Wagon Jumpers - June 15 - 21, 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 6 Riders:
Supersized (myself)
Jane3001 - Travelling Until July 21st, 2008
Week 5 Riders:
Week 4 Riders:
Week 3 Riders:
Writestuff - Iowa, sever weather, may not be able to post
Week 2 Riders:
Week 1 Riders:
New:
Missing In Action:
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.
Hello Everyone,
Welcome to a new week, congratulations to everyone who made it through yet another week.
Please make sure to send some encouraging notes to our members who possibly fell off the wagon last week in our newest MIA section.
This Week's Topic:
A number of people have sited emotional eating as a trigger, are you an emotional eater? If so what are your triggers and how can you help yourself make healthy choices while dealing with emotional issues?
In general though, when i am angry, I completely overeat. Somehow I seem to think that if I swallow my words rather than say them, that will make it better, but all that is make me mad and fat. Not a great combination. Excercising rather than eating can sometimes help. Cooking something amazing for alot of people, and then just eating normally can also help with the sensation of abundance in food, and at least for me, cooking is relaxing. Perfect dishes when mad would include things like schnitzel where you have to bang all the meat!!! (LOL)
This is my official weekly check in. I'm happy to say that I managed to stay with 2000cal/day on average this week, and for the first time in three years I got up at 6am for four days in a row and went to the gym. I achieved 61% of my overall goals this week stumbling a bit on the career front and keeping up with my reading. The good news is that I've been consistently above 50% on my life balance goals for the past three weeks. I'm feeling a lot more "on track" now.
I'm on week 17 of phase I of my plan. In this phase I need to work my way down from eating 3000cal/day on average to 1500 cal/day. Having succeeded last week at 2000cal/day on average the goal this week is 1900 cal/day and 4 days at the gym for 2 hours each. I'm a bit nervous about this week, last week with 2000 cal/day was the first week that I found it very challenging to eat under cal. Even when I had trouble making it past the 2500cal/day that was mainly sloppy eating. This time I really really had trouble eating and feeling full at 2000 cal/day. To make it even a bit more extra challenging I'm heading up to the cottage for a couple of days at the end of the week.
I do really want to make it to the next phase which is all about testing my consistency to stay at 1500 cal/day while working out 4 days per week at 2 hours per day. If I do stay on track this week then I only have four more weeks to go until I reach that goal and complete my first phase which is really exciting.
This Week's topic, my reply
On this week's topic I'm not sure that I'm a true emotional eater. I do know that when I get sad or depressed, if I have a fight with my partner or a friend when those types of emotions take over I don't eat... at all. That's not a healthy behaviour towards food, but I don't think it's the type of emotional eating where I'm trying to cure an emotion with food.
My emotional trigger is stress. Usually work stress. If I'm feeling very pushed for time, then counting calories and worrying about what I am eating becomes "too much work" and I get angry with myself for not having figured this out yet and eventually I just bin it because I'm hungry and stressed and I don't care that the 1/2 lb grilled veggie sandwich on foccetta that is bigger than my head is probably a week's worth of calories it looks tasty and I'm hungry!
I have to admit I haven't found great ways to deal with this yet, but here are some:
Pre-plan If I'm going out I try to pre-plan what I am eating at the beginning of the day that way I don't need to think about it or make food choices while stressed. This can include looking up menu's online, or if there are no menus making a good guess based on the style of restaurant or what the conference will likely be serving.
Bring Snacks In case I get stuck on the road, or somewhere I thought there was going to be food and there wasn't so now I'm stuck getting very hungry and will be very temped to pick up something very high cal and pre-made from the nearest 24-hour grocery having a few snacks handy helps curb this behaviour.
Remind Myself How Much Work Since my stress is usually work related if I take a second and remind myself that I have spent 8 hours at the gym every week for 17 weeks and counted the calories for all that time, and I'll just have wasted all of that work and have to start all over again, this can usually curb the behaviour because as much work as it seems to be to do it right then, it's so much more to start over again.
