breaking the can't cope/ tired/eat cycle help

[frustratedmom]

I need ideas on where to start. Know you are a world of knowledge so please pass on the advice.

where to start
how to stick.

Anything.

I think I'm really getting into this now. The tops I bought are really motivating me I stuck to all our s's yesterday except for the no snacking. I got really shaky at 5 so had a muesli bar and a few crackers. I don't know why as I had eaten enough.

Niecie, your weight will fluctuate throughout the week so don't feel down anout it. I'm not going to even weigh myself. I'm going to go on how my clothes fit. I miss cake too but I actually feel like I want to prioritise my weight loss now so am very willing to give it up for a while

Toomany are you having too many calories on your program? Are you doing any exercise? I would be frustrated too if I was paying that much and it wasn't working effectively.

Hi Velvet Cushions and Niecie

I was cheating . The few extra calories here and there add up. That is how I got inot this condition in the first place. Knowing it does help stop it, but doesn't necessarily make it any easier.

Weighed today and I am down 2 pounds, so perhaps, with fingers crossed, the plateau is over.

I understand plateaus a little. The body is readjusting and will stop itself from changing too quickly-which isn't healthy. I get that and so found some patience to wait it out. [smug emotikon]

However, I do need to exercise more consistently. I get a walk in every once in a while (twice a week). I am still exhausted. Thunder storms last night. Was that louder than dh snoring? Close. And my throat has been scratchy for 3 days now...

And yet I feel good. My spirit is up. I want to do more stuff-even cleaning.

This process does take alot of patience, doesn't it?

I am not obsessing so much about food like I used to-I mean when trying to lose weight, thinking about food constantly. I am going to set up my sewing space again and think about quilts and other sewing projects instead of food.

Sorry to cut off abruptly-got to go.

A long post cut off abruptly, ha

Today I will have mushrooms at 4 o'clock. Maybe this 4 o'clock thing is related to "Tea Time". That's a stretch as I'm many generations an American, but of English origin.

My mind is so silly. Having this "rescue plan" in place is really helping me not stress over the idea of being hungry whether I am actually stomach growling hungry or not.

Still have not exercised today...

But am doing excellent on water and vitamins. And to the crumb on the program.

Must try not to eat now as am feeling a bit peckish.

I think its a very good idea to plan a 'meal' at 4pm as it'll stop you getting starving by dinner and over eating.

I am going to order a cross trainer as I'm finding it difficult to make time for exercise and think something I could do in front of the tv would be a good way to get some in.

Oh dear, you dropped off the 'Threads I'm on' list so I obviously haven't posted enough.

No much to report but I will be back later after Sainsburys - just wanted to keep the thread alive.

Hi
I have not been feling very well-so no exercise.
I am better today, so will try to garden. The ground is so saturated the weeds are going to leap out of the ground .

I hope you are doing well, Velvet Cushions and Niecie.

Movingintothefuture-hope your trip went well.

One salad dressing that I like uses a little of the Ranch Dressing. I really like Ranch but it is sooo bad . I put the measured serving size into about a 1/2 cup of salsa and mix it up. Yummy without too much damage.

ShannaraTiger-I looked up Slimming World and found a nice recipe for pasta and mushroom/tomato sauce. Thanks for mentioning that program. How are you doing?

Hello all!

From the jist of the thread the last week has been a mix of good and bad days. Well done to all for sticking with it. Congrats on all progress. Niecie -congrats on assignment. i'm now 1 week behind at mo

I think that even if the scales don't show it yet we are all making progress. The hardest part about changing habits (particularly eating) is understanding why we have them, why they are a problem and why we need to change them and that it isn't a magic wand that will make the long term difference. I guess that is why they say it is a lifestyle change not a habit change.

The report for the week...
Sugar -reduced greatly (slipped at the bigging and the end of week0
Snacks - swap unhealthy for sugar but didn't manage to loose the snacks
Seconds - Did pretty ok here
Sleep - quantity - good, qualitity -
Sweat -lots of walking after tuesday.
seven glasses -easy due to heat (possible over drank

The first few days were a write off with ds in hospital with stone throwing event and no sleep as being woken up every hour after seeing the specialist at 3 am. He's ok but am still feeling the effects of the not slept night. plus he has been sleeping ontop of me for a week. he thankfully got better last night and slept next to me It will hopefully get better when we get home and the normal routine gets re-instated... we'll see. He is busy with ex today (we stopped off on way home to break journey and he was very upset daddy didn't come to see him in hospital) so will try to head for the books but have to head to car bits place so I can see out back windscreen (ds broke wiper )

Keep the s's going and it'll work

Hello,

Toomany - hope you are feeling well again soon. Hopefully it was something that squashed your appetite for a bit. There has to be some benefit to being ill.

