What do you mean I can't do it all?

Deborah says:
Probably the biggest single mistake I made all the other times I tried to lose weight, and the biggest single mistake I read about on the blogosphere, is trying to do it all at once. Write that down somewhere – it’s important!

Ever heard this one: You didn’t gain all this weight in (a day, a month, a year) so how do you expect to lose it that quickly? FUCK I hate that. But it’s true. Damn.

Let’s take the example of a blog I just read – this poor girl is struggling to hit her goal weight and has set herself the lofty goal of losing 40 some pounds in four and a half months. To start with, I have to say unless you’re a 20 year old guy, that’s a pretty aggressive goal – but we’ll talk about that another day. So her first week of changes to finally reach this goal weight? Dusting off the running shoes and hitting the streets, drinking two litres of water a day, no sweets or chocolates, regular workouts besides the running, journaling, eating on diet plan, to bed early and regular grocery shopping. Wow! I’ve been doing this for four and a half years and barely have all that figured out.
You didn’t gain all this weight in a week. How can you expect to totally change your life in a week?

When we recently had our book launch party (www.fireescape.com) I said I had tried every diet in the world until I found out the one simple thing I had to do to be successful: completely change my lifestyle!
I had to:
• change my portion sizes
• cut down on fats
• cut down on refined foods
• eat more natural foods
• cook and chop more
• shop regularly
• menu plan
• journal
• exercise
• move more (can’t exercise for 20 minutes and sit on the couch the rest of the night)
• learn new activities
• find more active friends
• learn to shop
• experiment with baking
• pack lunches
• drink water
• learn about nutrition• learn about exercise
• stretch
• sleep better/more

And that’s only the start of it. The hard part was keeping it up. But what I didn’t do was sabotage myself by setting up impossible goals and lifestyle changes. Even me, a person who thrives on change and pressure, could not have survived a week changing everything at once. I not only would have wound up having a huge binge, I would have started drinking and probably smoking too.

No, think of it this way. A journey of 100 pounds begins with one change. Or something like that.

The thought of dieting (which is what I used to call it) for five years and making all these changes slowly but surely did not appeal to me. I wanted to lose 100 pounds in a year. Two pounds a week, right? Wrong. Never worked before, so I was pretty sure it wouldn’t work this time. So I had to change one thing at a time. For me it was portion sizes. I pulled out the measuring cups and I measured everything. I didn’t even limit myself on seconds – but I did require a 20 minute waiting period in between rounds. And I didn’t change anything else until I was really comfortable with that first change. After that I added 10 minutes of exercise a day (above the walking to work that I already did). And then slowly but surely, for almost five years now, I have changed something and then gotten used to it before I changed anything else. And it’s working.

Not that it’s easy. Not that life just magically got perfect. It’s hard and slow and painful some days. But every day I make the choice to love myself, not to sabotage myself and get into that crazy cycle of guilt and self-hate that ruins everything you’re trying to do.

Love yourself enough to let yourself succeed this time. You really deserve it – because, damn, you’re going to work hard for it!

Arlene says:
It is absolutely about solidifying a change before we make a new one. The brain will only change if the new pattern is repeated over and over. We will feel overwhelmed if changes keep coming and there is no routine to rely on. Change takes attention. Paying attention is work. The more changes at one time the more work. Too much work and we get tired, low energy and have less motivation. Low motivation and the new changes seem too onerous, demanding and difficult. Why not go back to the old way, just for a short time, just this once … what do you think happens next?

The only way to build on change is to stay with one new thing until it takes less work to do it or think of it, until it becomes familiar and even semi-comfortable. Then we try adding another new thing.

Honour the fact that change is work and give yourself a chance for success.

What's so good about feeling bad?

Deborah says:
I know I feel good when I go to the gym. Or walk. Or swim. So when I’m feeling bad why don’t I just race over to the exercise bike so I’ll feel better? Especially when I KNOW I’ll feel better?

