Terez's Check In

[Terez]

Tomorrow I start the No-S.

Today I'm being something of an idiot with my last hurrah. McDonald's burger and two large fries for lunch. I was forcing myself to eat the second fries, can't say I enjoyed them (much).

Now I have visions of Dove ice cream bars dancing in my head. I'm feeling pulled to go out and buy a box to have for dinner.

On the plus side, while I did have "seconds" with the fries, I'm not having snacks today. And technically the Dove bars will fit on a plate. So I guess it could be worse.

Also on the plus side, I did my workout today (T-Tapp).

Terez

[Terez]

You know what, I don't want to eat the Dove Bars from a place of feeling that I'm being an idiot. I want to appreciate them.

• I'm not spending the entire day binging. This is an extravagant treat that I enjoyed when I was slender. I want it to be a treat that I enjoy at any size, and I look forward to continuing to enjoy this when I'm slender again. (Hey, pretty good)
• It's not something I'm promiscuous about. I won't eat just any ice cream bar, and I won't eat just any Dove bar. It's got to be the exact one that I love or I do without. (better)
• When I went to the grocery store, they had rearranged their freezer case and at first I thought they were out of the kind I like. My attitude was: Then it's not meant to be. Not: I'm going to drive to every store in Northern Virginia until I find some! (good)
• I looked at all the ice cream novelties as I searched for the new Dove Bar shelf, and not a one of them appealed to me. Oh, okay, I lingered at the Klondikes but they didn't have the one kind of Klondike that I like so I just moved on. (I appreciate how particular I am about which ice cream treats I'll eat.)
• What do I love about this special Dove bar. It's the one with milk chocolate and choppped almonds. The almonds are salted, and that combination of smooooooth chocolate, nuts, salt and ice cream is absolutely sublime. (yum!)
• When I eat something that embodies such an exquisite combination of flavors and textures, I think that in days of yore only royalty enjoyed anything approaching this. And it's something I can have whenever I choose. (luxury)
• In my family we tend to plan our next meal while we're still eating our current one, and I found myself planning the next time I'll indulge in a box of Dove bars (my birthday in July). It was fun to give myself permission to do this a few times a year. (good)
• I'm hungry. When I have one or two as dessert after a meal, they don't have the same impact as when I eat them as a meal. I'm going to savor these bars when I eat them tonight.

Results - I'm not completely guilt-free but I do know I would feel deprived if I did not have them. And I do feel much more aligned about it than I did before I did this exercise.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go eat my Dove bars now!

[Terez]

OK, I still have a few hours before bedtime but I'm ruling my first day a SUCCESS.

Started my day with 15 minutes of exercise (T-Tapp). Just felt like I needed to after all the ice cream the night before.

I decided to heap my plates to be sure they'll tide me over. From what I'm reading this is typical behavior in the early days, so I'm doing it.

Breakfast: 3 eggs, scrambled, with a little bit of cheddar cheese. Three pieces of Ezekiel toast. Buttered one piece of toast. Coffee with half-and-half.

I knew it was a little excessive to have 3 eggs and 3 slices of toast but my Dove bars the night before weren't the world's most filling dinner, and I wanted to be sure I lasted until lunchtime. I was satisfied and full, but not uncomfortably so.

Lunch: OK, this was weird. I wanted a steak and cheese sandwich. But told myself no, it's too fattening. Then when I had passed the place where I could get one, I talked myself into it: fat's an "F" not an "S" and anyhow it will help me be sated longer. So I went into the nearby sandwich shop, and they make their steak and cheese in the microwave. Eww.

So I went home, planning to have a tuna melt as Plan B. But I had no tuna! What I did have was sardines. And a ziploc bag of cooked green beans marinating in a flaxseed oil and apple cider vinegar dressing. So I plopped the beans on a plate, and put the sardines next to them, the stuck a piece of Ezekiel bread in the toaster because I didn't think the beans would be enough to offset the sardines for me. Also had about a pint of kefir.

Writing this all out it seems kind of excessive. With the kefir, I mean. It doesn't fit on a plate. But then it's made from milk (I make it myself) and I keep reading about people having a glass of milk with their meals so same difference, right?

