Good Evening!

Surprise!! I am posting this evening. My husband is out getting his hair cut so I have some computer time this evening !! The rain held out until later this evening if I would have known that I would have walked outside today. Oh well! I did get my cardio session none the less.
I read a blog about some one talking about Food Should Not Taste Good Chips and when I saw them a Whole Foods the last time I was there I thought I would give them a try. They are quite crunchy and good not sure I will be getting the chocolate next time but I will definately try another kind.


For lunch today I hadn't had a Bocca Burger in awhile so I thought I would have that for lunch. I mixed up a half of an avacado, salsh and fresh cilantro and spread that on a Arnold Thin Bun. I served it with a ounce of the chips and a small bowl of fruit. Everything was quite good!!

I was not planning on having the chips and fruit for lunch but when I figure out the calorie total for just the a Bocca Burger on a bun I wasn't sure it was going to be enough to hold me over.

This lunch keeping full right up until dinner so there was no need for a snack. How weird is that not hungry for a snack? But I have been trying to really listen to my body and it didn't give me any indication that I needing anything else so I didn't eat. That was a nice change.

Dinner was one of my new favorites: Polenta Pizza Bake. Oh this one is so good. I was even able to let my daughter sample it eventhough I really didn't want to. She really liked it and I will have to add the recipe to her recipe book I am making for her.

Here is a copy of the book I mention earlier this morning. I was pleased to get some feed back from you about this topic. I was able to really focus on eating slow while sitting and enjoying my food today. I will be sure to give myself from credit for that today. Since some of you showed interested in this topic I thought I would share some.

One of the tasks in the book is to make what they call response cards. These are 3X5 cards with important message you need to remember. It is a big part of the book and you need to read these card each and every day.

Here are three sabotaging thought we often think and the response cards that are made for each on of these. I think you will find this quite interesting.

1. Dieting should be easy and short term

It's not wonder people have such crazy ideas about weight loss. Magazines articles, TV segments, books, Web sites, commercials and advertisements continually tell you that you can lose weight quickly and without much effort. Well, they are partially correct: If you want to crash-diet and lose some weight in just a few days or weeks, you can. But you won't keep it off. So soon as you begin to eat more calories, you will start to gain back weight. It's a biological certainty.

Here's the truth: Dieting is usually pretty easy at first, when you are highly motivated and see your weight going down fairly quickly. But then it gets harder. And this is true for everyone. Unless you have learned the thinking and behavioral skills you need, you are likely to give up when dieting becomes more difficult because you won't know how to motivate yourself to push through. There's a good news, though: Hard times always pass, and as you keep practicing and mastering skills, dieting gets easier and easier and easier. True, from time to time, dieting will temporarily become more challenging, but every time you push through, it will get easier again.

Achieving success at dieting is just like achieving success in other aspects of your life. You may have to face challenges and overcome obstacles if your goal is to advance in your career, keep a presentable home, ,maintain your good health, enrich your marriage, or raise healthy children. But the rewards are so great.

To continue to remind yourself of these important concepts make the following response card.

The only way to lose weight permanently is to learn dieting skills and practice them every day. Then dieting will get easier and easier.

2. This is too much work; I don't feel like learning all of these skills. I don't feel like following my eating plan.

Many dieters have a rebellious side that can seriously impeded their ability to lose weight permanently. If they leave this kind of sabotaging thought unchallenged, they are certain to fail in their long-term weight-loss efforts. They may be able to lose some weight, but they won't be able to keep it off.

When dieters express this sabotaging thought, I ask them what their goal is. Is it to do what they feel like doing? Or is it to lose weight for good? These two goals are NOT compatible. Dieters can't have it both ways. Since they always say their goal is to lose weight, I ask them to reflect on their past dieting experiences. Has NOT learning these skills led to lasting weight loss? Unless they change their approach, is there some reason that makes dieters think this time will be different?

