Day 12: Fuel or Filler

Time to put some more focus on 100 Days of Weightloss. I think days 11 through 20 will be especially important for me as they are designed to help us Put Food In Its Place. As an emotional eater/binger, I definitely need to do this. I give food way too much power.

The reading for Day 12 asks us to look closely at foods that we eat the most and to determine whether those foods are fuel or filler. Foods that are fuel would be those that provide us good nutritional content and are the basis of any healthy diet: lean meats, fruits, veggies, whole grains. Filler, as you would expect, is the junk. Filler gives us extra calories without much nutritional content.

Fuel food should make up the majority of our calorie intake each day. Filler foods are not off-limits, but should make up a much smaller portion of our daily intake and should not be used as our main source of fuel each day.

The exercise for day 12 is to record the foods you eat for the day, rate each one based on whether it provides fuel or filler, and at the end of the day determine how well your fuel needs were met.

Well, this seems obvious, doesn't it? Eat healthy foods, not junk. No kidding. But I did this exercise for a few days over the past week or so and it did enlighten me to the fact that there were days that I ate pretty much nothing but filler. Those were the days I didn't make the effort to bring good food to work and ended up eating fast food and junk from vending machines. There was one day that I sat down at home at the end of the day and realized that while I had eaten thousands of calories that day but I hadn't eaten a single real meal. I had grazed on crap all day long. Is it any wonder that I feel in a mental fog or depressed or just plain tired?

This exercise showed me that it is important to really pay attention to the things that seem so obvious like "eat healthy foods, not junk." Especially when we have practically become professional dieters we might feel like going back to the basics is not something we need. But obviously I did. Starting now I am going to make my best effort to make sure each meal and snack is primarily fuel. I can't have days of fast food, chips, chocolate, and ice cream and expect to feel good, let alone look good.

Day 11: Two Purposes of Food

OK, it's time to get back on track with 100 Days of Weightloss by Linda Spangle. The first 10 days of this program was all about Setting Up For Success. If you want to catch up, you can find my posts for days 1 through 10 by clicking the "100 Days of Weightloss" label on my sidebar. These next 10 days are intended to help us Put Food In It's Place.

For Day 11, the author gives us two purposes of food:

1. To fuel your body
2. To appreciate flavors

She says that anytime we find ourselves eating but not satisfying one of these two purposes, we are likely eating emotionally. The focus of the Day 11 reading is on fueling your body. She tells us to always fuel our body when it needs its, recommending fueling/eating at least 3 times per day with a couple of mini-fuels/snacks in between. (As a side note, I have heard Jillian Michaels in her weekly podcasts come out against the idea of 5 or 6 small meals a day in favor of 3 larger meals and one snack. She says that the 5-6 meals a day thing originally started with body builders who were trying to put on muscle mass and needed to consume a calorie surplus and thus needed to eat several times a day in order to get all their calories in. She feels that eating several smaller meals while tryin to maintain a calorie deficit leaves you feeling never quite satisfied. My opinion about this is to start listening to your own body to find out what works best for you. Some of us may feel more satisfied eating several times throughout the day while others do better eating fewer but larger meals. It seems to me what is most important is to fuel your body when it needs it.)

So the assignment for Day 11 is to make note of the times of day that you eat, to try to plan so that you have fuel stops every 3 to 4 hours, and to note of what effect having regular fuel stops has on your energy and focus.

I have been tracking what times I am eating for a couple of weeks now. In general, on a day I am eating on plan and only for the two purposes listed above, I tend to want to eat/refuel 5-6 times per day. A typical weekday for me looks something like this:

breakfast - 7:00
snack - 9:30
lunch - 11:30/12:00
snack - 2:30/3:00
snack - 4:30/5:00
dinner - 7:00

This exercise seems simple and obvious for those of us who are professional dieters but I recommend you do it anyway. I thought it was silly at first but what it really helped to remind me of is that it's NORMAL to get hungry and to need to give your body fuel on a REGULAR BASIS. Again, seems obvious, I know. But the years and years of dieting, disordered eating, gaining, losing, and beating myself up has left me a bit messed up about food and eating. I can't tell you how many days I have thrown in the towel because I ate breakfast and then was hungry again at 10AM. In my messed up way of thinking my thoughts would go, "I am always going to be hungry." "I can't stand this." "There is no way I can stay hungry for long enough to lose all this weight." "What is wrong with me that I am always hungry?" And then this would lead to a state of near panic and frenzied eating.

