Everyday Systems

Uuuugh, just got home from parents house for dads B-Day. Crashed through glass ceiling... due to it being my coping stragtegy for the inevitable family stress. Had a steak that DID originally fit on plate, cut it in half and put part of it aside, then went back for the rest of it. Also a piece of the most amazing cake. Uuuugh, will call it an S day and get back on track in the am.... but how do you all repel enablers (mom) who push food on you? Of course, she's a sweet addict, snacker and very skinny. Do you do anything different prior to getting into a situation you KNOW is going to be that way?

Well, it was your dad's Birthday, so that is a legitimate S day. No worries. And, unless my calendar is wrong, today is an S day, too.

Don't think that you have to "make up" for yesterday by skipping the S day today.

I'd say your best bet is just not to go to Mom's except on weekends or special days. Or, have them over to your house where you can control what's available. It's either that or learn to say "No thanks" very firmly and repeatedly (but kindly).

Life happens; that's why there are S days.

JayEll is right. Your dad's birthday is a legitimate S day, and no, making up for it by not having an S day on Saturday isn't necessary.

I mean, don't get me wrong, if you've overdosed on cake and don't FEEL like a treat on an S day, you don't have to have one (I do not have S events every weekend). But it's okay to do so today if you WISH.

In my husband's family food=love. Feeding someone shows you care about them and to reject that food means you are rejecting their love. This creates a needy, controlling vibe around food which quite frankly drives me crazy.

I don't think there is an easy way to do this. You have to set some boundaries in this area but in a gracious way. The trick is to make the refusal into a compliment. "Oh, it's so good - I'm stuffed! I couldn't eat another bite." Be generous with your thanks and praise.

Since everyone is an adult, you just have to make your mother's issues not your problem. Your responsibility in this situation is to be appreciative and eat appropriately. What your mother does with that is her responsibility - one that quite frankly - you can't assume. We all have to tend our own gardens.

Are there any thin people in your family or other revelers? I've reported here before that my thin brother and nephew-in-law never seem pressured to eat because someone else tells them to. They just keep deflecting. "Not now." "I'll have some later." "Too full." "Not hungry enough. " "Saving my appetite." They change the subject, though I doubt on purpose. Or they make jokes. They get forgiven.

I often say, " WISH I was hungry enough to enjoy more, but I won't. It would be a waste." Or something similar.

Can you make a joke of it? Grab your mom, smother her with kisses, and say "I don't have to eat to know you love me! And I promise I'm not starving myself!" Done that one, too.

I consider social obligations to be a legitimate reason for an S day. If you feel obligated to go to your dad's birthday party, that's an S day.

Do NOT skip regularly scheduled S days to "make up" for something you did in the past. There are a number of problems with doing that:

1. It makes S days a reward for good behavior. You want to stop using food to reward yourself. That's not a good pattern to be in. Also, you can get into a pattern where you reward yourself with an S day every time you do something "good", and the "something good" can get smaller and smaller. A common problem people have on all kinds of diets is that they think doing something good allows them to splurge later, and the splurge has many more calories than the something good saved them. People who let themselves eat a pint of ice cream as a reward for going to the gym would be an example of this. It can get even worse, because things that appear to be "good" don't always result in saving calories. Say you go to CPK. Instead of eating two slices of pizza, you get a salad. Since you've been so good, you let yourself get dessert. The salad had more calories than the two slices of pizza would, but the salad sounds healthier (this is actually generally true of salads and pizza at CPK). It's easy to see why doing things like this is not going to result in weight loss.

2. It's only a small step from that to "borrowing" against future S days. The problem with this is, promising to eat less at some time in the future is not going to result in weight loss now.

3. There is nothing you can do to change what you did in the past, and this makes you focus on past behavior. You want to keep your focus on present and future behavior, which you can change, rather than on past behavior that you can't change.

This is such a down-to-earth board, IMHO.