Jane Come Live in Canada. Okay, the winter's suck, but not if you go to BC, and Ontario summers are pretty great as well as Spring & Fall. We have much cuter guys than England does, and we think Australians are the coolest most laid back people on earth. I'm glad you have some time to sort out living arrangements. Concentrate on making yourself feel good and strong. Forget a guy that lets you get that close to making a huge decision and then drops you, he obviously is not into anyone's need's but his own.
Oh, and if that mad phase is coming (which it usually does after the sad phase) running (on a machine or outside) usually is a great way for me to work out the anger instead of swallowing it.
Original Post by supersized:
Hello Everyone,
Welcome to a new week, congratulations to everyone who made it through yet another week.
Please make sure to send some encouraging notes to our members who possibly fell off the wagon last week in our newest MIA section.
This Week's Topic:
A number of people have sited emotional eating as a trigger, are you an emotional eater? If so what are your triggers and how can you help yourself make healthy choices while dealing with emotional issues?
hello supersized. i have seen this thread and thought i might join in?
for me, emotional eating was something i always tried to analyse / figure out / find a trigger and never quite combated. truth is, as i started counting cals, i decoded there is just no room for emotional binges as i need to stay on track. i almost vener emotionally eat now, and can say what has worked for me is the "fake it till you make it approach" (if that makes sense). i did binge several times since januery (month when i started), but it was more about wating to have somehting tasty than the old feeling (which i am still not able to figure out, but decided to just abandon.)
and no, i am not yet sure this is permantn, but hope so.
ETA: also, having lost 57 lbs till now, i feel generally better and more optimistic, and see the rewards such as being able to feel more fit, looking not slim yet, but at least normal, being able to choose from a wider range of clothes and such, which adds to the energy that i have and that helps me NOt to emotionally overeat
Hi, I'm checking in!
This week is week #3 of the pounds flying off. This usually happens for me a few weeks AFTER starting an exercise program. Since May 26th, I have lost 6 pounds. I expect that the weight loss will begin to level off soon, but I'm enjoying it for now. People (my neighbors) are noticing the weight loss. I like that feeling so much!
I'm nervous as to what I'm going to do once the leveling off happens. I hope that my personal trainer will be able to push me harder & give me some ideas, and I hope that participating in this thread will help me to stay on the wagon!
supersized: I am so happy that you are reaching your goals! It feels great to be "more on track" with things, I'm sure! Regarding your hunger at 2000 calories, do you think that eating more fiber would help? I've reduced my daily calories to 1600 and have a goal of 35g of daily fiber, which doesn't make me feel hungry at all. Just an idea...
jane: I'm sorry you've had such a rough week. I hope that you are able to redirect the anger (I'm sure it will be coming!) to positive, "good for you" actions--like running like a banshee or lifting weights heavy enough to crush your ex's head. 
Ouch, that would hurt...
This week's topic:
I don't think I'm a classic "emotional" eater, but I second supersized's thoughts on stress related eating. When I'm stressed (especially at work!), I don't make time to PLAN what I eat. I also don't make time to plan gym time when I'm stressed at work. Therefore, all work and no plan make Denise a fat girl. *sigh*
On the emotional front, does eating to please my spouse count? When I was working crazy hours, my husband cooked dinner every night. He would get upset if I came home (at 9pm or later??) and wouldn't be hungry for a cream-of-whatever soup or a full 10" plate of some gourmet, starch and fat laden meal. I would hate to see him be upset, so I would eat whatever he had prepared. And once I started, I wouldn't stop, even though I probably would have been just as satisfied and much happier with a bowl of cereal. I just didn't want to make my husband feel negative feelings by not eating (read: appreciating) his work that went into making the meal.
Now that I'm not working, I've taken over the meal planning and execution roles. I make meals that are vegetable heavy and generally low-calorie. And, my husband enjoys what I prepare. The trick will be to get him to continue this trend, once our roles reverse again...
Last week's tangent:
I've just caught up on reading the thread from last week. A few people mentioned how they don't feel satisfied when they consume artificial sweeteners. I'd like to say that I also don't feel as satisfied with "diet" colas, etc., so I dropped them all about a month ago. Now, if I feel a need for a sugary soda, I go for the full-bore regular stuff. And you know what? Its fine, I get the craving over with and I'm OK with it!