Kinda nutty, I know. That's why I say I am a disordered eater. This is how messed up you can get after years of dieting and this is what I have to work on changing if I am to finally be successful at permanent weightloss. By stopping and writing down the times that I felt hungry and ate, it helped me to realize that NOTHING is wrong with me because I keep getting hungry over and over. Our bodies need consistent fueling. It helped me realize that I don't need to STAY hungry in order to lose weight. I can fuel my body with what it needs and still lose weight. I have even become more aware of what exactly it is my body is craving for fuel. Sometimes fruit and a yogurt will do it. Other times I know I need more protein and I have lowfat cottage cheese. Other times I have actually noticing my body craving veggies, mostly big salads.

It feels really good that I am becoming more self-aware and, hopefully, less F'ed up about food. Give this exercise a try....even if you think you don't need to. You might be suprised what you learn.


ps
Thanks again to Natalia at Embracing the Weighloss Journey who introduced me to this book.

Day 10: Appreciate Good Support

Day 10 of "100 Days of Weightloss" tells us to appreciate the good support we receive.

So this post will be short and to the point. Thanks to all of you who have ever commented on my blog. I appreciate every word of encouragement, advice, information, and congratulations that you send my way. I may not know you all in "real life" but your support is helping me more than you can know.

Day 8: Help Me Please; Day 9: Here's What I Want

Days 8 and 9 of "100 Days of Weightloss" kind of go together so I thought I'd combine them in one post.

In Day 8, "Help Me Please", the discussion is about getting the support we need from the people around us. Often times people do and say all the wrong things, thinking they are helping us. They might question what we are eating and if we should be eating it, give us advice on one diet plan or another, or comment on our weight losses or gains. Some of us appreciate these comments and see them as help. Others of us just find these types comments frustrating or hurtful. The thing is, most of the time people don't know the right thing to do or say to give support. In order to get the support we need, we need to decide what EXACTLY it is we need for support and then communicate that to people around us. If they care about us they want to help so we need to tell them how they can. Deciding exactly what we need entails knowing the things we want people to do or say to help us as well as the things we never want to hear. Once we have decided what we need, it is up to us to communicate our needs.

In Day 9, "Here's What I Want", there is a list of questions to help us figure out what we want in different situations. Here are a few of them:

If you see me eating something that's not on my diet plan....

For me, I don't want any sort of comment about this from anyone. I know what I should and shouldn't be eating so I do not need it pointed out to me. It only makes me feel shamed and rebellious.

When I am making progress, such as losing weight....

This one is really touchy for me. I have noticed in the past that when I have lost enough for it to be noticable I will get lots of comments from people and then I start to sabotage myself. What I came to realize is that knowing that so many people were noticing and watching me I began to feel lots of pressure. I felt like I was going to fail, yet again, in front of everyone. And so I would sabotage myself. I guess I was afraid to have more success because then it would be an even bigger failure in front of all if I gained the weight back. Better to gain back 25 pounds than 100 I guess was my logic, if you could call it that. Having people commenting on my weightloss also makes me feel ashamed. If they notice I am losing weight, that also means they noticed I am fat and that makes me feel ashamed and embarrassed. So I prefer that if you are my co-worker or some other casual acquaintance, I do not want you not make any reference to changes in my weight. If you are a close friend who I know cares about me and wants the best for me, I would like it if you compliment my progress as long as it is not in front of others.

When I am struggling or gaining weight...

Again, if you are not a close personal friend of mine then keep your thoughts to yourself, please. If you are a close personal friend, particularly if you have had your own weight struggles, I would be OK with you asking me how things are going. Please don't lead with a comment about my actual weight gain. Trust me, I know I have gained. Maybe just ask me how things are going with my plan or my exercise routine as a way to open the door.

A situation not from the book but I am sure we all have encountered, especially during holiday times:

When I am doing well sticking to my eating plan...

Please do not push food on me. No, I can't have "just one". No, I can't have a day off. Yes, I appreciate that you made it just for me because you love me but I am trying to make changes to my life. You can show your love for me by supporting my choices rather than making it more difficult for me to stand by my healthier choices.


The real trick after identifying what you need is to communicate it those around you who need to hear it. That's the toughie, isn't it? In particular, I remember a discussion with a friend of mine at work about commenting on my weightloss. I had lost quite a bit and was looking good and everyone at work kept complimenting me. I told my friend that I wished everyone would stop making comments. At first she pretty much thought I was a jerk for saying that because everyone was being so nice to me. Once I explained to her that I knew people were trying to be nice but that it made me feel pressure and like the spotlight was on my weight, she better understood where I was coming from.


