight by mid-September. That's not a bad thing, because if I continue to eat 1700 calories a day for another eight months, I'll be used to it by the time it becomes my maintenance plan. By September, I will have learned how to eat like someone who weighs 135 pounds. And that's the ultimate goal, now, isn't it?
This week I'll do some experimenting with cutting calories and adding exercise and see how that works. I'll let you know the results in my next post.
Until then . . .
Sunday, January 1, 2012
The Holiday Challenge
Last week I was on vacation, so didn't post. But it was an instructive two weeks. The first week I had to contend with food gifts from my coworkers, which was very kind of them, but I would rather not have had to make the choice. I gave away some and ate some of the goodies, but it was hard not eating them up right away. I didn't do too well for the most part, and it made me realize that I still don't handle well those eating occasions where I have to say "no, thanks" to people who are trying to please me. I generally take the treats, then tell myself I will not eat them. That doesn't work very well, but refusing seems wrong too. I'm going to have to think more about what to do next time.
Though I didn't stick strictly to my meal plan during the holidays, I paid attention to what I was eating, evaluating my decision to eat what other people were eating. For instance, I ate meals with my mother at her nursing home that were high on carbohydrates and fat and low on vegetables; the protein was about right, at least at the noon meal. I ate the desserts, and on Christmas day, I ate the foods my sister served--though not in mass quantities--including fruit cake, ice cream and whipped cream for the pumpkin pudding. It was filling, but I don't think I overindulged. I passed up the chocolates (except for one chocolate Jordan almond), but not the egg nog. It was an experiment--an attempt to eat "normally"--and for the most part I think I did okay. I didn't go crazy with eating, but I didn't refrain either, and was able to avoid those arguments about dieting techniques that tend to spoil the holiday mood.
I did try to keep up with my exercise, and succeeded for the most part. That probably helped to keep my weight gain low: only .4 pounds over two weeks.
I'm pretty happy with how I got through the holidays this first year of my new eating plan. I incurred no massive weight gain that will need to be reversed in the first month of the year, and I think I ate more like a person without a weight problem. I had a good time as well. Thus I learned that the holidays really could be enjoyed without ingesting mass quantities of fattening food! Amazing!
I'm looking forward to another year of learning to be thin!
See you next time and Happy New Year!
Though I didn't stick strictly to my meal plan during the holidays, I paid attention to what I was eating, evaluating my decision to eat what other people were eating. For instance, I ate meals with my mother at her nursing home that were high on carbohydrates and fat and low on vegetables; the protein was about right, at least at the noon meal. I ate the desserts, and on Christmas day, I ate the foods my sister served--though not in mass quantities--including fruit cake, ice cream and whipped cream for the pumpkin pudding. It was filling, but I don't think I overindulged. I passed up the chocolates (except for one chocolate Jordan almond), but not the egg nog. It was an experiment--an attempt to eat "normally"--and for the most part I think I did okay. I didn't go crazy with eating, but I didn't refrain either, and was able to avoid those arguments about dieting techniques that tend to spoil the holiday mood.
I did try to keep up with my exercise, and succeeded for the most part. That probably helped to keep my weight gain low: only .4 pounds over two weeks.
I'm pretty happy with how I got through the holidays this first year of my new eating plan. I incurred no massive weight gain that will need to be reversed in the first month of the year, and I think I ate more like a person without a weight problem. I had a good time as well. Thus I learned that the holidays really could be enjoyed without ingesting mass quantities of fattening food! Amazing!
I'm looking forward to another year of learning to be thin!
See you next time and Happy New Year!
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