coffee's daily check-in

coffee · Post by **coffee** » Wed Jan 26, 2011 3:08 pm

I'm coffee. My intro thread is here.

Start Weight: ~125lbs.
Aims (long term): I'm a little heavier and with a little more stomach than I'm used to, and I'm not happy with my permasnacking habits. My lack of exercise is contributing to my depression. Therefore, in the long term, I want to be a habitually active person, a person with a structured, healthy diet, and I want to lose a totally unspecified amount of weight and stomach.
Short term goals:
*21 days of (no failure) vanilla no-s ACHIEVED 24/02/11: see here and here
*fit into my high-waisted jeans
*see the scale trend downwards, regardless of amount

ADDED 28/02/11:
*21 days of (no failure) 14 minutes of anything! See this post for my decision to add this as a goal.

So far: (note: I write dates dd/mm/yy)
17/01/11: success.
18/01/11: S-day -- I took an S day because I was having a night out to celebrate my birthday (even though that wasn't till the 19th) and I wanted to make some brownies, eat one, and give some to my friends when they arrived!
19/01/11: S-day -- my birthday! I had a brownie from the night before for my breakfast, and I think also some crisps (chips) and salsa & hummus on the night.
20/01/11: success.
21/01/11: S-day -- my boyfriend's birthday. I can't remember what esses I had, but nothing really bingey.
22/01/11: S-day (Saturday). We went out to gourmet burger kitchen for a late birthday celebration for DBF. We shared chips (fries) from a big bowl, and I didn't portion them out on my plate, so that was my main S for the day (I also had a falafel burger, really big, YUM). I also had coca cola a few times throughout the day, maybe more esses that I don't remember.
23/01/11: S-day (Sunday). Can't remember what esses I had.
24/01/11: success. I also used my new birthday slow cooker for the first time today, to make a big batch of vegetable soup and dumplings. My tea (dinner) that night really fit the profile of 'how much food can I fit on a plate', but I'm okay with that for now: bowl of veggie soup and dumplings, cherry tomatoes, vegan 'cream cheese' sandwich in white bread, celery, vegan 'mayonnaise' (for dipping celery and tomatoes), blueberries. It was precariously balanced all on one plate!
25/01/11: success.

Sinnie · Post by **Sinnie** » Wed Jan 26, 2011 4:27 pm

Welcome! I relate to both your username (I love coffee) and your stats! I am about 5'2 or so, and weigh in the range of 117-120. At our weight, there are challenges but if the focus is about habits it makes things much easier. I think your long term goals are very smart. Good luck

coffee · Post by **coffee** » Thu Jan 27, 2011 11:14 am

Sinnie wrote:Welcome! I relate to both your username (I love coffee) and your stats! I am about 5'2 or so, and weigh in the range of 117-120. At our weight, there are challenges but if the focus is about habits it makes things much easier. I think your long term goals are very smart. Good luck

thanks

since we have similar stats, I will have a read through of your thread and see if there's anything you've experienced that it will he helpful for me to know

26/01/11: success. I drank too much and feel awful today, but I stuck to all the no s rules.

coffee · Post by **coffee** » Fri Jan 28, 2011 12:52 am

27/01/11: success. I've been really stressed out today (technically yesterday, it's early in the morning of the 28th, which is why I am posting for the 27th) and it was soo tempting to have a snack, but so far I've resisted ... hopefully I can go to bed soon and not ruin the 28th as a day of success!

coffee · Post by **coffee** » Sat Jan 29, 2011 11:11 am

28/01/11: success. I mean, technically. I'm not sure I totally kept to the spirit of the rules yesterday, but I kept to the letter.
When I got up, I was running later than I'd planned for a meeting at Uni. I was KNACKERED due to being up late the evening before, working on project stuff. I can't face breakfast under those circumstances, so I just had one mug of coffee (all I had time for) and left the house. When I got to Uni, I bought another mug of coffee from the machine and headed to the meeting. I thought I was only going to be on campus 2 hours and then I could get home and get a very late breakfast.
Well, of course, being me I had misread my timetable, because that is the kind of stupid thing I do. I got home about 1.30pm and it seemed ridiculous to have 'breakfast' at that point, so I had 'lunch' -- some microwave noodles ('pad thai'), and a tortilla wrap with vegan 'cream cheese' and some cherry tomatoes. I checked the calories on the microwave noodles -- nearly 600! even without the rest of the meal. I'm not buying those again.
I still felt 'entitiled' to my three meals, despite skipping breakfast, so my meal structure went sort of lunch -- tea -- nighttime. For my tea I had the last of the crockpot vegetable soup I made earlier in the week, and some celery with vegan 'mayonnaise' for dipping. For my nightime meal I had a small tin of baked beans on two slices of white toast with margarine. I haven't (yet) seen anything on this site to suggest it's against the rules to have later meals like this, so for now I'm considering it a success, even though I'm not happy about it.
Additionally, I decided to buy some pure orange juice as a treat. Normally I don't buy it, I stick to coffee (cause I need me some coffee!), water, and dilutey juice/squash (what do you call that in the USA?) because juice is EXPENSIVE and I can drink the whole lot easily, plus, mad calories. I had the majority of the litre, and yesterday I am sure I took in far, far too many calories for poor little me!