Anyway, what felt like real progress was the fact that I put only one piece of bread in the toaster. The meal was satisfying, if odd.

Two cups of Constant Comment tea between lunch and dinner.

Dinner: There were two giant boneless chicken breasts thawed in the fridge. I cut them into strips then, what the hey, I dredged them in flour and sauteed them in olive oil. Had two (gigantic) strips for dinner; put the rest in the fridge. Filled out my plate with three large raw carrots. Also put a small orange on the plate to have for dessert but honestly ended up a little too full to want the orange.

Also had a glass of wine with dinner.

A+ on Day One!

Terez

[Terez]

Another Success!

Breakfast was, again, three eggs and three pieces of toast. And I ate the orange leftover from last night's dinner.

Today I was way hungrier at lunch and ate about an hour earlier than yesterday. Got the steak and cheese sub. It wasn't quite as substantial as I'd hoped. Didn't want to get fries but knew I needed something more. Did have a pint of kefir before eating the sub. Then ended up having some pistachios but this was virtual plating and I'm so not ready for advanced techniques yet. Decided I've got to come up with everything I'm going to eat, and put it all on a plate. But I do believe it would all have fit easily onto a plate so I feel OK in calling this a legal lunch, just don't want to start taking shortcuts on Day 2 is all.

At dinnertime when I reached into the cupboard for a plate, we were down to the 12" dinner plates. Was momentarily tempted, then opened the dishwasher and took out a clean 10" plate.

Put leftover chicken and a cold baked sweet potato on it. Knew I'd want something else but nothing else was ready to go and I was really hungry and it was pretty late so I ate that -- and was not entirely satisfied. Wanted to go and take another half a sweet potato or some more chicken -- but that would have been seconds. Grrr.

With this following the lunchtime experience, decided I'm going to overload my plates for the rest of this week rather than put myself in this spot again. But not that big of a deal and if I need it later I'll have a few swigs of kefir to tide me over.

Oh, and I had a glass of vino with dinner. May even have a second glass, not sure.

Editing to make the observation that I'm drinking lots of water without "trying" to because I want to have something to "have" between meals, and what I have is water. Neat.

Loving this!!

[Terez]

Well, it's easy to keep having SUCCESS on this plan. I'm continuing to overcompensate by piling it on my plate, but it's my first week so I have permission.

Knew I'd be having lunch with a friend so I just had toast and coffee for breakfast. Butter on two slices, and cashew butter on the third slice. Half and half in the coffee.

Lunch was an Indian buffet. OK, I really piled that plate. But just one plate, no seconds, and no dessert. When my friend went back to the buffet for dessert, I ordered a cup of hot tea. Yay, me!

Dinner was leftover chicken and another sweet potato, both cold from the fridge. Drizzled 'em with flaxseed oil then sprinkled on about a teaspoon of nutritional yeast. Just had a hankering for healthy. Intended to add some cabbage or carrots but this was a honking big sweet potato and when I cut everything up the plate was full.

I've noticed that cut-up food takes up more real estate than the food in its "whole" state. Since I live alone and like to read while I eat, I generally cut up a meal so I can eat without looking at the plate to cut my food (which would interrupt my reading). Anyway, there was room on the plate before I began cutting up the potato and the meat but I quickly saw that I wasn't going to be able to add the cabbage or carrots without going into high-rise mode. Thanks to the substantial lunch, I was not interested in doing that.

Oh, I did have a glass of wine on the deck in the late afternoon. Was a little back-and-forth with myself over whether that was a "snack" but I figured the glass ceiling is by the day, and I certainly wouldn't call a cup of tea a snack, so I green-lighted it. Poured a second glass of wine to have with dinner but only had a few sips of that and will be pouring the rest out when I do the dishes. I've noticed I usually only want one glass of wine a day on this plan. (Let's see, I'm all of three days into it and I act as if I've got a pattern here!)

Did my T-Tapp this morning. Had been planning on doing it three days a week but I'm going to increase that and aim for 5 days a week.

Loving the HabitCal. Gimme those green squares!!

Terez

[Terez]

Ah, yes, another Success.

