Slow Down!

I have noticed that the days are starting to accelerate towards Christmas. The pressure is mounting to get the shopping done, house cleaned (didn't I just do that?), presents wrapped, etc, etc, etc. Everything is taking longer because many other people are trying to do the same things I am -- at the same time -- in the same space -- yikes! We're tripping each other up!

So now what?

Slow down. Dinner is one of those things that goes by the wayside during the holiday season. We eat out more because we have parties, etc. But we also eat out more because we are too tired or busy to cook. Take-out and dining-out are fine -- you know I have never said anything bad about having someone else doing to cooking for me but...

If you are picking up take-out or eating at a restaurant, remember the portions are going to be much larger than you need.

I went out to dinner with a group last weekend and ended up walking out with 2.5 pounds of pasta in left overs -- seriously! The opportunities to over eat are plentiful. Start to be aware. When you know you are going to be eating out, especially this time of year, make a plan before you get to the restaurant. You can always order an appetizer or share a meal.

Holiday food abundance

This weekend was cookie making time at my house.  I have many kinds of cookie I like to make but the one I most enjoy is sugar cookies.  I know I should let the kids help when I am in the kitchen -- but I like making them so much and I want them to taste so good, I can't cede control of any part of the process to the girls.

Once the cookies are baked and frosted, they have to sit on the counter to several hours to allow the frosting to dry a little so when I stack them in the bag, they won't smear and end up with green tree frosting on Santa's pink frosted boot. 

Once they were drying on the counter, we packed up and headed out for the day.  By the time we got home in the evening, the whole house smelled like butter cream frosting.  If you are not familiar with homemade frosting, let me enlighten you.  It is everything good in the world -- powdered sugar, milk, vanilla, and butter (real butter -- not margarine).  AND...if you leave a whole batch out all day, your house smells sooooo good.  But, we all know that smell is a powerful trigger to eat.  So the question becomes, "Now what?"

You all know by now that for me putting cookies in the freezer is no kind of deterrent.  Frozen just means better. 

So...the holiday season has started.  All of the wonderful things that are only available for a limited time (so I should eat as much as I can while it is available!!??) is here and what am I going to do about it?  I bagged the cookies up tight.  Washed the counter down really well.  (ate only 2 of them in the process -- but I can tell you that I experienced them more than ate them)

They are in the freezer now.  I have resisted eating any more -- I have to take them to a cookie exchange this weekend (so I can't eat too many or I will show up with only 4 cookies to exchange and that just looks bad).  But here's the thing -- It is 8 December and we still have many days until Christmas is here -- let alone making it all of the way through until the Epiphany when the holiday season officially ends -- What kind of plans do I have in place so I don't go off the deep end -- either with indulging or with denying myself???

Here are some of my thoughts:

1. Don't bring things home.  If you have to take something to a potluck/cookie exchange/party/ whatever, give it away or throw it away (or just make less to begin with) so you don't bring it back to your house.  There is going to be plenty of holiday eating, if you made it in the first place, you can make it again at some other time in the future -- don't bring it back.

2. Make less in the first place.  (This is true for everything except the molasses cookies my mom make -- keeping making lots of those!!  There are never enough and they are soooo good frozen).  Everything else -- we don't need whole pieces of pie/cake/cookies-the-size-of-your-head -- make 'em smaller and make fewer of them -- make the treats special with their limited quantity.

3. If you need/want to make your goodies and you (like me) cannot be trusted to have them in the kitchen freezer -- move them into a seal-tight plastic tub (like the ones you keep your ornaments in) and put them in the garage.  If the garage floor is all covered in gross, half melted snow, chances are less you will sneak out there in your socks to get a goodie.

4. Pack them into the goodie baskets you intend on taking.  If you have them nicely arranged and packaged to go, there is less of a chance you will break into the pretty packaging and eat 5 or 6 -- since then you would have to rearrange them and redo the packaging.