That's definitely an example of a day that is technically a success (I believe) but feels like a failure!

coffee · Post by **coffee** » Sun Jan 30, 2011 12:00 pm

29/01/11: S-day (Saturday). My best friend's birthday. I ate in a fairly structured way even though it was an S day -- breakfast (margarine on white toast), lunch (fajitas, filled with onion, mushroom, pepper & courgette in a sauce from a jar) but I had seconds of lunch, and a snack of a couple of strawberries. Even though I snacked and had seconds, it definitely wasn't a truly 'permasnacking' day, so yay.

Then I went to my best friend's house and drank TOO MUCH and we played board games. That's a couple of times I have drank too much since starting no-s. I don't feel awful this morning though, I feel alright, not hungover just a bit tired, so I obviously only drank enough to minorly embarrass myself, I didn't majorly embarrass myself or make myself ill or anything.

It's nice to think that because today is an S-day, I have 14 days of failure-free No-S in the bag

5 more N-days until I reach the magic 21 number.

coffee · Post by **coffee** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 11:15 am

30/01/11: S-day (Sunday). I'm not happy with yesterday's eating. I didn't have any set mealtimes, just grazed all day, wrapping things up in fajita wraps as I felt like it, some strawberry and banana and soy yoghurt as I felt like it, some toast and margarine as I felt like it. I realise now that I have NO IDEA how much I ate because of how unstructured it was. Thinking about what I remember eating, it doesn't seem like much at all --- but I felt uncomfortably full so it MUST HAVE been a lot. At least it was an S-day.

14 days down!

coffee · Post by **coffee** » Tue Feb 01, 2011 10:20 am

31/01/11: success. A bit difficult today though. I started off with 2 biscuits of weetabix, soy milk, topped with several large chopped up strawberries. And of course, a ton of coffee. But I think, seeing the healthy food, I fell into a trap of not wanting to 'ruin' my healthy eating streak and eat something unhealthy, even with perfect no-s compliance. Of course, it's good to eat healthy, but I think I was trying to be too low calorie (no measuring, just 'by eye') and I spent a lot of the day hungry.
For lunch, I had one grilled spicy beanburger, two cherry tomatoes, quite a lot of sliced up cucumber, some (microwaved) peas, and (boiled) sliced greens. A little bit of salt, lemon juice, and ketchup, and a banana. It was definitely a nice full plate, but apart from the beanburger and the ketchup and maybe the banana, everything was very low calorie. I'm not totally sure it was enough for me. Anyway, afterwards, I felt I wanted a cigarette (I'm a fairly recent quitter) so I went for a walk instead (still not the same!!). I went to the pet shop to look at the cute animals and fish for a bit, and then I went to Waitrose to buy myself some nice (read: expensive) savoury meal foods to motivate me to not want snacks or sweets.
For tea, I had three little vietnamese rice paper rolls, filled with shiitake, alfalfa sprouts, carrot ... and I want to say maybe bell pepper and parsley? Not sure, I bought them rather than made them. Also, a little bit of the ginger miso sauce they came with, but not much (I'm not a big miso fan), quite a lot of soy sauce, and some microwaved asparagus with salt and lemon juice.
So quite a low calorie tea, too, by my standards at least. After a couple hours I was hungry, but I managed to resist. I just had coffee, green tea, and water.

So today, I definitely plan on eating a bit more, but actually, I didn't wake up particularly hungry, so maybe yesterday wasn't too little food even though it felt like it at the time. Maybe yesterday is more like what I should be doing than most days are! I'm not sure yet, I'll play it by ear. I'm starting off today with a slice of thick white toast, peanut butter, a banana, and a large strawberry, and it's yum

coffee · Post by **coffee** » Wed Feb 02, 2011 3:27 am

01/02/11: success. Breakfast was as I noted above (slice of thick white toast, peanut butter, a banana, and a large strawberry). Lunch was spaghetti with roasted veg sauce (from a jar), some fried courgette, and some toasted pine nuts, and another banana. Tea was smoked tofu with sesame seeds, fried, served along with boiled sliced greens, microwaved peas and carrots, boiled new potatoes. Some salt, lemon juice, margarine and instant gravy over that lot. As you can see, I'm not much of a chef, I am big on frying and using the microwave.

I also treated myself to a diet coke. I'm pretty sure that's not a failure, from what I've read, just not ideal. I'm not stressing about it, I have a diet coke maybe once every couple months.

I was still pretty hungry today. Either I'm not eating quite enough, I'm still adjusting, or I'm not spacing my meals well. Maybe a bit of all three. I'll catch on soon enough. For now, I'm learning that hunger won't kill me.

coffee · Post by **coffee** » Wed Feb 02, 2011 11:51 pm

02/02/11: success. I had beans on toast for breakfast -- small tin of baked beans, two slices of white toast with margarine. And of course a pot of coffee. I managed to stick with healthy eating for lunch, with a MASSIVE massive salad -- raw cherry tomatoes, raw cucumber, raw onion, all sliced up small and mixed with toasted pine nuts, salad spice mix (it's like, pepper, and olivey flavours and stuff), on a bed of lettuce, topped with a mix of beans and onion and sweetcorn in a smoky roasted veg sauce, with some grilled cherry tomatoes and a banana. For tea, I didn't manage to eat anywhere near as healthy -- two vegan 'chicken' burgers (ehh, processed food, but I WANTED it) in a total of 4 slices of bread (too much bread today!! trying not to worry about it!), with margarine, tomato, cucumber, fake mayonnaise, and a side of asparagus. I got full when I was nearly done, and instead of pushing through it, I left some of the bread and tomato. Small victories!

