Thanksgiving Is Over...

Good Question! We made it through Thanksgiving. Some of us were able to stick to our plan, some of us went off the deep end, but all of us look forward to a better future so no looking back! Tomorrow is December 1st. 2014  is almost over. We have a few weeks to either make excuses, or make progress before the New Year begins. 

A Thanksgiving Poem I wrote for my Support Board

It's the night before Thanksgiving
And all through the board
Not a dieter was posting
Not one single word

The blenders are quiet
The posters are too
I had good intentions
But what's a dieter to do?

The family is here
The whole country is cooking
I so badly want to sample
When no one is looking

My head starts to spin
My heart starts to pound
My commitment to diet
Is nowhere to be found.

I know what to do
I know what is best
I know I'm important
But temptation's a pest

When Thanksgiving is over
And Friday begins
I want to count pounds lost
Instead of my sins

So take THAT you stuffed turkey!
Away with you food
My health's more important
I choose  to do good!

Whatever your plan
Whatever you choose
Keep your best interest in mind
And you will not lose!

(except pounds of course!)

Happy Thanksgiving !

Day 90 Of My 99 Day Cambridge Diet Challenge

I am on my 10th day of Sole Source (SS) for my 99 Day Ultimate Goal. So far I have been pretty much 100%. I did have a few bites of stew the other day and last night some chicken breast, but other then that I've been on track. With Thanksgiving looming in 5 more days I need to make this time count. I am planning on having a meal with my family and then getting right back to the business of losing.

I still cook every day for my husband and I actually don't mind at all. In fact, I enjoy it. I'm very careful about taste testing for seasonings and all. It can be hard to cook like I do. I never use recipes and normally go completely by taste, but that can get you in trouble. Sometimes by the time I had dinner all prepared for him, I felt like I had already eaten! I'd still go ahead and eat with him though. No need to wonder why I had put on a few pounds since we got married.

So I'm chugging along and feeling good. If anyone reading this is also SSing until Thanksgiving and then planning on taking a break and eating, just keep in mind that your stomach has adjusted to your very low volume diet and will not be producing all the digestive enzymes and acids it normally would while eating a full food diet. You will be in a world of hurt and feeling pretty horrible if you overdo it...and let's face it... overdoing it is pretty much the definition of Thanksgiving. Be prepared and get some good Digestive Enzymes to take with your meal. Your local Health Food store should have a good variety. Choose one that has a long list of specific enzymes that break down all forms of food, not just something like papaya extract. You'll be thanking me later!

99 days

There are 99 days until my 56th birthday. My (ultimate) goal this year was to be at my high school weight by then. I've made a few half heart'd stabs at it, but I just couldn't stay focused for the long haul. This goal is important to me, both for my health, as well as my sense of accomplishment.

Being married now has put a whole new spin on things. Before I was married, when I would have clients complain about their spouses being a distraction by wanting them to go out to eat or by bringing food home, I never understood the real problem like I do now. By being on a highly restricted diet like Cambridge, you're pretty much demanding that your significant other be on restriction with you, to a certain extent. When my husband has his 3 day weekend, he likes to go exploring, mostly day trips.  We are still newbies here in Florida and there is a lot to see. Being out all day kind of makes it necessary to eat at some point. My husband has a healthy appetite and can eat a full meal and be ready to eat again in an hour! He has no weight problem of course. I know how hard he works and on his days off I don't want to be a party pooper. He won't eat in front of me. He just can't make himself go against the way his Mama raised him. This then condemns him to starving and when he gets hungry, he gets really wobbly, really fast! On top of that, he loves to eat and wants to enjoy that with me. Nothing wrong with that of course.

So here's the problem....I need to do this, but I hate forcing him to limit his recreation on his hard earned days off. He needs that time to decompress and gear up for another miserable week in the Walmart Claims Dept. I've been going 'round and 'round about this for some time now. I get going on my diet, only to feel guilty and go off so he and I can enjoy our time together. Now to be clear, he in no way EVER complains, but he also won't eat if I don't. He's also perfectly happy with the size I am at now and doesn't think I need to lose, other then to improve my health of course.

When I realized last night that I only had 99 days remaining till my B-day, I made the decision that no matter what, I'm sticking to my Cambridge until I either reach my goal, or the 99 days are up. At the age I'm at now, along with my history of diabetes, my digestion is very slow. It's called "delayed gastric emptying" and it makes it so my body has plenty of time to absorb every single calorie. I lose about half as fast as I did 13 years ago, so this will take some uninterrupted time. I printed up three, 100 day countdown charts. I have one on the fridge, one on my bathroom mirror, and one right here in front of me on top of my computer. I will cross off the bathroom one in the AM when I get up, the fridge one after my lunch shake, and my computer one at night before going to bed. I told my husband what I'm doing and he is of course supportive, but I am well aware of the toll it will take on him and I kind of hate that. I am also doing this at the worst possible time with Thanksgiving looming and then of course, Christmas.

If anyone would like to get in on my 99 days SS, please do! I will be posting updates weekly. You can use the comments and I would love to have you along for the adventure!

Wish my luck!

Holiday Madness!!!

Halloween is next week. In my past, this was a license to buy copious amounts of candy, (no judgmental looks at my shopping cart from other shoppers) sneak eat it all, then go buy more to replace it. Sometimes this played out more then once before Oct 31st. Have you ever eaten an entire bag of Reese's Peanut Butter cups? I have. Reese's were my favorite. Using the word "favorite" is undervaluing my obsession for them. In the midst of my binge I would be in an almost trance like state, but still aware of what I was doing and completely unable to stop myself until they were all gone. Wow...just reliving this makes me so sad.

