...it didn't go exactly as I had planned, but I suppose it could have been worse.
After sleeping in this morning, I still felt the need for some relaxation, so I went to a movie. I had just enough time to get ready to get to the 1:30 show, so I decided to go to the Hollywood theatre, which has a restaurant at the "skybox" level, where they will serve you up to 10 minutes before the show begins.
I went there intending to order one of their salads, but found that the salad I wanted was no longer on the menu. I've been hungry for a burger for the last week, so I decided to go ahead and have their sliders. They were to die for! I had two of them for lunch, and I had the third one in the order for dinner. They were so decadently delicious I don't want to know how many calories. I'm just glad they were so good that they were worth it. I never expected a gourmet-quality chef to be cooking for a movie theatre, but there it is. I was so glad I satisfied my burger hunger with high quality cuisine instead of run-of-the-mill fast food crap.
I came home from the movie and got busy right away. I mowed the lawn, turned over the compost heap, spread mulch, and took care of watering my hanging baskets and patio pots. Then I came inside and cleaned the kitchen and finished the laundry.
WebMD has a nice slide show that identifies food that might deceive us into believing they are good, or better, for us but which will do little to aid in weight loss.
You really have to wonder why ExtraPounds site management refuses to manage this site responsibly. It has chased so many people out of the community in this last month, and it's a shame.
I can understand that, since their main purpose is the promotion of Phentemine and HCG, they would have faux users posting here to give testimonials to these questionable weight loss methods, but the volume of daily spam for products and services no one here will ever use, is puzzling. Why create a community only to destroy it?
I've been working a lot this week. The weather finally gave us a bit of a break, and we have been extremely busy. So busy that I've been burning about 2500 calories every day, and have been easily meeting my daily step count goals.
I wish I could say my eating has been on track every day, but it hasn't. I've left work so tired that I've been over-eating in the evenings, and that has inspired my goal for this week: To prepare my evening meals for the week today, so that stopping to buy a burrito or a burger on the way home is not so tempting. If I know that if I have something here to heat up in less time than it takes to sit in the drive-through, I will just want to get home and relax.
I know I have been burning more calories than I have been eating, but I'm not taking full advantage of the deficits, and that's just silly!
Sometimes misdirected expectations can lead to more than we bargained for.
We go out with friends, to a family gathering, or on vacation, expecting that we will eat and drink more than we should. We give ourselves permission to return to the familiar old bad habits that packed on the pounds in the first place.
And then we make excuses for it:
But it was just one night out, and it was a rough week—I deserve to let my hair down and not have to think about how much I'm eating and drinking!
Mom makes the best ____________ ever, and I just couldn't turn it down!
I only get one vacation a year, and I don't want to have to think about calories.
If we are truthful with ourselves, we can recognize these excuses for what they are. Excuses to return to the habits we need to be breaking away from.
It's a case of diet extremism. We tell ourselves that this weight management thing is an on again off again option. Rather than taking advantage of the opportunities to learn how to enjoy these events and their accompanying food and drink in moderation, we use them as an excuse to overindulge.
It has dangerous implications for maintenance, if and when we do finally reach our weight loss goals. We will always have social occasions. We won't always (hopefully) be "on a diet." It is only by learning how to moderate our consumption day by day, and in all circumstances, that we can be confident we have established the lifestyle changes needed for maintenance.
When stuck in a binge cycle, it's easy to begin to feel hopeless, and to assume that things will never change, that you "always" do this or that when stressed. Breaking those assumptions and replacing the reactions to them can be difficult after years or performing like Pavlov's dog every time we don't know how to handle the emotions of the moment. Strategy is key in breaking the pattern.
I have found that, at least in the short term, it is best not to have any possible bingeables in the house when I'm trying to break a cycle. A binge doesn't seem to last as long, for some reason, when I tuck into carrots, lettuce, celery, etc.
Another technique I have used with some success is repetition. It works for some people and not for others. The ones it works for are people like me, whom I term the "Hoover Omnivores." The Hoover Omnivore moves through the kitchen like a high capacity vacuum cleaner, going from one flavor to the next, anways searching out the next yummy thing to Hoover up. For that person, the repetition technique can work as long as there isn't much choice available (i.e., no bingeables in the house).
Often, bingeing occurs in cycles—we're going through stress at work, grief over the death of a loved one, money worries, hurt feelings, or any other emotional situation that lasts for more than a day or two. The bingeing becomes more frequent, and the feelings of helplessness and hopelessness build with each passing out-of-control day.
I broke one such stubborn binge cycle a few years ago by having the exact same things for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks for two weeks. My fruit was all apples, I had one of my milk servings in a latte every morning, and the other in a peach Greek yogurt. My veggies every day were brussels sprouts and my salad was a lettuce salad with grape tomoatoes and balsamic dressing. I did this every day for two weeks, and became calmer and less prone to binge urges with each passing day. When I feel a binge cycle coming on, I revert to this plan and it works to break the binge cycle every time.
Recently, it has worked for me for getting back on track. It's very calming.
I finally got to the point where I was sick and tired of being sick and tired, and knew the changes had to be permanent. I knew several people who had had great success with JC. So I took a deep breath, swallowed my pride, went through the doors of JC. I just needed someone to tell me what to do.
It really helped that the food was good, so it was something I could stick with. It really helped that I had that one-on-one focus every week. It really helped that I had reached that point of determination and commitment. I had to humble myself and finally admit that I really couldn't do it myself, and that I had to accept help.
I had the fragments of so many former fad diets running through my thoughts that I no longer had any idea what I should eat or how much. Carb fear. Meat fear. Fat fear. Starvation fear. "Toxin" fear. Failure fear.
The way I related to food, nutrition and weight was all fear-based. That was sad. I needed to develop a new and healthy relationship with food. In a way, it almost seemed too sensible to be eating all kinds of foods that for one reason or another, this or that fad diet had tried to convince me were "bad" and had caused the whole problem.
I had to clear my head of all of that. It was obvious that it wasn't too many carbs...
So I took a deep breath and suppressed all those theories about carbs, "good" or "bad." I fought back those desperate hopes that there was a magic pill out there. I had to stop being so damned desperate! So damned desperate that I would eat just about anything promising to make me slimmer, take just about any magic pill that promised to make it all fast and easy, or starve myself until I couldn't stand it any more. None of that was healthy, and I had to put it in my past.
At first, it was difficult to believe that eating all this food, and feeling so good while still losing a pretty nice amount of weight each week was even possible. But there it was, right in front of me. It seemed almost to simple to be true.
It was amazing! I was losing weight, and I didn't even have to suffer to make it happen!
I went to see Thor 3D today. It was an OK movie. I was the only person in the theatre and I had nachos there for lunch with lots of jalapeños.
I don't think I had much time to digest them, since it is five hours later, and (TMI), they have already left me.
It's still cloudy and cold outside, though the rain has stopped. It's supposed to be more of the same tomorrow, so I hope I don't get sent home early again. I'm sure not making much money these days.