I haven't been nearly as hungry today, probably cause I ate a lot more today. Thinking of maybe weighing in tomorrow, but I'm not sure, because if I see no change, I might get disheartened. And I'm only on day 17 (I think), so that's silly.

I'm a bit worried about staying on plan tomorrow -- it's going to be my first N-day restaurant outing! We're going to an Indian place (one I've never been to before) for my housemate's birthday.

coffee · Post by **coffee** » Fri Feb 04, 2011 2:50 pm

03/02/11: FAILURE. It's pretty disappointing that I had a failure so close to the 21 day mark, but it felt worth it at the time -- in retrospect, I'm not so sure. I was doing fine until we went out to eat in the evening, but then when we arrived at the Indian restaurant, they'd put out pickle trays already, and I just couldn't resist. I had one poppadom, with a little of each thing -- mango chutney, onion pickle, chillis. Yum. When my food arrived, (Vegetable Rogan & lemon and cashew rice) the rice and curry were plated seperately for us to serve, and since I'd already failed I didn't bother to plate it up fully before eating, I just took a small amount and refilled afterwards. I ate all my rice, but left about 1/3 of my curry because I was full, so at least I guess I was listening to my body's cues. After my food, I passed on the 'after eight's they gave us, but I had several slices of orange. So all in all, a pretty big fail that meal. But nevermind! Time to go back and try again

kerrycrow · Post by **kerrycrow** » Fri Feb 04, 2011 5:16 pm

Well, in the scheme of things it wasn't a FAILURE that is going to do a lot of weight damage. I guess the key thing to ask is what would you do differently the next time?

Kevin · Post by **Kevin** » Fri Feb 04, 2011 5:29 pm

Life sometimes interferes with your best intentions. It does not sound like a failure of epic proportions. Overall, it sounds like you are doing really well.

coffee wrote:03/02/11: FAILURE. It's pretty disappointing that I had a failure so close to the 21 day mark, but it felt worth it at the time -- in retrospect, I'm not so sure. I was doing fine until we went out to eat in the evening, but then when we arrived at the Indian restaurant, they'd put out pickle trays already, and I just couldn't resist. I had one poppadom, with a little of each thing -- mango chutney, onion pickle, chillis. Yum. When my food arrived, (Vegetable Rogan & lemon and cashew rice) the rice and curry were plated seperately for us to serve, and since I'd already failed I didn't bother to plate it up fully before eating, I just took a small amount and refilled afterwards. I ate all my rice, but left about 1/3 of my curry because I was full, so at least I guess I was listening to my body's cues. After my food, I passed on the 'after eight's they gave us, but I had several slices of orange. So all in all, a pretty big fail that meal. But nevermind! Time to go back and try again :)

coffee · Post by **coffee** » Sat Feb 05, 2011 1:20 pm

kerrycrow wrote:Well, in the scheme of things it wasn't a FAILURE that is going to do a lot of weight damage. I guess the key thing to ask is what would you do differently the next time?

Thanks for the support. I know I didn't eat a LOT outside of my meal, so I don't feel too bad about it, I'm just disappointed I ruined my streak! I don't know what I would do differently. I guess I could have asked them to leave the pickle tray and poppadoms when they brought the main meal, and plated up everything together.

Kevin wrote:Life sometimes interferes with your best intentions. It does not sound like a failure of epic proportions. Overall, it sounds like you are doing really well.

thanks for the support! Yeah, it was a fairly moderate failure overall. I'm happy with how I'm doing so far, anyway, even though I didn't quite make my 21 days. Hopefully I can make 21 days from now on

coffee · Post by **coffee** » Sat Feb 05, 2011 1:26 pm

04/02/11: success. I slept in and had to rush to a meeting, and therefore didn't get a chance to eat until 12.10 -- I bought a banana and called that breakfast. At about 13.30 I had a really nice lunch, of two pieces of fried smoked sesame seed tofu, a 'salad' (of raw onion, fried onion, raw tomato, toasted pine nuts, salad seasoning, olive oil, salt and lemon juice), 4 roasted cherry tomatoes, some boiled sliced greens, and a few pieces of asparagus. For tea, I had vegan spaghetti bolognaise. DBF couldn't finish his plate, so he handed it over to me, of course expecting I would finish it, like I always do (actually, I'm quite ashamed! He's over 6 foot tall and fairly well built, and it's me, his 5'3" 125lb girlfriend, who eats his leftovers when I serve us up the same amount!

No wonder I've put on weight!!) -- but I resisted. I was like, nope, I'm only doing one plate. And he said, it'll only go to waste! But I put it in the fridge. I'll have it another time. Win!

amake616 · Post by **amake616** » Sat Feb 05, 2011 2:24 pm

This might sound like a dumb question but what exactly is 'tea' for you out of curiosity? I've read about British people having 'tea' in books but I always assumed that just meant drinking tea - but you eat actual food during your tea so why is it called tea? I'm assuming it would make sense to me if I were from the U.K. too but I think I've drunk tea five times in my life so it's not translating, lol.

