dianaschnuth

It’s never good when I reach the middle of the month and realize it’s already time to take my monthly body fat percentage measurements. In that moment, I feel like I’ve squandered the last four weeks, and I’m no better off than I was at the last measurement.

It also sucks when I look at my meal breakdown graph for that mid-month week and realize I didn’t learn anything from the previous month, apparently. Snacking — especially evening binge snacking — is a major problem.

Every Tuesday, before my weekly Weight Watchers weigh-in, I mentally check in with myself. Lately, I feel like I’m running up the down escalator when it comes to weight loss — not only that, but I get distracted midstream, so I’ll stop trying for just a moment and lose so much ground.

The question is how to keep myself focused. Granted, I’m pretty sick of being in constant weight-loss mode (hence why I let myself go off the rails sometimes), but that’s no reason to sit down and eat a fourth meal and two more desserts after my son goes to bed.

Since my obvious problem is after-dinner snacking, perhaps it’s time to reinstate The Closing Of The Kitchen ritual. The status quo earlier in the month had been to plod downstairs after the nightly bedtime ritual and beeline for the pantry to feed my emotions, and put off loading or unloading the dishwasher and cleaning the counters and whatnot until time for me to go up to bed myself. Instead of hanging out in the living room, munching on something and watching Good Eats on Netflix and waiting for my son to call me upstairs for whatever reason, how about I go immediately into the kitchen (where I can still hear him if he calls) and clean up?

Another focusing tactic that’s worked for me in the past is the daily photo-journaling of my meals, so that was an option. Then, in addition to Closing the Kitchen and photo-journaling, one thing I hadn’t tried up until this point was actually planning my meals ahead and pre-tracking them.

So, on my mid-month weigh-and-measure day, I started all of these. I sat down and planned out my meals from Tuesday through Friday, I photographed each of the day’s meals and snacks just before eating, I cleaned up the kitchen after my son went down for the night, I made a low-cal dessert (individual pudding cups, 5SP each), and I calmly enjoyed one in the sunroom after I was sure my son wasn’t going to get up again.

I also opted not to turn on any lights or watch any TV, although I did play on my phone in the sunroom until it got dark. Once it got too dark to see, it was time for me to get up to bed, anyway. I did a little yoga (although it was mostly stretchy and not strengthy, as I was too tired for proper form at that point), played on my phone for a little while, and went to bed a half hour earlier than normal (but still later than would be ideal).

The word “holistic” has a hippy-dippy connotation for me, but I really do need to take a holistic approach to my health. Everything’s related — mood, food, sleep — and I would be well-served to take care of all of them, instead of working on one at the exclusion of the others.  Continue reading →

I’ve done the whole “Why Did I Eat That” analysis before. Seems that maybe I need to do it again, and offer myself some better options for the next time I find myself wanting to stuff my face when I’m not truly hungry (or feed my face the absolute wrong foods).

Situation: At work, either late morning or mid afternoon. Sluggish, but not necessarily hungry. Tempted to hit the vending machine for a Diet Dew and something from the bottom row — Pop Tarts, cookies, honey bun, etc.

When I find myself sitting at my desk and contemplating a sugary snack, I have a couple of lines of defense.

Number One: I actually wrote myself a reminder on a sticky note, telling myself how crappy I felt after eating the carrot cake from the restaurant downstairs. Not that it’s not delicious, but the icing is more sugar than cream cheese, and I feel positively nasty after I eat a piece.

Number Two: I look at my weight graphs in Google Sheets. I’ve been aggregating monthly and weekly weights from my daily weigh-ins at the bathroom scale, and when I feel like it doesn’t really matter if I go get a Pop-Tart or some Hostess cupcakes from the bottom row, I take a look at the slow downward trend I’ve got going on. Then I let myself be reminded by that blip in May (and June) that, yes, the little things DO matter.

Continue reading →

I’ve been having trouble eating with intention lately. My intention is to lose weight — specifically, to lose fat — and I haven’t been successful at that. Mindful eating, sure — I don’t often find myself at the bottom of a bowl of pasta these days, although I do occasionally ponder and pore over what evening snack I should enjoy, knowing full well that I shouldn’t be eating after 8pm, and not caring.

Halfway through May, I decided to start double-tracking again — that is, tracking my food both on Weight Watchers eTools and on Lose It! I find that I plan more carefully if I can see the macronutrient breakdown, which is completely opposite of the current WW mindset — their idea is, the fewer numbers to track, the better. I’m not always down with that. Sometimes I want data: percentage of protein in my day, or most frequently eaten foods, or most calorie-laden foods, or just a visual of how many calories I’ve eaten this week. Unfortunately, though, double-tracking often just gives me an excuse to keep eating on any given day, since my daily SmartPoints target seems to be somewhere around 1300 Calories, not including the 49 Weekly Points that I can distribute over the week however I choose.

I’m also torn as to whether setting small “rules” for myself is helpful or not. I know that the one big rule I should be following is Stick To The Plan — and since Weight Watchers is what I’m doing right now, that’s what I should be sticking to, whether I double-track or not. Will setting lots of little guidelines for myself be helpful or harmful? Depends on if I’m in the all-or-nothing mindset or being more forgiving.

On one hand, I know I should be kind to myself. Slow and steady wins the race and all that. But I also feel like it’s time for some tough self-love. If I’m actually eating with intention, with the purpose of losing weight fat, then there is no reason my average weight loss should be 0.45 pounds PER MONTH. That’s right: less than half a pound per month.

Am I OK with that? No, I’m not OK with that. Granted, I’m glad that I’m not where I used to be, both health-wise and weight-wise… and the scale is generally moving in the right direction… but I’ve been half-assing this weight loss thing for long enough. I’m about ten pounds from where I think my goal weight is, and I’ll be damned if I let my 40th year come and go and not reach my goal weight.

CONSTANT VIGILANCE!

Non-Scale Victories:

• Wore a pair of jean shorts with a 3” inseam out in public (i.e. fingertip-length) and didn’t feel self-conscious
• Made healthy food for our annual shindig: lomi lomi salmon and roast pork, plus some less-healthy but not horrible food, like SPAM (Lite) musubi and macaroni salad