I was encouraged to do this after reading several articles on rat studies, where the rats that consumed artificial sweeteners actually ATE MORE than those who consumed regular sugar. That, and the proliferation of Splenda into everything has me scared, frankly (Splenda is a HORRIBLE chemical concoction, despite what J&J's marketing department says).
Anyway, here's a link to one of the rat studies:
http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINI ndia-31866220080211
On this week's topic: I'm kind of the oppisite, really. If I'm feeling any strong emotion I completely forget to eat. It's when I'm bored I find myself wandering into the kitchen and staring into the refrigerator.
hi..please add me in! i've been "OFF" the wagon since may 26th when my husband had a birthday and i made him a homemade birthday cake from scratch. i do this every year. unfortunately it just gave me an excuse to go off my diet and eat, with promises i would hop right back on. then i just had a birthday on the 12th. my daughter made me a cake. long story short i was 155 and now weigh an astonishing 165 UGGGGG....!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
today i'm back on the wagon and i would LOVE to join! sign me up!
Hi everyone! Welcome new comers!
I had a rough weekend....binged a bit late at night at the end of last week! But I got my workouts in! haha
Emotional eater? For me, not so much....I eat when I'm bored. When I'm home alone (or kid is in bed), and I'm just sitting around with nothing important to do...i start to eat! Stress does play a part for me as well, I do tend to eat on the fly when I'm stressed...thinking it saves me time and effort. But, then again, it adds guilt!
The darn balancing act!
When I'm mad or bored I overeat. When I'm upset I reach for sweets and milk. If I'm really down and confused then I just don't eat at all. A bad break-up in February had me down 10 lbs in a period of 2 weeks. Exam stress brought that back up quickly enough a month later.
My weekend was pretty good. I haven't checked the scale yet, but I'm pretty confident it has either stayed constant or has gone down. I ate reasonably and except one incident involving organic cornflakes and a couple teaspoons of sugar, I didn't eat except planned meals. Usually going to visit my family makes me gain and eat way too much, but I'm proud of myself this time. Yay for being back on the wagon! I even got in a 5k walk, some gardening, a short bike-ride and last night a couple hours of hard-core cleaning which had me sweating!
I have to agree with being a "bored" eater. If I'm sitting around not dong much, I find myself eating whatever is around. If it's not around, I go looking for it! Up until this point in my life, it was almost a subconscious thing. I wouldn't realize just how much I was snacking while doing nothing, until after I had eaten so much. Then the guilt would hit. Now, if I find myself standing in my pantry looking for something to nibble on, I stop and ask myself if I truly am hungry, or just bored. And if I really am hungry, I try to make a better decision than grabbing the nearest box of crackers or package of cookies.
As far as other emotions go, I eat if I am upset or stressed. You know, the whole "food is comfort" mentality. I am trying to get away from that behavior as well. I keep hearing people say you need to eat to live, not live to eat, and I am constantly trying to remind myself of that.
This week will certainly be a test for me. I am going out of town for the week. Being away from home means eating out a lot. Add in that I am taking my kids to an amusement park, and I've got potential trouble. I only hope that I can make good choices this week!
Hello all. I am a newbie to this group and to the site. I joined the site a little over a month ago but just started using it last week. I am down a little less than a pound and let me tell you after jumping off the wagon and running far, far away this past weekend I was so surprised to see a decrease at all I could not help but be happy!
As for this weeks' topic I was so happy to see this being discussed. My name is Liz and I am an emotional eater.
After not being about to stick with a "diet" or any life style changes for any real amount of time, I started to wonder what was wrong with me - why could I not just do this...that is when I started researching emotional eating...and I took a test to see if I was an emotional eater...the results...out of 8 questions 5 were a yes for me. It was actual a relief because at least I knew what was "wrong" with me and where to go to get me on the right path to weight loss!
One of the websites I used to get tons of information on emotional eating was shrinkyourself.com
I would like to share with you all one of the biggest things I learned from my research emotional eating, anytime you eat when it is not in response to an actual phyiscal need for food, it is considered emotional eating. I thought this was very interesting as I always thought of emotional eating as eating in response to "emotions" which it is but it can be more - in response to a person, place, or to suppress feelings (like when "nothing" is wrong but darn it you just cannot put down the ding-dong!). They really should change the name then, huh?