What kind of support do you want any of the situations I mentioned? Are there other situations where there is a specific kind of support you need?

Day 7: You Can Do It!!!

Day 7 in "100 Days of Weightloss" is about our fears that we will repeat old patterns and not be successful in our weightloss attempt. I think any of us who have tried losing weight more than once I our lives can relate to this. It's like we have let ourselves down so many times in the past we don't trust ourselves anymore. I know if I had a friend who consistently told me one thing but did another it wouldn't take me long to not believe a word they said to me. In fact, I might kick them to the curb.

But we can't kick ourselves to the curb. So maybe it's time to have some self-forgiveness and start changing the messages we are sending ourselves. I know I am extremely critical of myself and beat myself up for my binge eating, for my not exercising as much as I think I should and for the state of my body. I wasn't even fully aware of just how negative my thoughts towards myself were until one day several months ago I was walking through my house and out loud, out of nowhere, for no discernible reason, I said, "You are such a fat ass." I was the only one in the room so I am pretty sure I was talking to myself.



It really took me aback because I was not consciously thinking anything about my weight or dieting. But somewhere in my subconscious those thoughts are obviously always lurking and that day it bubbled to the surface without my even thinking about it. It makes me sad to think how mean I am to myself and that I have convinced myself on such a deep and unconscious level that I am a "fatass" and it is OK to speak unkindly to myself.



So how do we change this self-defeating talk and get an I CAN DO IT attitude? One recommendation is the book is to become your own cheerleader. In order to be successful we have to create a strong belief that we can do this. She recommends writing down a list of reasons why you know can lose the weight. Here is my list:





I know I can lose weight because:

1. I am smart.
2. I am knowledgable about nutrition.
3. My body is capable of exercise.
4. I am following a healthy diet plan.
5. I have done it before and can do it again.
6. I know others who have done it and if they can, I can.
7. I am capable and hard-working.
8. I have supportive friends both online and in real life.
9. I have an awesome water aerobics instructor who motivates me to work as hard as I can.

Now before you think I've gotten all "Stuart Smalley" on you, I do realize that just because I have written these things down in no way means I have magically changed myself. But I have acknowledged some positive truths to myself and will revisit the list daily, even several times a day. It's time to start playing some positive thoughts over and over in my head instead of just negative ones.

Make your own list. Tell me why you are sure that YOU CAN DO IT!!! Let's get those positive thoughts flowing.

Day 6: Protect Your Program

The main point of today's reading from "100 Days of Weightloss" is that no one cares as much as you do about your weightloss plan. We may put our needs on the backburner when our workout buddy doesn't show, when our friend who goes to Weight Watchers with us has stopped going to meetings, when someone is pushing food at a social occasion like a birthday party, when others give "advice" on the best weightloss plan, or when we plain old make everything else except our weightloss a priority.

We must make a commitment to protect our program without depending on others to help us be successful. Yes, it's nice to have others in your corner but we must be prepared mentally to do it alone if we have to. So take a walk even if your walking buddy cops out! Go to your Weight Watchers meeting even if your friend who normally goes with you can't or won't. Protect your program!

Foodpushers are not a huge problem for me but I know they are for alot of people and the book had a good suggestion for handling this that I had never heard before. Rather than saying, "No, thank you" which can often lead to the pusher trying to help you rationalize your going off plan with comments like "One little bite won't hurt" or "But I made it especially for you" or "Can't you take a day off?", simply answer "Not just yet, I am going to wait a little while." This may help to diffuse the really pushy pusher and get them off your back. Protect your program!

The book also advises not to discuss your diet in order to avoid unwanted advice, well-intended though it may be. I know this is a big one for me. I tend to be private about my attempts to diet except for with one friend who I knows understands and .....oh yeah, the blogosphere. There have been times I have been more open or even joined weightloss contests at work and rather than finding support in those things, I found unnecessary pressure. I don't like knowing people are paying attention to what I am or am not eating. I don't even like it all that much when people who are not close to me comment on the fact that I have lost weight. These remarks make me feel like my body is on display and everyone is paying attention to it. It makes me feel a whole lot of pressure and fear of failing in front of everyone. So for me, it is best to really limit who I discuss my diet attempts with. Protect your program!

