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WATERMELLEN's Recent Blog Entries
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Sunday, February 06, 2011
Not much to say about this really: I know it's important to exercise, it's something I have done consistently my whole life (been a member at my gym since 1975!!, before that at univ gym, before that worked as lifeguard/swim instructor). Yes there have been periods when health issues made it impossible to work out, but I don't panic: I know I love to exercise, I know I will get back to it. At various points in my life depending upon other responsibilities I've scheduled exercise for before work (current time slot, preferred time slot, one that has worked best for me over the years); lunch time (when commuting); after work (put gym bag on the front seat in the car, go directly from work!!); after supper (least fave, hate going out again).
Currently I'm hitting 30 minutes x 3 cardio plus ST plus abs plus stretches every month: mixing up the gym trips with golf in summer, cross country skiing (newly discovered passon) this winter. We did 6 km yesterday on the skis (2 hours) and will be out again today: glorious!!
And I do seek out "spontaneous" exercise opportunities: parking at the far end of the lot, running up and down the stairs at home and at work, zooming around to pick up stuff off the printer, shovelling the walk midworning at work at our office building . . . . nice change of pace, actually.
So I'm giving myself credit on this one pretty much.
Here are Beck's reasons for exercising, and a couple comments:
1. helps you stick with your diet -- yup, when I see on the cross trainer just how hard it is to burn 100 calories, I am sooo much less likely to stuff 100 extra calories into my mouth (all it takes to gain 10 pounds a year)
2. might help control appetite -- for me not so much: I just have to tolerate being hungry if I want to be slim
3. boosts mood and soothes stress -- BIG time, more important for me than any other reason for exercising
4. burns calories -- sure does, just not enough: I can never exercise enough to eat as much as I want
5. preserves muscle tissue -- especially strength training, keeping those arms and shoulders still worthy of sleeveless!!
6. builds confidence -- another big factor: hard to sustain that posture of being "in control" (key for my profession) if not "in control" of my own self physically
7. makes you feel better physically-- love that feeling of moving around gracefully, conscious that I have hip bones!!
8. improves health and helps prevent disease -- so important in managing my concerns about breast cancer recurrence
So there it is: about exercise I am a true believer!! And it's been deeply embedded in my life for decades . . . a fundamental part of who I am through good times and bad times. Even when I weighed 80 pounds more, most of the time I was getting to the gym.
So the cautionary tale for me is: exercise is necessary but it's never been sufficient to achieve either weight loss or weight maintenance.
         
Saturday, February 05, 2011
To lose weight and to maintain weight loss, I have to plan my life around exercise and dieting activities. Which means I have to permit myself to put myself first.
This is huge. When I was raising young children (both of whom had early health problems) I could not do that very well. I did continue to go to the gym, but I also stress-ate.
When my son was relatively well, however, and before I returned to the work force I was running 10 km most days and volunteering as a YMCA fitness leader. I definitely regained my fitness levels and improved them significantly.
Once I went back to school and was commuting 3+ hours a day, reading on the commuter bus, rushing home to be with my two still-small children, doing more homework every night after they went to bed, often till after 12: there was no way that I could put myself first or second or third. Although during those years I did still get to the gym before class almost every day, I also went back to stress-eating. It was probably only 100 extra calories a day but that was enough to put on 10 pounds a year, for some seven years. And a little more!
But beginning in 2001 I could and (for the most part) I did put dieting further up my list of priorities, if not first. My kids were older, healthy, more self-sufficient, and the stress levels of the work I do made health care essential. That's when I peeled off the 80 pounds I'd accumulated during the school/commuting/licensing years. And maintained that 80 pound loss more or less successfully, until 2009, when I retained 20 under stress of cancer dx; but then took the 20 off again with SP within a few months. And have maintained ( but with more fluctuation than I want) since September 2009; maintained, but without learning to think like a thin person. Which is what I'm doing now!.
Today's Beck cognitive strategies require me to think about making time for:
1. At least 30 minutes exercise 3 times a week, plus daily "spontaneous" exercise.
About this I'm pretty reliable and have been for a long time. When my weeks are too busy to get to the gym at 5:30 am every day, I still do get there a couple times and then make up with more exercise (gym, cross country, skiing, golf) on the weekends). I'm good about daily spontaneous exercise too: moving around my office, going to the printer to pick up materials, running upstairs to confer in person with my assistant or partners and associates: and so on. Relatively full credit on this one!! Although I'd like to get to the gym reliably the three times a week. And have scheduled this now.
