athabasca's daily check in

Counting carbs/calories is a drag. Obsessive scale stepping is a recipe for despair. If you want to count something, "days on habit" is a much better metric. Checking off days on a calendar would do just fine, but if you do it here you get accountability and support. Here's how. Start a new topic in this forum called (say) "Your Name Daily Check In." Then every N day post a "reply" to that topic as to whether you stayed on habit. A simple "<font color="green">SUCCESS</font>" or "<font color="red">FAILURE</font>" (or your preferred euphemism if that's too harsh) is sufficient, but obviously you're welcome to write more if you want. On S-days just register that you're taking an S-day. You don't have to do this forever, just until you're confident you've built the habit. Feel free to check in weekly or monthly or sporadically instead of daily. Feel free also to track other habits besides No-s (I'm keeping this forum under No-s because that's what the vast majority are using it for). See also my <a href="/habitcal/">HabitCal</a> tool for another more formal (and perhaps complementary) way to track habits.

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athabasca
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athabasca's daily check in

Post by athabasca » Wed Mar 01, 2006 8:57 pm

The stress of setting up the initial check-in post has taken my mind off any hunger/diet issues. This is working already.

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gratefuldeb67
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Post by gratefuldeb67 » Wed Mar 01, 2006 9:24 pm

LOL... Welcome!
Peace and Love,
8) Deb

athabasca
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oh lord, let me be doing this right

Post by athabasca » Fri Mar 03, 2006 6:12 am

and not posting into the vast dark universe.

Today I didn't have any sweet things, which was ok, but I noticed how the world is full of bright and shiny sugary things almost everywhere.

I need to figure out a way to be organized enough to go to the grocery store and get good things to eat so I have meals, or things I can layer together to make a meal, to take to work or have at home.

When I quit smoking, the hard part wasn't not smoking, really, that's over pretty fast, but the pyschological part was immense. I had to re-craft my whole identity as a non-smoker. Now I feel like I have to re-think the idea of me being someone who cares about what they eat, and what they look like, and how they feel. Because I've been ignoring those things for a long time. I've had periods of fitness in my life, but it seems like I have forgotten how to get there. This "diet" reminds me that it was setting up new habits that did it, and really gives me some hope.

Cheers.

athabasca
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Day two.

Post by athabasca » Sat Mar 04, 2006 3:14 am

I managed to eat three-ish meals today, but no snacks, and no jelly beans, which are everywhere at work. I'm going to have to figure out how to eat meals at a regular time, but later. I need to use a plate too, take-out cartons are decptive. Hmmm. Plates. I think I remember where they are.

Success.

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gratefuldeb67
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Post by gratefuldeb67 » Sat Mar 04, 2006 5:07 am

Now I feel like I have to re-think the idea of me being someone who cares about what they eat, and what they look like, and how they feel. Because I've been ignoring those things for a long time.
Athabasca, this is a very worthwhile endeavor!

You will be able to walk down those aisles and say to those shiny sugary things "You are pre disapproved!!!!" and then "I can have that on an S day"...

Hey it's an S day in 2 minutes here in NY... LOL..

Good luck!
Congratulations on your smoking cessation!
Surely you must care about what you eat and how you feel..
You are stepping into a new awareness...
That is the first move... No more denial!
NoS is designed to improve your relationship with food, and you can do it!
Yes.. Use plates! Even if they are large...
When I took home a normal sized, not supersized "whopper" meal once, from Burger King here in the US (I sense you are a Brit?) I was really shocked as the food was nearly overflowing off the edges of that plate, once I took it out of the paper sacks... They *are* truly deceptive...
Besides, mentally, I like doing stuff like that... Makes a fast food meal experience into a dining experience...
Very different mentality..

One is like we are some sort of "beast" eating from a feed bag! LOL and the other is the experience of a very civilized and human being!
Hey! You could even use a place mat and your best china and some fancy wine glasses for your beverage (as long as it's not soda!)

Have a nice weekend!
Peace,
8) Deb

athabasca
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Post by athabasca » Sat Mar 04, 2006 8:47 pm

Deb, thank you for your reply. And for thinking I might be a Brit, how yummy. I'm just a midwesterner, here in the middle.

Actually sitting down for a meal?

