Shifting Gears Without Killing the Transmission

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Mar 172010
 
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Time for a change in thinking. I was buying something I know I’m better off without. And buying more than one, knowing that they’d all be gone before tomorrow. That’s when it hit me. WHY DO I NEED TO EAT THEM ALL TODAY??? Ta-daaaaa! Shift in thinking. So if I buy several of them, eat them all at once, feel guilty, then deprive myself for days and days, what happens? I do the same thing all over again. What if (hang onto your hats!!) I bought some, and only ate ONE now. What if I had them there for if I wanted them, but felt that I didn’t really need one right now? Could I leave it till when I really DID want it? Turns out that the answer is yes. I CAN do that. In fact, during the times I’ve been successful in losing weight, that’s what I did. I bought something that I would parcel out a few points-worth at a time, when I wanted it. Journal it, eat it, enjoy it, move on. So I will be “playing” with that concept for the next few days. Let’s see if I can make it work again. Because I will do ANYTHING to be successful at weight loss, including having the occasional treat! (Big sacrifice, I know…) Stay tuned!

 Posted by Gracie at 4:11 am

Stress and Hunger 2

 Keeping Going, Thoughts on the Process  2 Responses »
Mar 172010
 
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Here’s what happened yesterday:

I’m going to try to update this throughout the day.

Things that are stressing me:

  • planning a workshop in a vacuum – ie don’t know how many people or what they already know
  • need to call the bank – no reason at all that this should be stressful but it is
  • need to chase up a hospital appointment that I have already called about twice.  I hate being a pest.  I hate sounding like I think I should be treated any differently than anyone else – but I also need to plan my next three months.

It took ages to get dressed, help the husband with some i.t. stuff, eat breakfast and face the BLANK PAGE that will be a superb one hour workshop.

10 – hungry – porridge, blueberries, yogourt

10:30 – call bank and cancel gym direct debit.  I am now a runner rather than a rower.  Better make the most of this weather

10:45 – a little hungry (why?) and a lot stressed  – Make a mug of tea, move laptop into sunny kitchen, open French doors and breathe.

11:20 – suck it up and call hospital.  She hasn’t had a response to her email.  WE ALL KNOW THAT NO ONE RESPONDS TO EMAILS!  (I did not yell this – I was very polite and very calm)  “Oh yes”, she replies, “You’re the lady who wants to go on holiday.”  IF IT WAS A HOLIDAY I’D CHANGE IT! ( I did not yell that either – I said it with a smile in my voice in a vain attempt to elicit sympathy.) I think she’s emailing again with a  ! and we all know how ignorable those are.  I don’t hold out much hope. I still gushed my thanks for all her help even though I now feel like crying.

SO still stressed.  But not eating.  The cracker container is still closed.  I might have a banana.

11:30 very small banana

12:25 – got tired of waiting for squash to roast – 2 crackers with tiny weeny bit of butter.

12:45 – roast butternut squash

12:55 – not hungry but not full – 2 more crackers

Light Bulb Moment!  I’m not craving carbs but FAT.  Hence the butter on the crackers or peanut butter.  OK so I’m craving fat but I don’t actually want to eat any more fat.  What am I going to do?

I’m going to have another mug of tea and get on with my work.

2:00  Have worked a whole hour and not thought about food.  Still not hungry but antsy.  I would like to have a reason to go out for a walk.  Perhaps I will invent a reason.

2:30 Sociable cup of coffee with the husband – now  bit wired.

3:30 off to find food for dinner.  I’m thinking roast chicken.  We’ve got little potatoes and carrots.

Tuesday Morning

So I did go off to buy groceries but stopped by a clothes store first to do some therapeutic trying on.  My bottom half can wear skinny.  My top half cannot. Oh well.

Got home around 5 and…….fatal error- poured a glass of wine.

The food for the evening was ok but I’m noticing a very important dynamic in my family.  When both the husband and I are stressed, no one has the drive and discipline to make sure that we’re eating very well.  When we’re both on form, we plan, shop, prepare and clean up with energy and ease.  When we’re both stressed, we open a can of corn and call it “vegetable”.  We drink more than half a bottle of wine between us and the dishes are often sitting by the sink at bedtime.  Instead of him dragging me off for a walk, we both watch the most ridiculous television that we both hate.

Reminder:  All of these things are choices.  What am I going to choose today?