5.  If you really, really need that treat, SIT DOWN AND ENJOY IT!!!  Don't just eat it quickly -- shoving it in like a guilty child -- taste it.  Enjoy it.  Appreciate it -- you worked really hard to make something so delicious -- you are eating it and it is going to cost you a certain amount of calories -- get the maximium amount of enjoyment out of it!!  And then walk away happy...don't you dare feel guilty about it!  Life is too short for that.

Local Norms

I am reading Connected by Christakis and Fowler right now.  If you read Blink or Freakonomics -- this is that kind of book.  The kind of book that takes a bunch of studies and mashes them together and talks about things I wouldn't think I would have the patience to read -- all in a way that is fun and entertaining.

One of the behaviors that authors talk about is how we (humans) like to be better (in whatever way is important to us) than those around us.  For the most part, we don't see ourselves in competition with the supermodels in magazines -- we see ourselves in competition with the woman next to us in the checkout line, our group of friends, and/or the person in the cubicle next to us.  This is true, according the authors, not with just how we look but also how much we earn, how bright our children are -- whatever we personally value.

It's like that old adage we have all heard a thousand times -- if you and a friend are running away from a bear, you don't need to be faster than the bear -- just faster than your friend.

Remember a few years ago when a study made all the news channels that said, if your close friend becomes obese you have a greater likelihood of becoming obese, too.  Yeah, that study was done by the authors above.

When I went back to college (as an adult), all of my classes were in the building next to the college field house.  The building housed the University Recreation Center, the Physical Education department, the Exercise Science students, the Athletic Training department -- you get the picture.  Think hundreds of kids (people) walking around carrying Nalgene bottles.  No soda machines in the whole building.

In this environment, people looked at you weird if you were carrying a bottle of soda (don't even think about carrying in a McDonald's bag -- you might end up with no willing  lab partner for the whole rest of the year).  As a result of this environment, I could drink 2 liters of water (out of my super-cool Nalgene bottles, of course) easily throughout the day.  I probably would have drank more but the campus water is gross so my super-cool bottles were filled with water from home and when it was gone, I was done).

Now, it's a mighty stuggle to drink 2 liters a day and I am exceedingly pleased if I can get 1.5l down.  The difference is that nobody says/looks/acts one way or another whether I am drinking water or sheepishly sipping my beloved 32oz. fountain Coke.

I have to provide my own peer pressure to drink water because nobody at work is going to do it.  And ,while in some ways, I should think this is liberating, I don't.  I don't because it would be so much nicer (read easier) if someone was helping me do the things I know I should do.

Okay, we've talked enough about me --  Let's think about your eating.

How do the people you surround yourself with (or those who just surround you whether you would wish them to or not) -- how are those people effecting your eating behaviors?

A while ago, I talked about the perfectly paced Tapas meal I had and how wonderful that whole experience was.  I don't think I wrote about the exact opposite experience I had with a speed eater several months ago and how when the food came, my eating companion took off at the speed of light and I was matching bite for bite until I realized what  I was doing and made a conscious effort to slow down.

How are your people effecting you?  Which ones effect your choice of food (in the helpful direction and in the unhelpful direction -- important to note both)?  Which people do you look to when you need to justify your size (or beat yourself up because you are on the losing end of that competition -- important to note both)?  What changes would you be willing to make to your external environment to maximize the positives and minimize the negatives?  If you can't (or are unwilling) to modify your external environment, what might you be willing to do to change your mindsets to maximize the positives and minimize the negatives?

Don't be a mindless victim of your environment -- there are always choices to be made.

Do Something Friday

What causes you to stop eating?  No...it is not always because you are stuffed.  In the book Eating the Moment, the author gives the following list of some of the reasons people stop eating:

1. You run out of the food you like.

2. You run out of time.

3. You are bursting at the seams.

4. the entertainment comes to an end.  (The show you've been snacking to has ended.)

5. You are "emotionally" full. (Now that your stomach is full, you no longer feel empty inside)

6. Your plate is finally clean.

7. You are overeating and get busted by your partner.

8. You got your money's worth.

Today and tomorrow:  when you have finished eating, give some thought to why you stopped -- and then take the extra step of writing that insight down.  You may be suprised at what kind of pattern you see developing.