Things that set me off personally...1) I eat to stop myself from saying things I really want to say to my ex 2) My mom, not sure why but the minute I am around my mom I want to eat (probably to avoid the same conflict I am trying to avoid with my ex) 3) when I complete a project at work - not sure if I am looking for a reward or what and 4) when things go wrong and I feel out of control.
I am still working on how to solve these problems but one big thing that I did and it helped tons was to keep a journal (i did this for about a week) and not only did I write down everything I eat but I also wrote down how hunry I was before and after - there was something about writing I am not hungry that made me realize I should not eat as I AM NOT HUNGRY. Not that I was allowing myself to get to the point of starving and then eating everything in sight but I was finally paying attention to my body and not allowing my emotions and or habits (I always have a snack at X time of day) to drive my food choices. I was surprised how much it helped me.
Sorry for the long post and I promise in the future my posts will be shorter - this is just a subject that I am really dealing with lately...
Congrats to all of you who are doing so well and have stuck with it and keep coming back week after week for more - and a big thanks to supersized for starting this group!
Good luck to everyone this week and always!
Congratulate Me!
I'm not usually so demanding of attention, let alone praise, but this requires some celebration. I actually managed to get up at 6am on a Monday morning, and do my 2 hour work out AND.... then I biked to work (1hr) and back (1hr). Very very proud of self.
Ka2007 Welcome to the group! I've heard the "fake it till you make it" approach for positive thinking, but not applied to emotional eating. I would guess that a fairly strong willpower is required.
defrog3 Congratulations on the early losses! Thanks for the tip on the fiber, I have not been watching my fiber intake. Do you have any links to anything that can give me a list of high fiber foods (okay, I know about bran, thank you William Shatner)? Also, thanks for the link to the rat study, I think I must have filed that somewhere in my brain under "reasons I am not crazy" but forgot to cross reference.
I have a friend who is a diet soda addict. She's very very overweight, part of we wants to share stuff like this with her, but I don't because I'm worried she'll be offended.
Peera Congratulations on the progress!
deedee1 Welcome to the group! I can so relate to the holiday's throwing me off. If it's not the stress then it's the birthday's, camping trips, and thanks giving / X-mas marathon of sweets. I keep telling myself just keep logging through the holidays and I never never do.
Vicki8seekers Keep on the balancing act, I'm right there on the beam below you, frankly I have no idea how you ladies with kids do it all. You are my heros!
Sarah Sounds like you're keeping busy!
Got2getthin That question "am I really hungry"? Has been a big eye opener for me too. Although I didn't snack around the house too much, I was always up for more nibblies at work functions etc... I'm always a bit leery about the "eat to live, don't live to eat" line as it's often used as a pro-anorexia slogan.
Good luck at the amusement park!
elaughter Welcome to the group! Don't fret the long post, I make several long posts a week and they haven't kicked me out yet 
! Personally I like having something to read. There is another person in this group Kroszelle, I believe, who has just started with shrinkyourself.com as well, and she seems very taken with it. I'm conflict oriented so that does not tip me off but I can relate to the food=reward scenario. I think food is present at so many of our life celebrations that it just feels so natural to reward myself with food, and that leads to food=good, hungry=bad and so on and so forth.
If there is one thing that CC has taught me it's that writing down what I consume has a very very powerful effect on my habits.
I definitely fell off the wagon this past week, for a number of reasons. So, that happened, I'm going to move on now. Yesterday I did just fine, today likewise. Tomorrow is my birthday, and I'm absolutely going to treat myself, but that's the only cheat I'm giving myself this week, and I'll go to the gym in the morning first to offset some of the damage. So here we go back up onto the wagon again.
This Week's Topic:
A number of people have sited emotional eating as a trigger, are you an emotional eater? If so what are your triggers and how can you help yourself make healthy choices while dealing with emotional issues?
Emotional eating, my old nemesis. I am a champion boredom eater too, unfortunately. For me there's no compulsion quite like seeking the comfort of a pint of ice cream or a package of raw cookie dough when I'm stressed. The best way for me to deal with it seems to be to either distract myself with a book or to eat something very low calorie and filling like a bowl of salad with apple cider vinegar for dressing.
