MCS Daily Checkin

[mcs]

I'm new to this. Day One Down! No Snacks, No Sweets, No Seconds Plus I exercised. I eat an early breakfast and an early lunch and a late dinner so I was pretty hungry at 3:00 pm.

[mcs]

Again, ate a good breakfast, ate an early lunch, and held off for dinner. No Snacks. I also exercised. I think today was a little harder than yesterday but I toughed it out.

Day Two: Success!

[mcs]

But I have an appreciation to go to tonight. That will be a test.

Eating Salmon, rice and squash for dinner. If I can resist the cookie or cake at the appreciation, I'll be successful.

No exercise today. Boo!

[mcs]

I got the day of the appreciation wrong last night so that helped me stay on track. Hooray for small favors but it was kind of embarrassing. They did offer me a brownie for which I said "no thank you!"

Day 4 Today: Success. I didn't get all of my lunch in due to a time crunch. I got pretty hungry by 5:00 p.m. but ignored it, went to exercise and came home and ate a delicious dinner.

My dinners seem a little too large but they are one plate, balanced, and not layered or tiered. Should I be worried about this? I used to try to eat less at meals but I was packing in the calories between meals.

[mcs]

Well, I did well all day, went to a concert then went for a drink after the concert. I did great at first and stuck to the drink but then people all around me were ordering food and I caved. I shared nachos (these weren't my dinner but a snack). And I felt TOO full after eating them, as well as guilty.

But two important things gained clarity: 1) Friday nights are going to be hard. I view my weekend as starting there and I'm often invited to dinner. 2) there were three kinds of people at this table: a) someone who's just lost 100 lbs in 7 months and is completely watching his weight, b) a friend who is always in control and eats very little, b) someone who loves food but exercises regularly and over time has lost lots of weight, c) someone I've been out with a couple of times who, like me, is overweight.

I didn't gorge myself on the nachos. But I did eat the snack and ate my share of them. I was driving so the first drink was my last (no worries, we were there for hours).

It became very noticeable HOW much the person like me was eating, unconsciously. She was just enjoying the evening and conversation but was eating mindlessly and a lot.

I have been like that. It wasn't my behavior last night, but it is a behavior pattern I have. Also, I got into the mentality as Reinhard suggests in his book, that I'll exercise today (Saturday) to make up for it. Well, I'm going to exercise today because it is a nice day, but after re-reading the part about failure in the book, I just marked the square red and will move on normally.

I will have to come up with some Friday night methods for avoiding the FRIDAY FAILURE. This will be hard.

[mcs]

The good news is I swam in the morning and it was a fantastic day. I went to an art and wine festival. I tasted about 2 small glasses of different wines throughout the day. I ate a very light lunch. I did share some caramel corn with my friend, but only ate about 1 normal handful. In the past I would have eaten a bag easily.

I came home, I did eat a peanut butter cracker or two - before I would have eaten ten. I WAS hungry as my light lunch really didn't hold me.

I later cooked a burger and had a salad. The nice thing is, I still only ate 1 plate full.

The interesting thing is I went to the store and bought a very small cherry pie. It is from a specialty store. It is about 3 regular pie servings big. I knew I couldn't and shouldn't eat the whole thing - especially when Monday rolled around, so I cut it in half and froze half.

After dinner, I was not hungry at all and didn't even want the pie, so I didn't eat it. I thought, I'll eat it for breakfast tomorrow morning.

I got up today, Sunday, looked at the pie and decided to cook an egg and eat canteloupe. It just sounded better. I'll probably eat the small piece of pie later today, but it felt good to realize I didn't really want it and therefore won't eat it.

Maybe I'll be successful this time.

[mcs]

Successful, but WHOA Mondays are hard after having some freedom!

[NoSRocks]

WELCOME! Sounds like you're doing great!!

[KL]

Yay, mcs

You're having so many successful days. Keep chipping at them - one day at a time, right??

[oolala53]

HI! When I read about your observing the others at your Friday night dinner, it reminded me how I've been watching slim women at a couple of get togethers relatively recently. I didn't know any of the women well, so I can only guess what they are usually like. Interestingly to me, none of them talked about fearing to eat too much or trying to be careful or watching her weight or anything. One event was a small buffet. The slimmest woman there took the most potato chips! And she didn't say a thing about it. But nobody took a lot nor went back to pick at the food.

The second event had just wine and chocolate. There were some brownies and some bowls of wrapped chocolates and chocolate covered nuts. I arrived late. I could see that not much of the chocolate had been eaten. And again, no conversation about trying not to eat or getting fat or any of the stuff that often goes on. I was a little surprised, actually, as it is a topic that often bonds women, though I am sick of it. It just seemed to me that these women were just not too concerned with it all. Maybe it was their age, too. I just remember even thin girls being frantic about staying thin when I was younger. I'm glad to know not everyone is dysfuntional about it all! I'm working on it.

[mcs]

Yes, not being driven by food would be nice. I'm working on it. HA!

[mcs]

I had an extra long day today and I get VERY hungry around 5:00 p.m. I had several more hours to work so I drank a glass of 2% milk to ward off the hunger. Then, because what I pulled out to cook at home was going to take too much time (it was late), I stopped and got teriyaki chicken and vegetables at a local stop.

Took it home. Filled a plate which was half of the order, and put the other half away. Before, without question. I would have eaten the whole thing. I was beyond hungry, it was late, and it was a long day. All the right triggers for saying "forget it!" But I didn't! Success!

[mcs]

One of the most important things I took from the NO-S book was (paraphrase), a little hunger isn't going to kill us. We will do just about anything to ward off being uncomfortable, but we don't know real hunger. It's o.k. to be hungry before a meal. This has gotten me through quite a few "hunger" episodes.

[mcs]

Success. I swam even though I didn't want to, and ate a fairly big dinner but no seconds. Today was o.k., but tonight was hard to stick to this. It's my usual time for caving in. 2 weeks and out. Hopefully, 2 weeks and still going this time.

[Maggie9190]

Hi MCS - just wanted to stop by and say hello. I'm fairly new too and I can relate to your struggles - you're doing great though!! I enjoy reading your posts - reminds me so much of my own thoughts.

Maggie

[oolala53]

I was a little curious why you threw the rest of the Chinese food away. Were you afraid you'd eat it?

[mcs]

Oh no, I didn't throw it away. I put it in the fridge for the next night.

[mcs]

So, I've completed week two and it is getting easier. I ate some junk this weekend for sure and today especially. Not a lot of it though and cooked a dinner without carbs to kind of offset the carbs at lunch.

I also ate a couple of cookies and thought to myself: I can eat more but I don't really want or need more. Am I just eating to eat? So I took the two and put the rest up for another weekend.

Next week, I'm on break so I won't be working. That will be a test. . .

[oolala53]

Great job on the cookies!

Good luck on being off work. I've actually usually had an easy time with it, which is ironic because weekends are so iffy. Guess I just like my N days.