TT Thursday : 8th Week weight loss challenge

TT Thursday : 8th Week weight loss challenge

My HealthyWage coach Kate M. brought up a Web MD article, For Savvy Weight Loss: Know Thyself, listing the personality types of weight loss folks.  I love personality type tests, totally eat them up.  However this one has me feeling like a hypochondriac because as I read each one, I say that’s me.  No, wait that’s me.  You want to know if you’re one — or like me, all of them?  Here we go.

  1.  The Support Seeker : You are constantly turning to pros and friends to give you all the answers.  You need their expert advice, their experience, and their emotional support and sympathy.  You’ll cry on someone’s shoulder that you just regained two pounds because the chocolate was calling you so they can tell you, “There, there, just get back on the horse.” You love the congratulations they give you when you shake off the chocolate’s two pounds as you move your way to losing twenty pounds.
  2. The Serial Snacker : You know who you are.  You nibble all day, a little of this, a little of that.  Cookies, cereal, bananas or maybe you’ve convinced yourself it’s all good as you munch on a granola bar.   Snacking is a habit and you don’t even think about it as you unwrap something to bite into. Dinner time rolls around and you’re so full from your bits of carbs and sugar that you’re not that hungry.
  3. The Free Spirit :  Oh gawd! Who wants to spend all their time counting calories or following a strict diet plan.  Eating should be simple, natural, and not work.
  4. The Sweet Tooth : Ok, admit it.  Chocolate is your best friend. Everybody knows you haven’t met a cake you didn’t like.  And pie for breakfast? Yum!
  5. The Distracted Diner : You’re reading while you’re eating, or typing away, finishing that blog post.  Or maybe you’re watching your favorite TV show — there’s a reason they call it the TV dinner.  Huh? You’re finished?  Do you even know what you ate?

What’s cool is that the Web MD article also outlines strategies for each personality type of eater to help them with weight loss.

1. The Support Seeker : join a gym with a friend, preferably someone who’s been going longer than you have and is really into it.  Join a chat forum with other dieters so you can cheer and commiserate with each other.  Join a group like Weightwatchers so that you are with a group on the same journey.  Schedule sessions with a personal trainer.  Do you see a common theme?  Yes, it’s make your weight loss a social thing, something to share.

I act as a Support Seeker through HealthyWage and my Thursday blog posts.  With HealthyWage, we have a coach Kate who gives us daily nuggets of information to help us on our weight-loss journey.  There is a chat forum so we can give each other congratulations as we reach goals and encouragements when we face downturns.  On my Thursday blog posts, I share my progress with you all and knowing I’m going to share my progress helps keeps me on the straight and narrow (thinks about it.  Well, mostly, I keep to the straight).  I also received encouragement from you all before I did with real life friends and family.  To be fair, I tried to do a weight-loss thing last July and then again during the winter and both times fell off the wagon within a month.  They were skeptical then but this time they were really skeptical.  It’s not until I lost 15 pounds that they started turning around and become encouraging like you all were from the beginning.  That’s why I think blogging with you all really helped.  Also though with HealthyWage, I’ll lose $180 if I don’t succeed at losing 65 pounds and I’ll win $768 if I do. That threat of losing $180 assists me as much as their Kate’s info nuggets.

2. The Serial Snacker.  It’s habit to reach for something to munch so change what’s available.  Don’t buy candies and chips.  Chop up some fruits, veggies and proteins and put them in containers ready to grab at a moments notice.  Deviled eggs don’t take that long to make and it can provide several snacks.  Think of it as providing yourself with mini meals so that you get your protein, vitamins and minerals.  Drinking water is also a good thing.

This was a tough one for me.  I did this a lot and would have stuff around like breads (mini brownies counts!), pop tarts, chips.  And when I didn’t want to hit the carbohydrate tier, I’d go for chocolate or ice cream. I’ve been good now about just not buying them but I’m not so good at chopping up stuff to have them readily available.  I’ll stare mournfully into my refrigerator and think I have nothing to eat while the tomatoes, broccoli, carrots, and strawberries wave at me yelling, “Me! Me! Me!”  Often they’ll go bad before I get to them.  I am getting better but it’s happening in baby steps.  Now I’ll eat or cook up about half of them which is way better than before. I am drinking lots more water so that’s a good thing.