Kevin · Post by **Kevin** » Sat Feb 05, 2011 2:37 pm

Is tea a fourth meal? I have no problem with that, I'm just wondering, too. I wonder how many cultures have four meals (one of them being a late afternoon pick-me-up).

coffee · Post by **coffee** » Sat Feb 05, 2011 5:07 pm

I think it might be a regional thing (I'm from the North) but 'tea' is just what the rest of the English-speaking world refers to as 'dinner' -- my last meal of the day. And no, it's not a fourth for me, although some people might eat 'high tea' or 'afternoon tea' between lunch and 'supper' (the last meal of the day) -- only the very posh of the past would do that regularly, I think. 'Tea' is kind of a holdover word from that period I guess, but for me, tea is my big meal and very rarely resembles anything to do with the drink 'tea'! (I don't even like to drink tea. I'm a coffee girl. :p)

Normally, I would call my meals breakfast, dinner and tea, but that's even more confusing, so here I call them breakfast, lunch, tea. I just can't bring myself to call my tea 'dinner' though! Dinner is for midday!

(I think this clarification post may have confused the issue even more!)

amake616 · Post by **amake616** » Sat Feb 05, 2011 9:06 pm

....that's awesome.

I would never have guessed you call your evening meal 'tea' and that it has nothing whatsoever to do with tea. Clearly, I lack imagination. I'm still perplexed as to why 'high tea' would come BEFORE 'tea' but I suppose if I were English it would be perfectly logical!

This is what makes reading the posts from people in other countries fun I think. I keep seeing other people eating things I've never heard of, like "capsicum" and "rocket".

coffee · Post by **coffee** » Sun Feb 06, 2011 7:32 pm

05/02/11: S-day, Saturday. For breakfast I had white toast with peanut butter, me and DBF had a late lunch in town, I had a hummus and sundried tomato bagel with a little bit of salad and a fair amount of chips (fries) and ketchup -- all of which I definitely didn't plate together! Because we'd eaten so late, we didn't have a planned tea, but after he'd gone to bed (I was still up, drinking with friends) I had a bolognaise sandwich (leftovers). I had some coca cola throughout the day, too. I don't think I had any other sweets or snacks. I drank a few bottles of pear cider.

Kevin · Post by **Kevin** » Sun Feb 06, 2011 9:37 pm

Many of us over here call that post-work meal supper. On a regular day I wonder "what's for supper?" On Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter we eat "dinner", usually in mid-afternoon. You get out the china and silver for dinner (or at least the nicest dinnerware you have).

coffee wrote: ...
'Tea' is kind of a holdover word from that period I guess, but for me, tea is my big meal and very rarely resembles anything to do with the drink
...

coffee · Post by **coffee** » Mon Feb 07, 2011 2:54 pm

Kevin wrote:Many of us over here call that post-work meal supper. On a regular day I wonder "what's for supper?" On Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter we eat "dinner", usually in mid-afternoon. You get out the china and silver for dinner (or at least the nicest dinnerware you have).
coffee wrote: ...
'Tea' is kind of a holdover word from that period I guess, but for me, tea is my big meal and very rarely resembles anything to do with the drink
...

For some reason I was under the impression it was 'dinner' everywhere else

This word stuff is confusing

I keep getting my dates confused ... YESTERDAY was the 6th, and Saturday, which I put in the last post as the 6th, is the 5th. I'll go back and change that in a minute!

06/01/11: S-day (Sunday). For breakfast, I had a slice of lemon and poppyseed cake that I bought in town on Saturday -- I SAVED it! I had that with some coffee, obviously. For lunch, I had baked beans on toast (3 slices white toast, margarine, quite a lot of beans). For tea, I had a whole takeaway pizza -- onion, pepper, mushroom, pineapple, olive, no cheese please!
I drank some coca cola throughout the day, and a lot of orange juice, but if I had any solid snacks I don't remember them.

coffee · Post by **coffee** » Mon Feb 07, 2011 3:06 pm

So, I didn't manage to make my first 21 days failure-free, but I HAVE done 21 days of No-S. In pretty colours, this is what that looks like:

success -- 17th January
s-day
s-day
success
s-day
s-day
s-day
success
success
success
success
success
s-day
s-day
success
success
success
failure
success
s-day
s-day -- 6th February

Even if I'd managed my 'run' of 21 days, I don't think I would really have felt I'd 'achieved' it yet because of those many NWS days in the first week. Here's to making this run more successful!

coffee · Post by **coffee** » Mon Feb 07, 2011 3:10 pm

Number of days following No S: 21 <-- whoopee!!

--

Number of N-days: 12
Number of successful N-days: 11
Number of unsuccessful N-days: 1 <-- good score!

--

Number of S-days: 9
Number of weekend S-days: 6
Number of Non-Weekend S-days: 3 <-- too many, will try to keep it under this from now on.

--

Longest run of days without failure: 17 <-- aim to beat this!
Current run of days without failure: 3

coffee · Post by **coffee** » Mon Feb 07, 2011 11:56 pm

07/02/11: success. breakfast was a massive portion of beans on toast (three slices white bread, margarine, hefty portion of beans). lunch was baked sweet potato with chickpea salad (mashed chickpeas, vegan mayonnaise, lemon juice and salt) + plenty of sliced plum tomato and cucumber. tea was two vegan 'chicken style' burgers (grilled), sliced cucumber and plum tomato, microwaved asparagus, boiled carrots and peas. lashings of salt, lemon juice, and vegan mayonnaise.

haven't had a lot of time to think about food, been stressing about my dissertation instead!

