That Fleeting Good Feeling

During my December eating extravaganza, I pretty much let myself eat anything I wanted to.  I over-ate on several occasions, and I think about ninety percent of my eating was sugar.  I was mostly aware of the choices I was making, but it just felt so good!

When it comes to sugar, I have a very real and very noticeable physical reaction.  I feel good.  I feel happy.  And when that sugar leaves my body, I can feel that, too.  I noticed how quickly my old cycle of sugar high to crash to sugar seeking became habit again.  It’s so very similar to a drug addict seeking their next high.

But the high is never lasting.  It was scary how quickly my body became used to the sugar again.  I would look at a bowl of M&Ms and realize that it wouldn’t be enough to get that good feeling.  I would want the cookies instead.  I would add hot chocolate.  I was eating constantly, but eventually, it wasn’t making a difference in how I felt.

And I didn’t feel energized like I normally do.  I didn’t feel like I could go dancing or run around the block.  I felt comatose.  But gosh darn it—I “felt” good.

It’s interesting how our brains interpret these situations.  Because the sugar was sending endorphins and opioids to my brain, I interpreted it as feeling good.  But when I compared that feeling to my normal state, it wasn’t good.  I didn’t like the way that I felt.

Have you had any moments like this?  Moments when you realize that something you thought you desired wasn’t really anything you wanted?

The Diet Doesn’t Matter

When I use the word “diet,” I mean the food and beverages I eat daily.  However, when most people hear the word “diet,” they think of a set of restrictive rules around what you eat daily with the goal of losing weight.  I am not on a diet, but I discuss my diet regularly on this blog.

Still with me?

I watched an interview with this guy who purposefully built junk food into his daily diet, and managed to lose 15 pounds.  This is totally worth the watch!  He’s a nutritionist who wanted to start a debate around health, weight loss and how the kind of food we eat really affects our bodies.  He ate junk food, but only ate 1800 calories (keeping his physical activity the same).  As it turned out, he lost 15 pounds; his bad cholesterol went down and good cholesterol went up; his blood sugar level also went down.

“What’s this have to do with the holidays?” you ask.

We’re in the middle of the time of year where there is nothing but junk food or high caloric foods as far as the eye can see.   Comfort food and desserts and drinks!   The point is—if you’re really determined to not gain any weight over the holidays—you can still eat all of the foods you love.  If you’re watching your calories, you can literally eat your Christmas dinner and lose weight.  Just because you’re eating calorically dense foods, it doesn’t mean you will gain weight.

Now, you’re definitely not going to be able to eat much of those foods.  Twinkie Diet Guy did not sit down with a platter of Twinkies for every meal.  He probably got like one.  But I think we convince ourselves that there is nothing we can do about gaining weight through the holidays.  Our culture tells us that it’s normal, it’s expected.  But it’s not.  You are not helpless nor a victim to holiday weight gain.

Do you find yourself slipping into this mentality?  How do you think it affects your decisions?  How do you pull yourself out of that thinking?

Surviving the Holidays - Part 1

We’re starting off our December series on surviving the holidays and temptation with a few tips and tricks!  These are strategies I use, or my friends use, or suggestions I’ve received from people.

Eat Your Veggies!  Even if you’re not tracking anything you’re eating, counting calories, or using any other strategies—if you’re eating eight servings of vegetables in your day, you won’t have as much room for other junk.  It’s easy during the holidays to find vegetables smothered in fat and sugar, but there are plenty of good recopies that can keep vegetables calorically simple.  If you’re loading up on low cal healthy foods, you’ll be less hungry which makes resisting temptation much easier.

Eat Right Part Time!  My counselor had recommended during my Christmas vacation last year to commit to eating at least two meals each day well.  If I knew I was doing brunch with the family, then commit to eating a small but healthy lunch and dinner.  This always made me feel pretty good!  Even if I was feeling a little guilty over the one meal, I could think “at least I did well on the other two!”

Enjoy the Good Stuff!  My friend Katie reminded me of a great philosophy I used to use daily.  If you’re staring at a bowl of chips, it’s easy to tell yourself “I can have these any time.  If want chips next week, I could go buy them.”  If you’re going to indulge, aim for foods that you can’t have that often (like Katie’s homemade sugar cookies!).  It makes passing up on some treats easier.