 Posted by Millie at 12:44 am  Tagged with:

Stress and Hunger

 Things to try  No Responses »
Mar 162010
 
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This whole battle can be boiled down to

  • what?
  • when?
  • how much?

My normal “weight loss” day should look like this:

7 am – noon: 2 mugs of coffee, porridge, mug of tea, banana

noon – 6 pm: soup and crackers or cottage cheese and fruit, a couple of clementines, mug or tea

6 pm – bedtime : dinner with lots of veg, some carb and protein, a glass of wine, mineral water, decaf tea

My recent, “I can’t be bothered” day looks more like this:

7am – noon: 2 mugs of coffee, porridge, mug of tea, cracker with peanut butter, banana

noon – 6pm : soup and crackers or cottage cheese and fruit, a couple of clementines, piece of cheese, mug or tea, crackers, crackers, a couple more crackers.

6pm – bedtime: dinner with lots of veg, lots of carb and protein, 3 glasses of wine, mineral water, tea, crackers with butter & jam

The difference between losing weight and not is a few crackers,  a bit of cheese, a dollop of peanut butter, a couple teaspoons of butter and some extra wine.

What’s with me and crackers?

The bigger question is what’s with me and needing to feel full when I’m feeling stressed?

Today I’m going to experiment with noting both my emotional feelings and my hunger levels throughout the day.  I’m going to see what happens when I’m both stressed and hungry. I wonder if I really do just cease to exist? Or explode? Or fade away to nothing?

If I’m not back here tomorrow, you’ll know.

 Posted by Millie at 12:50 am  Tagged with: ,

One of Those Weeks

 Keeping Going  No Responses »
Mar 152010
 
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It’s going to be one of those weeks.  It’s only mid-day on Monday and here’s what’s going on:

  • hormone waves (don’t expect calm and collected at the moment)
  • carb cravings (don’t buy any more bread please, thank you)
  • just a wee bit cranky (should probably not call a customer service department this week)
  • still fighting a sore throat – week 3 of a virus and very very tired. (just as well – won’t be interacting with other humans much)

Oh – and I have to deliver a workshop on Friday and am feeling alarmingly cavalier about the whole thing.

So – how is this all going to affect my last little weight loss effort?

If I repeat what I have eaten in the three and a half hours since I woke this morning, I am going to gain weight – lots of it,  no question.

So I’ll ask a different question – What am I going to do to make sure that I don’t gain weight between now and when hormone balance is restored?

Writing this is my first step.  I was sitting here playing my 12th game of spider solitaire planning my workshop and was seriously considering just saying that I was going to be away from my laptop for a week.  It would be easy to disappear and eat baked goods.  And pizza.

Instead I’m here – not entirely sure what’s next – but genuinely wanting it to be positive.

Sorry this is so unbearably boring.  I will shake things up when I have the energy.

 Posted by Millie at 5:13 am

As if to Prove the Point….

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Mar 142010
 
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Yesterday I wrote:

I’m going to Weight Watchers this morning – for the community as much as anything else. I don’t know what their scale will say and I’ve stopped taking the card for them to write my weight on, so it really doesn’t matter. I’ve always dreamt of a scale-free WW meeting and I’ve kind of got it.

So I trotted down to the meeting and stood on the scale.

147 (with clothes, post coffee – that’s just fine)

I was yammering away as I stepped off and thought the weigher hadn’t seen the number.  So I stepped back on.

146.5

Interesting.  Do you see why I don’t really care what the WW scales say?

When I took my seat with some friends, they had both put on half a pound. Or had they?  Maybe we should go back to weighing in whole pounds of balance scales? I wonder if those who weigh in kilos and half kilos are less prone to this craziness.   I wish I had the answer to scale insanity.  I think they should have a WW topic about The Big Picture.  It’s really about what happens over a month – or a season – or a year that counts.

When you’re 10 lbs lighter than you were 2 months ago, that’s weight loss.

When you’re .5 lighter than you were last week, maybe it’s a loss and maybe it isn’t.

Here’s the big issue.  We get so emotionally wrapped up in what that scale says that we let it rule the following week.  I’m pretty sure the women who had small gains are too sane to let half a pound influence their eating.  But then people used to think I was sane too – but I really really wasn’t.  Half a pound on could lead to another pound on which would inevitably lead to quitting WW and putting on 20 pounds.