Did anyone else have a tough 2011? Most of my friends did. I know I had challenges at the day job, with my home, with my heart, with some friends and physically, as well. I was beginning to feel like there wasn’t a safe place left to go. I know that having my home broken (flood damage) for ten months now has left me feeling as if I have no haven, no safe place. The gym. And yet I’ve struggled to get there. It doesn’t feel good to feel bad, but sometimes, when you’re on the couch and home for the day, it seems really hard to get ass to gym – and I have to tell youin my case it’s just across the hall.

Is it those old habits again? Just sit here, shove some food on it and you’ll feel better! But I know I won’t. I know what will make me feel better, even for a short time, will be eating an apple and riding the bike or going for a swim. I know that after that, I’ll be energetic and productive and, most important, not hungry for the rest of the evening. And yet knowing that, I still sit with said ass on said couch and wonder why I’m not crossing the hall to that awaiting bike.

I know, by now you’re hoping I’m going to give you a huge secret here – the answer for how to find hidden motivation within yourself. Well, sorry, if there is an answer when you’re in this state, I don’t know what it is. I just know that most days I don’t let myself go to bed until I’ve been to the gym. Sometimes, I only ride the bike for ten minutes. Sometimes it’s at 10:00 at night. But at least I got there and moved a little. And I have to say, a lot of times once I’m at the gym, ten minutes turns into twenty or thirty – but not always.

And I think it’s really important to say that if feeling bad is bringing you down, and you can’t get yourself moving, please talk to someone. There are lots of people (doctors, psychologists, help-lines, friends) that can help you in lots of ways. Sometimes it’s just meeting someone for a walk and sometimes it might be a visit to your doctor. But ask. Part of the stop lying is not lying about being able to do everything alone. So call a friend and meet them at the gym, I’m going to go and watch some trash TV while I’m on the elliptical – now that will make me feel better.

Arlene says:
Now add having a cold to the lack of motivation and man is it hard to stop the lying, the “I feel lousy so I’ll have comfort food.” But you don’t feel better, now it’s that all over achey feeling and guilt, yuck. This time I tried to have my favourite fruits readily available, so to hell with winter prices I had prepped strawberries, pineapple and blackberries ready. I limited the toast to one and had some pretty fruit and felt better.

It also matters what I’m reading. Even though I like mysteries I find that if I’m stressed I need to read more positive, optimistic stories. I need to be around stories of hope, challenge and creativity not death and murder. Watching Sir Ken Robinson on YouTube helps too. Turn to anyone who helps you stay genuine and Stop Lying.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Deborah says:
Finally – a holiday that doesn’t involve an overloaded buffet table, with your great aunt Blanche bringing her 5000 calorie baked yams covered in marshmallows and caramelized sugar, with candied pecans.

St Patrick’s Day is a drinking holiday. Green beer! No calories in beverages, right? And no calories in the wings and burgers and fries you eat after you’ve had three or four beers, right?
Intentions, people, intentions. There are a couple of problems here, though. My intentions when I go to the bar are to have a glass of wine, a burger and a salad. I make it fit in my day, I may be high in my fat grams, but I also make sure I swim it off the next day (figuratively, not literally). The problem? Well, that one glass of wine turns into two glasses, and by the time I have two glasses of wine (I’m a cheap drunk) I’m ordering anything deep fried. That problem is that takes my caloric intake (Weight Watcher points in my universe) from about 30 for that meal to almost 60 by the time I’m done (or higher if I then switch to Cosmos). Not only have I ingested 100% more calories and fat than I intended, but (for me) I’ve awoken that part of my brain again too – and for me, that’s the killer. It’s why I don’t eat potato chips. It’s because after I eat them (or yummy salty deep fried food) I think about them. A lot. And I try and rationalize how to fit them into my regular diet, and that it’s okay to cheat once in a while, and that it’s really about the 80/20 rule, right? (which soon becomes the 50/50 rule or worse). My body doesn’t betray me, I know I can eventually burn things off and lose weight but my brain will betray me.
So what do you do? Not go out? Hell no! You have to have fun – you’re trying to get a life back, not sit at home like a skinny nun. But you have to make a plan. My plan this year, knowing my behavior, is to go in and order dinner when I order my first drink. I’ll ask them to hold it if we’re going to be sitting for a while, but at least I’m making my decision before the wine clouds my judgment (I don’t drink beer by the way – even when it’s green). And if I sneak a fry or two off someone’s plate, way less damage than an entire side of fries on mine.

