Wagon Jumpers - June 8 - 14, 2008
Welcome to the Wagon Jumpers weekly thread. We are a group of CC members who have identified that one of our main challenges with achieving our weight loss, maintenance or general health goals is consistency.
This thread is designed to encourage long term commitment to our goals by publicly declaring them and asking the other members of this thread to hold us accountable.
Each member on this thread (listed below) has agreed to check into the thread at least once per week. If any member does not check in by the end of the week, we ask all members to politely and positively PM that member and encourage them to make a post and stay on track (or get back on track).
If you would like to be a member of this thread, either leave a note here and I will add you, or send me a PM.
Wagon Jumpers Participants
Week 5 Riders:
Supersized (myself)
Jane3001 - Traveling until July 21st, 2008
Week 4 Riders: Congratulations On One Month!
Week 3 Riders:
Week 2 Riders:
Writestuff - Iowa, sever weather
Week 1 Riders:
New:
Missing In Action:
Missing In Action - 1 Week:
Missing In Action - 2 weeks:
Previous Threads:
Wagon Jumpers May 25 - 31, 2008
Wagon Jumpers May 18 - 24, 2008
Wagon Jumpers Week 1 (May 4 - 10)
Wagon Jumpers - Anyone Need a Lift? (initial thread)
As always all members are encouraged to tag this thread so that it is easy to find.
Thank you to everyone who has continued this journey for another week. Congratulations to everyone for making it another week, and congratulations especially to our members who are marking the completion of their one month milestone this week.
After the discussion last week on what we can do to be the most motivational for each other, I am leaning against challenges as it is a lot of work to implement and not all members feel they are motivated by them. There are also lots of challenge groups out there for people to join and I want to keep the focus of this group on maintaining the motivation to achieve our different goals rather than setting timelines for a diversity of goals to be achieved.
Gettinghealth123 has sent me a good supply of topics which I will be using, I'd like to encourage anyone who has topic ideas to send them to me by private message and we'll see if we can get through them all.
THIS WEEK'S TOPIC: BROUGHT TO YOU BY GETTINGHEALTHY123
The hot weather has arrived (even here in Canada) and Canada Day (July 1st) is fast approaching with all it's Beer, BBQ's, Ice Cream, Guacamole, Chips, Beer and so on and so forth. I hear the folks in the United States have some *small* celebration around the 4th of July as well.... so as we all muddle our way through the summer months...
What are your tips for overcoming cravings?
This is my weekly check in. I didn't do badly this week, I ate under 2100 cal/day on average. I did not make it to the gym four times, but I did get my butt out of bed at 6am and go to the gym twice (Thurs, Fri) which is something I've been trying to achieve for the past 15 weeks.
On my life balance scale I managed to achieve 71% of the goals I set for myself this week. That feels really good. I figure I'm doing well if I'm above 70% and great if I'm above 80%. After falling to 10% about six weeks ago now I finally feel I've got a bit more control of my life again.
This week the goal is to eat an average of 2000 cal/day. This is an important number for me. If I can succeed at eating 2000 cal/day without feeling deprived or hungry then I have succeeded at meal planning and eating at what would be a maintenance rate for me if I were not exercising.
For fitness I am hoping to build on the success of last week and manage to make it to the gym all four days at 6am.
If I succeed this week then there are five more weeks until I finish phase I of my plan which will have me eating at 1500 cal/day and exercising for 2 hours per day for 4 days per week.
I have to admit I'm a bit worried about the 2000 calorie range, I got stuck at 2500 calories for a few weeks. For the past few weeks I've found it easy to eat near the 2000 calorie range which has meant that I've sailed through the 2500-2100 ranges, but I realize that I've been eating on average now 1900-2100 calories so I need to be a bit more concious of my choices this week and really work to plan eating well.
After being on a mini plateau for the past 3 weeks, the scale finally moved for me... I have to contribute it to quitting the constant snacking and "i don't care" attitude and getting myself and my life back on track.
I've gotten back to my 1400/day average with 40% of my calories from Carbs, 30% from Protein and 30% from fat.
I also signed up at the gym and bought 3 sessions with a trainer.
I'm happy to report after getting myself back in check this week, i dropped 1.2 lbs!
To keep this up - my goal is to workout at the gym 4 days this week for at least 1 hour each time, and to continue eating healthy and consciously.
My tip for overcoming cravings - Allow youself to have a little bit of what you are craving. If you are at a BBQ fill your plate with healthy items and just a tad bit of the dessert or unhealthy craving. then you can fill up on salad/veggies etc and still get to have a bit of what you want. Trying to ignore cravings completely does not work for me at all! Drink lots of water or calorie free beverages to keep feeling full and hydrated!
Good Morning MSMeg I was beginning to think that I was the only one awake on Sunday Mornings? LOL! The water is a great tip, really fills you up. I use that (tea) at lot at night.