2. Continuing to work in the Beck work book.
Doing it!! Yup!! And happy about how it's going!!
3. Continuing to sit down and eat every meal and snack slowly and mindfully.
Doing it!! Yesterday I did have to attend a reception after my conference which was a "stand up": so yes, I did have a few raw veggies and 1 grilled chicken skewer standing up, and one glass of red wine. No place to sit down: important net working time; had had a very very light lunch (of the only healthful food available: namely, salad and fruit); so I made a conscious decision in advance that this was OK. Did not eat (from morning break) ANY of the muffins, croissants, danish etc. on offer: did not even look at them. Waited till I got home ("hunger is not an emergency") and at 7 pm prepared a healthful omelette with feta, arugula, tomato plus fresh fruit. Ate breakfast,, lunch and dinner sitting down, slowly, mindfully. All healthy. Tracked it all. No peanut butter, no chips, no cheddar cheese!!
So today, as Beck directs, I've filled out my "daily schedule" chart.
That means scheduling times for formal exercise (5:30 a.m. at gym); my light box, work, lunch (salad and fruit) work, supper (soup, yogourt, berries); preparing next day's lunch, Spark, Beck, reading, early to bed by 9 pm. This is in fact pretty much the schedule I do follow -- with laundry, grocery shopping, extra exercise, soup making on the weekends.
Then I filled out my priority chart -- sleep, exercise, eating, food prep, work, time with DH and son, daughter (by email) and Charlie, Beck, Spark, reading. These are all "essential" activities -- for me.
Next task was to identify "highly desirable" activities: friend time; more time with DH and kid contact; Scrabble (with my son: a fierce competitor!!), high priority personal appointments; daily house tidying of the wipe counters/check bathrooms/put stuff away type. I am lucky to have help weekly with the major cleaning.
And then I set out a few "desirable" activities: shopping, library, various appointments and errands for things like hair cuts, taking stuff for repairs and such like; cultural activities such as movies (loved "King's Speech" recently) concerts, galleries; and more major decluttering/attention to the house.
There is no TV on my schedule-- I don't watch even 3 hours a year. Don't watch videos at home ever either. But this is no particular virtue on my part. TV was simply not something introduced to me as a young child. Instead, I'm constantly reading all kinds of stuff, professional/newspapers/"literature", chick lit/junk -- yeah!! That's my addiction and chief time waster.
Doing all of this scheduling and prioritizing and then blogging about it also took time. And for me time spent complying with Beck Day 8 tasks also reinforced that dieting itself takes time.
Carrying out the Beck Day 8 tasks confirms for me that most of this scheduling and prioritizing I have in fact been doing. I am highly organized (except for household clutter: diastrous!!). So this is not a big change for me. But it helps to set out that these are my values, these are my priorities. It helps to give myself credit for doing what I need to do to diet. It's probably the reason I've been as successful with weight loss and maintaining weight loss as I have been.
But I don't want to be smug about this. Because although "maintaining" I haven't been thinking like a thin person. This planning helped me zero in on the new key cognitive strategies I require to think like a thin person: eating sitting down, focusing on my reasons for losing/maintaining weight .
And in addition, I'm vividly aware that at various times in my life when I have been heavy, I would have been seriously neglecting other responsibilities to spend more time on self care.
I am not making excuses for my younger self: but still, I didn't need to be stress eating! The time I spent at the gym wasn't very helpful when I ate more calories than I burned.
But -- having been there -- my heart goes out to the younger mums on this site. Young mums who are often so highly self-critical because they can't care for their kids in the highly attentive manner currently decreed by all the parenting "authorities" and hold down full time significant jobs and spend quality time with their spouses so they don't end up expanding the divorce statistics and keep in touch with family and friends and provide elder care as required and entertain frequently with gourmet meals and keep a house and garden beaufiful and dress fashionably (but not too expensively) and have lovely skin/hair/nails and in general look like a model. They can't do it all, have it all, be it all. Not all at once.
