STRIKE THREE I'M NOT OUT!

[Jamiebf]

Well I did great to day 21 then what happened to me. I believe my ugly old diet monster took over. I failed on habit Wed. night then again Thursday night both times I had to work late at the restaurant and I was all alone eating my homemade ice cream that I resisted on Monday when I made it. So Thursday night when I got home in the wee hours of the morning I continued to eat cookies. Mindless eating, out of body eating, you know what I meat So Friday I said that is it, back on habit, nope again I grazed all day So then I start the self anger and depession, telling myself this is not working for me, I need to loose faster, I need to do this or that.

Thank God for my wonderful husband who sweetly talked me off the edge as he always does. So today on day 26 of my no-S experence I am not going to cave into all my old crazy diet habits. I am going to continue and each day hope that I can learn to eat healthy and normal. I am a work in progress and one day at a time is the only way I can do this.

So I was wondering, have any of you faced the same failures after doing so well? What makes us do that, our old habits? I wish that commitment I felt the first three weeks could stay with me.

[OrganicGal]

Good for you for persevering and Good for your husband for 'talking you down' so to speak

I'm not sure if it's old habits putting up one last fight or that inner spoiled child throwing one more tantrum to test if your still standing firm. But you wobbled but didn't fall down....so that's great and you should pat yourself on the back for that.

I try to remember that this is not a diet, this is a healthy eating plan for the rest of my life, so weight loss will be slow, and I will never go off of it, so therefore I will not expect perfection, nor beat myself up when I do make a mistake or two.

All I can say is try to do the same

[Blithe Morning]

It's really interesting to me that you crashed and burned on Day 21, the day that we are "supposed" to be home free. It makes me wonder if there wasn't some subconscious motivation at work.

I don't know why we do this to ourselves. Boredom? Resentment of any restriction, even one as reasonable with a built in safety valve like No S? Part of it is, I think, our hardwired default setting is to eat if there is food available. Couple that with a long term habit of doing just that and you have some strong behaviors to overcome.

I've been doing this for a month and I don't feel it's automatic yet. I still have to prompt myself on No S. It's easier, but I don't know that I would call it "easy". I hasten to add, though, it's easier than other eating plan I've been on.

Brain research says this will eventually work, especially as you become physically habituated to No S.

And congratulations on getting back up on the horse. That's the money, right there.

[kccc]

I see this as your having successfully passed the first big test.

For anything you do long-term, some short-term failures are inevitable. Learning to deal with them and move on is a critical skill, one that some people (like me and other recovering perfectionists) are slow to learn.

With your husband's support (gold star for him!), you made it over this hurdle.

Congrats!

You're now starting your second set of 21 days. Some habits are probably well-developed, some will need fine-tuning. But you have a better sense of where to focus. You've learned. And you know what success looks like, so you can get back to it again.

[JD4]

This may not apply to you at all, but for me, I think pushing really hard to get to day 21 with a perfect record was worse than letting myself slip up in the first 21 days. I wasn't really thinking beyond day 21, and I wonder if once I got there, as soon as the "I did it!" glow wore off, I'd just let all that restraint go since I wouldn't have day 21 to aim for anymore. Anyway, I actually haven't made it to 21 straight days, yet, but I actually do feel better now that I'm not relentlessly driving myself toward that (or a certain number of pounds lost, etc.)

Regardless of which day it was on, I think getting through those first failures is a really important milestone. When we fail and then get back on track, as you did, that's when it becomes really clear that this isn't all-or-nothing, either you're perfect or there's no point, but a process that will still lead in a good direction if you stick with it as best you can.

[BrightAngel]

So I was wondering, have any of you faced the same failures after doing so well? What makes us do that, our old habits? I wish that commitment I felt the first three weeks could stay with me.

Jamie,
I'm pretty new at No S,
but I've been "successfully" dieting for quite a long time.
You can see some of that dieting history in links on the Introduction Topic.

Although I have lost a tremendous amount of weight,
and I have been maintaining that loss for over two years,
after many days of doing well, I still experience big failures.
Even with a big overall committment,
every single day requires a new committment,
and sometimes I can only manage to commit from one meal to the next.
But it's enough.

It isn't necessary to be perfect to be successful.
It only requires continued, patient, and consistent effort...
.....most of the time.

[Laff]

It isn't necessary to be perfect to be successful.
It only requires continued, patient, and consistent effort...
.....most of the time.[/color]

I, too, must remember this every single day.

[blueskighs]

Hey Jamie,

I AM SO GLAD that you are getting through this. I think there is a lot of psychology, expectations, and just the plain old challenge of doing something completely different.

We are all individual and unique so we all have our own little things that really set us off and are difficult for us. One of mine is when I am really succeeding at something to sabotage myself. The other is boredom. I think things can get dicey when the newness wears off. And probably for a lot of us there is just this whole issue of weightloss. And how fast that happens.

I find that when I start making food choices that I am not comfortable with it is not usually one thing going on. There is usually a multitude of little things that have happened and I have gotten overwhelmed as they add up. But as I said we are all different. And I am one of the worst about piling on .. i.e. once I have "slipped" let's just go for the avalanche.

Hopefully NO S will help us work through these kinds of issues at our timing in our own way. Sending you BIG HUGS

Blueskighs

[Jamiebf]

Thank you so much everyone for your support. I have never recieved so much support on any of the many plans I have done in my life. All your posts are so helpful. Since this has been the weekend I haven't yet had to get back to the no S days just yet. I will take the advice and take this one day at a time and remember this really isn't a diet but a life change.

Thanks Blueskighs, hugs to you too

[Dawn]

It takes time! Time for the correct mind set to get totally stuck into your head. Right now it's in your head but kinda loosely. Or at least it's still loose enough that home made ice cream can knock it out of whack. It's finally occurring to me that all the foods that I love and crave and need to keep myself away from on N days will be there the next weekend and the one after that. For me it didn't start to come together until I was really getting it mentally. Of course being a smarty pants, I thought I got it right away, but now I can see that "getting it" takes time. Really understanding that this process is going to take quite a lot of time was actually freeing. I seem to have lost that frantic feeling, that desperate feeling that I always got before. I think we are dragging those feeling over from our past and those feelings fuel you in the beginning but they die out and then so does the diet. So getting rid of those feelings has made all the difference.

N days are not my problem, the S days are, but they are changing and I am now losing. Gee, ya think there's a connection???

Just remember when you start over, it's not totally like starting over, you really did learn a lot from the first go around, so take that with you and get your big ol' butt back on that horse. The sooner you get back on track the sooner you will feel better about things.


Sorry to go on and on, but what can I say? I am so hopeful for myself and I love to share this feeling with others.

Good luck kiddo!

[Jamiebf]

Thanks Dawn, that is really helpful. I really don't think I have lost any weight. I will not weigh myself because the scale thing is another obsession for me. I know my pants have felt tighter. Tomorrow it day 28 for me and I am looking forward to the structure of the no S days. I am going to work on those old unhealthy feelings that always lead to failure. I have been saying since I began this diet that I didn't care how long it took me to loose the 30 pounds because I was just happy to stop obsessing about dieting but that mindset is a hard one to completely change. I will keep working on good habit.

Thanks again

[Buffalo Gal]

Hey Jamie!

Buffalo Gal here. Last week I felt and reacted the same way. God knows why...but I think it's easier for us to believe we've tried and failed again. What makes this different is you saw what was happening and put the brakes on. Unlike other "diets" getting back to plan is not this huge bridge to cross. You just make 3 meals and eat them.

You can do it...just hang in there!

[Jamiebf]

Thanks Buffalo Gal,
It's good to hear from you. You are right it is so much eaisier to get back on track with the no S plan and I too believe that we expect to fail because that is the old diet way of thinking. I have done great today and feel like this will be the first week since I started April 1st that I will make better food choices. More veg and fruit.
Thanks for the support
Jamie

[blueskighs]

Glad to hear you are having a good day today!

We are with you in spirit!

Blueskighs