Loulabelle Posted April 28, 2015 Share Posted April 28, 2015 I can manage just one piece of dark chocolate after dinner if you count the whole bar as one piece Good luck with your own rules challenge and I hope you are fully recovered now! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hannlib Posted April 29, 2015 Share Posted April 29, 2015 I love sweet potato hash. I struggle with the texture of baked sweet potato and find the hash much better. feel a bit off the rails. And I'm reluctant to check in here which I think says something. Craving sweet potatoes and starch and also sugar. My period is definitely due so I hope it's that. Last night I had some (paleo) dessert. Then a little bowlful of chocolate chips. Then another. This is an old habit for me. Halfway through the second bowl I checked myself. Realised I wasn't even enjoying them. Stopped and put them back in the cupboard. That's progress. Today I've had some non compliant chorizo. This is okay, of course, but I don't find it helpful. Keeping my meals compliant helps. But now I feel off track. I've had a coconut milk latte this afternoon which I really enjoyed actually and it stopped me thinking about those chocolate chips. And it's cottage pie for tea, which I like with peas and Heinz ketchup of course. I'm trying to make these conscious decisions rather than careering off course. Posting helps. I'm hoping once my period arrives I'll find some motivation to do another mini reset whole 5 or whatever. Weekends look tricky for the foreseeable, lots of plans. Oh and the dark chocolate. I generally find that seperating it out from my dinner helps. If I eat it straight after I find it hard to stop even though I am full. It feels compulsive. A few squares later, nindfully, with a good tv programme helps. and the 90% stuff is less enjoyable but harder to overeat! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ytu Posted April 30, 2015 Author Share Posted April 30, 2015 Definitely recognise that feeling of not even wanting to come here to log when things are awry... That's definitely progress with the chocolate chips. Very well done for listening to yourself and stopping. I've had a pretty good week so far, on day 4 of my own rules challenge and very successful so far. My brain definitely seems to like a set of rules and have had no difficulty sticking to it, no cravings. Have had one square of 85% chocolate after dinner every day and no cravings for more. Good tip about having it a bit later rather than straight after the meal, will try that. The hardest part has been getting myself to exercise. Yesterday I felt I kept missing my chances; didn't get up early enough, then it rained at lunchtime, so I really had to force myself to go out and do hill sprints after work and before dinner because I'd committed to doing something. Because dinner was leftovers I could do it, but if I'd had to then cook it would have felt like a huge effort. It's really worth getting up early and getting the exercise out of the way, just something to keep in mind. Today's a rest day so just some stretching and foam rolling later, and had a walk at lunch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hannlib Posted April 30, 2015 Share Posted April 30, 2015 Right. Yesterday's win: didn't eat chocolate chips Today's fail- ate chocolate chips. Lots of them. In the daytime and after kettlebells too. TUT. Come on period. Whole something next week for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hannlib Posted May 3, 2015 Share Posted May 3, 2015 Right. Least said about this weekend the better. So as of today I am back on it. M1 chicken, prosciutto, green beans, 2 eggs Post work out chicken breast M2 chicken thigh, 2 HB eggs, mayo, olives, blue berries big salad including beetroot and carrots and peppers and cucumber. M3 roast chicken, asparagus, green beans, carrots, roast potatoes. I don't normally eat white potatoes when I w30 but I decided to start a couple of days earlier than planned. Going through to next Saturday. Need to get back on track. Did my sculpt and tone class today also. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hannlib Posted May 4, 2015 Share Posted May 4, 2015 How are you doing Ytu? M1 chicken, prosciutto, green beans, spinach, 3 eggs Snack (very unusual for me but we went on a long family bike ride and I needed to grab something) a nakd bar and half a banana M2 coronation chicken salad M3 paleo plantain pie WAY too much fruit today but considering it's been a BH I've been happy. I hadn't planned to start till tomorrow and I've 2 days done already. Oh and I had a chicken thigh at about 8pm. M1 and 2 were a bit low protein and I was hungry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ytu Posted May 5, 2015 Author Share Posted May 5, 2015 My weekend was a little ropey especially regarding snacking (dried fruit!) but I did do some exercise every day and mostly made good food choices. Although yesterday I went to a barbecue at a friend's house and ate meat and salad, allowed myself a bit of ice cream and thought I'd done very well, then went home and ate bread and baked beans for dinner. Maybe an example of a slippery slope thinking "I already had ice cream so I may as well have bread"! I've lost count of what day of my own rules challenge it is today - 9? Haven't brought any lunch with me so need to go out and get something. It would be my meditation class tonight but it starts so late (8) it's inconvenient, not enough time to go home and eat first