What I'm Working on This Week

In the book The Complete Beck Diet for Life, the author lists a bunch of success skills that she believes are essential to getting a handle on healthy living. I'm not going to slavishly accept the whole list or knock myself out to follow her program since mindless rule-following or "depend on the expert" thinking is not what I'm after here, but there are a couple of her ideas that I want to implement this week.

1. Weigh myself daily. This is one I'm kind of taking on faith since I don't have strong feelings about weigh-ins one way or the other. I've done it weekly, daily, twice weekly, monthly, you name it. And I don't see much difference in the effect either way. Her reason for daily weighing is to acknowledge the fact that weight fluctuates, the body has natural ups and downs, and weight is simply information one uses to determine a course of action, not a "grade" indicating success or failure. She wants to end the tyranny of Scale Caesar Disgustus, who strikes fear into every heart and can ruin a day with one little thumbs-down, and she wants to make sure there's no hiding from reality. I can buy that, so I'm weighing every day. Today my weight was 169.

2. Motivate myself daily. I lose steam quickly and need a boost. That's what this blog is all about. I found some blogs to read that look like they might be helpful, too, but I have to guard against going nutso and spending all my time reading or writing. I have a life besides this, and the inability to balance it is why I end up fat every Dec. 31st. I'm also prone to reading, writing, and thinking instead of DOING, so I have to be careful.

3. Get moving. Back to the treadmill for me. On decent days (does northern Illinois have them in January?) I'll walk outside. I'm starting with cardio and stretching. The goal is 6 days, 45 minutes each day.

4. Write down what I eat. I hate doing this, but everybody says it helps, so I'll do it.

5. Eat slowly while sitting down and enjoying every bite. This is the absolute killer. Virtually all my extra calories are consumed on my feet or while I'm doing something else like reading or being at the computer. I could feed small nations with what I scarf down in the kitchen. Half the pleasure of eating is the connection it has to other things. What's a movie without popcorn? What's a good book without m&m's? Sitting there doing nothing at a table is just boring and feels like a waste of time. Even when I was a kid, I never ate breakfast without reading the entire cereal box. This is going to be a major toughie, especially once I go back to work next week and will have to plan carefully to avoid eating on the run. But that's my commitment: eat slowly while sitting down.

The last one isn't a daily one. I just need to find a diet buddy. I'm too good at lying to myself and avoiding hard truths to go it successfully alone. I don't know who to ask, though. I'm not really a people person, so the choice is a big deal to me. But somebody is better than nobody, so I'm on the hunt for somebody and I'm gearing up my gumption to ask.

Onward!