Breakfast, again, three pieces of toast, three eggs (over easy) and coffee with half-and-half.

Lunch was a honking 12-inch steak and cheese sandwich. Knew I'd be working really late and didn't want to be ravenous and have a snack. What's weird is, I had no trouble finishing the thing. (Yes, I put it on a plate. It was cut in half, so both halves fit easily on a 10" plate.)

Dinner was quite late. The chicken I took out of the freezer the other day wasn't entirely thawed. Which was OK with me, I didn't want to cook. But I did want to eat. After a few minutes of staring into the fridge, I settled on a cheese sandwich and a sweet potato.

Did I really want both, though? Sure, I was very hungry -- but it was late and I knew I'd be in bed before long. Was going to start with the sandwich and see if I wanted the sweet potato -- but, wait, that would be seconds. Well, not technically because I hadn't had "firsts" of the sweet potato. The "spirit of the law" is clearly that I fill my plate once and that's my meal.

So I filled my plate -- cheese sandwich and sweet potato (with flaxseed oil and nutritional yeast flakes) -- and ate the whole thing. If I hadn't filled the plate first I might have gone with half a sweet potato. But then again, I might not have. And WHO CARES anyway, all I'm doing right now is establishing a habit.

Sure hope to THINK all of this less, real soon.

Today I began taking supplements - a multivitamin and a "green food" supplement. Noticed that I'm eating a lot of orange and beige/brown and wanted to mix that up a bit.

That's all for today, folks.

Terez

[Terez]

Friday was technically a failure but I don't feel like I failed.

First, I knew I'd be having lunch with my mother so I had a lighter than usual breakfast. Drank some kefir then had a couple of pieces of toast and a cup of coffee.

When I got to my mother's we ate almost right away -- which was a good two hours earlier than when I normally eat lunch. I wasn't real hungry. I had a tuna sandwich and some grapes. I knew at the time that I was going to be in trouble because the only meal I had left was dinner, and my day had a whole lot of hours left in it.

Waited and had dinner at my regular hour but was so famished I went back for seconds. When I went to report the day on habitcal, I reported it as a failure.

Some thoughts about that:

• I'd been finding this diet so easy all week, and there were extenuating circumstances on Friday, and I was anguishing over eating. I just don't want to anguish over food, this diet is supposed to end all that anguish!
• There's an element of it feeling unfair that I turned down cookies at my mother's and held out as long as I could for dinner, only to end up with a "failure" anyway.
• It feels like a technicality. If I had rearranged my meals throughout the day (including the seconds) it would have come out to less than I normally eat because I had both a light breakfast and a light lunch. (Rationalizing. The point is to eat in a balanced way, not to starve myself to the point that I can't follow the plan.)
• This is my first week. The point of the Habitcal is to help build habits, not to be perfect all the time.

Results of my rumination: I had considered (beforehand) calling Friday a small-S day because I knew my mother would offer me a sweet. However, I didn't think through in advance the timing of the meals, and it would have been better to indeed have called it a small-S day, but in order to have enough balanced food in there, not to allow cookies.

Saturday - Not bad.

Breakfast: 2 pieces of toast with butter and honey, 1 piece with cashew butter, and a cup of coffee with half-and-half.

Lunch: Carnitas bowl at Chipotle with a beer. Astoundingly delicious. Ice cream cone after lunch (vanilla frozen custard from Kohr Bros); good but too big. Would have been happier with a child-sized cone.

Dinner: Turkey, provolone, cucumber, spinach & tomato sandwich and some chips all on a plate. Then had one piece of dark chocolate with a "liquid" espresso center. It was harsh and bitter, not worth the calories. Stopped on the way home and bought some cheddar baked potato chips (4 oz bag). Had about six chips; couldn't stand the taste of the spiced "cheddar" stuff on it and stopped eating. Want more treats but I don't have anything on hand. Ate an orange.

That's it for yesterday and today.

Terez

[Terez]

SUCCESS

Day 1 of Week 2 and ... it's happening. I'm not getting as hungry between meals.

For breakfast I drank some kefir (OK, kind of a lot). But I had two eggs instead of three, and a hunk of French bread.

