Day 5 Son of DDDY Challenge: Some bloat loss, still not additional loss, and the crazy hard job of establishing new habits re portions, fighting stimuli, strategies that may be nuts-sounding but necessary, and naysaying cues that lead to overeating...plus food/water log, natch.

247.8

Down at last. Yay. But...Still half a pound over where I think I should be considering what I've been eating and drinking.

Not discouraged. Not giving up. Just wondering what the hell is up with my body is all. I was moving nicely along and then not so much. Female bodies are weirder about this stuff then men's it seems (at least from my experience as a female in a family with males and a reader of both male and female blogs).

Weird shit happens. And you just stay the course or make corrections. You do not give up. Ever. Period. No giving up.

I know I'm being accountable. I'm not bullshitting the world or myself with my food log. I had bought shiny new measuring spoons, measuring cups, smaller serving plates and small serving bowls, all in the goal of constraining, containing, and quantifying. I'll even take apart restaurant meals IN THE RESTAURANT (or ask them to take it apart for me, literally, before serving), so I can eyeball measure the ingredients.

I brought a salad home yesterday, all prettily put together, threw out their dressing, took apart the components measured them before reassembling on a plate. Just so I could KNOW. I post at my SparkPeople nutrition tracker to get the calories per weights/measures before I log here on my blog. So I KNOW.

I even measured out where 2 cups of water is on a patterned glass (ie, 2 cups measured comes up to the tip of a particular leaf in the etched pattern). That way, I don't have to measure out two cups each time. I know where to pour up to.

These are all new habits I'm establishing. These are all breaking the cues: Eat at once. It looks good and smells good and you know it tastes good, so just go for it. Just grab the food, toss in in the plate, eat it. Don't measure it, just dig in.

So, I know I'm not cheating on calories (though nothing short of a laboratory is absolutely precise). My body is just not cooperating. Plateau?

I can wait and let it do its thing. I can cut calories. I can move more. Those are pretty much my options.

Right now, I"m going to keep things the same for a couple days and see. If things don't budge, then I will consider the readjusting calories. Patience for now.

I was reading THE END OF OVEREATING in the john (and all of you with weight/overeating issues need, need, need to read this), because I am clearly still in the hard work of establishing new habits. New habits about the size of meals, about the quantity of water, etc. I am looking at my cues and learning to self-talk myself out of the stimulus-response.

And trust me, there's a lot of stimulus in my life/city/world. Some things are easier to do:Tell hubby to take his snacks and crap away from any place I can SEE them FIND them --literally out of here, like to his music room where I rarely go or to his office at work, where I never go.

Others are trickier. The boulevards we drive on the way to places and on the way home are chockablock with cues. I always, always get the urge to go in x and y drive-thrus. Always. It's like Pavlov hit me with a taco or fried chicken stick while I was driving this road.

So, I've been driving down OTHER roads. I mean, there are times when I take some really convoluted back roads to my house to avoid triggers.

Other times, when I'm rushed, I'll have to self-talk: No, you don't want a burrito. No, you don't want a hamburger. No, you don't want pizza. No, you're not getting pastrami at the deli.No, you will not stop for X. You will not stop. It's not an option. It's not worth it. You'll regret it. You will NOT.

I feel a great sense of success when I do not follow the cue to behavior: ie, stopping or driving through. Scarfing up everything in the bag.

Sometimes, the cue is a menu. Seriously. Sometimes, all I have to do is come upon a take-out menu and I want it all. I want to order  6 things, 7 things, I want to eat 10 things. This happened to me at the Thai Place. I wanted something salty, but I wanted to get veggies, not just chow down on cheese and crackers. Thai gives you salt and spice and veggies. I wanted so much suddenly. I felt that weird binge urge. It was STRONG. I thought, "Shit, I need to stop now and forget about the Thai food."

But I held that menu for like 30 minutes fighting the urges. One by One. The one for fried egg rolls. The one for curry chicken. The one for fried dumplings. The one for ..... One by one. No, no, no. Won't have that. What can I have that has fewer cals and more veggies.

I had what I put in my food log. Pretty much the  most taste-but-lowest cal options I could find. (Yes, steamed veggies would have been the rock bottom, but that wouldn't cut it, salt or tastewise).

It could easily have been Waterloo and Napoleon. Instead, it was more Wellingtonian. :)

But menus are definitely bad, bad cue-instigators. Menus from places I've eaten and know what's tasty.

One way to get around that is not to have menus: Make your own. Get a Word Document going, add each restaurant you frequent, add only the names/prices of the foods you SHOULD order (and the ones maybe a spouse orders). And ditch the takeout menus. Use only the "safe" non-cue menus. I need to do this.

Okay, back to the challenge:

I was super great on water yesterday. I was pretty good on food. I was crap on sodium, and I can't work up too much of a righteous indignation about that.  If I can't have the super indulgences of the past, I decided I'm still having the salty thrill. For now, at least. I may have to reconsider that, too.

Yesterday's challenge stats have me under calorie limit and way over fluid optimum:


Total Calories:  1594 (c39/f37/p24)
Total Fluids:  248 oz

Woke up thirsty again. Water will be huge on the agenda. Again. :)

Have a great and healthful weekend, people!

BREAKFAST:
2 slices Ezekiel Bread
1/4 cup sharp cheddar shreds
2 eggs fried in tsp Smart Balance
1 cup papaya chunks
1 cup raspberries
2 cups coffee (16 oz fluid)
10 glasses water (6 before eating, 2 during, 2 after) : 80 oz

bkfst calories: 576
bkfst fluids: 96 oz

(feel very full)

LUNCH:
homemade lower-cal, lower-fat, lower-sugar Pastrami Reuben
(3oz turkey pastrami, 1 oz lower-fat Swiss Cheese, sauerkraut, and dressing made
from 1 tbsp lite mayo, 1 tbsp low-carb ketchup, 2 tsp sugar-free sweet relish)
1 cup mixed strawberries and pineapple, 2 cups watermelon chunks
2 cups decaf with sucralose
6 glasses water
assorted supplements

lunch calories: 596
lunch fluids: 64 oz

calories so far: 1172
fluids so far: 160 oz

SNACK:
2 glasses water (16 oz)
1 bag Kay's Natural honey almond protein cereal

calories so far: 1272
fluids so far:  176 oz

DINNER:
WS Vanilla protein shake (made with 6 oz water and 1/3 cup milk) (128 cals)
1/3 cup skim milk
(total fluids for above about 8.7 oz)
2 glasses water (16 oz)


Total Calories:  1400 (c48/f27/p25)
Total fluids: 200.7 oz