Most of our upcoming holidays have a heavy (no pun intended) price attached of too much celebratory high calorie, sugary, and fat packed foods. It's a hall pass to eat with abandon and without thought of nutrition or consequence. It's comparable to being on a cruise ship. A major part of the cruise experience is the food. The endless buffet encourages people to "get their money's worth" since it's included in the price. We justify overeating and making ourselves sick with food because we are on vacation...so it doesn't count. Hmmm. Same for the Holiday season. Tradition, family gatherings, work parties and friends, all reasons to put our diet and our health on the back burner until the New Year.

My question is... why? Is this really the only option? Of course not! We have just as much of an ability to control our thoughts, decisions, and actions in the months of Oct, Nov and Dec as any other month of the year.  Sacrificing 1/4 of the year to mindless and excessive eating, year after year after year, in the name of "celebrating" is just plain crazy.

After all, Halloween is a kids event. I'm not a fan of Halloween and now that I no longer have kids of my own at home or Day Care kids I generally don't participate in passing out candy. I just can't feel ok about it anymore considering the rate of childhood obesity and diabetes and I won't waste my money on alternative trick or treat items that the kids will just throw out. I keep the porch light off and my dogs are grateful.

November brings Thanksgiving. Now, if ever there was a food worshiping holiday, this one is it! There are plenty of articles online that debate the true story of the Pilgrims and what took place, but that's not the issue here. As with most official holidays, Thanksgiving has been manipulated by the retailers in to a "spend money and eat too much" day. Because there is not as big of a potential financial gain for Thanksgiving as there is for other more profitable holidays, it has pretty much been squeezed out in the stores for the more marketable Halloween and Christmas holidays. Still...it is a license to over-indulge.

Christmas is LOADED with all sorts of excesses, food being one of them. Our pockets are wrung dry of money most of us can't afford, but we justify spending. Our diets are put on hold and we once again justify feeding and feasting, all the while planning our return to sensibility once the year ends.

All told, we are talking about approximately 70 wasted days that we could be making progress to our goal. 70 days that could bring you good health and the happiness that comes with it. Food will never give you that reward. It is an absolute fact that come Jan 1st, you will look back at this time with some degree of regret if you put your life on hold once again for the sake of eating the same holiday foods you eat every year. In reality, we are only talking about 3 days. 3 days out of 70. Unfortunately we don't restrict our celebratory eating to just those 3 days. It ends up being 3 months and a LOT of damage can be done.

This year I would encourage you to remember that you DO have a choice.  It is not mandatory to repeat the same old behaviors that have only contributed to your weight issues. If you were a recovering alcoholic, would you justify getting drunk on certain days because it's tradition? Would the people that love and care about you expect you to break your sobriety? No. You would be respected for your choice to hold to your new life style and convictions. We all deserve the same respect, not just from others, but more importantly, from ourselves.

Oct, Nov, Dec...Oh, The Holidays!

Originally Posted by Pam Turner on 10/07/14:
Well, here we are again. The beginning of the Holiday season. For most people that starts in Oct with Halloween. Granted, Halloween is all the way at the end of the month, but depending on what stage of life you are at, it can mean a whole month of school activities and parties or just a lot of candy laying around the office. Heaven knows the stores are LOADED with candy displays and just going grocery shopping can be overwhelming.

Every year I have clients that are going great guns on their weight loss, only to trip and fall when the challenges of this time of year get to be too much. The only way to get through it is to make up your mind that this time, you are going to make different choices then you have before. The remaining months of 2014 (can you believe that?) are completely under your control as far as the what you choose to eat or not. I think at times we actually justify what we eat by telling ourselves we are powerless over the food temptations. How crazy is that? We haven't been force fed anything since we were on baby food!

Yes, we have Halloween, then Thanksgiving, then Christmas and then New Years. All plenty of reasons to procrastinate doing anything about our weight until it's over. No one likes to feel left out or deprived of the celebrating, but how often has your weight interfered with you living your best life? How often have you felt deprived of an opportunity because of your weight? How often have you made an excuse not to do something that you worried would embarrass you and how often have you said "No" to food offered because you didn't want people to see you eating? All various forms of self deprivation, isn't it? And that just leaves you feeling frustrated because nothing was really accomplished.

The thought of beginning a diet this time of year may seem like poor timing, and for most conventional diets I would agree. Why suffer for only a few pounds lost? The good news is that The Cambridge Diet allows you to make a HUGE amount of progress in a very short amount of time. Between now and the new year, you could potentially lose 50, 60, even 70 pounds! We have 85 days from today until 2015. You can spend those days knowing that by the New Year you will be slimmer and healthier then you are now...or not. Jan 1st will come either way and it's up to you how you welcome the New Year.

Hunker Down!

Originally Posted by Pam Turner on 11/01/12:

The holiday season is once again in the works. Too much food..and for the most part fattening food... will be all around us. Maybe we can't be perfect all the time, but we can be most of the time. Never let one mistake change the course. We all need to "hunker down" as the newscasters and public officials kept saying over these past few days to those unfortunate souls in hurricane Sandy's path. I've never heard that phrase so many times in my life, but for those of us who are attempting to make progress with weight loss over the next 2 months, in spite of holiday madness, they are perfect words to live by. So here we go people! Hunker down and get ready for the challenge! Thanksgiving, here we come!