What I'm learning

I got frustrated with Weight Watchers and ran aground after about 2 weeks - after six weeks my weight was only 2 pounds down from where I started and I was eating out of control again. I decided to do 2 things: try the "no flour, no sugar" plan, which is basically the same as South Beach phase 1 only you can have fruits and non-flour grains like barley. The idea is to calm my body, reduce cravings, and keep it simple, stupid. Well, after one week I'm down 5 pounds, at my lowest weight in many months (still 5 above my low last fall). I'm hungry, but not TOO hungry - I try to eat and keep satiated.

The other thing I'm doing is really concentrating on the cognitive behavioral stuff - self-defeating thoughts, patterns and habits that aren't serving me. The ones that are helping the most are simply reminding myself as often as I can why I'm doing this (because there isn't really a payoff - I don't see how I'm going to have a happier life or achieve some huge goal from being thinner - it's just the small pleasure of liking how i look in photos, in the mirror, and wearing clothes I like.) My reasons are: my thighs, my double-chin, my ass. (But I don't usually see my ass, so the first two are more urgent!) It sounds shallow, but again: keep it simple. I think about my double chin, and then that brownie doesn't seem so important.

I tell myself, I can have one tomorrow- there will still be chocolate in the world if I pass on this. I tell myself, I can do the no flour no sugar thing now, and if I really need a scone I can have one in the future.

Now here's where the CBT stuff is so important: I've had one week of success on a diet a dozen times, maybe a hundred times. Then something shifts in my head and it all falls apart. I hope to use these techniques (and a lot more like them in the book, The Beck Diet Solution) to stay on track for the 4 or 5 or 6 months (or more) it will take me to lose the 20-30 pounds I need to lose, and then keep it off forever.

I have also been running very consistently, 3 times a week. I think that's too much for me: the last 2 times I've felt tired and achy and heavy. I'm not sick, and it's not the food - I know I'm getting plenty of calories. I think I just need more rest time between runs - 3 days, not two, and 4 if I'm doing a longer run. That doesn't mean no exercise in between - I need to be swimming more.