Kevin · Post by **Kevin** » Tue Feb 08, 2011 12:56 am

This beans on toast thing, I'm intrigued. What kind of beans (I am imagining little white ones) and how are they prepared? A sweet sauce? A bacon-y sauce?

And it's just plain white toast?

And I'm glad you made it to 21 days. Congrats.

coffee · Post by **coffee** » Tue Feb 08, 2011 1:59 am

The beans are British staple (especially STUDENT staple) Heinz baked beans. Over here, "beans on toast" or "jacket (baked) potato and beans" will always refer to these -- haricot beans in a sweetened, tomato based sauce. And they're traditional in an English breakfast too, of course!
I normally just have mine with plain white toast, which doesn't make for the most well-rounded meal. They technically count as a portion of vegetables though, so I reckon that makes it okay!

Over here, we will eat baked beans with everything. I should add a new statistic, maybe, 'servings of baked beans eaten' or whatever!

And thank you for the congratulations

Kevin · Post by **Kevin** » Tue Feb 08, 2011 2:32 am

Haricot beans translates into 'merican as Boston beans or Navy beans. Got it. But what you describe are not Boston baked beans, which are cooked in molasses with bacon, onion, mustard and black pepper. Nary a tomato in sight. Thanks for the link. I can buy those on Amazon, but they are imported from England, which I find amusing. I mean, you'd think they'd produce them here, given that they can grow everything necessary here.

Of course, beans and any grain (including the wheat in bread) make a complete protein, so they have that going for them...

Thanks for taking the time to explain. Now get back to your dissertation and stop letting me bother you.

coffee wrote:The beans are British staple (especially STUDENT staple) Heinz baked beans. Over here, "beans on toast" or "jacket (baked) potato and beans" will always refer to these -- haricot beans in a sweetened, tomato based sauce. And they're traditional in an English breakfast too, of course!
I normally just have mine with plain white toast, which doesn't make for the most well-rounded meal. They technically count as a portion of vegetables though, so I reckon that makes it okay! :lol:

Over here, we will eat baked beans with everything. I should add a new statistic, maybe, 'servings of baked beans eaten' or whatever!

And thank you for the congratulations :)

coffee · Post by **coffee** » Wed Feb 09, 2011 2:32 pm

Kevin wrote:Haricot beans translates into 'merican as Boston beans or Navy beans. Got it. But what you describe are not Boston baked beans, which are cooked in molasses with bacon, onion, mustard and black pepper. Nary a tomato in sight. Thanks for the link. I can buy those on Amazon, but they are imported from England, which I find amusing. I mean, you'd think they'd produce them here, given that they can grow everything necessary here.

Of course, beans and any grain (including the wheat in bread) make a complete protein, so they have that going for them...

Thanks for taking the time to explain. Now get back to your dissertation and stop letting me bother you.

Until 1928, they were produced in Canada, apparently. And obviously Heinz is an American company. But maybe the British were the only ones who wanted this particular product!

A couple of my American friends living in the UK have voiced their extreme dislike of these delicious beans. I think probably, to people not growing up eating them, they taste sweet (I think of them as a savoury food, definitely, but they have some sugar) or unnatural (the 'tomato' sauce does not taste of tomato!) but an American friend of mine sent me some kind of American baked beans in a tin and I thought they were weird! I'm not sure what they were, but they had onions, and tasted vaguely (very vaguely) of gravy.

amake616 · Post by **amake616** » Wed Feb 09, 2011 2:35 pm

Yup, American baked beans in a tin are very savory with some sweetness (usually from brown sugar or molasses), not as much as it sounds like English style ones have. Butter beans baked with ketchup, onions, bacon, and chili powder ....soooo amazingly delicious.

coffee · Post by **coffee** » Wed Feb 09, 2011 2:38 pm

08/02/11: success. Breakfast was coconut and cherry cereal with soymilk. Lunch was pasta, tomato-based pasta sauce with cherry tomatoes and roasted veg in it,a tiny bit of vegan 'cream cheese' to make the sauce creamy, and some toasted pine nuts. Tea was curry -- jalfrezi sauce, onion, aubergine, vegan 'chicken' strips, with boiled white rice.

coffee · Post by **coffee** » Tue Feb 15, 2011 3:41 pm

so, I haven't had a lot of time to check in, but I'm still on the wagon! I don't really remember what I've eaten over the last few days, but luckily for me, on no-s analysing what I've eaten is not part of counting success/failure

09/02/11: success
10/02/11: success
11/02/11: S-day, for boyfriend's work party. I didn't eat much this day at all I was SOOO rushed and stressed. Also, I stayed sober the whole party, super impressed with myself. I had one coke, and water the rest of the night.
12/02/11: S-day (Saturday).
13/02/11: S-day (Sunday).
14/02/11: success.

coffee · Post by **coffee** » Tue Feb 15, 2011 9:16 pm

I've had a stressful week, so I've decided to make another stats post to cheer myself up and motivate myself

Number of days following No S: 29

--

Number of N-days: 17
Number of successful N-days: 16
Number of unsuccessful N-days: 1

--

Number of S-days: 12
Number of weekend S-days: 8
Number of Non-Weekend S-days: 4

--

Longest run of days without failure: 17
Current run of days without failure: 11

--

if I haven't lost any weight, it's pretty obvious where my excess lies -- taking too many NWS days!!