The last one, making everything else but your program a priority, is easily my biggest downfall. In recent weeks I have started to realize that too much of my self-worth is wrapped up in my career to the detriment of other areas of my life including relationships and my health. I work longs hours which makes me too tired to get up early and exercise. I allow myself to take on too much which stresses me out and sends me running to food for comfort. I don't always have the time or energy to plan my meals, shop for food, or cook. So I need to start working on finding balance and making my weightloss a priority in my life that is every bit as important, if not even more important, than work. Protect your program!

The assignment for today is to write down three high-risk times or events and how you plan to protect your program. Here are mine:

1. Busy times at work where I feel obligated to work long hours. My plan during these times is to set a "quitting time" for myself that is non-negotiable. The fact is that in my job there are times that some extra effort needs to be made in order to achieve our deadlines. The problem is I have not set any boundaries for the amount of overtime I will work. I often end up working until 9 or 10 at night trying to get everything done. I will treat my exercise, food shopping, and meal preparation time as appointments that must be kept and adjust my "quitting time" accordingly.
2. Friday evenings. I often feel physically exhausted by the time Friday evening rolls around. This is a danger time for me to go way off plan. My plan is to do some restaurant research so I have some eating out options for Friday evening that won't throw me way off course. The fact is I do NOT want to cook on Friday evenings. I look foward to having a "treat" meal. I just need to find a way to make it a reasonable treat rather than an excessive one.
3. I don't think I have a number 3. The first two really cover what my main stumbling blocks are.

The other assignment was to do one thing today that reinforces your determination to protect your program at all costs. For me that thing was getting to bed on time last night so that I could get up and get to work a little early so that I was able to leave the office in time to get to my water aerobics class.

What are you doing to protect your program?

Day 5: Magic Notebook

OK, so after getting past the corniness of the title for Day 5, I learned a really good tool that I plan to continue to use as I need it.

Today's reading from "100 Days of Weightloss" talks about the importance of keeping a notebook to write down ideas about managing your eating patterns. This isn't a food journal to track your calories, points, whatever. This is a journal to write about your food cravings and to take notice of food cues you experience. My favorite quote in this reading is:

"Just because you think about food doesn't mean you have to eat it."

Wow, what a concept! I am going to remember this one!!! The book gives an example of someone who used her notebook to write down whenever she had a craving which allowed her to stop thinking about it. And the assignment for the day was to write down whenever you think about a particular food you want along with a plan that you will eat it at another time.

Here are my entries from my notebook today:

1:30PM - I want to eat a 3
Musketeers bar and feel the comfort and pleasure of it's soft
chocolatey-ness. But I am not going to act on this impulse now. I
will eat it on another day when I am relaxed and can enjoy it rather than eating
it now at work simply to soothe stressful feelings.

8:15PM - I want to eat some ice
cream. I am feeling lonely and I want some sweetness and comfort in my
belly. But I am not going to act on this impulse today. Instead I
will enjoy 1/2 cup of ice cream on Thanksgiving with my yummy Weight Watchers
Crustless Pumpkin Pie. I am going to start eating ice cream as an
occasional treat to enjoy rather than as an everyday occurrence to soothe my
emotions.

So how did this tool help me today? Well, let's say I am batting 500. I did eventually give in to the 3 Musketeers bar. But I was able to talk myself out of the ice cream. That is progress for me and I fully intend to keep using this tool.

Thank You

I want to thank all who commented on my last post. I get my comments via email so I just wanted you all to know that every time I got one today it was a little shot in the arm to get through my day. My emotional eating has surrounded work experiences so I needed a little extra help on this Monday morning. Thanks again....so much.

Ria, I especially like your #4. I am going to have to keep that one in mind for next time.

Oh, and I haven't stopped the "100 Days of Weightloss". Well, I did take a break because I felt like it was so much so fast I wasn't really absorbing it. But I will be ready to post Day 5 tomorrow evening after I have had a chance to implement the suggestions. I think the ideas presented for Day 5 will be extremely helpful to me going forward. Hopefully to some of you too.

Stay tuned....

Weigh in: 4.9 gained, 168 to go

In the past 2 weeks I have gained back nearly everything I had lost. I cannot seem to get a grip on my emotional eating. These past couple of weeks I have had a very strained relationship with someone who I considered a friend but who also is in a position of authority over me. Angry words were said, feelings were hurt, and all-in-all it felt like a very threatening situation (with me being the one being threatened). I have felt many things in these past two weeks: anger, fear, betrayal, embarrassment, disappointment. And I have eaten over them. I don't want to respond this way to emotionally fraught situations but I guess I haven't figured out another way to cope when I am overwhelmed with my feelings. How do people learn coping skills? I wish I knew.