I went to the doctor for the first time in four years this week, and got the official notice to lose weight and get my blood pressure down. Of course, I already knew, but...I'm 44, and the doc painted an unpleasant picture of what my old/middle age was shaping up to be. and it was not pretty.

Today my assignment is to go to the store and get food. Wish me luck.

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gratefuldeb67
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Post by gratefuldeb67 » Sun Mar 05, 2006 1:19 am

I knew someone from Kansas once!
Really cool lady and cool accent!

Good luck shopping!
For blood pressure issues, I suggest massage and exercise..
They are both great for helping with that..
Of course NoS is going to help you as well!
Peace and Love,
8) Deb

athabasca
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Post by athabasca » Tue Mar 07, 2006 4:52 am

1) oatmeal eaten standing up
2) three pieces cold cheese pizza from last night's oscar party
3) small veggie pizza. almonds, 1/2 orange and one square of chocolate.

a day without snacks or sugar even though a crazy customer called me a b**** on the phone when I wouldn't go through a hundred boxes to find a book for him--priceless.

Success.

athabasca
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Just things that are occuring to me.

Post by athabasca » Wed Mar 08, 2006 8:11 am

March 7/Day 7--No S

1) no time for breakfast
2) almonds and hummus with bell peppers
3) salmon and spinach burger

Success

I'm noticing that not being in a state of constant foraging for food makes me able to actually think about food--when my body is hungry, how strange it feels to formalize eating...I read something that struck me as relevant, in Martha Stewart Living's new magazine of all places, quoting people whose names I didn't write down:

[fragments]..."Yoga is the development of the witness, the one who watches"..."Karma is really nothing more than a habit...anytime we act, it plants a seed that blooms into another action"..."interrupt the pattern"..."the small change is changing pieces of patterns."

I think it's interesting that awareness seems to only come after you interrupt the pattern, that you can't see the thing while you're doing it. So if you're waiting for insight to motivate you to change, it's never going to arrive--you implement a change and then you can start to figure out what's going on.

It's a different order than I would have thought.

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carolejo
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Post by carolejo » Wed Mar 08, 2006 8:40 am

kind of another, more positive way of saying "you don't miss it till its gone".

Interesting 'food for thought' though.

C.
CaroleJo

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gratefuldeb67
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Post by gratefuldeb67 » Wed Mar 08, 2006 2:54 pm

I think it's interesting that awareness seems to only come after you interrupt the pattern, that you can't see the thing while you're doing it. you implement a change and then you can start to figure out what's going on.

Hi Athabasca..

Interesting post, thank you :)
I messed up the quotes thing so I highlighted you in green... :wink:

I have to suggest that you think of insight as something which is constantly available to you... This is about "being here now"...
So if you're waiting for insight to motivate you to change, it's never going to arrive--


Motivation drive and action are really the polar opposites of insight and non action...
Mindfulness and slowing down can connect these two functions and you can make perfect choices here and now.. Just listen more to your inner wisdom..

It's a different order than I would have thought.
There is no correct order... Just keep practicing being here in this moment.. Now...
The rest falls into place, like you thought..

Peace and Love,
8) Deb

athabasca
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Location: Kansas City

Post by athabasca » Thu Mar 09, 2006 5:25 pm

ooooh, Deb, that is very wise. Thanks for the replies.

Yesterday I managed three meals, though at odd times. Work was stressful too, though the man who was so nasty on the phone the other day had called and left a message apologizing...since the book that he wanted was about not lashing out at people, I guess he's working on it...

Day 8--Success.

athabasca
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Location: Kansas City

Post by athabasca » Tue Mar 14, 2006 3:33 am

Day 13--Success

The weekend was hard though...without the structure I wanted to eat everything in sight. I didn't though. I did eat more than I have been, and I tried to pay attention to how that felt. Sluggish.

athabasca
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Joined: Wed Mar 01, 2006 8:49 pm
Location: Kansas City

Post by athabasca » Wed Mar 29, 2006 9:54 pm

whew. I took off a week for vacation in Florida, where I ate what ever I wanted. pretty much, and a week with a thrown out back, where I ate what ever I could drag myself to.

So now I'm going to start the 21 day count-down again. I kind of missed it.

:wink:

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