But maybe that will balance itself out over time ...
The rest is looking pretty positive. I hope in 10 days I can make it into the 21 day club

coffee · Post by **coffee** » Tue Feb 15, 2011 10:54 pm

15/02/11: success. breakfast: sliced apple (just got my new apple corer/slicer! LOVE IT.) with a little bit of peanut butter on each slice, yum. and a handful of grapes. lunch: 'open' sandwich (so just one slice of kingsmill 50-50 bread) with margarine, chickpea salad (chickpeas, vegan mayonnaise, onion, lemon juice, salt, all mashed), slices of tomato. Handful of grapes. Not so yum -- I found a ROCK in it while I was eating, EW. Must have come from the can of chickpeas. Appetite a bit ruined but since I didn't break any teeth I finished it anyway. tea: roasted aubergine, tomato, onion and carrots, microwaved peas, some marinaded (brown sauce, bbq sauce, lemon juice, oil) and fried vegan 'chicken' strips. with bbq sauce on the side.

coffee · Post by **coffee** » Wed Feb 16, 2011 11:09 am

weighed in this morning, nude, on an empty stomach, 119.8. I was actually going to try putting off 'official' weighing (I jump on and off the scales whenever I feel like it, but don't strip or record it) for another week or so, but I couldn't help it. If I've truly lost ~5lbs, I'm super happy, but it could be fluctuation for any reason.

coffee · Post by **coffee** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 12:07 am

16/02/11: success. breakfast was two slices of kingsmill 50-50 toast with margarine. lunch was a chickpea salad& cucumber sandwich (on kingsmill 50-50), and about half a bag of crisps (chips). tea was a pasta bake: pasta, fried onion and aubergine, sundried tomato pesto, all topped with some crushed crisps, vegan cream cheese and toasted pine nuts and then baked.

not a totally healthy day, but, eh

coffee · Post by **coffee** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 9:53 am

forgot to mention that yesterday my housemate bought a kinect and I did a biggest loser workout. I am soooo unfit!!

coffee · Post by **coffee** » Fri Feb 18, 2011 12:01 am

17/02/11: success. I only managed to fit in two, pretty unhealthy, meals today. rushed off my feet. had kingsmill 50-50 toast with margarine for breakfast, for tea I had a beanburger, oven chips (fries), and some baked beans.

coffee · Post by **coffee** » Sat Feb 19, 2011 11:02 am

18/01/11: success. breakfast was toast and peanut butter, lunch was pasta and sundried tomato pesto, tea was takeaway -- vegetable pathia and boiled rice. A severe lack of vegetables these last few days!!

coffee · Post by **coffee** » Sun Feb 20, 2011 4:47 pm

19/02/11: S-day (Saturday). Unhealthy. gorged on apple cookies and etc. beans on toast for breakfast, pasta for lunch/tea (ate late), ate sorbet at the cinema and had a few sweet drinks. ah well.

coffee · Post by **coffee** » Mon Feb 21, 2011 11:46 am

20/02/11: S-day (Sunday). ate toooo much, FACT. Even went to McDonalds for fries and a cherry pie (yes, if possible, vegan mcdonalds options are even less healthy than meaty ones!!). Can't remember what else I ate, except the can of dandelion&burdock I treated myself to, YUMMY. Still, it was an S-day, so all is well.

Oh! That was day 17 with no failures

So as long as I am successful today, I have beaten my record

Roll on, 21-day club!

I did another biggest loser workout on my housemate's kinect. It kicked my arse!

coffee · Post by **coffee** » Tue Feb 22, 2011 2:51 am

21/02/11: success. slept in so missed breakfast. lunch was a pasta bake thing and some strawberries. tea was two veggie burgers in whole wheat buns with cucumber and tomato, and some strawberries.

I did a little bit of a fun kinect dance game which I guess counts as SOME exercise.

coffee · Post by **coffee** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 1:01 am

22/02/11: success. slept in and missed breakfast again. lunch was sausage sandwiches -- two wholewheat bread rolls with margarine, one tomato and garlic sausage in each, one slice of fried aubergine in each, and ketchup. tea was TAKEAWAY (oops, not so great with the healthy) -- bean curd and vegetables in black bean sauce, boiled rice, crispy seaweed.

starting to realise I haven't had a lot of good fresh fruit and veg recently. Gonna try to make that a priority tomorrow!

I did a biggest loser workout on kinect, and played a couple of kinect adventure games with my bff.

coffee · Post by **coffee** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 12:59 pm

Some clothes I ordered from the internet arrived today. The top that I, on a whim, ordered in a size 8 UK (the internet tells me that's a size 4 US) totally fits. That's not really 'new', I usually try on an 8 and a 10 in tops, depending on stretchiness, and it's about even whether it's the 8 or 10 that fits, but it's still nice. Maybe I see a future where I always order size 8 and don't even worry about it. Although my breasts would have to shrink some (considerably) first for that to happen!