Have a Plan!  You all know I’m a planner.  Even if you get to a party and suddenly realize your plan flew out the window, you at least started off as well as you possibly could.  And you always run the chance that your plan will actually work!  Lately, I’ve found myself assuming my plans will fall through, so it ends up being a little self-fulfilling prophecy.  I need to start letting my plans work the way that they should, but not feeling too guilty when they do fall through.

How do you survive temptation?  How do you arm yourself to avoid overeating or overcoming temptations?

Arming Yourself against Temptation

If I’m going to make it the next 3 weeks, I’m going to need a serious arsenal to deal with temptation.  I’ll tell you, I grab a coffee most mornings at the café in my building at work, and they serve the most delightful Chocolate Chip Espresso Coffee Cake.  Yeah.  I’ve got temptation staring me in the face.

So how do you deal with cravings and temptations when they’re knocking down your door?  In a previous post, I listed out a few fantastic strategies for dealing with cravings.  But honestly, you can never have too many tools in your toolbox for denying temptation.

Drink lots of water.  When I know I need to walk past the office candy bowl, I’ll drink an entire glass of water before I do.  By the time I get over there, my brain is like, “Please, don’t eat anything!  I’m going to explode!”  Granted, it’s only a short-term fix, but it guarantees you get your eight glasses each day.

Recall your last meal.  There was a British study done where women were asked to write a detailed description of what they ate for lunch several hours into the afternoon.  These ladies consumed one third fewer calories later in the day.  You might be like me and already recording most everything you eat.  But are you really thinking about it?  When you’re really evaluating what you’ve eaten, apparently it makes us more aware of our choices.

Meditation.  We’ve already talked numerous times about how most cravings are simply your brain releasing chemicals the affect the food you seek.  When that process is engaged, the most effective way to interrupt it is to get your brain working on another task.  If you remove yourself from your environment for a moment and put all your mental energy into one train of thought, often the craving will disappear.  “But I can’t just get away from work to meditate,” you say!  I’ve done meditation in the bathroom for a few minutes before, and it works wonders!

Give in.  I can hear your collective gasps!  There are a few times—not many for me, but more for some people—when you can exercise moderation and satisfy a craving with a very small portion.  When the Halloween candy started appearing in my office, I was able to let myself have one bite sized Snickers and not feel deprived.  My downfall occurred when later on I didn’t stop at one.  Some people can handle this strategy—and you know if you’re “some people” or not.

How do you handle your cravings?  Any good strategies?  How do you face temptation down and win?

I Seem to Have Lost the Band Wagon

The past week—alright, fine—the past couple of weeks have been my first significant weight gain since losing close to 100 pounds.  I’d like to blame the holiday specifically engineered to make us eat.  Oh wait, that could describe all American holidays.  You know, the holiday that’s all about eating candy.  Oh wait, that really only narrows the field by like one or two holidays.  Ok, I’d like to blame Halloween, but I can really only blame myself (ok, and maybe dopamine and opioids, but that really was an entirely different post).

This weekend, I was feeling so far away from the band wagon that no one on the band wagon would really be able to see what I was eating—so I ate a little of everything.  Let me tell you: everything was stinkin’ delicious.  I also now feel like a five-year-old who was allowed to eat whatever they wanted and now I feel completely ill.  I wish I could bottle this feeling and whip it out every time I’m about to over indulge.

Ok.  So here we are.  Post Halloween and counting down three and a half weeks until Thanksgiving.  My husband and I are taking an amazing vacation during Thanksgiving and I really don’t want to have to count calories.  So I need to track down the band wagon asap and get my butt back on it.

“What’s the game plan?” you ask.  The game plan is to make a game plan!  I’m planning out my meals again.  I also think I’ll be giving myself a few limits like: no eating any food at work or on the weekend that I don’t plan for.  I find this helps keep me in context when there’s temptation sitting around.  The next part of the plan is to make sure there’s no temptation sitting around.  I’m normally pretty irritated at other people’s insensitivity to temptation (like when a coworker throws a bowl of candy on your desk).  But I came into work today and threw my bowl of candy on another coworker's desk (gees, she’s so insensitive!).

