Never fear even thought the fire was a tad close to our house, that we've been trying to sell for a year and a half now (evil thoughts did pass through my mind), the wind was in our favor and we were not in danger. Although one of these planes apparently clipped a power line and we were out of power until late that night. So we hung out on our front deck in the shade and breeze and watched all the activity. It was neat to watch the planes in action.
In other news, I started implementing a new diet. The thing is that I've tried various diets, South Beach, Adkins, etc. and although they worked, until I got tired of not eating this or not eating that. I like food. I like pasta, I like cereal, I like meat, chocolate chip cookies, milk - so it is difficult to deprive oneself of these things. I also know that I am an emotional eater - I eat when I'm stress, depressed, bored, etc. So I got to thinking a few weeks ago, is there something out there than can help me deal with the emotional part. I mean I know how to eat healthy. I know how to reduce caloric intake to lose weight. I know all this stuff, yet I have that moment of weakness and blow it, then I beat myself up for making a mistake which makes me feel worse which allows me to blow it again - Anyway so I started looking for a book or something that addressed the mental aspect of this problem, and I found a few. I've read through them and picked one that I want to work through.
Its called The Beck Diet Solution, and it essentially uses cognitive therapy to help you "train your brain to think like a thin person." Basically Self talk - you counter your own negative thoughts with positive thoughts. It is a six week process with day to day instructions. It involves writing note cards to carry around with the reasons I want to lose weight, responses to sabotaging thoughts and so forth. She has you pick the diet and a back up diet to use - so the program is not a diet in itself just a exercise of mental training. I'm telling you this because I've looked ahead and soon I'm supposed to find a diet coach. This person is just to be someone to encourage and help you stay the course. I have a friend here that I will designate my coach, but I thought that I might share a few things here that I'm dealing with so that you can also be my coaches. I've decided not to go on a particular diet so to speak, as I mentioned above I enjoy food and don't want to deprive myself of the things I love. Instead I decided to just decrease my caloric intake to 1,500 calories. My back up plan is to bump it up to 1,800 if this becomes to restrictive. I don't know what my average intake was before and frankly I don't want to know, but as I've worked on this 1500 calorie deal all week, I can tell you it was a lot more than 1500 - but my scale could have told you that.
Doing this means I have to track my food intake and actually plan ahead, but thanks to the Internet you can get nutritional info for everything. In addition I am followings some steps from other diets, books I've done/read but just one at a time. The 1500 calories is a big challenge right now, but by trying to get at least 64 oz of just water in my system is helping me decrease the amount caloric drinks. Also just so you know, the 1500 calories are to be spaced out over the day. I mean I could have one heck of a meal, but that would backfire. So I'm spreading it out over the day.
So how does this work with my triathlon training? Well we'll see, but I'm confident that it will work out and if I need to make an adjustment then I'll make an adjustment. Last summer while I was still training regularly, I hit a plateau in my weight loss. I was increasing miles, but the weight was just sitting there, so I probably increased my calories as I was increasing the training. This is probably one of the many reasons I fell off the training wagon.
So there you go. Wish me luck - no wish me success. Thanks!
4 comments:
I'm guessing 1500 or 1800 is okay for someone who's not training. You'll probably have to bump it up a bit to give you teh energy you need for cycling, running, swimming. But counting calories and making cognitive decisions about what you put in your mouth will probably pay off on the scale. :)
Glad your house was fine, and all of you. Successful wishes to you on the diet front.
SOme things that have helped me: fat-free kraft shredded cheese and egg beaters. Low-calorie, fat-free veggie omelets. Mmmmmmm. Also, there's fat-free sour cream now, and fat-free cream cheese. The other nice thing about fat-free dairy is that it has lovely protein in it. Good luck! Will I being seeing you at the Bottomless Triathlon?
I wish you success!!
I have come to realize that the things we think and tell ourselves really do have so much power. Positive self-talk has helped me get though some hard training/races. I hope the cognitive therapy works for you with your healthy eating plan :)
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