What does it take to be a successful Eating Coach client?

I was reading Seth Godin this morning and the subject matter was how to be a great client.  It reminded me of several years ago when I started writing a New Friend's Owners Manual for myself (you know -- codifying all of the things a new friend should know about me and my particular quirks).  I didn't get very far on the project and never gave it to anyone.  But it was a very good exercise for rediscovering myself.

So this mornings post reading made me connect my project with my clients and how it might be helpful to them to understand what I am going to ask them to do.  So...here goes...

To be a successful Eating Coach client, you need to:
1. Be willing to suspend your judgment -- of yourself, of new ideas, of your past and your future.
2. Be willing to set aside every bit of dieting advice/knowledge/urban legend you have ever heard.
3. Be willing to pick up and examine each of the #2 to see if each of those fits you and the way to want to live.
4. Be willing to listen to your body.
5. Be willing to work with your body -- not beat it into the shape you (and very likely someone else) thinks it should be.
6. Be willing to look for and celebrate the small victories.
7. Be willing to change how you approach eating  -- just because you have always done it one way doesn't mean it works for you.
8. Creatively and honestly problem solve with me.

That's it.  Openness, honesty (with yourself and with me), creativity.  That is all it takes to lose weight and enjoy your food, your body, and your life more.  That is the path I want to help you get started on and openness, honesty and creativity pave the way.

A Vision for your Life

You have heard me talk about goals. It is really important to have goals -- a destination -- little steps you can achieve and tick off the list as you go. Yesterday, I told you it was my goal to get the E-course ready for the offering by the first of the year. That is a goal. Goals give you a sense of accomplishment -- a sense of making progress.

But what about your vision for your life? Do you have one? A vision for your life is deeper than just a goal or even a series of goals. If you could create any kind of life you would like, what would it be?

Finishing a marathon is a goal. You would probably have a goal time you want to finish under.

Moving to a big city, where you could walk to work, run along the linear trails, meet up with your runner friends for a coffee at your favorite coffee house after your training run would be the start of a vision.

Goals are good -- If I choose not to uproot my family and move them to a big city to fulfill my vision right now, goals will help me get started creating parts of the vision that are currently available to me.

If I can picture what I want my life to look like in my mind's eye, I have a greater likelihood of creating that vision.

If your vision for your life is to no longer worry about what you should eat. To eat, enjoy and then move on with no guilt about that piece of cheesecake or bowl of pasta alfredo made with real, full-fat cream. To feel comfortable with who you are and what size you are because your size fits your lifestyle to a T. How would that change the other parts of your life?

Where are you going? It is important to know that before you decide how you are going to get there.

What the Universe reminded me this morning...

You know how I keep going on and on about just starting ... little baby steps ... "it's all a process" ... don't worry about being perfect ... etc. Sounds familiar, right?

Well...here's the thing ...

I have been working on a 12 week E-course for Eating Coach. Delivered on line -- email and phone sessions with me -- resources and feedback from the comfort of your own home -- sounds cool, right? I have been working on it for a couple months but you haven't heard me talking about it. You haven't seen it posted on the blog. I haven't put it out there. You wanna know why?

Because it is not "perfect". I have worked and worked on it but haven't taken the ACTION step of putting it out there because it has not attained "perfection". Stupid, huh?

Even when, a couple weeks ago, I read the blog about plan not being of any use at all unless it is put into action.

So this morning, I received 2 quotes from a friend:


Perfection consists not in doing extraordinary things, but in doing ordinary things extraordinarily well. --Angelique Arnauld

Falling short of perfection is a process that just never stops. --William Shawn

This was my wake up call. Waiting to put myself out there until everything is perfect means I will never put myself (or my work) out there.

Same goes for you (although, maybe you are further ahead on this than I am). Start doing. Put yourself out there. Start being more mindful today than you were yesterday. If you do that, I will finish my E-course and have it ready by the first of the year.

Together, we will get to where we are going. But to do that, we both need to start today.