I frequently give dieters the following analogy: If you had strep throat, would you take only half of each pill the doctor prescribed? Of course NOT. You'd know that half a pill wouldn't work well enough. It's the same with dieting skills. Picking and choosing what you feel like doing just won't work. You need the full dose. You have to practice ALL of your skills over and over until they become automatic. At that point, dieting will become so much easier. It will require so much less time and effort.

Struggling over whether or not to make yourself practice the skills can be exhausting. You need to put the decision in the NO CHOICE category. Essentially you make the choice not to give yourself a choice. You decided to commit to the program wholeheartedly and to practice the skills whether or not you FEEL like doing them. You decided to follow your eating plan at every meal and at every snack, whether or not you FEEL like doing so.

You have already put lots of other tasks in a NO CHOICE category-at least, I hope you have. I hope you don't struggle over whether to brush your teeth, wear a seat belt, and stop at traffic lights. i hope it is irrelevant to you whether or not you FEEL like doing these things; you do them no matter what. Now, you have to add practicing your diet skills and following your eating plan to this category-if you want to be successful in losing excess weight permanently.

Once you accept that you need to practice every skill each day, and follow your eating plan(every meal and every snack) each day, you end the struggle and you increase the odds exponentially that you will lose excess weight and keep it off forever.

Make the following Response Card:

I'm choosing to say NO CHOICE. If I want to lose weight, I have to do what I need to do, not what I feel like doing.

3. It isn't fair. Other people eat whatever they want.

You may know a few thin people who SEEM to be able to eat whatever they want, whenever they want. I wish I could wave a magic wand and grant you the ability to eat whatever you want and still lose weight. But to lose weight permanently, you will have to limit your portions forever. The moment you start eating too many calories is the moment you start gaining weight. But you're not alone in this! It's true for every dieter and maintainer-myself included.

Most thin people DON'T eat whatever they want. Most think people are CAREFUL. They continually restrict their eating.

Barbara recently told me that she felt jealous of her sister-in-law, Lauren, because Lauren didn't have to diet. I asked Barbara to pay attention to what Lauren ate. Barbara observed her for several weeks. She discovered that Lauren often left food on her plate. She ate dessert only infrequently and, even then, had just a few bites. At restaurants, Lauren ordered only a main course and often ate half the portions she was served. Barbara later asked Lauren why she ate that way. It was a revelation to Barbara to learn that her sister-in-law consciously limited her eating to avoid gaining weight.

In reality, most people restrict their eating to some degree. When I give workshops on dieting to professionals, I often ask the audience members to stand up. I question, "How many of you eat whatever you want, whenever you want, in whatever quantity you want?" I ask those that do to remain standing and everyone else to sit down. In response, about three-quarters of the audience sits. Then I say, "Would any of you eat more red meat, fried foods, chips, ice cream, pizza, or sweets if there were no negative consequences-for your weight or health? If so, please sit down." Almost everyone else sits down at that point. In audiences of nearly 150 people, it turns out that only one or two people actually eat whatever they want, whenever they want, in whatever quantities they want.

I continually restrict my eating because I prefer being thinner. I follow the eating program in this book. I usually skip hor d'oeuvres and dessert. I , I would rather eat chocolate all day.

If you compare yourself with people who eat more than you do, you will feel continually resentful and deprived. You will experience a sense of unfairness that will sap your motivation. Instead, you need to compare yourself with people who are successful dieting and maintaining. You can be sure they are restricting their eating, too.

Please make the following Response Card to address this issue:

When dieting seems unfair, remind myself that I'm not alone. This is how all successful dieters and maintainers eat. I have a choice. I can let a sense of unfairness overwhelm me, cheat on my diet, and gain weight. Or I can accept that this is what I have to do if I want all of the benefits of permanent weight loss.

Please remember that everything I wrote is actually taken out of the book, the complete Beck diet for life by Judith S. Beck Ph.D and is not my words.

I would love to hear your thought on this.