I can start fresh again this week doing the things I know I need to do to lose weight. And I guess I need to revisit my Day 1 of 100 Days of Weightloss post where I reminded myself "I used to be that way." It is easy to say I used to soothe my emotions with food. It's hard for me to come up with something else to replace it with. To be honest, I am at a bit of a loss.

What do you do to avoid overeating when your emotions are getting the best of you?

Day 4: Boundaries, Not Diets

Today's reading (from "100 Days of Weightloss" by Linda Spangle) is about rigidity, perfectionism, and all-or-nothing thinking. Basically all of these things can contribute to our being unsuccessful at losing weight. If any of you reading have dieted more than once in your life I'd be willing to bet about any amount of money that you know all about these things. How often do we "blow it" at lunch or dinner or with an unplanned, unhealthy snack and then throw up our hands and a say, "Well, I messed up. I might as well keep eating and start over again tomorrow...or on Monday...or next month." We've all done it, haven't we?

I am currently suffering from some all-or-nothing thinking surrounding food journaling. Yesterday I said that today I would journal every bite NO MATTER WHAT. It didn't happen. Why? Because Sunday is my day to start a "new week" and my crazy all-or-nothing thinking is making me feel like I have to wait til Sunday to start fresh because this week is already "ruined." Pretty nutty, eh? Yeah, I thought so.

So what can we do? According to Ms. Spangle, we need to think of our eating plan as a "boundary", not a "diet" and that our boundaries should benefit us, not burden us. She encourages defining your boundaries in such a way that you can adjust the boundaries as needed.

The exercise for today is to define your "narrow road" and your "wider road". The wider road might be for when you are at maintenance or it could be for times that it is too difficult to stay on your narrow road for any number of reasons. With the wider road, you allow yourself a little more leeway but you still stay on the road.

My narrow road looks like this:

• Stay within my points target every day.
• Journal every bite of food.
• Exercise 5 times per week.
• Abstain from sweets.
• Pack my lunch for work every day.
• Cook a healthy dinner each evening.

Now on an ordinary, run-of-the-mill day, I can stay on this narrow road without extraordinary effort. But life happens sometimes and I don't always have all the time I would like to stay on the narrow road. In the past what this meant was it was completely wheels off. During times that I was working long hours and going to school at night I would just throw my weightloss goals out the window. My all-or-nothing thinking let me believe that if I couldn't stay on the narrow road then I might as well go off completely in the ditch.

Defining a wider road will allow me to have a "Plan B", so to speak. I can go a little easier on myself when the situation calls for it without going hog-wild and pig-crazy, as my favorite little granny would say. So the wider road I will follow during those extra busy times is:

• Make every effort to stay within my points but if I don't or can't, I will continue to track my points anyway so that I don't completely lose awareness of how much I am eating.
• If I stop tracking my points for any reason I will start again as soon as practicable regardless of if it is in the middle of a week or even the middle of a day.
• If time constraints with work or school keep me from exercising 5 times per week I will at least get up and walk for 5-10 minutes during my lunch hour.
• If I choose to have sweets I will eat them in a measured portion and count the points. For example, no more Ben and Jerry's right out of the carton!
• If I don't have time to pack my lunch or cook a meal at the end of the day, I will opt for the healthiest choice I can: Subway, grilled chicken sandwich with a side salad, etc.

What I have learned so far in these 4 days is that it is really easy to say you are going to do all these things but quite another to actually do them. This book is not a magic bullet. But I think over time it will help that I am spending a few minutes each day thinking about these things and writing about them. Reading your comments help too. I take great inspiration from others who are fighting the good fight too.

Day 3: Do It Anyway

Today's reading was an extension of the idea of committment. Basically if you are COMMITTED to losing weight, you will stick with your plans no matter what and do what you need to do even if you don't feel like doing it. If you are committed you DO IT ANYWAY regardless of whether you want to or not.

This brings to mind parenting a child. I don't have a child, but I once was a child as we all were. I can remember lots of times I didn't want to do something that I needed to do. Good parents will make you do it anyway. Conversations I remember were something like these:

"I don't wanna go to school today."
"It doesn't matter if you don't want to, you have to go anyway"

"I don't want to take the medicine."
"If you want to get well you have to take it anyway."