So I’m going to keep up the daily weighing.  I knew it could take away the power of my home scale but I am absolutely over the moon that it has snuffed out the power of the WW scale too.

 Posted by Millie at 3:09 am  Tagged with: ,

March Madness

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Mar 132010
 
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Every year at about this time I remember that I feel low every year at about this time. And it seems – from various on-line friends – that everyone is feeling the weight of March Madness. I wonder what it is about March that makes us feel so down?

Maybe it’s the “almost but not quite spring” in the air. Or maybe it’s the end of a season of enforced indoors – and we’re just about ready to crack. Or maybe it’s just that the stress of Christmas has finally caught up and steam-rolled over us.

Regardless of the reason, I remember now so I’m going to take some remedying steps.

  • walk in the (chilly) sunshine
  • work in the garden
  • see a couple of friends
  • plan something good and tasty and healthy for dinner

I’m going to Weight Watchers this morning – for the community as much as anything else. I don’t know what their scale will say and I’ve stopped taking the card for them to write my weight on, so it really doesn’t matter. I’ve always dreamt of a scale-free WW meeting and I’ve kind of got it. I should probably do something constructive with my rebellious nature. It’s been a while since I dreamt up something new – envisioned a life where I was making a difference.

March may be depressing but it also produces little shoots of hope. I’m going to focus on them for a while.

Oh – the sun disappeared while I was typing. Isn’t that just like March?

(resists temptation to climb back under duvet……)

 Posted by Millie at 1:04 am  Tagged with:

Hurdles

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Mar 122010
 
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There’s good news and bad news.

Bad news first: turns out that anger is a very big hurdle when it comes to emotional eating.

The good news is that I don’t experience that kind of anger very often.

The rest of the bad news is that I encountered and ate my way through an episode this week.

I seem to have got better at dealing with boredom and I’ve got a bit better with grief – mostly because the grief has subsided over time.  But real anger still needs to be stuffed down and I stuffed it good!

So here I am feeling a little bit bruised – like I’ve survived something that I don’t want to go through again.  The sun is shining and all the things that were good about my life on Monday are still good on Friday.  So it’s time to look ahead and absolutely not to look back.

The cause of my anger has been resolved but it exposed some stuff that hasn’t been and that I need to work on.

In the mean time, after having eaten my body weight in baking, my hairdresser saw me for the first time in four months and blurted, “You’re tiny!”  So, whether I’m large or small, the hurdles of life need hurdling.  And eating excessively doesn’t make me un-tiny and it doesn’t help me get over the hurdles.

Yes, of course I knew that already in my head, but I seem to need to learn and relearn these things in practice as well as in theory.

Thank you God for sun and warmth and birds and spring and love even when life isn’t exactly how we think it should be. (Amen)

 Posted by Millie at 1:47 am  Tagged with:

The New Normal revisited

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Mar 102010
 
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Mollie commented a couple of posts back:

It must be why so many people who reach goal regain — because there is no “goal.” There is only “normal.”

That got me thinking again about the fact that we’ve established a new normal and it’s FAT.

I remember, way back in the 70′s, when the jeans we wore to school had to cover the whole shoe and, ideally, drag on the ground in the order to fray adequately.  And then, towards the end of my final year, the skinny/narrow leg appeared.  It looked horrible seeing whole shoes like that.  It looked weird and I thought I’d never cave in.  Of course, I had a pair within the month. And then the wide legs looked horrible.

Then it happened with shoulder pads.  Remember?

We seem to be programmed to adapt our feelings about what’s acceptable just by living with the changes going on around us.  So fashion begets fashion. And fat begets fat.

I’ve been googling around phrases like “obesity statistics by country” and the results bear out what I’ve just said.

If a full 70% of the people around you are overweight, then fat looks normal.  (WHO – USA 2005)

And maybe it feels a little weird to be bucking this particular fashion trend. I mean, if everyone is fat, then it feels a bit weird to be anything else.  I hesitate to say “thin” because that’s just not a word I’d use to describe myself.  Medium sized maybe but not thin.

Here’s the World Health Org site where I’ve been getting some of my information.  I’m not sure how it’s come to it’s 2010 statistics except perhaps by continuing to graph the trend based the increase in weight which has been measured since the 70s.  But the 2005 stats are in line with other sites.