3.  The Free Spirit.  This one is a toughie because doesn’t want to follow any plans or take away any food groups.  This one they suggest since the person really doesn’t want to change what they eat, that they can change how they eat.  The suggestion is to eat more mindfully, focusing their attention on their food, chewing slowly, tasting everything fully and checking their hunger before and after so that you stop eating when you’re full.

I was this one before but I no longer think I am.  I really didn’t want to follow a diet plan strictly although I was willing to follow one generally.  However as I lose weight I am becoming more motivated to give up certain beloved categories like sugar and carbohydrates.  And honestly I don’t have the patience to chew slowly.  And if I stop eating when I feel full, it will be too late. Fifteen minutes, I will feel overfull.  I’ve noticed I’m better off stopping when I feel 75% full because the rest of my food tends to register late.

4.  The Sweet Tooth : They say you can have your sweets but not all of them all at once or whenever you want them.  Plan when you will have a treat and how much.  Buy one and not a whole package.  Buy a very high-quality chocolate to indulge in (do this a few times and you won’t want to touch its more plebian low-quality cousins).  And we’re back to chopping up fruits to have them available as a snack for your sweet tooth to add fiber to your sugar — the fiber fills you up faster plus you get the extra values of vitamins.

I can have a brownie?  Really?  Huh.  Actually for me since I am also a Serial Snacker, it’s better to not have the sugar around at all.  And yes, it is true.  I occasionally indulge — Frappucino at Starbucks — do you know how many calories are in that thing?  It’s like a whole meal.  So little by little I am getting used to just not having the snack.  Well, Sumiko did give me that 20 ounces of dark chocolate thins.  Bangs my head against the wall.  Ok, just one.  No, no, no, I can’t.  Awww, just one.  No, no, no.  So I went to California and left the damn chocolate in the freezer back home.  A few hundred miles separation really helped.  Why don’t I just throw them away?  Are you crazy?  It’s dark chocolate!

5.  The Distracted Diner : Don’t eat and drive.  Basically slow it down.  Don’t eat and do something else.  Eat mindfully, paying attention to the food, respecting what’s about to go down your gullet.  If you’re going to eat while on the computer or reading or whatever, prepare healthy mini-meals. Practice portion control in the serving you give yourself.  And whatever you do don’t plop a bag of chips next to the computer/TV/whatever with the intent of you’ll just have a few.  Don’t buy the chips in the first place but if you do, put 5 pieces in a bowl and a large helping of salsa in another bowl and that’s it.  Make it a pain to have to keep getting up to get more so that you’re aware of how often you get up which means you more aware of how much you’re downing.

Ok, I’m really bad at this.  I love to read and eat.  Doesn’t matter at home or in a restaurant.  I will also eat while I’m on the computer.  I used to eat while I watched TV but I don’t watch TV any more so at least one is down.  I don’t eat mindfully so much as I am beginning to cook more mindfully, being aware of what I put together.  I think that’s half the battle.  I’ve always been good about buying vegetables — not so good about eating them.  I am getting better about eating them too.  I find if I cook something good, I enjoy tasting it.  So while I’m still reading and eating, I am doing more tasting because my cooking is getting better.

So out of curiousity, what personality type are you?  None, one, or all?  Or are you the one not listed? The mindful, healthy eater?  We all aspire to be you!

 

HealthyWage Weight Loss Progress Report

Last week I reported I was at 234.8.  So this week I had some trials and tribulations.  I went on a long drive.  Driving and snacking and I have had a long committed relationship.  It’s like give me sugar or give me death.  My intentions were good this time.  i bought a couple of small trail snack bags before I left with cranberries, almonds and seeds.   Healthy stuff.  Dropped a couple of bottles of ice water into the car.

Then my first stop to gas up was Circle K.  I decided iced tea with no sugar would be good for a caffeine hit as I was leaving at 4am (I had napped the day before with the intent of leaving at 4pm to miss LA traffic but Pinkie would not let me catch her until 4am so I was damn tired to start).  The clerk was throwing away the tea. The last bit was dribbling away as I walked up with my empty cup.  Sooooo I could wait for new tea — not! He was the only clerk and kept going up to the counter and was unboxing stuff too.  I could go to another Circle K.  Not really going to make another exit stop right now.  Sighing, I put cola in my cup.  It’s been two months since I had soda.  Since my diet was blown, I picked up a long john while I was at it.