"I don't want to brush my teeth."
"Unless you want your teeth to fall out you have to brush them anyway."

What kind of parent would say, "Oh, you don't want to go to school? OK, you can just stay home and not learn anything." A crappy one, that's what kind.

It's time I did a better job parenting my willful inner child that doesn't feel like doing the things that are good for her. After all, in the end I was quite grateful tht I was sent to school, given my medicine, and made to brush my teeth. And in the end I will be grateful that I did what I needed to do for my health even when I didn't want to. (Strangely enough, I just remembered I wrote about disciplining my inner child in a previous blog post....hmmmm, maybe I should take my own advice once in awhile.)

Some health and weightloss tasks I tend to not feel like doing are logging my food, packing healthy lunches for work, cooking healthy dinners at night, and getting up before work to exercise. So tomorrow, even if I don't feel like it, I am going to do the following things anyway:

• Log every bite of food
• Get up at 5:30 and do 20 minutes of cardio (by the way, this was a goal for today to and, yes, I did it!)
• Pack a healthy lunch to take to work.
• Take a chicken breast out of the freezer tonight so I can bake it with some veggies tomorrow night for dinner.

What things do you not feel like doing but need to do anyway???

Day 2: Interested or Committed?

Today I ask myself if I am interested in weightloss or if I am committed to weightloss. Right now, I guess I'd have to say I am only interested. According to today's reading, being just interested means that interest can slip away quickly as soon as something more interesting comes along....like a box of donuts! You fall into "if only" thinking. In my case, if only I didn't have such a stressful job, if only I weren't in school, if only I had a weight loss buddy to push me, if only I had someone to cook all my meals, if only I had a personal trainer. Blah! It's all a bunch of excuses. And you know what they say about excuses don't you? That's right, everyone has one!

On the other hand, being committed means sticking to your plan no matter what. The assignment for today is to describe how I will stick to my plan no matter what and to do at least one thing today (well, tomorrow, since it's 10PM now) to demonstrate I am truly committed.

• I will exercise 5 times per week. Even when I am busy at work or working late I can take at least 10 minutes to go for a walk. In fact, that would make me feel better on those stressful days. So I commit to 5 days of exercise per week NO MATTER WHAT.
• I will drink at least 2 BIG glasses of water while at work instead of so many Diet Cokes. We have filtered water and an ice machine that makes that really good crunchy ice like they have at Sonic so it's actually fun to drink water at work. I will drink it NO MATTER WHAT.
• I will stop and think why I want to eat before I actually do NO MATTER WHAT.
• If I do choose fast food for lunch I will order it with a side salad instead of fries NO MATTER WHAT.
• I will keep fruits, veggies, and yogurts stocked in my house at all times NO MATTER WHAT.
• My health will always be my top priority. This means getting the sleep that I need, making time for exercise, grocery shopping, and meal preparation. My health is my priority NO MATTER WHAT.

Tomorrow, the one thing I will do to prove that I am truly committed is to get up earlier and do 20 minutes of exercise before I go to work.

Day 1: I Used to Be That Way...

Natalia over at Embracing My Weightloss Journey turned me onto the book "100 Days of Weightloss." It's a daily motivational book with some exercises in it to help keep you committed to your journey. Starting today I am committing to working the exercises in this book each day for 100 days.

Day 1 is all about making a new ending for yourself by listing fears or negative behaviors that caused you to fail on your diet in the past, and then making up a new ending for yourself.

So here goes....

• I used to let the stress at work cause me to hit the vending machines, but now I step outside for a minute to get a breath of fresh air to calm me.
• I used to succumb daily to the habit of mindlessly snacking at work, but now I think before I eat and only feed myself when I am hungry.
• I used to skip workouts because I was too busy or too tired but now I make my rest and my exercise a priority always.
• I used to opt for fast food lunches, but now I take the time to stock my house with nutritious things to pack my own lunch everyday.
• I used to drink way too many Diet Cokes each day, but now I keep a big glass of ice water on my desk at all times.
• I used to want to finish each meal with sweets, but now I am satisfied with a piece of fruit or some yogurt.
• I used to go through the drive-throughs often on my way home from work, but now I first remind myself that there are quick and easy things I can eat at home instead.
• I used to eat while working, reading, watching TV, surfing the net, but now I focus only on my food and enjoy what I am eating.