I’ll also be making sure I don’t de-prioritize the gym—gym time has been getting the boot lately for other important tasks, like catching up on America’s Next Top Model.  I considered wearing my pedometer regularly again, but then I remembered I washed it (as in, left it in my jean’s pocket and did some laundry).  I’ll be stopping by Target on my way home from work today.

So how about you?  How do you get yourself back on the band wagon?  Tips and tricks?  And I’d love to know what kind of game plan you create for yourself for the holidays!  If you’re interested in guest blogging on how you survive the holidays, email me at liveitouteveryday [at] comcast.net.

Back on Track

It’s Wednesday and I’ve already had it up to my eyebrows this week.  I have made the conscious decision to eat my stress.  Even after all the planning, I’ll still get pizza for dinner or go out for lunch.  It’s been one of those weeks.

Since I’m already working through in my head what I’m going to do to get back on track, I figured I’d let you follow along.

#1 Meal Tracking – For me, tracking everything I eat is extremely important to my weight maintenance.  For some people, it helps them stay aware of how many calories they’ve eaten.  I mostly use my meal tracker to help me plan out my day.  On days other than today, I’ll sit down in the morning and plan out my breakfast, snacks and lunch.  Then I have a good idea of what to start thinking about for dinner.

#2 The Gym – Generally, even when I make bad food choices, I still don’t have trouble getting to the gym.  I love my gym!  This week, though, motivation has been low.  I need to spend some time thinking about my favorite classes, exercises, and why I like them.  I often find that listening to some of my favorite dance and workout music helps get me in the mood to work out, too.

#3 Focus on How I Feel – I’ve probably eaten around 1500 calories already today (with plans to go out to dinner), and I feel crappy.  When I eat like this, it never—and I mean never—makes me feel good!  Sure, I get that sugar-rush when I first eat these kinds of foods (remember opioids people?), but in an hour I feel sleepy and sluggish and tired.  Not to even mention a little sick to my stomach.  And I think I’m getting a headache.  Have I mentioned that I feel crappy?

#4 Just Do It – At some point, probably Saturday because I have plans to go out to dinner on Friday (I know, I’m just unbelievable, right?), I’ll get up out of bed and kick myself in the butt.  My inner dialog often goes like this: “What are you thinking?  Look at you.  You’re ridiculous.  You know what you’re doing, so stop it.  You know what to do, so do it!”  And then I’ll drag myself off to my 10am Body Step class and feel so good that I did!

Can anyone relate?  What do you do to get back on track?

Highly Palatable – Part III

We’ve been talking about highly palatable foods—those high fat, high salt, high sugar foods that we can’t resist.  Studies are finding that these foods are conditioning our brains to compel us to overeat these foods.  I am learning fascinating things in David Kessler’s The End of Overeating!  The gist is that people no longer eat to satisfy hunger, but eat to stimulate their brains.

In order to conquer the conditioning that leaves us feeling powerless over food, we need to change our thinking.  It’s not easy.  I have a lot of conditioned eating in my life that I have yet to take complete control over.  But it’s crucial to our health that we begin to take control.

We first need to be aware: with awareness, I can recognize that a cue is going to trigger a conditioned response in me.  For example, my husband and I stop by the grocery store on our way home from church to grab sandwich fixings for lunch.  When I’m aware of my cues (passing the bakery section on my way to the deli), I can stop the cycle before it even begins (I can head to the produce section and send my husband alone to the deli so I’m never even near the bakery).  We may be unaware of habits in our lives; becoming aware of our cues and triggers may take some practice and determination.

We can also create competing habits and thinking that will help to replace our old ones.  Competing habits look like taking a different route to work in the morning to avoid coffee shops or changing your routine in the evening to avoid the kitchen pantry.  Habits that help to completely avoid beginning that cycle of conditioned overeating.  Competing thoughts will help to change your perspective on trigger foods.  Instead of thinking about how you could justify having just one M&M (which we all know will lead to twenty), you could think of specific ways you can take control of the situation (like leaving the room) or of how good you’ll feel if you don’t give in.

But the most important piece is support.  I have many different levels of support in my own life: close friends aware of my struggles, teachers at my gym who encourage me, a personal trainer for when I need a kick in the butt, a counselor when I really need to dig in to a problem, and my blog to help keep my accountable.  I can’t stress enough how important having a support system in place is to your ability to lose the weight an keep it off.