Got hungry for lunch at least an hour earlier than usual, and held out for half an hour. Ate a sandwich and a small bag of chips. Six hours later I was leaving work, realizing I wasn't famished. I hadn't been sitting there imagining what I could be eating. Sure, I was hungry, but not famished.

Still have to do my taxes tonight (yikes) so I stopped at Boston Market on the way home. Got a 1/4 dark meal with two sides (creamed spinach for both) for dinner. Took that home and ate that and their little corned bread thing and a glass of wine -- and I didn't "clean" the plate. I ate most of it but I wasn't scraping up every bite and bit as I was doing on my dinners last week.

All I can say is, Wow.

Terez

[Terez]

Again, SUCCESS. I'm amazed at how easy it is now to wait between meals.

Today I took myself to McDonald's and had a bacon, egg cheese biscuit for breakfast and a cup of coffee with half-and-half.

That so didn't stick to my ribs. I was hungry for lunch earlier than usual. Came home and boiled water for pasta and frozen green beans. When they were done I fried a couple of eggs. As the eggs cooked I cut some thin slices of cheddar and put them over the pasta/beans (in a shallow bowl instead of a plate). Slid the two fried eggs on top and ate that together. Most tasty.

I wanted seconds but I remembered the rule and did not have them. I do see a pattern, though. If I have a less-than-adequate meal (as I did for breakfast), then at my next meal I feel seconds calling my name.

Dinner was Popeye's 3-piece spicy with some red beans 'n rice. I had to deal with some guilt about going there. Finally told myself this is not off-limits and I was not about to feel guilty about something I was going to eat anyway. (Do you get this split personality thing going too?) They gave me two biscuits and I ate it all. Had a glass of Dr. L Riesling (I ate at home). Tasty.

And that's it. No inner pleading for a snack, just waiting with no argument for the next meal. Awesome.

Terez

[Terez]

Doin' fine. SUCCESS on Wednesday and I expect the same as I finish today.

Weds:
Breakfast - 2 eggs, 2 slices of toast, coffee with half-and-half
Lunch - Barbeque pork sandwich (delectable!) and collard greens.
Mid-afternoon - coffee with half-and-half
Dinner - pasta, green beans, garlic, olives sauteed in olive oil with parmesan cheese and kippers added at the end. Enjoyed with a glass of red wine.

Thursday:
Breakfast - Large glass of kefir, 3 slices of toast (one with cashew butter, two just buttered), coffee with half-and-half.
Lunch - Reuben and small bag of chips
Dinner - Will be leftovers from last night's pasta creation, and another glass of wine.

If I were doing it again I think I'd get a banana instead of the chips at lunch today. The Reuben was the "special" at the deli and it included chips. Wonder if they'd have let me swap for a banana if I'd asked them...well, next time I'll ask.

This week I'm definitely eating more normal-sized meals and still able to easily last without snacks between them. Toughest thing for me is not getting seconds at dinner. But it's good to observe that tendency because it means I would have been eating seconds if I weren't on this "diet." Nice to know.

BTW, I'm really loving HabitCal. It's amazing how it's helped me be more consistent with exercising and running the dishwasher every night (hey, I've got my issues and you've got yours!).

Terez

[Terez]

Gosh, it's been a week since I posted! Didn't feel good for a few days this week and while I "under" did the plan (didn't even have three meals every day because of feeling yucky), I counted that as being on-plan since I had no S'es. So, Success.

S-Days - Last weekend we went out for Saturday breakfast and I had French toast. I found it too sweet and just not as satisfying as eggs and toast. Go figure.

Sunday afternoon I was driving past a Chik-fil-a and remembered a friend saying they have the best shakes. Did a little back and forth ("should I? shouldn't I?") then told myself there's no more back-and-forth over food, either it's an S-day or it isn't -- and this was. So I pulled into the drive-through and after not getting waited on I noticed the little sign saying they're closed on Sundays! Well, that answered my "should I or shouldn't I"!

Did buy a tub of my favorite confection (Dilettante brand chocolate covered dried cherries) and had the equivalent of about two fistsful (which isn't that much, these things are huge and you can't grab all that many). Then put the tub inside a cabinet on Sunday night before going to bed.

Effortless - Came across the tub of cherries today (Friday) and realized I had completely forgotten about it all week. Granted I was feeling poorly for several days but that wasn't the whole week. I just cannot get over the fact that these candies were not calling my name -- I've never been able to resist them before. I'm astounded.

Friday Adaptation - The only other thing worth commenting on is that every Friday I feel like this should be an S-Day. Fridays are the only N-day that I feel at all deprived. My plan is to keep technically on plan but have a "treat" as in, I'm going to have a burger and fries. Now, I know I can "legally" have this on any N-day but it's not the way I prefer to eat on a daily basis. It feels like a treat to have it today.

Bread - Oh, wait, one more observation. On other diets, it's been all or nothing for me as far as bread. I'd have no bread, or I'd eat slice after slice until a loaf was gone. On this diet, that's not happening. Even my "3 slices of toast" breakfasts have ratcheted back to 2-slices most of the time, and today I had brown rice instead of toast with my eggs.

Cravings? What are those? - I guess that -- the candy and bread thing -- is something that's really making me sit up and take notice. On N-days I'm not craving stuff. And on S-days, I'm not going crazy.

Taking Score - I've been working out 5 days/week (T-Tapp basic workout) along with No-S-ing. Still not able to zip up my jeans but I have trimmed off an inch here and a half-inch there. Mostly, I feel completely CONFIDENT that this will make a difference in the long term, and I really feel good about eating this way.

It's still early -- I've only been on this for three weeks -- but I'm a-loving it!

Terez

[Terez]

Well, the week was technically a success but I had three meals of hamburger and fries. One weird thing is, I can remember only two of them! But I do recall on Thursday night telling myself this was the third time this week.

Now the two I remember were from Five Guys, an outstanding burger and fries chain in the DC area. When I had the one that wasn't from them, I told myself I've got a new standard for when I have a french fries jones. It'll be Five Guys or I'll pass. It's like Dove ice cream bars with almonds, if I can't get them when I'm craving an ice cream bar, then I don't have any. Five Guys uses fresh potatoes (there are 50-lb bags of potatoes stacked up), the fries have this really BIG potato flavor. After tasting that, others just don't satisfy.

So while they were "legal" meals (albeit with fries piled very high on the plate), and I told myself I'm still building a habit here -- I would have felt better to have had it maybe once rather than three times in the same week.

I did no snacking, no sweets and no seconds, and I'm taking credit for it.

Now watch me spend my S-days eating vegetables because that's what this left me craving! (Half-kidding. Actually I think I'm going for the Chik-Fil-A sandwich and a shake later today....)

And, I'll say it, Fridays are hard -- but less so each week.

Terez

Editing to add: I went to Chik-fil-a and got a sandwich and shake. Eh. No big deal. In fact, the shake was a little too sweet and a little too big. The sandwich was OK but I'd rather have Popeye's fried chicken than one of these. The upside is, I will never again feel temptation when I drive by a Chik-Fil-A.

[Terez]

More thoughts...

One thing I tell myself, and it's what I told myself when I began my exercise program at the end of March. If I don't drop sizes fast, or don't drop as many sizes as I'd like, or even if I start off in a plateau -- I'm going to stick with it. I'd rather be smoother, trimmer and fitter at my current size than lumpy and bulgy at this size. I'd rather be eating real food and developing habits that will last than to be eating mindless junk (I can't tell you how many times I'd been having a bag of SmartFood popcorn as dinner before I began this WOE).

Personally, I had slowly been getting larger since Christmas. I didn't buy a larger size but some of my current size clothes no longer fit, so I've got two pairs of pants I can wear right now. Several shirts are looking like they'll pop open at the bust and I'm only wearing knit tops these days. So be it. I tell myself (a lot of self-talk here) that I've got the momentum of "getting bigger" to reverse before my body starts getting smaller. So feeling like I'm in a holding pattern is actually an improvement since I had been getting larger.

If I have to buy summer clothes in my current size, I will do it. Wearing tight clothes doesn't feel good and it doesn't look good. Going off the plan is not going to put me into a smaller size. Hanging in there for the long haul will.

BTW, I measure and I've dropped a half-inch here, a quarter-inch there. My raincoat is buttoning more comfortably across the hip. That's not huge, but it's a difference that was noticeable to me the two times I put on a raincoat this week, and it sure felt good.

Terez

[Terez]

Still on plan, so: SUCCESS

Last week had a freaky weird situation -- got raided by the SWAT team. It was a case of mistaken identity, with some harrowing moments in the hour-plus they were here until it was clearly understood that they had entered the home of a law-abiding citizens. (They had the warrant, it was lawful -- but we're not criminals and there was nothing for them to find, though they legally searched...)

Anyway, that started around 11PM last Tuesday and I called Wednesday an "S" day for SWAT raid recovery. However, it was hardly an "S" day. I had a class to teach that day and stopped for a coffee and to grab a bite. But all they had were sweet things. I asked what was the plainest thing they had, and it was an almond croissant. It was mainly bread with just a little almond cream. And I was so off my food that day that I had half of it for lunch and the rest of it that night.

Didn't have much of an appetite for a few days after that. By the weekend I was used to eating a small amount.

I don't believe in eating small amounts, it was just a weird week and one way I react to emotional stress is to lose my appetite. I knew it was temporary. But the fact remains, I'd been eating small meals for several days and then that's what was "habitual" last week when the weekend rolled around.

For lunch on Saturday I had a small salad and a sandwich, and ended up asking the restaurant for foil so I could wrap half the sandwich to take with me. Went out for an early "dinner" and got an appetizer. Later that evening I had the other half of that sandwich.

Oh, but here's the odd thing. So it's the weekend and I'm not doing much in the way of eating off plan. At first I tell myself, that's OK, I can just have one "S" day this weekend, and maybe that's a good plan. But I know better. I know that I will feel deprived if I have only one "real" S-day. So I begin sensing in to discern what kind of treat will satisfy. And I decide on York (mint) Klondike ice cream bars. But I haven't done my workout. I'm back and forth here (for, like, an hour ) and finally tell myself I can get the ice cream if I do my workout first.

So I do my workout and I'm driving to the store -- and it's almost midnight. What's come over me that I'm out at midnight to buy ice cream?? Had to do some self-talk on this and nothing was working -- until I said, It's better to have done my workout and eat ice cream, than it is not to have worked out and not to have had ice cream. And I got some real traction with that thought, I truly do believe the workout outweighs the ice cream, health-wise. And besides, the ice cream is legal, I just needed a way to feel good about it.

Sunday was Mother's Day and a gourmet meal cooked by my sister. Looks like "no seconds" is getting ingrained now; I didn't even consider eating more than what was on my plate the first go-round. When I got home that night I sure enjoyed finished up the York Klondikes! Yum.

It was my most satisfying weekend yet. I've got a much more robust appetite today (Monday) and feel nearly normal again.

I'm loving this "diet".

Terez

[blueskighs]

Last week had a freaky weird situation -- got raided by the SWAT team. It was a case of mistaken identity, with some harrowing moments in the hour-plus they were here until it was clearly understood that they had entered the home of a law-abiding citizens. (They had the warrant, it was lawful -- but we're not criminals and there was nothing for them to find, though they legally searched...)

terez,

wow that is freaky! glad you are Ok,

Blueskighs

[Terez]

Thanks, Blueskighs. Luckily I do coaching (hence all my self-talk) and I did some serious coaching on myself all the rest of last week to "talk myself down" from the (entirely normal) tendency to keep re-living the situation (thereby re-fanning the flames of outrage, fear, etc.).

It was hard work. Finally got my breakthrough after three days when I was inspired with the thought, "You're right. They screwed up. Do you want to be right or do you want to feel better?" After that I was able, bit by bit, to release my self-righteousness and start putting the event behind me.

Admittedly it still throws me a little off-balance when someone knocks at the door but I'm no longer jumping out of my skin over it! This residual schtuff will ease in time.

Wasn't sure whether to even mention the raid here but it somehow seemed odd in my first draft when I was vague about my justification for the midweek NWS-day

I appreciate your note, Blueskighs.

Terez