In 'feeling comfortable with my body' steps, my (male) best friend was over last night, and we had some good joking about our body types that didn't even make me feel self-conscious or uncomfortable (he's super super skinny, and we mocked both that and my squidgy tummy). It's nice to feel that comfortable with someone. In my weaker moments, joking about the fat on my belly would make me upset, but right now idgaf!

ETA: I just noticed, it's kind of weird that I am happy about wearing a smaller size in the same post I am talking about not being unhappy with my body. Is it possible for me to WANT TO LOSE WEIGHT *and* to BE TOTALLY COMFORTABLE WITH THE WEIGHT I AM NOW? Or am I kidding myself? This is further compounded by the fact that I am at a "healthy" weight and am therefore trying to lose weight purely for vanity reasons. I like my body now, but I would like it better smaller. Is that okay, or is one goal undermining the other? To be further investigated, later.

amake616 · Post by **amake616** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 5:42 pm

"Is it possible for me to WANT TO LOSE WEIGHT *and* to BE TOTALLY COMFORTABLE WITH THE WEIGHT I AM NOW?"

Yes. And I'd say it's actually preferable to wanting to lose weight and being deeply unhappy/uncomfortable with the way you look already. After all, losing weight takes a while if you're trying to do it healthfully and it can be counterproductive to be so unhappy with your weight you're constantly watching the scale and sabotaging yourself with impatience and frustration. I know cause I've done it, lol. I'm okay with myself as I am now so it makes me more willing to be merciful on myself in my dieting habits which helps me not slip into a binge/starve cycle.

coffee · Post by **coffee** » Thu Feb 24, 2011 12:37 am

amake616 wrote:"Is it possible for me to WANT TO LOSE WEIGHT *and* to BE TOTALLY COMFORTABLE WITH THE WEIGHT I AM NOW?"

Yes. And I'd say it's actually preferable to wanting to lose weight and being deeply unhappy/uncomfortable with the way you look already. After all, losing weight takes a while if you're trying to do it healthfully and it can be counterproductive to be so unhappy with your weight you're constantly watching the scale and sabotaging yourself with impatience and frustration. I know cause I've done it, lol. I'm okay with myself as I am now so it makes me more willing to be merciful on myself in my dieting habits which helps me not slip into a binge/starve cycle.

thanks for the encouragement

coffee · Post by **coffee** » Thu Feb 24, 2011 12:40 am

23/02/11: success. for breakfast I had leftover chinese takeaway, cold, which is pretty much my favourite breakfast in the world, not gonna lie. At least it means I always stretch the takeaway out to two meals! for lunch, weight watchers lentil soup, and a wholewheat bread roll with margarine. for tea, veggie burger and fresh spinach and ketchup in a bread roll (with margarine), a few oven chips (fries), some peas and some carrots (microwaved).

coffee · Post by **coffee** » Sat Feb 26, 2011 8:33 am

24/02/11 AND 25/02/11: success(es). My sleep schedule get pretty screwed so it wasn't always '3 meals between waking and sleeping', so I made sure it was '3 or less meals in any 24 hour period' (actually, 3 the first day, 2 the second day) even though they definitely didn't look like breakfast-lunch-tea. I don't really remember what I ate though!

Also, I think I might have reached 21-days of no failure! Though I'm going to go count in a minute. Woop woop!

coffee · Post by **coffee** » Sat Feb 26, 2011 8:59 am

Number of days following No S: 40 <- wow! it feels like I only just arrived here!!

--

Number of N-days: 26
Number of successful N-days: 25
Number of unsuccessful N-days: 1 <-- no more failures since the first one!

--

Number of S-days: 14
Number of weekend S-days: 10
Number of Non-Weekend S-days: 4 <-- I still think that this is too many overall, but 3 of them are from my very first week, and I can't wipe the past clean!

--

Longest run of days without failure: 22
Current run of days without failure: 22 <-- hey guys!! I made the 21 club

--

super happy that I achieved 21 day club status, since that was my first 'behaviour' milestone

I'm gonna go post there in a bit.
Also, counting up these posts was a draaaag and I hope I got it all right. Thinking of starting a habitcal to make that easier, BUT -- I still want to post in this thread (I like writing down vaguely what I ate if/when I remember, and my thoughts) and 2 things to update might be too many. I'll think about it over this weekend. I also need to come up with another 'behaviour' milestone/challenge like I said I would after hitting 21 days.

I weighed myself nude, empty stomach, first thing this morning, and I was at 118lbs, which was what I was prior to University. Of course, then I was around that weight all the time, not just at my lowest fluctuations wearing no clothes when weighing in in the morning :p But the number still makes me happy. I'm not sure when I will mark off the 'my weight is trending down' milestone -- my first 'weigh in' at 125lbs is a VERY rough weigh in, clothed, through the day, so I can't really compare the two. Maybe I will jump on the scales clothed throughout the day when I feel like it for a bit, and when I haven't seen 125 or higher at all for several days, I will consider that achieved. Weighing is complicated!

Last time I tried on my 'measurement jeans' they were still not decent, though. They don't pop open QUITE as readily now, I can walk a bit, and even sit down carefully, which I couldn't do when I started. But like, when I put on jeans for the day, I like to know I can sit down WHENEVER I LIKE, not just on an empty stomach (:lol:), so, I wouldn't say they FIT yet!