I found out something.  That much sugar is unpleasant to me now.  I liked the taste ok except it was too sweet but it gave me a left side ache so I didn’t even finish a quarter of the coke.  Yeah, the long john disappeared quickly (Serial Snacker, Sweet Tooth, Distracted Diner — hitting all the stops).  After that I stuck with the water I bought.  I ate my snacks and a sub (spinach, tomato, onion, yellow pepper and turkey).

When I got to California, I weighed myself.  231.8!  Yay!  I dodged a bullet.  My friend Lori served me a great pesto tortellini, white wine and cookies for lunch — it would be rude to say no.  Next day dinner included a baked potato — must say, I missed baked potato. And then when I stepped on the scale I was back up to 237!!!  Hell, no!  So it was back to tea or water and a salad.  You’ll be happy to know I’m back down to 233.7 so I still ended the week with a net loss of 1.1 pounds.  Ok, not just a salad.  I also had pork and vegetable tempura for dinner but I said no to the rice.

237? That was just scarey.  I’m happy that within two days I was back down to 233.7 and back on track.  It was a fair warning of how quickly things can slide out of control.  My body still remembers 250 and wants to go back there.  But I disagree.  My knees don’t hurt when I go up stairs like they did before.  I like the changes.  So salad it is.  Plus the salad was good.  Lori had a bag of dried organic blueberries.  I added a few of those and it really leveled up the salad.  Sprinkle a few slivers of almonds and I felt it was a gourmet salad.  I was pretty happy with it.

I’ll make another one tomorrow so I can add a photo to this post.  I forgot to do that today.  Like I said, blogging with you all helps keep me on the straight and somewhat narrow, as much as teeter totter back and forth, I still remain committed. Or maybe I should be committed?  laughing.

From Amazon:

Salad of the Day (Revised): 365 Recipes for Every Day of the Year Food52 Mighty Salads: 60 New Ways to Turn Salad into Dinner

Amazon disclosure: “We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.”

 

HealthyWage Disclosure:  I am signed up as a HealthyWage affiliate.  If you join through the links above, I’ll get a commission.  However, they also have a friends link, if you join up by clicking this friends link, it adds a $40 to your HealthyWager award if you complete your goal and $40 to my HealthyWager award if I complete my goal.  We don’t get the $40 if we fail.  I think the $40 is for HealthyWager challenges only and not the other ones like the 6% individual challenge or the team challenge. The HealthyWage affiliate link doesn’t matter if anyone succeeds but there is no benefit for the friend, just for the affiliate no matter what kind of challenge they join. I think joining through the friends link also lets you view your friend on the dashboard: you’ll see their name and what % they’ve lost so far but not the actual weight.  That’s private unless you make it public.

 

9 Replies to “TT Thursday : 8th Week weight loss challenge”

  1. I genetically have a German sweet tooth–the worst! Hard to fight genetics! The distracted diner really cracked me up! It is like your body is a locomotive and you have to keep shoveling coal into the boiler to keep it going! Or should I say shoveling coal into the boiler of the Titanic as it approaches the iceberg?! Have a low calorie chocolate-free weekend, Mary! No pizza either!

    1. lol, I haven’t had pizza …. pasta, however … oh and wine … people like to drink wine here … ah well. Can’t be good all the time.

  2. I’m none of these. I know I watch what I put in my mouth and know when I’m doing okay and when I’m not. For me it’s a way of life every single day. Diet is not a good word for me. It is something you do until you reach a goal and then you revert back to your old way of eating and gain the weight back. It’s change your eating habits forever. That’s where I am.

    Have a fabulous day and weekend and keep up the good work. I’m proud of you. ♥

    1. That’s a smart way of looking at it — an eating habit. I’m having a hard time not being at home. I do a lot of control just by not buying things. Much harder when I’m a visitor as it seems not nice to constantly turn things down everyday.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

%d bloggers like this: