Re: The Behavioral Path to MWL Success - September 2022 Grou
Posted: Sat Oct 01, 2022 12:59 pm
Friday, September 30, 2022:
1. Start each meal with a soup and/or salad and/or fruit.--No.
2. Follow the 50/50 plate method for your meals, filling half your plate (by visual volume) with non-starchy vegetables and 50% (by visual volume) with minimally processed starches. Choose fruit for dessert.--I had meals where half of my plate had non-starchy vegetables. This was a big improvement, because the last 6 weeks or so I was hardly eating any vegetables.
3. Greatly reduce or eliminate added sugars and added salts. This includes gourmet sugars and salts, too. If either is troublesome for you, you can eliminate them.--I did not add sugar at all, but did have some items that contained sugar. One time I used a seasoning mixture that had some salt in it on a potato.
4. Eliminate all animal foods (dairy, meat, eggs, fish, seafood).--No meat, eggs, fish, or seafood, but did have some cheese.
5. Eliminate all higher fat plant foods (i.e., nuts, seeds, avocados, tofu, soy).--Had some macadamia nuts (I know, I know, super fatty) + avocado.
6. Eliminate any added oil.--I did not add oil, but had some things that had oil in them.
7. Eliminate all higher calorie-dense foods including flour products (i.e., bread, bagels, muffins, crackers, dry cereals, cookies, cakes), puffed cereals, air-popped popcorn and dried fruit.--Had 2 cupcakes + 1 granola bar.
8. Don't drink your calories (especially from juices & sugar-sweetened beverages).--100% good.
9. Follow these principles, eating whenever you are hungry until you are comfortably full. Don't starve yourself and don't stuff yourself.--Did well except for 1 time I overate.
10. Avoid being sedentary and aim for at least 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise daily (i.e., brisk walking).--Walked 6/7 days, not as briskly as would have liked due to my hip being sore + resolving back pain.
Victories, comments, concerns, questions:
Over the months I thought of all of you + wondered how you were. I'm happy to be rejoining you all! Life has continued to be busy, but not anywhere as crazy busy as it had been back then, plus we were still going through/recovering from covid. (I'll have to go back + read my last posts.)
This past week ended up being a transition week, hence the above off-plan items. I was going to start strictly a few days ago but then decided to do that on the 1st of October: easy date to remember, first of the month/clean slate, last quarter of the year.
The months that I've been away from the Group + Forum have been good in terms of living life a bit more than we have been the last 2+ years because of covid (getting together with some family + friends, going to 2 county fairs, + on a short vacation). But that, of course, brought up challenges that I didn't have to face the last couple years, which was 1 plus of the pandemic.
My 2 biggest nemeses continued to be the perfectionism with my eating + lack of sleep. I had some great, solid weeks + months of being super on-plan with significant drops in my b/p #'s + I could feel the pounds dropped. I really am not a fan of weighing, but my clothes were baggy + I could tell I lost a lot. (When I eventually get down to my goal weight, I definitely can see the good about weighing regularly.)
But ultimately, I had a tiny amount of something/s, + then my inner critic (Dr. Lisle is spot on with this, as usual!) told me that I could + should have done better, etc.. So those 5 cinnamon roasted pecans that I thoroughly enjoyed 1 at a time while listening to a concert with my family at the fair, + the handful of popcorn that I totally had under control, were the beginning of the end, so to speak.
And I'm still trying to figure out, + have further explored, if I am just being a normal person, or am I a (processed) food addict? And since I so enjoy the healthy foods, too, + often more than the bad "foods", a lot of times I think that I may not actually be in the pleasure trap, but rather it's the crazy high expectations + demands I put on myself to eat so perfectly (because of my health + knowing just how damaging the bad things are) that are causing me such grief.
In addition to all of this, later this week my family + I are going to take a trip to where we did a few months ago. I'm really looking forward to it, but am concerned because I had had a good solid chunk of eating good in, but then had a bit of off-plan stuff on the trip (most people would have thought they were on an extremely strict diet if they ate the way I had), but that brought up "Oh, am I on or off-plan?!", which really was weird because I'm talking 2 chocolate covered nuts, 5 potato chips, + 2 potato wedges--definitely off plan, but everything else was on plan.
Anyway, this has gotten long, but I do have worries about just re-starting now on the 1st, the trip being 6 days away, + the recent trip there plus all the childhood memories of this place, which are wonderful, but filled with "treat foods".
Happy October, everyone; hope you have a great day, week, + month!!
1. Start each meal with a soup and/or salad and/or fruit.--No.
2. Follow the 50/50 plate method for your meals, filling half your plate (by visual volume) with non-starchy vegetables and 50% (by visual volume) with minimally processed starches. Choose fruit for dessert.--I had meals where half of my plate had non-starchy vegetables. This was a big improvement, because the last 6 weeks or so I was hardly eating any vegetables.
3. Greatly reduce or eliminate added sugars and added salts. This includes gourmet sugars and salts, too. If either is troublesome for you, you can eliminate them.--I did not add sugar at all, but did have some items that contained sugar. One time I used a seasoning mixture that had some salt in it on a potato.
4. Eliminate all animal foods (dairy, meat, eggs, fish, seafood).--No meat, eggs, fish, or seafood, but did have some cheese.
5. Eliminate all higher fat plant foods (i.e., nuts, seeds, avocados, tofu, soy).--Had some macadamia nuts (I know, I know, super fatty) + avocado.
6. Eliminate any added oil.--I did not add oil, but had some things that had oil in them.
7. Eliminate all higher calorie-dense foods including flour products (i.e., bread, bagels, muffins, crackers, dry cereals, cookies, cakes), puffed cereals, air-popped popcorn and dried fruit.--Had 2 cupcakes + 1 granola bar.
8. Don't drink your calories (especially from juices & sugar-sweetened beverages).--100% good.
9. Follow these principles, eating whenever you are hungry until you are comfortably full. Don't starve yourself and don't stuff yourself.--Did well except for 1 time I overate.
10. Avoid being sedentary and aim for at least 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise daily (i.e., brisk walking).--Walked 6/7 days, not as briskly as would have liked due to my hip being sore + resolving back pain.
Victories, comments, concerns, questions:
Over the months I thought of all of you + wondered how you were. I'm happy to be rejoining you all! Life has continued to be busy, but not anywhere as crazy busy as it had been back then, plus we were still going through/recovering from covid. (I'll have to go back + read my last posts.)
This past week ended up being a transition week, hence the above off-plan items. I was going to start strictly a few days ago but then decided to do that on the 1st of October: easy date to remember, first of the month/clean slate, last quarter of the year.
The months that I've been away from the Group + Forum have been good in terms of living life a bit more than we have been the last 2+ years because of covid (getting together with some family + friends, going to 2 county fairs, + on a short vacation). But that, of course, brought up challenges that I didn't have to face the last couple years, which was 1 plus of the pandemic.
My 2 biggest nemeses continued to be the perfectionism with my eating + lack of sleep. I had some great, solid weeks + months of being super on-plan with significant drops in my b/p #'s + I could feel the pounds dropped. I really am not a fan of weighing, but my clothes were baggy + I could tell I lost a lot. (When I eventually get down to my goal weight, I definitely can see the good about weighing regularly.)
But ultimately, I had a tiny amount of something/s, + then my inner critic (Dr. Lisle is spot on with this, as usual!) told me that I could + should have done better, etc.. So those 5 cinnamon roasted pecans that I thoroughly enjoyed 1 at a time while listening to a concert with my family at the fair, + the handful of popcorn that I totally had under control, were the beginning of the end, so to speak.
And I'm still trying to figure out, + have further explored, if I am just being a normal person, or am I a (processed) food addict? And since I so enjoy the healthy foods, too, + often more than the bad "foods", a lot of times I think that I may not actually be in the pleasure trap, but rather it's the crazy high expectations + demands I put on myself to eat so perfectly (because of my health + knowing just how damaging the bad things are) that are causing me such grief.
In addition to all of this, later this week my family + I are going to take a trip to where we did a few months ago. I'm really looking forward to it, but am concerned because I had had a good solid chunk of eating good in, but then had a bit of off-plan stuff on the trip (most people would have thought they were on an extremely strict diet if they ate the way I had), but that brought up "Oh, am I on or off-plan?!", which really was weird because I'm talking 2 chocolate covered nuts, 5 potato chips, + 2 potato wedges--definitely off plan, but everything else was on plan.
Anyway, this has gotten long, but I do have worries about just re-starting now on the 1st, the trip being 6 days away, + the recent trip there plus all the childhood memories of this place, which are wonderful, but filled with "treat foods".
Happy October, everyone; hope you have a great day, week, + month!!