Sinnie · Post by **Sinnie** » Sun Feb 27, 2011 1:44 pm

It sounds like you are doing so great! Keep it up

Kevin · Post by **Kevin** » Sun Feb 27, 2011 1:52 pm

Congrats, coffee. Sounds great!

coffee · Post by **coffee** » Sun Feb 27, 2011 7:57 pm

Sinnie, Kevin, thanks for your congratulations

I feel I'm really settling into no-S now. I still haven't come up with another behaviour goal yet, though. I'm considering either '14 minutes of anything', OR something to do with S-days. My S-days are currently a bit awful. I ate ~800 calories of apple and cinnamon cookies yesterday!

coffee · Post by **coffee** » Mon Feb 28, 2011 12:16 pm

26/02/11 AND 27/02/11: S-days (weekend). For once, the boyfriend wasn't staying with me this weekend, I had too much work to do. I don't know if it was that that made an impact on my eating, but either way, my eating wasn't great! Cookiegate, as mentioned above (8 cookies in a day, people! And I wasn't even that hungry!), plus not very structured meals, quite a lot of juice, and not so much with the vegetables. But oh well -- you can't fail an S day.

Yesterday, in spite of it being an S-day, I decided to do 14 minutes of 'random exercise' time, to music on my phone and an alarm, just to see if it was something I would like to build into my routine. I'm pretty sure it was reasonably successful. I was skeptical that 14 minutes of 'do anything, just don't stop moving' would feel like a workout, but my heart rate stayed up and I felt pretty sweaty by the end

I didn't count anything or plan anything, just did a bunch of moves that I learned from the kinect workout games I've been doing -- just things like specific balance moves, stretches, bodyweight squats, crunches, planks, push ups, etc. Oh and things like running on the spot, pretending to skip. Stupid stuff! It was nice to have no specific routine, just lark about. When I felt knackered and didn't think I could do 'real' exercise, I just danced (badly! thank gd I was alone!) to the music for a bit.

So, long story short, I'm going to be incorporating '14 minutes of anything' into my day, and tracking my progress on it. It's infinitely harder for me to stick to exercise than to diet, so nobody hold your breath on this one!

But my new habit minigoal is to do 21 days of failure-free 14MOA (weekends will be S-days, as with No-S). Wish me luck!

coffee · Post by **coffee** » Mon Feb 28, 2011 12:37 pm

I just ordered the No S book

Of course, I'm doing fine without it, but:
a) This system has been SO helpful to me that I feel I should at least give *something* back.
b) I wanted a reward/motivation thing because ... I spend money to make myself feel good (is there an everyday system that helps with that?

)
c) I have amazon one-click ordering turned on (this is also a problem when it comes to above point)

Looking forward to reading it

coffee · Post by **coffee** » Mon Feb 28, 2011 11:01 pm

28/02/11 No-S: success. I had the same thing for both breakfast and tea: coconut and cherry cereal, fresh raspberries, soymilk. lunch was a massive salad of raw spinach, raw cucumber, chargrilled bell pepper, grilled tomato slices, fried chopped up vegetarian sausage (tomato and garlic flavour). I had some apple juice too, on top of my normal infinite servings of black coffee

28/02/11 14MOA: FAILURE. yeah, I know, and on my first day. I'll try harder tomorrow!

coffee · Post by **coffee** » Thu Mar 03, 2011 2:27 am

01/02/11: No-S success. 14MOA failure.
02/02/11: No-S success. 14MOA success.

coffee · Post by **coffee** » Fri Mar 04, 2011 12:23 am

03/03/11: No-S success. 14MOA Success.

coffee · Post by **coffee** » Fri Mar 04, 2011 10:15 pm

04/03/11: No-S success. 14MOA failure.

I really need to pull myself together on the exercise front

At least No-S is largely habit now.

coffee · Post by **coffee** » Mon Mar 07, 2011 1:37 pm

05/03/11 & 06/03/11: S-days. Been so busy this weekend that I don't much remember what I ate

Didn't do much exercise except walking into-around-back from town yesterday.

But new batteries arrived for my scales today. Nude-not-eaten-yet this morning I was 117.6

coffee · Post by **coffee** » Tue Mar 29, 2011 4:13 pm

UGH,
I fell off the wagon! During the week of my dissertation hand-in, I didn't sleep well and didn't eat in any kind of structured way. I went down to my lowest weight yet through stress, and fit into my skinny jeans, so I guess it's not all bad, but I didn't do it healthily!

Two weeks after hand in, I'm still not back on the No S wagon, but I still fit into my tiny jeans! *happydance* Exercise has totally failed. Planning on getting back on both wagons this week

coffee · Post by **coffee** » Fri Apr 15, 2011 2:53 pm

so this is clearly no longer a 'daily' check-in, but I thought I'd update:
a little while after my dissertation was handed in, I got back 'on the wagon'. Looks like daily checking in in this thread is too much 'overhead' (great concept!) for me, so for now I'm using HabitCal and nothing else. My weight is currently fluctuating around the 116-120 mark, which is at least 5lbs down from where I started, and it looks good! I still would like to lose 5-10 more, though.
I am consistently able to wear the jeans I talked about in my first post. Yay!
I'eve read the book now! I loved it and am keeping it around for motivation.