Mindful Living

B2B W4: 280/250, ******, 18 stairs/-2 left

Oops! I guess I have to add 2 flights of stairs today and I can't have anymore white stuff. I'm determined to have a 7 star week.

I tell you what. Losing weight takes a lot of concentration, vigilance, and dedication. Last night I went to Starbuck's for a pick me up, mellow, comforting latte. I just wanted to chill. I got the tall (small) sugar free vanilla latte with 2% milk. I usually get the grande cinammon dolce latte with a slice of the pumpkin loaf. YUM!!! I recalled the no whites deal and got a packet of cashews instead. Good choice you say.

Cashews are a weakness of mine, like coffee ice cream. Such foods are no longer allowed in my house, but I can have them when I'm out because I eat it and it's gone. The cashew packet read 150 calories per one ounce serving which I quickly calculated as 3 points. For those who don't know, 1 point is approximately 50 calories. EXCEPT I didn't calculate the fat part of the points.

Prepared to take the 9 point hit, I enjoyed every scrumpcious cashew while sipping on my latte and chatting with DBF on the plush purple chaise. It was indulging. Imagine my sense of outrage when I plugged in the cashews to find that it was 12.5 points for that 3 ounce bag! AHHHHH!!!!

You know why I'm so outraged. I guess it's the sticker shock.

At any rate, I still had a glut of Flex points and all of my activity points, so it was fine.

You've got to pay attention if you want to lose weight. This isn't really a bad thing. So much of ourselves is on autopilot. We eat mindlessly. We watch television mindlessly. We sit in church mindlessly. Even when we are exerting ourselves with exercise, we want it to be numbing and mindless. We want the time to just pass by.

Losing weight is teaching me to be more mindful and present. Interesting side effect, isn't it?

Poor Planning Panic

B2B W2: 95/250, --

Last week on the day that I couldn't resolve my hunger I didn't plan dinner. On Saturday, I went to the WW meeting, then my plan was to go to the gym. I ended up going to take a class at church on a whim. On the way there I panicked about what to eat and picked up an Egg McMuffin. I had a good lunch at the class, but because I didn't have any snacks I was famished by dinner. I ended up going to a Jamaican restaurant and having a roti and beef patty (both with flour). On Sunday, I didn't have breakfast and ended up famished by 2pm when I finally ate. Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to order the spinach, mushroom, tomato omelette made with egg substitute that came with fruit. I was full off the omelette and ate the fruit later.

When I don't plan I panic. Sometimes I'm not even really hungry when the panic sets in, but I don't know what's going to happen so I get overwhelmed and start spazzing. This behavior isn't unique to food, it's a paradigm of mine. Panic precipitates one of 2 responses. I either stop like a deer in headlights stricken with overwhelm, or I act irrationally. In the case of food, acting irrationally means I'll eat what I think is satisfying to me. In my lexicon of food, that means flour, rice, potatoes. It does not yet mean fruit, eggs, broccoli.

When I don't plan I panic. When I panic hunger is intensified. When hunger is intensified I want flour, rice, potatoes. The way I see it, I can stem this off a few ways.

First line of defense: plan what I'm going to eat.

Second line of defense: stay calm, I won't die of hunger or from lack of food. There are plenty of fat stores in my body and there's an abundance of food all around.

Third line of defense: change my food lexicon. Fruit, vegatables, and protein do fill me up. I'm learning that as I eat more and more of it. Sure 2 cups of rice will ensure that I'm not hungry for the next 4 hours, but 2 cups of fruit is much more nutritious and guarantees I won't be hungry for at least 2 hours and I could go to 3. It's also very rare that I'll have 2 cups of fruit by itself.

In summary, to stay on plan, it would help if I planned my food, remembered that there's an abundance, and adopt a new food lexicon.

Image from stock.xchng.

Honesty

B2B W1: 270/250, ****_*

Do you ever lie when you log your food? Maybe you log a teaspoon of butter when you know it was closer to a tablespoon? Or you out and out refuse to log a food because you know it was too many points? Or you log a naked salmon fillet instead of the restaurant version? Pretty soon you're skipping items, then skipping meals, then not logging at all. Then you wonder, why is the weight creeping on?

Last night, I went to Outback and I had the Caesar salad, which was just lettuce and some dressing. When I looked up the points this morning I saw that it was 6 points. I was outraged. I don't even like lettuce. I could have gotten the mushrooms for less points and it would have been more satisfying. I was tempted to half the points because I didn't think it was worth it.

Preposterous, right?

Yup, and when I caught myself I realized this is how it starts.