Moving - sounds like you had an eventful week! At least you stuck to the goals more or less. Is your DS OK now?

I am not doing very well this weekend. Its all gone a bit to pot. I think I need to post some more, to keep focussed! I have been a bit lax for the past few days.

I saw a programme on the 10 effective steps to successful dieting (or something like that). It was really interesting and, like our approach, not in the least faddy.

I can't remember all of them but moving more, even if it is no regular exercise helps - silly things like wandering around if you are on the phone instead of sitting down, doing more housework. Basically don't do anything sitting down that you can do standing up! Probably common sense.

Then there was portions Size. People tend to eat up to 60% more than they think they do. One very large lady swore she ate a healthy diet and only ate about 2000 calories a day and she actually ate closer to 3000 calories! (That would be me as well then)

Eat Soup was another one and eat protein as both are more filling.

Oh and no Skipping meals, especially breakfast.

Shame I can't find a website for it as it was very interesting stuff.

Anyway, as I haven't done this for a while

No snacks (failed but cut back hugely in the week)
No sugar (ditto)
No seconds (tick)
Sweat (tick but probably cos it was hot last week. )
7 glasses of water. (probably failed but not been counting - I may resort to filling a 1.5 litre bottle and seeing how much I get through in a day)

Hope you are doing better than me. I think I need a boot!!!!!

Here's a boot -just aim it back when you're done with it

ds is better. Boys tend to bounch -even if it takes a trip to A&E first. Its just sods law that the only night he sleeps 12hours on his own is when I can't sleep.

Am going to have to write the S mantre down and put it somewhere I see it every day as my memory ...

Just remember it takes time. and there will be one step forward two steps back sometimes. It'll happen but just not tomorrow.

nice to have you back Moving Glad to hear ds is better.

I think we know what we're meant to be doing now. We now just need a way to get a bit stricter and stick to it.

What do we say about keeping a food diary? I've always done better when I've written my food down.
Has anyone tried foodfocus? Its quite good but we could try to write it down here?

How about we commit to definitely doing 1/2 an hour of exercise 3 times a week?

We're getting there but I haven't seen any results yet according to my scales. I think I need to make a bigger commitment to this.

Btw thanks for that Niecie. Its helpful.

I was thinking about a food diary. The lady on the programme I saw did that - she reckoned that she had a slow metabolism as she thought she ate sensibly and very little.

Turns out that even her food diary was inaccurate by about 60%. She didn't weigh anything (as most of us don't) and really had no idea what she had eaten. Scary.

I suppose to be useful the diary has to accurate and you have to be very honest when you do it.

Actually it scares me a bit. I think I have my head firmly in the sand about what I really eat.

I must be braver!!!!

How about we try it then, starting from tomorrow?

We look at our portions and weigh all our carbs like pasta, potato and rice and ration anything else except veg and fruit.

I've got a 1.5litre of water which I'm going to keep refilling.

Sounds interesting ... i think i have discovered the problem in my eating -other than the normal denial is the unpredictablilty of my life - which I really can't cope with. My post brought little relief and more worry. So tonight I am trying to put to use the fact that i can't sleep and prep the lesson topic I need for my interview next week. Got a bit stuck when discovered that the topic I would really like to do is not really on any of the syllabuses any more (gives weight to the easier exams theory) so having to completely rethink

Going to re-read thread to try to figure out what the hell i am trying to achieve. Am completely loosing my grip tonight.

Ok am back, velvet had a look at the calorie diary thing. It looked quite good but didn't like the fact that it thought it would take until july 2010 to get to my target weight. Might give it a go.

I realised that in order to cure the comfort aspects I can't run away from the problems and actually and to tackle them head on. Not easy for an emotion phobic scaredy cat. I have name changed as right now am not ready to move forwards until i have dealt with the past. The route of the problem goes way back and here is the place to start. If I am ever to move on I am going to have to finally deal with it. i also realised that i am a serial UFO'er in all aspects of my life. The past is not something i seem to be able to leave behind. Plus i think spring cleaning isn't really supposed to last the whole year

I will confess that i completely fell off the plan and that pile of cookies my sister left got eaten along with a coulpe of very nice cheese sandwiches. Been feeling very lost and confused today probably as a result of a fight with ex that caught his gf in cross fire and the fact they gave ds lemonade knowing full well he doesn't sleep when drunk said item. It was gone midnight before ds went down and will confess to a very rude txt message being sent .

Repeating full mantre:

No snacks
No sweets
No seconds
Sweat
Sleep more
7 glasses of water
Portion size
No skipping meals

and one for me tonight

smile!

just found this exercise thought it might help. (and yes still up -mostly got lesson planed though)

good suggestions for getting the food diary thing going here

Just to add to the diary thing I signed up for Food Focus a few months weeks ago.

Haven't done anything with it yet.

I will have a look at your links as well Onefoot

Crap, that will teach me not to look won't it!

Sorry oneforward not onefoot!!

You sound like you are struggling oneforward - have you been split up from your ex-H long? You seemed to get on OK most of the time, in your previous posts anyay. I can appreciate that the lemonade thing is probably really really annoying if your DS hasn't slept. On the other hand kind of silly thing isn't restricted to ex husbands let me tell you! I imagine it must be more annoying that you are having to deal with the fallout of the silly behaviour all by yourself though.

And for what it is worth, I think you are being hard on yourself. You sound like you are trying to get everything sorted at once and you would have to be superwoman to manage it. Sadly none of us are - you should see the bomb site I am sitting in, typing this. I bet yours isn't as bad as this!

If I were you (feel free to ignore me because my life is no great example!) I would concentrate on your interview for now and worry about everything else after that.

The 'S'plan list is getting really big now - it really is going to become a book at this rate - so just stick to one thing on it for the time being and don't beat yourself up over the rest. If you can stay off the cola for example, and maybe have no seconds because that is easy then you are getting there. Worry about the rest when your interview is over and you can reassess what to concentrate on next.

Hope everybody has a great day!

Have been good. went to shop on way home from running errands. Walked past coke, walked past chocolate. picked up a pizza for lunch and a bottle of squash. Self control or what. Especially as there is no chance for sleep until bedtime. Man am i tired. Have progress: 1 appt school,1 appt drs, 1 repeat smear booked library books renewed (fine paided), holiday pics facebooked, email cleared. All that's left on list is nervous breakdown and ou stuff. Havent time for break down so partical physics here i come...

...yep your right can't face that going to tackle prep for meetings later this week. Arrgh...

oneforward - sounds like you have had a good morning despite being shattered.

I have been thinking - does anybody think having incentives would be useful? I would love to buy a whole new wardrobe of clothes but this isn't a great incentive because it requires dramatic weight loss, loads of money and won't really keep me going on a Saturday evening when the chocolate is calling. I need little baby steps incentives - half a stone rewards or something.

However, I am not sure what to do to give me that little push to keep going when times are tough. Anybody have any incentives they want to share.

I want my current clothes to be less tight
to have more energy and to feel more human.

goal one achievable
goals two and three - did i fall asleep

Hi
VelvetCushions-I need to get a water container so I can do better. Thanks for that suggestion.

Portion control is the big issue for me. (Especially if "no seconds" applies )
That is the reason I need the organized plan-and it is embarrassing to have to pay someone to tell me what to put into my mouth...but I have made my peace with that and recognize that better health is worth the investment in the program.

Hi Niecie
One of my incentives is standing up. When my weight is down, from a sitting position on the sofa, I can stand up in one motion. When my weight is up, I have to shift, adjust, scoot to the edge and then (heave ho ) stand.

Hi Oneforward
I hope you can get some deep sleep.
The food diary helps. It is hard to keep as a habit though. To me, is seems (can't find the right word)almost obsessive...but then again I need it.

My program's diary day is set up like this:

Breakfast:
Breakfast entree
Dairy or Protein
Fruit

Lunch:
Lunch Entree
Vegetable
Vegetable (with 2 tbsp fat free dressing if desired)
Dairy or Protein

Afternoon snack:
Dairy or Protein
Fruit

Dinner:
Dinner entree
Vegetable (2 tbsp fat free dressing)
Vegetable
Fruit or Vegetable
Fat

Dessert:
Dessert Entree

It all adds up to about 1200 cal. They also say drink water. It also says to add a carbohydrate to breakfast and dinner and one fruit to lunch if you have more than 100 pounds to lose.

Thanks for the links, I'll look through them.

Oneforward I really feel for you - it must be such a struggle to get through the day on such little sleep. Have you tried comomile tea to help you relax early evening?

Niecie I like the incentives things. I bought a top in a size 12. Its a lovely summery, floaty top which just isn't floaty enough at the moment. I'm aiming to lose 1/2 a stone so I can get into it without it being a squeeze. Hopefully before the next heatwave

Drinking lots of water really helps to shift the weight so its a good idea to get a big bottle and make sure you get through it.

I recorded my food on foodfocus today and had about 1300 cals.

I sold my soul to my sister for the chance of an hour or so of sleep. She took pity and let me sleep nearly 4 and even cooked tea. Although I hate being stuck at mum and dad's there are a few advantages when it comes to emergency survival tactics. Ds has just curled up next to me in my bed and gone to sleep. Didn't even tell him to, had left him to eat his apple and read his search book. he crawled in for a cuddle and put himself to bed. Will give him half hour whilst i try to track a book done on amazon before shifting him into his own bed. 2 people in a single bed is not good for sleep.