Highly Palatable – Part I

After a few previous weeks of pretty willingly giving into temptation, I decided it was time to fully get back onto the wagon (instead of running alongside the wagon so that I didn’t look like I had fallen off, but was intentionally choosing to be where I was). But this weekend was just more than willpower could do for me: pizza, chocolate, munchies and more. I felt bad about my choices, but I couldn’t even muster a decent feeling of guilt—it was all so good!

But it’s Monday and Monday’s a new slate for me. And, I have a new hero: David Kessler. Kessler is a former FDA commissioner and a fellow to our struggle with food. He's done much research and discovery around how we have conditioned ourselves to overeat certain foods.

When we eat highly palatable foods—delicious foods containing fat, sugar and salt—our brains begin to release dopamine. Dopamine is the chemical our brains use to let our bodies know that pleasure is coming (kind of like a neurotransmitter version of “Oh yeah, baby, here it comes!”). Kessler found that those dopamine pathways begin to activate at the mere mention of food. Hear that? You don’t even have the food in front of you, but I could just say “double chocolate brownie” and your brain’s instant response is “Where?” Once you eat that food, your brain starts to release opioids which make you feel that emotional release (also known as endorphins) or a sense of pleasure.

So you’re driving to work and you see Krispy Kreme (or Dunkin' Donuts for my East Coast family). Your hands turn the wheel and you’re at the checkout counter before you know it. You eat one doughnut, and you think to yourself “This was totally worth it.” The one doughnut turns into two doughnuts. Maybe you even justify another doughnut after that, and you weren’t even hungry to begin with.

Kessler strikes it home for me when he says, “I used to think I ate to feel full. Now I know, we have the science that shows, we’re eating to stimulate ourselves.”

I didn’t want this post to be crazy long, so we’ll chat more this week. Until then, check out Kessler’s Washington Post article and his NPR interview. They’re fascinating!

A Rare Moment

This past Friday was a pretty bad workday. One of those days when you only barely get out of the office at 6pm. I was lucky it was a Friday! Ok, so I have a bad day and what’s my first reaction? Let go out to dinner and get ice cream!

But Friday was one of those rare moments when I caught myself! I’d had a really crappy day at work and I desperately needed some fun, some pleasure and some relaxation. My first reaction is always to turn to food for the things I need. And, you have to admit, food is easy. It’s far easier to go out to eat than sit and think of other ways to meet my emotional , psychological and physical needs. I know! I actually did it this time!

I evaluated how I was feeling and what exactly I needed. Then I started thinking of other ways I could get what I needed. Here are a couple of my ideas:

· Go out dancing with some girlfriends.

· Go see a movie with my husband. (This was Friday’s winner.)

· Go to the mall and do some shopping. (Granted this is just Retail Therapy, but at least it calorie-less.)

· Rent some movies or grab a book and waste the rest of the evening.

· Go to the spa and get a massage.

· Go for a bike ride. (Note, your destination should not be Cold Stone.)

· Call a friend I haven’t spoken with for a while.

You’ll notice that most of my non-food alternatives involve “go” and other people. Your personality may need more of a “stay” and by-yourself kind of alternative. No matter what you prefer, next time you catch yourself turning to food, take the opportunity to evaluate and do some brainstorming. You’ll feel so much better later on than if you give into your normal inclinations. I did!

Lapse and Relapse

Lately I’ve been having a hard time making good decisions. Unfortunately, I compound one bad decision by using it to justify other bad decisions (“Well, I had one peanut butter M&M, so I might as well just eat the whole bag.”). Needless to say, this is not how I should live day to day if I want to keep that 95 pounds off.

There are lapses and then there are relapses. A lapse is a one-time kind of thing, like the moment I chose to eat the peanut butter M&M. Missing a workout or giving into unplanned food choice are lapses.

A relapse is reverting back to old behaviors or, in my case, when I decide to eat the whole bag of peanut butter M&Ms five days in a row. Missing a week’s worth of workouts or making unplanned food choices for several days straight are relapses. The tough thing about a relapse is that sometimes you don’t even realize you’re relapsing until it’s done. The key is to make an immediate choice to get yourself turned back around, because a series of relapses is just you going back to how you used to live.