The real secret? Insight. Be honest with yourself about how you behave in these kind of situations. After that, it’s much easier to Stop Lying, make a plan that works for you and stick to it.

So what are you going to do for St. Patrick’s Day? Or even the next time you’re just out at the pub with some friends?

Arlene says:
I love St. Patrick’s Day. I hope to go to a bar that is playing Celtic music and the crowd is lively and everyone’s friendly. I wear my highly appropriate head band with the four leaf clovers on springs and fit right in.

Our usual approach to keep us safe from overeating bar food is to have supper at home first. When St. Patty’s is a week night that is easier. We have a quick stir fry at home and then head off with happy tummies and plan to limit to two Kilkenny’s or Guinness because it is a work day tomorrow. This year it’s a Saturday?! Perfect for the … let’s get there early, grab a good table, and order nachos or wings … then the boxty perhaps or the puff pastry topped irish stew or the burger and fries…. Hmmm, could be a problem.

My plan, yep I have to have a plan, is to be the driver, so max two beers again and that’s assuming we are there for four hours (okay I know that’s true). I make sure I order water after each beer and nurse that. No pop, if I don’t drink I order ginger ale, but if I’m drinking I don’t want the extra sugar from pop, so good ole H2O it is. My sweetie isn’t an appy guy, I’m usually the culprit so we will order one appy to share and it will likely be a slightly healthy veggie dip or perhaps a calamari (as long as it isn’t deep fried). We will nurse that a while and then order making sure the sides are vegetables, salad or soup – no fries. The final part of the plan, to keep the focus on fun and music rather than food and drink, is to dance! The best thing about Irish music is you can do anything to it! You don’t even need beer to do River Dancing. So go out, have fun and make a great plan!

Orange Pineapple Quinoa Muffins

1 cup quinoa, rinsed
juice and pulp of 2 oranges (use a reamer)
1 small can crushed pineapple in its own juice
4 tablespoons honey
2 teaspoons cinnamon

Place all ingredients in a pot and bring to boil. Turn to simmer and cover for 20 minutes or until all liquid absorbed. Cool. (or eat for breakfast).

4 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup white or brown sugar
2 eggs

Cream sugar and butter. Add eggs and quinoa mixture and mix well.

3/4 cup whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
Dash of salt
2 cups soured milk or butter milk
2 cups bran (wheat or oat)

1/2 cup sunflower seeds
4 tablespoons sesame seeds

Add dry ingredients alternating with milk. Mix just until blended. Add seeds.

Put in large muffin cups (about 1/3 cup of batter) and bake at 350 for about 22 minutes. Cool and enjoy.

Nutritional info: (aprox) calories 113, fat 4.6 grams, carbohydrates 17.3 grams, protein 3.3 grams.

I know this much is true.

Deborah says:
Here’s what I know about myself. I know that my eating/exercise/fat habits are well ingrained in my brain. It’s how I lived a solid 25 years, give or take, of my life. No matter how good a day I have or how much weight I lose, those habits are there, waiting to assert their authority again.

Some people say I’m tough on myself. It might appear that way, but I don’t know if it’s really tough, I think it’s more like being vigilant, not tough. I have worked really hard to stop lying to myself, gaining insight into the behaviours that made me unhealthy. And then I worked even harder to break those habits and develop new ones. But the truth is I’m only just four years into this new lifestyle – that’s a brand new baby habit that can’t stand up to the 25 year old granddaddy lurking inside me. I know I’m one box of Kraft Dinner away from the old me. Every morning when I get up I make a decision as to who I am going to be. And then I spend the day trying to live up to that decision.

What’s interesting is the people who say I’m hard on myself don’t see the times I don’t live up to those intentions. Like the milk chocolate covered macadamia nut in the lunchroom a few days ago. And for me, it’s not that that one chocolate did a huge amount of caloric damage – it’s that I spend the entire day thinking about it, planning more excuses to go into the lunch room, more ways I can work it off later. That’s the hard part for me, putting those thoughts back to bed once I’ve allowed them out for a minute. And that’s why I ate even better the rest of the day.

