Living the Lifestyle 7/20/17

Rachel0778

Everyone says it, but just how do you do it? How do you take the guidelines of the WW program and turn them into a lifestyle you can live every day...from now on? That is what we are here to explore. Each weekday, a new topic is offered up for discussion. Newbie? Join in! Veteran? Join in! Your thoughts may be just what someone else needs to hear.

Monday -- 88olds
Tuesday -- whathapnd (Emmie)
Wednesday --David Kuhns
Thursday -- Rachel0778
Friday -- misterhub

Today's topic: Things that throw you off plan

Sorry for the later than normal post. My office flooded with the storms yesterday so I've been a displaced worker today

Are there life situations that have caused you to dive right in to a plate full of food? Are there life situations that would make it more likely for you to go off plan? What do you do to mitigate those?

Rachel0778

After walking into my office in disarray and my carpet torn up, my first thought was "I need a damn latte". Instead of eating my feelings I stuck with my planned breakfast. It was definitely a win in my book.

misterhub

Heat. When it is really hot, and I don't want to heat up my abode, I often will go with a quick and easy (I don't have to cook) choice - which may not be the wisest way to go.

However, yesterday, I had a very stressful afternoon. Earlier in the week, someone sideswiped my car (parked on the street). The damage was not THAT bad, but significant enough to require a week's stay at the car hospital. Yesterday afternoon was dealing with insurance, auto body shops, rental car, my wife, et cetera. Very, very stressful.

My first inclination was that I'd stop at Five Guys and get something. Not a healthy choice. I had to stop at the store to get a couple of things first. While in the store, I decided to get something "special" for dinner. Oh, and maybe something to snack on while driving home. I deserved it. Well, I ate the snack, and I realized that, if I ate the tomato mozzarella salad when I get home, I really wouldn't want a full dinner. And, that's what I did. I saved the "special" dinner stuff for tonight. So, I MTBC, and I managed to avoid letting my stress eating take over, as I have done so often in the past.

Out_of_Bubblegum

A few things really throw me for a loop:

1 - Sleep deprivation.. When I'm tired, I make poor food choices - usually in the form of snacks.

2 - Waiting too long to eat.. If I go more than about 6 hours without eating, I eat too fast, too much, and gravitate towards high calorie density foods.

3 - Deciding what to eat when hungry... If I wait until I'm hungry.. or HUNGRY to decide what to eat, it's probably not going to be a good choice.

As far as mitigations go..
1 - Getting enough sleep is tough. I'm averaging about 6.5 hours right now, and really trying hard to improve that to 7, but it isn't likely to happen until my daughter gets back to school in the fall, as her bedtime is late, I work out after she goes to bed to avoid cutting into family time, and work comes early.

2 - Waiting too long to eat.. I try to stick to a schedule for my meals, and if I get hungry between, eat a snack as soon as hunger hits, so it doesn't build up into a mini-binge.

3 - I try to plan meals immediately after eating... this way I am not thinking about how hungry I am, how good something will taste, etc - it drives my family nuts though when we are finishing breakfast and I say "Hey, what are we going to eat for dinner?" LOL

gadgetgirlIL

Things that can throw me off my plan:

1) Too much crammed into one day, especially when it wasn't my decision to add the extra events to my day.

2) Getting too hungry between meals.

3) Not enough sleep, especially when it has happened a few days in a row and I'm just exhausted from the time I get up until the end of the day.

4) Being blindsided by bad news. For example, learning that I lost 40 hours of paid time off due to a policy change that was never communicated to me.

Possible mitigations:

1) Haven't found a good one for this. If I have any inclination that the day may end up being a mess, then I try to at least have some portable snacks with me that won't do too much damage.

2) Again, having some portable snacks helps. I always have 1 ounce bags of almonds in my gym bag and lunch bag which can take the edge off so that I can make a better choice the next time I do get to have a real meal.

3) Still haven't found a good solution to this. This happened on Monday to me.

4) Sometimes venting to a trusted friend or colleague can help reduce the urge to hit up the vending machine to soothe my frustration.

88olds

I need to eat lunch at lunchtime. 11:45-12:30. Somewhere in there. If it's delayed I'll jump at the first thing I see. If I have to skip lunch, it will be snack after snack until dinner.

Tomorrow's another day.

imastar2

"Are there life situations that have caused you to dive right in to a plate full of food? Are there life situations that would make it more likely for you to go off plan? What do you do to mitigate those?"

Reading over all the above post I think pretty well can cover me in most of my situations as well. I think those who have posted so far pretty well sum of a lot of my thoughts and actions.

podkey

Not so much . Well visiting DD in the hospital. Some social events. Shrug it off and do better the next time.

minimyzeme

Ughhh, @Rachel0778 , that does sound challenging. Good job keeping your head in the game! Hopefully the storm-related sogginess will dry out soon without long-lasting damage.

For me, many of the same things that I used to use as an excuse to do the dive: pretty much anything, but more along the lines of stress and anxiety these days. Some of the weather-related challenges can also do it, especially a whopper of a winter storm or some of the very dramatic thunderstorms we've gotten fairly frequently the last few years.

If I'm not being mindful, these events are definitely triggers for me. I spent some time in the losing phase learning some things about the triggers. Prior to that, I would just stuff my face, really unaware that it was emotional eating. To top it off, more often than not, I'd eat stuff that added pounds. I think it was largely these situations over time that contributed to my weight gain over the 10-12 years before joining WW.

I figured out that food was somewhat of a crutch for me. However, I also realized it wasn't the behavior that was leading to the weight gain; it was my food choices in those circumstances. I've now become more accustomed to 1) recognizing the trigger, 2) trying to address the root cause, if I can and/or 3) if I'm going to stuff my face, choose foods that aren't going to add weight.

I'm not always successful with this approach but most of the time I am. Once again, GOADie wisdom came through for me: "If hunger's not the problem, food's not the answer."

podkey

I would still say that even with excursions to the "edge of the road" I haven't fallen off the cliff into oblivion on WW so far. When I do (and I do) overindulge I overindulge much less than I did before WW for the most part. At the beach in May we had no food ready for arrival night and since my son and DIL weren't coming until the next day (they eat very "healthy") my DD brought home some pizza which I ate way too much. Happens and fortunately not that often and usually a lot less in amount than in the past.
We tell ourselves to get back to it on this board and it does help when we do. I think interactions with others helps me that way.