My Tips for Overcoming Cravings:
#1 - Don't
Okay, sure that sounds a bit counter-intuitive. I figure the difference between a diet and a lifestyle change (something I've been struggling with for five years now) is that on a diet you deprive yourself of things until you achieve your goal (or quit). With a lifestyle change you learn how to make better choices.
For me better choices need to take into account the foods I crave so that I do not feel deprived of them and want to throw it all in just to have them.
When I can I get to a computer and log the craved food before I eat it I check to see if I can fit it into my plan. In most cases this has been manageable especially if I can limit myself to a smaller portion of the craved food. Promising myself if I stick to half of it today I can have half tomorrow usually satisfies the craving, allows me to have a treat the next day and keeps me on calorie without depriving myself of foods I want.
#2 - Substitute
Well the first one works well on most of my cravings, and I'll admit I get weird cravings, I could eat ceasar salad, avocado sushi and pickles all day everyday if I gave into my cravings... but sometimes there are some foods that just are really not all that good for us and really would set off sirens on our food logs....
My partner LOVES Ben & Jerry's cookie dough chocolate chip ice cream. Generally I stay away from dairy (I love it, it does not love me), so calories aside there's another good reason for me not to join in this calorie gorging behaviour.
Still even if I didn't want dessert I can't sit there and watch him (he who burns calories as he eats) put away a pint of ice cream and not dip in myself. So I need to find something that is not as diet (and colon in my case) destroying that I can have.
For me this usually involves trying to think of something that I do like, that is not as high cal. Last night I found the Del Monte real fruit popsicles has a new flavour - Peach and White Tea!!! (I love tea!)... I had two and I was expecting to pay for it this morning when I logged my calories.... they're only 50 cal each! Mmmmm new fav. dessert solved for awhile.
#3 Healthy It Up!
I have to admit this one has worked so well for me that I'm having trouble thinking of examples now. The best examples that I can use is the change in my partners eating habits (pints of Ben & Jerry's aside). He comes from a very meat & potatoes family where food was either fried meat + potato + steamed veg or pre-packaged.
Sidetrack: There's a great story about my grandparents.... one day my great-grandmother (on my grandfathers side) came to visit the newlyweds for dinner, my grandmother served a very nice dinner (mostly veggies & grains - grandmum was veggie) and after dinner great-grandmum whispered to grand-mum "how on earth did you ever get Bunty (grand-dad) to eat carrots!".... Grand-mum thought for a second and said.... "he never told me he didn't like them!"
It's been sort of the same with my partner and I, his friends and family tell me that pre-us (we've been together about 7 years now) that he survived on a diet of meatball subs, pizza-pops, and greasy take-away.
His friends really gave him a hard time a few years ago when he refused to go into McDonalds because the "food upset his stomach and it's all crap"....
Over the years he's discovered that whole wheat pasta with homemade tomato sauce is much better than chef-boy-r-dee (which his mum still gets him for X-mas and we drop in the donation bin), he won't eat tinned chili anymore and begs me to make my veggie chili, he has leaned how to make great veggie pizzas himself from scratch, and he's picked up baking brownies, soy-bananna & maple syrup milk shakes are a fav (and still much lower cal than Ben & Jerry's), I even have his long time drummer friend (think lots of tattoos and more peircings) raving about my breaded eggplant, asking for strawberries in his water, and green apples on his salad (oh, and he's picked up a nice long term girlfriend since).
Generally the lesson learned here is that if you can find the time to make it at home from some real food (not processed / packaged food) you can be very surprised by the great taste once you get the chemical, salt and fat out of your system from our pre-packaged MSG culture.
Good Morning to you!
I totally agree with your tips. Many times my partner (7.5 years this month!) will get himself the most giant bowl of ice cream ever... He covers his vanilla ice cream in hershey's syrup and get this... Karo Corn Syrup. OMG. thats like 2,000 for the whole bowl (and its surprisingly delish! never knew i would like corn syrup in that capacity....)
Since he isn't overweight, i don't nag him about eating habits. He eats my healthy dinners and never complains!
Anyway, its gotten to when he comes in with ice cream, he'll grab me a 100 cal ice cream sandwich to keep me from eating his ice cream. We also have giant bowls that came with our set of dishes, so instead of using those for ice cream, i'll use a smaller tupperware type bowl that only holds 1.5 cups and i feel like i am getting a lot more ice cream than seeing a little scoop in a humongous bowl!
I agree that this is a lifestyle change. Restricting is only going to lead to giving into temptation later so its best to try to fit cravings into your daily log.
So far, (I'm beginning week 4 of my "diet"), I've been doing very well. With the exception of exercise (post knee surgery, so minimal exercise is probably exaggerating), I've been tolerating a 1550-1600 calorie diet well. My problem is staying good on the weekends. The weeks are fine for the most part, but when hubby gets home on Friday night from his week on the road, my party time begins until he leaves again on Monday morning. After finally realizing this pattern, I'm making efforts to not splurge on the weekends. I believe this will be the answer to my bad habits.
To curb cravings: I substitute low- or no-calorie treats for what I really crave. I use diet ice cream bars, sugar free jello, fresh strawberries in sugar free strawberry gelatin that you buy to make strawberry pies with, etc. If I deny myself any treats, I'll definitely throw in the towel and I don't want to do that.
Thanks for providing me a place to read other's ideas and struggles, and to express my own.
I just have more time to post on the weekends.
I'm trying to make my first Seitan (meat alternative made from wheat gluten) dish tonight.
And I'm trying baking for the first time in about 15 years
Both recipes are vegan, the cookies are very high cal, but the good news is there's a high chance I'm going to burn them or make them inedible so maybe I won't eat too many.
I'm very excited today because just as I'm starting to run out of recipes in my Green Cuisine cookbook I've found out my fav local Vegan Juice Bar & Restaurant has also put out a recipe book including all of their amazing fruit smoothies. Just in Time for Summer!.
The place is called Fresh, Juice For Life, I think you can actually order the book online. I will be picking one of them up in the next couple of weeks.
I am really sore and tired. Yesterday we walked the dogs to woofstock across town (about 15 K there and back) and today we went to kensington market to find all my alternative foodie stuff that isn't at my local Organic Boutique (can you tell I'm a downtown girl?!) that was about 8 K there and back. I'm all blistery and sore.
msmeg OMG that is too funny!
mpscarlet Great to see you back! Stick with it, and sneak some healthy food onto hubbies plate on the weekends, sometimes they just don't notice!
I miss baking so much! Since i began trying to lose weight i decided it was best to bake sparingly until i reached my goal. Every now and then i'll bake a cake or some brownies for my bf (he eats it for breakfast!) and i make sure to keep it out of sight so i don't pig out.
I am happy with myself this weekend - spent an hour yesterday and today doing cardio at the gym, ate healthy (so far!), got the house all spic n span and got some sun for an hour (and now my chest is looking a little toasty - oops).
All in all, not a bad weekend. I'm trying to keep myself from snacking while i wait for my bf to get home.
Like the other posters, I try to find a low cal alternative to the cravings - reduced fat/sugar ice cream, fruit, etc. It always seems easier for me to diet in the summer when there are so many fresh fruits and veggies available, plus the "comfort food" that I die for in cold weather doesn't even appeal to me in hot weather.
If you are not averse to bubbles, I highly recommend SELTZER WATER.
Before you reach for the food you're craving, pop open some cold seltzer and drink as much as you can. It fills you up so much (even if it's only temporary) that it dampens your appetite long enough for the craving to pass.
The upside, it's water! The downside? You have to keep seltzer in the fridge at all times.
I highly recommend anybody going to italy to go to perugia, it is absolutely amazing, plus since it is all on hills, you really get a great thigh and butt work out!!
Regarding cravings
I find a good method is to tell myself that I can have a small portion of whatever it is SO LONG AS I WALK TO supermarket/store at least 30 minutes away to get. It is amazing, but often once you are there, you don't want it anymore, and if you still do, then you have walked at least an hour in total there and back geting it, which reduces the damage substantially.
Or else, if it is cooked food, I tell myself I can have a hamburger or whatever, so long as I make it myself from scratch (having walked to buy the ingredients) in a healthier way.
Also I know other people might highly disagree with this, but if you eat to relieve stress or wind down, you might find that 1, (just one) glass of wine at night, after dinner might help sometimes. I often can resist chocolate or icecream cravings or that second helping, by having a glass of wine instead. (although I wouldn't recommend this if you are only eating 1200, cause you need the nutrition out of real food at that level)
Anyway better go, Hope you are all having a good day!
Hello everyone.
I Have been super busy but I have stayed on track. Thank you for the support.
The peppersteak Seitan turned our really really well, although if anyone makes it, it needs to be served over something, we used rye bread. My partner really liked this one. I think I'll be using seitan a lot more.
The cookies didn't fare as well, they were a bit dry and crumbly. I also think they are meant to be those super big cookies (which makes the calories a bit easier to justify) but I don't have a big cookie tray so.... well it was sort of chocolate chunk squares since only 6 cookies covered the whole tray.
I am very pleased with myself, even with one super high-cal cookie and finding my fav. soy non-dairy ice cream (purely decadent mint chocolate chip - not the soy delicious kind) and a few of those popsicles I was under 2000 cal for the day!!!
Today is clean out the fridge day. The only problem with cooking so much is trying to avoid food wastage. I'm fairly careful but I find that I end up throwing out a few tins of tomato sauce and stuff like that which only need a 1/4 cup in a recipe, and then I don't have another recipe that needs it for awhile, so it turns.
MsMeg Well I think with the 300+ cal cookies that I still have 3 of, and half a batch of unused batter baking will not be a regular feature here either. He who burns calories while eating also has this bizzare habit of being able to put away 2 lbs of pasta in 5 minutes but ask him to clean up something a bit less filling and he seems to get full faster.... no idea.
JCR Great job staying on the wagon over the weekend. I think a lot of us find the weekend the most challenging part. I can also relate to the hot weather dampening the appetite for cold weather comfort foods.
Karenie Good to see you, hope you are doing well. It's strawberry season here in Ontario. Mmmmm strawberries!
Tally-ho I don't know that I've ever had seltzer water, is it the same as a perrier or SanPelligrino? I love those!
Jane Italy in the summer, I don't know if I'm jealous or worried about melting! I think one of the biggest differences between Europe and North America in general is the car culture. The history of Europe combined with the denser populations makes walking in many cases necessary and certainly much more widely socially encouraged. I know here in Canada especially if people are in the suburbs it's common for the nearest convenience store to be 15 minutes away driving, let alone walking.
My partner and I were commenting that we really have no idea how people don't make the connection between trees climate change and cars. We walked to Kensington Market (4k one way) yesterday and the nice part of the walk is walking through Trinity Bellwoods park. It was hot in the market - it's Toronto's closest thing to an old-world market with the tiny stalls and narrow streets - it was blisteringly hot when we got back to the main streets that are nothing but concrete and running cars..... but then we get to the park under just a few trees and the temperature drops by 10 degrees (celcius). It's amazing!
Madikim Great to see you back in the group. Moved you up from the MIA list.
Hi friends! I'm happy to report that I'm still on the wagon, and I'm glad to see all of you here with me! I did really well last week and made it to the gym 5 times (which is my weekly goal), so I am very proud of myself and motivated to reach my goal again this week.
I use a few methods to dealing with cravings:
First, if I'm craving a snack or munchies at a time when I am not planning on eating, I'll chew on a piece of gum or suck on a mint to try to distract myself from whatever I'm craving. This usually works. If not, it's on to plan b.
My next plan of attack is to eat something healthy first. For example, yesterday afternoon I was really craving ice cream. It was blazing hot outside and I just really wanted a cold, sweet treat. It was around dinnertime, so I told myself that I would eat a healthy dinner first, and then if I still wanted ice cream, I could have some. I filled up on a grilled chicken salad, loaded with veggies, but I still wanted the ice cream, so it's on to plan c.
If I've tried to resist the craving to no avail, I let myself indulge. I got a small cup of really amazingly rich ice cream from a local ice cream shop last night, and savored each bite I took. Since I had already filled up on a healthy dinner, I wasn't so ravenous that I scarfed it down without really enjoying it. Plus, I realized after I had finished about half the cup that I was content, and I threw the rest away. The damage was minimal, and I didn't feel deprived.
Sara~ First I wanted to say....I had a friend JUST like that. It is sad, but she is no longer in my life. It happens, and we both I think are better off for it!
My tips for overcoming cravings are:
WATER WATER WATER. If you drink a whole bunch REAL fast, you feel almost bloated, and things just don't sound as yummy.
Stay busy....for me, boredom and cravings go hand in hand.
and I need to think of a good 'munchie' food that is healthy, and will sound good late at night after drinking with friends! haha
vicki8seekers: I agree with staying busy! Yesterday I was craving ice-cream( my family had root beer floats!). Instead of having one, I went to the kitchen and cleaned out my pantry, fridge, and freezer. By the time I was done, I no longer wanted the ice cream:)
For those occasions when activity doesn't curb the craving, I'll have just a small portion of whatever it is I want, or I will substitute a low-cal version. Sugar-free jello with cool whip is a great treat and under 50 calories. I'll also eat my treat slowly so I enjoy every last bite.
From time to time I will enjoy a full portion of the "real thing", whatever that may be, and I just make sure to work it into my calorie allotment for the day. I've found in the past that if I tell myself I can't have something, I'll obsess about that item and usually end up eating more than I should've in the end! Everything in moderation seems to be the key.....
So i did really well this weekend with staying on track. I ate pretty healthy all weekend and kept active. I was pretty proud of myself.
Well today is my weigh in day and i'm happy to say i've lost 2lbs since last monday...YAY!!! I was so excited to see that especially since my weight loss hasn't be going so great for the last month. I just need to keep on track.
as far as cravings....
i find that if i actually look up the calorie content, i am pretty shocked and don't want it anymore...most of my cravings are for fast food or desserts. so if i can't kick it then, i find the 100 calorie packs EXTREMELY helpful. and they are generally pretty tasty.
:)
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