Reinforce the new, not the old. It really is okay to make mistakes. I make them all the time. And I don’t punish myself or blame myself or get into that big guilt circle – I try and learn from it. I try and figure out what got me there and how to avoid it again. But mostly, I don’t let one mistake become my entire day. I get back to my intentions immediately, and tuck those sneaky old habits back into the closet as quickly as I can, before they take over.

Arlene says:
I know this much is true… it is where you put your attention. When those brain patterns develop they include habits of focus. We spend entire days thinking about the “problem” food or our decision to eat the problem food. Retraining the brain is about practicing a new focus. Recognizing what our focus is, REWARDING ourselves for noticing not blaming ourselves for still having this problem. Of course you will notice the chocolate, of course it will seem desirable, it is the next choice that doesn’t have to be “of course.” The next step can be … Excellent! I notice I am thinking about the chocolate and I want to do this differently so what can I do to redirect my attention? Then we practice, practice, practice that redirect.

Shake it up a bit!

Deborah says:
Since I’ve started my weight loss journey, I’ve sort of started treating myself like an addict. I find a lot of my behaviours around certain foods are totally like Arlene describes addictive behaviour in our book. For me, my ultimate hit is POTATO CHIPS. See – a non-addict wouldn’t have used all caps! LOL

Seriously, that’s why I don’t bring chips into my house. They are a food I literally cannot control myself around. For example, after our book launch, the leftover chips somehow wound up in one of my bags and the following day, at 11:00 at night, after I’d gone to bed and thought about them being in my cupboard, I went down and got some. The next day they went down the garburator.

I also find that if I’m not careful my brain, my subconscious - whatever it is that controls all this stuff - tries to replace chips. For example, crackers snuck in. Don't get me wrong - I bought healthy crackers, low fat, lots of grains, but let’s face it – you can eat enough of anything healthy to turn it into a problem. So the crackers I bought for my occasional brothy soup became a nightly ritual while I was making dinner. My weight loss slowed down, my butter consumption went up. I realized I was trying to replace whatever it was I got from chips (fat? crunch? saltiness?) with these crackers. So I banned the crackers from living in my pantry – though I will buy them for a special meal/occasion – one box at a time – no matter how many the sale price suggests I should buy. Seriously, just because it says three for $5.00 doesn’t mean they won’t sell me one!

When I banished the crackers, I found myself heading in another direction that wasn’t where I wanted to go either. I just wish once I would use celery as a replacement for something I was trying not to eat!

Being vigilant is hard, it’s a non-stop 24/7 job. One of the things I always do to stay vigilant about is my journal. But here’s an interesting question. When was the last time you re-read your food journals? It’s good to use them daily, to keep you aware of what’s going in your mouth, but you can follow trends in them too. Go back, read a couple of months and see if there’s something you’re gravitating to, a food group you might be missing or avoiding, or a snack that’s possibly not on your intentions list. This is especially helpful if your weight loss has slowed or plateaued. I do the same thing with my exercise – I have a calendar by my scale where I record if I walk or swim or gym or sit on my butt (represented by a BIG blank square on said calendar). But when I’m standing on a scale that isn’t showing me the number I want to see, I can quickly figure out why.

Do you ever re-read your journals? What’s the best lesson you’ve ever learned from it?

Arlene says:
Ahhh celery, it just doesn’t seem to tickle the brain like other foods; which is really too bad.

I’m struggling with Christmas leftovers. We had folks over and I defrosted the Christmas goodies. Now I have shortbread, butter tarts, fudge and squares available … again. I hate to throw goodies out, but it’s back to that wasting food in the garbage or wasting food in my stomach. If they stay defrosted then I keep justifying why it is okay to have one after lunch or with supper. Unless I pick up the activity, which is unlikely right now, I cannot afford to eat this stuff. So as Deborah said, let’s shake it up, I have to shake up that old, unhealthy belief that all food is sacred and should not be wasted – sugar is not sacred!