The best way to help yourself catch any relapses is to give yourself a realistic weight “ceiling.” For me, I tend to hover around 170 to 175 pounds, but 180 is my ceiling. If I notice myself creeping closer and closer to 180, it’s like a yellow light. If I hit that 180, it’s a red right, directly turn around, do not pass go, do not collect $200. After my surgery, I hit that ceiling so I’m working getting back down to my normal weight—but, man, peanut butter M&Ms are just so damn good!

Here are the best ways to help recover from a relapse:

• Get on the scale. Take responsibility for where you are. NO EXCUSES.
• Tell someone about it! You should have a community in place to help keep you accountable, but—if you don’t—tell a friend what you’re struggling with and ask them to help keep you accountable.
• Get back into weight loss mode. Guess what? You have to lose some weight! Can’t do it eating peanut butter M&Ms. Eat smart—get that protein balanced with carbs and heart healthy fats.
• Remember that the cravings don’t last forever. Only a couple days without sweets and I find that it’s already easier to say “no.”

Defriend Temptation!

I was playing on Facebook at work today (no, this is not my job), and I was drooling over Trophy Cupcakes newest status update. Trophy is this AMAZING cupcake store down the street. I swear, they have daily status updates, and the cupcakes just look enticing. I say to my coworker, “I’m going to have to defriend Trophy if they keep up the daily updates.” Every time I see their logo, I start drooling!

But the better question is: why haven’t I defriended them yet?! If every time I see an update from Trophy it’s a challenge to not run down the street and buy a cupcake, why in the world do I leave them in my Facebook friends? I think we’re all suckers for punishment. And I think we all put ourselves in a lot of situations—that we don’t necessarily need to be in—that create temptation. Often, temptation we have no intention of resisting.

You’re saying right now, “I don’t do that. Why would I purposefully put temptation in front of me when I’m trying to lose weight?” How about those times we arrive home and plop the mail down on the kitchen counter to go through it. Why do we need to go through the mail in the kitchen? You’re just making yourself hungry being in there! Leave the kitchen and dining room for eating, not for living.

So you walk into your living room and what do you have sitting on your coffee table? A bag of chips? A bowl of candy? Your lunch? Keep the food in your kitchen, not in the rest of your house.

Don’t take the trip to Starbucks with your coworkers, but talk them into walking around the block a time or two to stretch your legs. Don’t go to the grocery store hungry. Keep some almonds or turkey jerky in your purse for those times you go to the grocery store hungry anyway. Take your kids to the park, not out to ice cream. Ask your husband to go on a bike ride, not out to dinner.

Think about the situations and habits in your life when you put yourself around food or in temptations way… and then change it!

Removing Temptation

You’ve made the decision to start eating healthy and maybe even lose a few pounds, congratulations! The next step is to change your environment as much as possible to help you keep this commitment. So many of us commit to eating healthy in the morning, but then reach for chips or cookies in the evening. Why are chips and cookies even within your reach?!

Get the junk out of the house! The easiest way to overcome temptation is to simply remove it. And I mean remove it: throw it away! Don’t you dare force it on your friends just because you feel bad throwing your junk food away. Don’t wait until it’s gone—throw it away.

Don’t use your kids and family as an excuse either. “But why should my family suffer because I have to?” The truth is: if it isn’t good for you to eat, why in the world would you feed it to them? “That’s easy—because I want my children to have all the same issues with food that I have.” Remember The Hunger Chat? Do your kids a favor and teach them how to eat properly.

If—after all that—you still can’t bring yourself to get rid of the junk food, then try something new. Take all of the tempting foods in your house and put them in a box. Put a BIG label on that box that reads “Why am I eating this?” or “Am I hungry?” or something similar. Take that box out to your garage or up to your attic and put it in a high, hard-to-reach, difficult-to-get-to place. We’re making your laziness work for you in this instance. You’ll be sitting on the couch thinking “I really want something munchy.” But then you’ll remember you have to go all the way out to the garage to get it. Should you actually want something munchy enough that you get up off your butt to go get it, read that label before opening the box and take a minute to consider the answer to that question.

The goal is to make it as hard as possible to break your commitment!