Last week was ROUGH for me. I could blame it on any number of things, really. The heat, that I caught a cold, it was TTOM, or that the Italian festival was this week. In fact it could have been all of those things. I found myself eating high calorie convenience foods like packages of ramen noodles instead of making myself something healthy. I still managed to maintain a reasonable intake most days, but I didn't exercise much.
My father always said that a person could do anything for two weeks... well, my second week was a little shakey, but that doesn't mean my third week can't be solid. I'm going to challenge myself even more this week.
I jumped :-( Thanks to the overflow of emails tho.. I came back. So thank you all so very much. I'm no longer MIA. As with what normally happens, a very unexpected event happened in my life that took my attention away from both healthy eating and exercize the past two weeks. Normally.. that'd be enough time to call it quits. But I went to my 1.5 hr swim practice this am and have eaten lots of veggies and no chocolate today lol.. and Im back here.. so I guess that makes it a pretty good day. Hopefully this time, I can hang on!
Congratulations to everyone who has made it. It can be so hard! And thank you again for bringing me back :-)
I'm checking in....
Can't believe the topic for this week... as i sit here telling myself - "you aren't hungry, why are you thinking of going to the kitchen etc"
My triggers are mainly boredom and stress.
I had a pretty crappy week last week and ended up gaining 2 lbs - (i hope its water weight). But i just could not lay off the snacks.
I need to be more conscious of my triggers, start an internal dialogue... Whenever I feel the urge (like i am right now) - i tell myself - your tummy isn't even growling - there is no need to snack - you just ate ___ ago - save the calories for that amazing dinner - etc...
I find that when I listen to my inner thoughts more than my habits (surprise!) I can succeed much more often than i give myself credit for.
I'm working on building up my willpower again. Its been bruised and broken, but nothing a little work and persistence can't fix.
Kaydeefalls Wishing you an early Happy Birthday! Don't worry Birthday Cake has no calories on your birthday proper!
The Vitamin Dominatrix Anything for two weeks? Interesting philosophy. In any case stick with it. I just keep telling myself that no matter what happens today, yesterday or tomorrow, it's the journey that matters and I just need to keep going.
Newsjukie1 I am so happy you are back! I'm always a bit sad when someone leaves, I know that it's to be expected amongst a group of self-declared wagon jumpers... but the feeling of having someone come back and say.... okay I threw it in for a week or two but I'm back and I'm trying again. I don't know why that is truly motivational to me. I guess I figure if someone can step up and say hey I'm doing this again, I'm back then I need to keep going.
msmeg Here's to repairing and nursing that willpower back to health. I've found that I've really lost that internal dialogue. For some reason that is what is getting me out of bed in the mornings. I mean it's also trying to talk me back into bed as well, but thinking about it, talking with myself about it (my partner has already accepted that I'm crazy) makes me realize that I do actually want this, I want to get up and go to the gym, I want to not have that ice cream so that I can have a bowl of it tomorrow when I've planned for it. I want to plan for it and stop letting myself get sucked into all of the habits that make me unhappy with my body.
The whole emotional eating thing is interesting. I sent for "Shrink Yourself" from Amazon and am finding it fascinating. I haven't gotten to the point that I'm willing to take the time to journal to find out my food triggers, but I think that should be my next step.
I really think that so much of our eating problems is emotional - filling up our bodies unnecessarily for a lack somewhere else - but it's so hard to pinpoint what is lacking.
I appreciate everyone's honesty. It's good to know that we're not struggling alone. Thanks for the support.
checking in....difficult week, not getting on well with DDH right now....kind of put this weeks topic to the test.
I let it get away from me Fri/Sat/Sun, but am back on the wagon today. So far so good, kept on plan all day, going out to garden now.
Down 1 lb.
Thank God... the winds stopped. The fire now is 90% contained. we are back in out homes. 70+ people had no homes to go back to. I lost 4 lbs in 3 days... It is called the FIRE diet.
With minor stress, I am an emotional eater. with severe stress...such as a fire etc. I cannot eat. The best thing that i can do is, to do something to get my mind off of eating until the urge to snack goes away.
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