but a lot of time to hang around waiting for it. So I don't know if I'll go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ytu Posted May 6, 2015 Author Share Posted May 6, 2015 Bad evening yesterday. OK, could have been worse. I had to not go to the supermarket on my way home because I was feeling crappy and like I wanted to binge on bread and ice cream, so the only way I could make sure I didn't was by not going to the shop. But that meant that I didn't have any proper protein for dinner either, had a bit of smoked sausage, home made baked beans and a big portion of boiled potatoes with butter. And some dried fruit and chocolate. No proper breakfast this morning either. Lost track of my own rules challenge. Everything feels really difficult and pointless at the moment. There's changes happening at work which could be what's making me feel stressed out. Outwardly I deal well with change but the stress of uncertainty will always show somewhere inwardly, usually with food. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators LadyM Posted May 6, 2015 Moderators Share Posted May 6, 2015 Thanks for sharing your struggle with such honesty, Ytu. I can sincerely relate to your last sentence. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ytu Posted May 12, 2015 Author Share Posted May 12, 2015 Still feel like I'm hobbling on rather than being steady on my feet (or wheels). Went to a birthday bbq on Saturday and had some birthday cake which lead to an awful mood and sugar cravings all day the next day. Really not worth it. Haven't managed to meditate for a week and not exercised much either. Food choices have been mostly OK at meals, but sugar cravings are still there and I'm not helping by allowing myself dried fruit and the like. Very sleepy - slept 9 hrs last night and still had trouble getting out of bed (which meant no time for meditation or exercise in the morning). Feel like there's a mindset switch I need to make, to a more positive one about taking care of myself, instead of one where it feels like I'm constantly making myself do things I don't want to do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loulabelle Posted May 12, 2015 Share Posted May 12, 2015 What do you think you need to do to make that mindset switch? I think you are not alone in that struggle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ytu Posted May 12, 2015 Author Share Posted May 12, 2015 I don't think there's going to be a magic bullet - though if anyone knows of one I would love to hear it! Work on thinking positively rather than negatively about myself and and wishing myself well. I do sometimes need to push myself to do things that ultimately make me feel better - like exercise and meditation - but need to find the right level of gentle pushing so it doesn't feel like forcing. Learn to let go of the 'not feeling like' doing something and doing it anyway. This is a tricky one as it can make me feel like I'm spending my whole life doing things I don't really want to do, and that's where I'm at the moment. Stay off sugar, it just makes me sad and irritable and that makes everything else harder to do. This is so simple and obvious and also easy when I stay with it, but hard when I don't. Also what would help: find something to focus on outside myself. I get so wrapped up in this stuff I lose perspective. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ytu Posted May 12, 2015 Author Share Posted May 12, 2015 Oh I think I know what the key is, that will stop me from beating myself up and having to force myself to do stuff, and that also takes me out of myself. Gratefulness. Grateful for having a healthy body that is able to exercise, grateful for having a human body and brain that can meditate, grateful for the healthy nourishing food that is available. Something to work towards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loulabelle Posted May 12, 2015 Share Posted May 12, 2015 Reading your words on gratefulness made me feel happy! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ytu Posted December 7, 2015 Author Share Posted December 7, 2015 Back again! Heartened by my previous thoughts on gratefulness. Still need to practice it. I was journalling back at Mark's Daily Apple, but the forum admin accidentally deleted my journal thread last week, and I'm not sure whether to start a new one. Bit sad at losing the old one which I had kept, on and off, since 2011, so it had a lot of trial and error insight. But what's gone is gone. My food efforts haven't been the best since then, so logging does seem to be beneficial, so I'm back here. Have been trying to make sure I make the best food choices I can when I am in control of the food I eat, and not worry too much about exceptions when I am not. But the truth is that whenever I eat something sweet it throws me off the rails and I forget about the good choices. So I need to limit those occasions and practice what I learned during my whole30: it's always my choice to eat or not eat something and it's always perfectly possible to say no. I started using Habitica a few weeks ago and have daily goals for meditation, 10k steps, 20 minutes exercise, Duolingo practice and 10.30 bedtime, and habit goals of "healthy meal" (ie close to template), no snacking between meals, no coffee after 9am, taking the stairs. Generally have a healthy breakfast and lunch but danger times are before and after dinner. And weekends can turn into a free-for-all. Yesterday sugar dragon convinced me to "treat myself" to a bag of mini stollen bites. Ate about a third of the bag (OK, at least not the whole bag) and of course feel much worse for it today. In fact felt worse almost immediately but still ate them. It's 17 days until Christmas eve, and I want to make those as compliant as I can. There's a couple of pre-Christmas meals this week, one with work, one with friends, but other than that there is no reason not to eat properly and stay off sugar. Would also be good not to drink alcohol except perhaps on those two occasions. Today: M1: 2 boiled eggs, spinach, walnuts, a black coffee. M2: roast chicken, braised red cabbage, beetroots M3 will probably be chicken, kale and root vegetable soup. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ytu Posted December 7, 2015 Author Share Posted December 7, 2015 M3 was indeed soup as planned, and half a persimmon fruit. Feels nice to have had a day's worth of healthy meals. Minimal snacking, too (a spoonful of quark and double cream to keep hunger at bay while I was cooking, and a little bit of nibbling on raw celeriac while cooking). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ytu Posted December 8, 2015 Author Share Posted December 8, 2015 Second day back to this journal. M1: 2 boiled eggs, spinach, walnuts, black coffee. M2: Braised red cabbage, beetroot, tin of sardines. Neither the prettiest meal nor, frankly, the best combo of flavours but sardines were the only protein source I had. Pre-WO: piece of cheddar cheese Post-WO: spoonful of quark M3: Kale and root vegetable broth with chorizo, half a persimmon fruit. Got up early and did my morning pages (brain dump technique recommended in The Artist's Way) and also 25 minutes meditation. 25 mins kettlebell workout before dinner. Hard work for the abs, will feel the pain tomorrow, I'm sure. Achieved 10k steps target too, despite the sole of my boot started to come off this morning and by the evening half of it was flapping around loose. Unfortunately those are my only reasonably smart boots at the moment so I need to slap some glue on there overnight and hope it sticks. That all means well on my way to having done everything I needed to do today, and once I've washed up my dinner plate I can have a relaxing evening. Office Christmas lunch tomorrow. Have chosen my food, picked the best things from the menu but I am having dessert. If it's not amazing I won't finish it. I'll be saved from overindulging on alcohol by the fact that I'll have to go straight from there to bellydance class. One glass of wine should be OK but no more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators LadyM Posted December 9, 2015 Moderators Share Posted December 9, 2015 Bellydance class?!? Man, I haven't done bellydancing since I was a teenager. What a wonderful gift to yourself. I can't think of anything (not even sex, or yoga) that made me feel more sensual and deeply present in my body. How did doing the morning pages and meditation affect your day? I have similar, albeit shorter, practices that I, too, often must convince myself to do. 10 minutes writing meditation and a pranayama/meditation/prayer practice that in all honesty takes less than 10 minutes, but for some reason it feels like such a big deal. Probably because it is if I don't do it. But isn't when I do. Anyway, just commiserating. And complimenting you on ticking off all the things. I find sometimes taking everything on at once is way too much. Other times, the all or nothing approach works beautifully. Best of luck with the Christmas lunch. Sounds like a great plan! And if that dessert is amazing, I hope you savor every moment it's in your mouth! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ytu Posted December 10, 2015 Author Share Posted December 10, 2015 Yes, the bellydance class has been the best thing for my body image! It is fun, too. This one is a westernised rather than traditional style, and the class I go to is tribal style improvisation, which means dancing in a group, taking turns to lead and improvise based on the dancing "vocabulary" we are learning. At first I was completely terrified of leading the group but am much more comfortable with it now. The dynamic of group improvisation is interesting. About morning pages, I was going to say I am restarting them even though they never seemed to have any big impact when I did them before, but it was because of doing them and Artist's Way that I first went into a bellydance class as something fun to try way out of my comfort zone. So maybe it does work in being more in tune with my ideas and encouraging myself to try things. Being open to small changes that make a difference in the longer term. Am trying to work out whether to do the pages first or meditate first. My current hypothesis is that doing the pages first will help clear my head for meditation, but the pages might also bring up thoughts to distract from meditation, so will try both ways. Doing both first thing in the morning feels a bit much (pages take 15-20 minutes and meditation should take 25-30) which was why I gave up the pages before, but giving it another go. Meal was good yesterday, had a nice time with colleagues. Dessert was delicious. Had one glass of prosecco and just water after that. Feel ready today to be back on healthy food track and also give up sweets for as long as I need to. I had a Stollen bites craving moment the other night and ate a couple after dinner. No disaster, but I felt out of control and I don't want food to make me feel that way. It's sugar, and combination of wheat and sugar in particular, and I've written that down before but not taken decisive action on it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ytu Posted December 11, 2015 Author Share Posted December 11, 2015 Yesterday went pretty well on plan. M1: 2 eggs, spinach, walnuts, black coffee. M2: Kale and root vegetable broth. No protein though apart from the chicken bone broth base. Snack before cinema: small pot of green olives M3: Haggis, mashed swede (with some cream), sauerkraut. Half a persimmon, a small cup of frozen berries with cream. Had a snack craving after dinner but curbed it after the berries. Just a black decaf earl grey tea. Regrettably left the rest of the haggis out overnight, so it had to go in the bin. Otherwise could have had it for lunch. What a waste. 25 minutes meditation, nearly 15k steps but no other exercise, went to bed nice and early. Reading the forum makes me want to do another whole30. But I know I don't really need to, and it's going to be psychologically more beneficial to just continue by my own rules rather than relying on an external framework. Now time to get dressed and do this morning's meditation practice! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators LadyM Posted December 11, 2015 Moderators Share Posted December 11, 2015 Reading the forum makes me want to do another whole30. But I know I don't really need to, and it's going to be psychologically more beneficial to just continue by my own rules rather than relying on an external framework. This is so wise--really. Dallas Hartwig posted something on Instagram yesterday that totally supported this. I also believe that in time, eventually we can veer away from the notion of rules altogether and simply listen to what our bodies actually need. But we can't leap right to that place. It takes patience and practice, just like anything worthwhile. . . . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ytu Posted December 14, 2015 Author Share Posted December 14, 2015 Listen to our bodies! Wouldn’t it be amazing to be so well attuned to what we need. And then respect that need and put it above convenience or politeness. That really is something to aspire to. Had a nice weekend, though not entirely on plan. Saturday was mostly good food choices, not much sugar, a little bit of 85% chocolate, one small rum and kahlua cocktail. Also made half rye half wheat sourdough bread. My digestion is fine with home-made sourdough, but I have a hunch it may have a slight negative mood effect. Certainly was a bit grumpy on Saturday despite doing nice things like Christmas preparations and shopping. Also was snacking on the bread in the afternoon and then wasn't hungry for dinner. Sunday had a good breakfast and lunch. Did a kettlebell workout in the afternoon, then went to friends’ house for dinner which was beef bourguignon, mash potatoes and veg, also apple strudel with custard, a few glasses of wine, a bit of cheese and crackers and a tiny glass of port. Drank moderately enough not to feel at all hungover today which was good, but I did overeat and digestion was not happy, suspect the main problem to be the strudel pastry which was probably the worst kind of ready-made puff. Gut still feeling a bit off now. Lots of sweets, cakes and biscuits in the office today. Had a tiny crumb – size of my fingernail – of my colleague’s homemade Christmas cake. Enough to have a tiny taste but not to awaken any sugar cravings. And it didn’t. Good food planned for the rest of the week. Cooking mash potatoes, greens, leeks, pumpkin soup tonight. Have plans every night after work apart from tonight, so need to have food ready for when we get home late. On Thursday we’re either going out for dinner or to friends’ house for dinner, waiting to hear what the plan is. We also might be hosting a few friends at the start of next week, but I’m thinking of making something really simple and wholesome, maybe chestnut soup. So many occasions of rich holiday food makes me crave healthy food, which is a nice sign and means that maybe I can rely on my body knowing what it needs. Working through some Artist’s Way tasks again. This morning did one about writing down twenty things I enjoy doing and planning to do one or two I haven’t done for a while. One of the things I wrote down was wordplay. On my lunch hour I went to browse in a charity shop and saw a bumper book of word games. Normally I might have looked at it, thought it was interesting and then put it back. But because of the serendipity of seeing the book after what I wrote down earlier, I bought it. Plan to spend some fun quality time with it. Also in the same shop found a black and white embroidered Jaeger skirt which will be perfect for all kinds of parties, concerts, theatre this week, and I can’t wait to wear it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators LadyM Posted December 15, 2015 Moderators Share Posted December 15, 2015 All good things! Super impressed with your knowingness and listening skills. The tiny crumb that didn't set off the sugar dragon, the Artist's Way practice that led to the word book, craving simply healthy foods to offset the richness you appear to be enjoying moderately. Nice reminder for me that keeping to our practices leads to mindfulness leads to being in the flow and all good things come our way. Like the skirt! Love that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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