Neither could I or did I when in the throes of babies and career building.
Sequentially. We can do it all, have it all, be it all, maybe. But not all at once. Maybe only sequentially.
Here's to a long, healthy life: and time to experience all of the great challenges and deeply human experiences life has on offer. Sequentially.
Thursday, February 03, 2011
This strategy is concerned with eliminating temptations by removing visual triggers -- and of course I can resist anything but temptation. Tomorrow is a 5 am departure day so -- I'm blogging about this one now!!
I have long since held the attitude that I'm entitled to keep "trigger foods" out of the house. Potato chips are very problematic for me: about two weeks ago, I bought 3 large bags "for my tall, skinny, hardworking son who needs lots of calories". Sure. He did eat two of them -- and then after they'd beeen sitting on top of the fridge for almost a week, my husband and I shared the third bag. Sicilian lemon chicken chips!! What was I thinking!! I did log them faithfully -- they were within my calorie limit -- but didn't do much for my nutrition intake for the day! And made it harder to resist higher fat treats in subsequent days. From here on in, potato chips if bought at all will be kept in my son's room: out of sight, out of mind.
Peanut butter -- that's another difficult food for me; can't eliminate it from the kitchen because both son and DH eat it every day, and it is a relatively nutritious food. But my tendency is to eat it by the heaping tablespoon full, right out of the jar (no, I don't double dip!) Now I've hidden the jar in the back of the cupboard. Haven't had any in days.
Sharp crumbly cheddar cheese: love it. My "one ounce portions" have been . . . hmmm . . . generous ounces!! If it's in the back of the dairy drawer, I don't see it and don't have any. Haven't had any in days. The only food left on the counter at home is fruit in a fruit bowl.
Food doesn't get left out at work, thank goodness, now that the Christmas treat season is over. All our staff are pretty health conscious: they don't want to overeat either. My lunch salad and fruit stay in the fridge at work until it's time for me to eat.
Smaller size serving dishes and utensils are something Beck recommends. I've put the tiny bowls to the front of the cupboard at home: good size for servings of yogourt. I'm just thinking that my tiny blue-enamel handled coffee spoons would be a good thing too: I'll get some out of the silverware cabinet!!
The "organizing my environment" strategies are all pretty familiar to me, all strategies I've used in the past and sustained pretty well too. Just needed to remind myself: no chips in sight!! no peanut butter in sight!! no cheddar cheese in sight!!
Ahhhh. That's better.
Thursday, February 03, 2011
Yes, I've done that: by email!! With gratitude for support already received, with a plan for regular contact by email on a weekly basis to report weight changes and additional contact if I'm dealing with sabotaging thoughts or preparing for a particularly challenging social event.
This is such an important step for me. Pre Spark, I'd always "gone it alone" when it came to weight loss/maintenance!!
Sabotaging thought: I can do this on my own. More helpful response: not very likely, since I've had such a struggle with maintenance. Maintenance is not yo-yoing, it's learning to think like a thin person. I do give myself credit for not ballooning up 20 pounds or so again (since 2009) but I don't like going up 5-8 pounds and then yanking my own leash to lose it, over and over again. I'm much more likely to stay at maintenance (with a more reasonable 2-3 pound fluctuation) if I report to my coach and get help when I need it. I'm much more likely to "maintain thin thinking" -- not just the outer appearance of a relatively thin person -- if I work with my coach.
So: thanks coach!!
Yesterday's eating was mindful, sitting down (except I licked one yogourt spoon while standing). I enjoyed every spoonful of every meal, did not read while eating, did however eat with people and had some minor conversations while doing so.
I wore a navy suit which was entirely comfortable through the waist band of the trousers, with a blue cashmere sweater under the jacket, also comfortable (it is cold cold here). And gave myself credit for that.
Read my Advantage Response Card several times.
This. Is. Working. Yes!!
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I asked my husband to put away his bags of doritos if he wants them b/c if I see them I'm likely to eat them too!
Member Comments About This Blog Post:
I bet you was an "A" student in school???!! (do they gradewith 'A's and B's and such in Canada??? Because in Germany we grade 1 through 6...6 being the worse grade one can get....
