Beck Discussion - Day 14

Day 14 - Plan for Tomorrow Tomorrow is the day we start our "diet" or in our case our "healthier lifestyles" Beck says. Today you need to write out a food plan that will include what you will eat tomorrow, you will check off the foods you eat and write down the foods that weren't on the plan. She wants you to CONTINUE you this always.. (says till you lose the weight, but we know good and well we need to be accountable ALL the time even at goal or we can go back to obesity). She says you probably are having sabotaging thoughts. GET OVER IT PEOPLE! (sorry.. i had to yell there ;o) ) She says writing a plan and monitoring what you eat is the single task that the people shes counseled have most often resisted. She says its essential because it helps you do the following: 1) Makes you think about how your are going to eat and prepare your food on your eating plan. 2) Reminds you what to eat and when. It decreases solving problems at the moment (something I LOVE, less decisions.. I follow this.. I will get that.) 3) Eliminates spontaneous eating. 4) Makes you tolerate occasional hunger and cravings and this means you can withstand them, you realize this. 5) You decisions are made before you can encounter triggers. You are offered dessert, decision is already made. Nope, not on your plan! It really does help to plan ahead I feel. I know its boring people but there is a sense of accomplishment when you can look at your numbers at the end of the day, be satisfied and feel empowered by that. She wants you to plan what and how much you will eat.. can do this on paper. I use fitday.com. Some use sparkpeople.com or thedailyplate.com. Whatever works for *YOU* is what you should do. No one strategy will work for everyone. She talks about all the different meal options like at breakfast, writing those down and numbering them and then just referring to them that way on your daily plan. Be sure you have all your ingredients and food prepared and ready. Chop any veggies ahead of time, be organized about it. She wants tomorrow to be our first official weigh in. You guys can do this if you want, it makes sense. If you are really gonna commit to this and you haven't given it a go till now.. now is your chance! OK? Make a graph and chart your progress.. there is something to actually "seeing" it. Pointers are given with weighing: Same weight clothing, only step on the scale once, don't criticise yourself if you don't weight what you want since this is going to be LIFElong.. if it takes 4 days or FOUR years to reach your goal you will be doing the same thing for a very very long time she states. Makes sense. Don't see this as unfair, punitive or regimented she says. There just isn't another way she says. I have to agree with her there. We have an addiction to food everyone.. or we would not be where we are or we made bad choices etc... we need to learn to adjust to our new lifestyle and sometimes that means making permanent changes that doesn't always make us happy. It's just like an alcoholic refraining from drinking at a new years eve party... its life, get over it. Sorry I sound catty but this is what i tell myself! Try committing to a week she says, forget about life for now. Make smaller goals that seem obtainable.. you can do it! She believes in us and I believe in you! She says you can stop if you are using the tools in the book CONSISTENTLY and consistently losing (or for some of us maintaining) our weight losses. You can stop planning and see what happens to you at that point. If you can follow your diet consciencioiusly then you can stop. If not then get back to monitoring and writing it down. She goes over sabotaging thoughts again and then states "once we accept the fact that we have to write a food plan every evening for the next day, dieting will be easier". I do honestly do this when I am doing everything right, it helps me reaffirm that food is FUEL.. nothing more. Go over your to-do's and advantage response cards.. hope u still have those handy! See you next week for Week 3: go: start your diet. Have a great weekend!

Definitely going to make time to read this one this weekend. I will give myself the weekend to get ready to do it and overcome the sabotaging thoughts. Feels more like childish resistance thoughts to me personally. I KNOW this works, I've done it before and liked the results but it still doesn't make me like doing it or want to do it. However like you said...get over it! LOL Monday is really my Friday this week and may be a tough day to start this but I'll try to plan for it (oops...there is some sabotaging stuff right there oooh!) and get it going. Ok, the Ambien is waiting for me. Nighty night!

"Resistance Here"... OK, Mel. When you mentioned a long time ago that you planned ahead, I thought there is no way that I could do that or would even want to try to do it. I now realize that it works for you, but I'm still resistant to planning ahead. What I have come up with is several "safe" meal items that are frozen in single, RnY-minded serving size packets.... meats, rices, sides, veggies and Fudgsicles! Honestly, I know that planning ahead is KEY and am willing to plan; just resistant to it!