When I was trying to lose weight 15 years ago, I used to say, “I just want to be normal”.  Now I guess I just want to be abnormal – and stay that way.  So, to re-express Mollie’s comment:  There is no goal.  There’s only abnormal. And it takes hard work and perseverance to be different.

 Posted by Millie at 3:36 am  Tagged with: ,

Bugs & Motivation

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Mar 072010
 
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I am learning that illness makes me not really care about losing weight.  Which is a drag because I had hopes of accomplishing something this week in that line – like maybe a pound off.  But my coughing (barking) and sore throat make me want to eat whatever’s easiest to prepare and swallow.

Last night I didn’t feel like cooking so we had a very rare Chinese takeaway. (see the result of the sodium on my daily weigh-in.)

And today I suggested we go out for lunch – where I struggled to find something that would suit taste buds, eating plan, stomach woes and sore throat.  I ended up getting a Beetroot Tart Tatin with a rocket, tomato and feta salad.  The tatin was almost like a dessert – except for warm beets instead of warm apples.  I ended up leaving most of the delicious crust because it was obviously mostly butter but the salad was lovely with a little balsamic vinegar. And a small glass of wine.  And coffee.  And some of the husband’s chips because this place makes the BEST chips in the United Kingdom.

We sat at a middle table – perfect for watching everyone coming and going. We read the paper and chatted and eavesdropped whenever possible.  Nice way to pass part of a Sunday afternoon.

I guess I’m going to have to reign things in a little for the rest of the week.  I’ve got dinner out tomorrow night in London and a hotel breakfast the next day.  After than I can eat lightly for the rest of the week.

The above is a FORCED conversation because I really just want to chuck it in for the week and eat whatever I want. I’m tired and stressed and sick and nervous about an important meeting on Tuesday.  The last thing I want to think about is how much I’m going to weigh next Saturday.

But I also don’t want to weigh more than I do right now – not because it would be the worst thing that could happen, but because I don’t want to go to the effort of re-losing weight that’s already gone.  Whatever my stresses of the moment, extra large helpings of carbs are not going to provide a long-term solution.

Sigh.  It’s only realistic that I’m going to have these attitude dips once in a while but they’re tiresome and make me feel so unbelievably bored with myself.

I’ll be offline for a couple of days but intend to come back here and tell you that I’ve made some good decisions.  And that I had a good meeting.  And that there was no traffic on the motorways.  And that I found parking at the hotel.  And that my cold is better.

 Posted by Millie at 8:40 am  Tagged with: , ,

More on Slow Weight Loss

 Keeping Going, Thoughts on the Process  2 Responses »
Mar 062010
 
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One of the bonuses of taking so long to lose weight is that I’ve got used to eating less.  In the past, I’ve dieted to a certain point and never given myself time to adjust to the idea that maintenance happens as long as you continue to eat less than you did at your higher weight.  This time, stuffing my face daily is a distant memory.

Obviously, weight loss and maintenance depend on finding the right balance between calories in, and calories burned.  I find that I like the freedom that Nutracheck allows you to either eat less, exercise more, or choose to lose less each week – as long as you eat a minimum of 1400 calories per day.

When I first signed up, I weighed 170lbs and could lose 1.5lbs per week eating 1400 calories and exercising 200 calories per day.

I’m now 27lbs lighter and almost 2 years older so can only expect a pound a week with the same calories consumed and burnt. And, frankly, I’m happy with half a pound per week.

You can play with figures here.

When I actually get to 139, then I can only expect to eat 1850 calories per day and that assumes that I’m burning an extra 200 calories a day in activities.   If I’m not exercising conscientiously then I should only eat about 200 more calories than I right now in “losing mode”.  I need to get that firmly implanted in my psyche!

  • Moving daily
  • Eating well but not abundantly

That’s going to be the story of the rest of my slimmed down life.

I had one of those “non-scale victories” today.  I had a quick trip out despite my croaky throat to take a friend to Costco.  They’ve got some nice, cheap denim skirts which, of course, you can’t try on.  I looked at the 14 (US 10) but it looked too big.  So I grabbed a 12 (US 8) with the words, “It’s probably too small but I can always bring it back.”

Well it’s a bit too big – not baggy, but loose in the waist – which is where most skirts are too tight.

I wonder what the next few weeks will bring.

 Posted by Millie at 10:31 am  Tagged with:
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