You are complete. It is time to organize all the behavioral changes and choices that you've made these past three months into a Monday through Friday style of living that you can sustain over the long term. As with each of the weekly challenges you've engaged, your weekends are celebratory. Don't binge, but do enjoy the things that you normally restrict during the week.
This final week of the Never on Sunday program, we'll track our behavior in much the same way that we did in our first week's exercise, "Written in Stone". We'll apply all that we've practiced thus far and record our success at each of this week's meals. So you'll once again need to carry a little notebook or electronic recording device. In addition to noting the time you eat, the particular foods and the quantity of each, you'll add a fourth column in which you'll record any of the eleven numbers below that pertain to that meal (you will need to carry a copy of this list so that you may make the appropriate entries):
1. If you're logging this information while eating rather than waiting until after the meal, enter the #1.
2. If you put down the fork between bites
3. When you count your bites until full and stop eating at that point
4. When you give a mental satisfaction rating to each component of your meal
5. If you make a deliberate attempt to reduce external stimuli at the meal
6. When you divide the meal in half and delay eating the second portion
7. Add the #7 when the meal is part of a palm-size only portion in a day of grazing
8. When your only beverage at the meal is water
9. Vegetarian
10. When the meal omits starches and dairy
11. When the meal is primarily liquid.
For example, here's what my lunch looked like today.
7/4/10 1:00 PM 1 1/2 cups Fried Calamari, 1 pint beer
#s 1,2,3,5,10
The #s indicate that I wrote it down (1), put my fork down between bites (2), counted my bites and quit when full (3), sat outside and kept quiet (5), ate no bread or dairy with the meal (10).
Make it Real:
If you want to relax your discipline for Friday night repasts, then you could call Friday at sundown the beginning of your weekend. However, in that case, your more carefully studied and controlled weekday eating begins at sundown on Sunday.
If this kind of awareness and regulation of your weekday diet is going to stick with you, what changes to the diet or to your usual eating behavior have to be made?
Food for Thought:
Review the #s at the end of the week. Which tasks or changes did you avoid? Are there some that might contribute to your weight loss success?
Is there a behavioral eating challenge that you'd like to add to the dozen listed on this blog? You can create your own and offer it as a suggestion, addition or improvement to those described here.
Consider giving this diet system a rest period and then trying it again, perhaps with a friend or group of friends who might support, inspire and team up with you in your effort. Your will power can increase with every twelve-week round of effort.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Week XI: Starved for Clarity
A weight loss goal is a problem of luxury, a matter of abundance. The poorest people of the world would love to have the problem. This week we will get to know real hunger. We will fast on clear liquids only. Now that's an extreme and unhealthy experiment, so the value will come with our choice of modifications. Short fasts are used as spiritual practices and as ways to cleanse the body of toxins. Besides gaining control over our hunger, our purpose here is to disrupt our eating patterns by taking a break from food. You may want to schedule a periodic day of fasting as a way to regularly renew your volition.
Make it Real:
The first modification is to broaden the definition of clear liquids. Soups are excellent examples. The question is how far to vary from the extreme of drinking only the broth. Vegetable soup makes sense, but the addition of noodles or rice detracts from our aim.
Next, you could chose to consume mostly clear liquids, but allow small quantities of solid food alongside the watery main course. This becomes a matter of thinking ahead and making a list of acceptable supplements. A small portion of protein will lessen the sense of urgency about your hunger, but crackers with your soup? Not a great match for this challenge.
The other alterations to the full week of fasting are to engage the diet only every other day, say Monday, Wednesday and Friday, or to shift into the clear liquid diet for only one or two meals a day rather than abstain from solid food all day long. If that is your choice, dinner rather than breakfast is the better option as a replacement for weight loss.
Looking at my week ahead, I plan to make Monday's dinner liquid. On Tuesday I'll omit solid food at lunch. Wednesday I'll eat sensibly but I won't participate in the challenge. I'll make both lunch and dinner a liquid only fast on Thursday; and my only full day of fasting will be Friday.
Food for Thought:
How and when does hunger get the best of you? Preparation is key. When you're going to give in to it, do you have plentiful healthy foods at hand?
Does the experience of real hunger increase your awareness or control of too frequent snacking?
If you decide to replace only one or two meals with liquid on any given day, do you overeat at the remaining meal in order to compensate?
Do you add fried foods, sugar, or alcohol to an empty stomach?
Make it Real:
The first modification is to broaden the definition of clear liquids. Soups are excellent examples. The question is how far to vary from the extreme of drinking only the broth. Vegetable soup makes sense, but the addition of noodles or rice detracts from our aim.
Next, you could chose to consume mostly clear liquids, but allow small quantities of solid food alongside the watery main course. This becomes a matter of thinking ahead and making a list of acceptable supplements. A small portion of protein will lessen the sense of urgency about your hunger, but crackers with your soup? Not a great match for this challenge.
The other alterations to the full week of fasting are to engage the diet only every other day, say Monday, Wednesday and Friday, or to shift into the clear liquid diet for only one or two meals a day rather than abstain from solid food all day long. If that is your choice, dinner rather than breakfast is the better option as a replacement for weight loss.
Looking at my week ahead, I plan to make Monday's dinner liquid. On Tuesday I'll omit solid food at lunch. Wednesday I'll eat sensibly but I won't participate in the challenge. I'll make both lunch and dinner a liquid only fast on Thursday; and my only full day of fasting will be Friday.
Food for Thought:
How and when does hunger get the best of you? Preparation is key. When you're going to give in to it, do you have plentiful healthy foods at hand?
Does the experience of real hunger increase your awareness or control of too frequent snacking?
If you decide to replace only one or two meals with liquid on any given day, do you overeat at the remaining meal in order to compensate?
Do you add fried foods, sugar, or alcohol to an empty stomach?
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Week X: White Out
The next two diets are extreme examples of will power. Neither are realistic or long term ways of eating. Instead they represent opportunities to demonstrate your volition and to modify challenges in ways that will work in your present life. Since adherence to the absolute discipline proposed by this week's diet "White Out" is unlikely to work, might even be unhealthy, you must alter the challenge and adopt it to your needs.
This week we omit all white foods, specifically dairy, starches and sugar. A list of white foods includes: milk and all milk products however colored they might be by fruit or later processes, potato, rice, pasta and anything made with flour or sugar. The point is to avoid refined carbohydrates and milk fat.
Make it Real:
The important part of this week's challenge is your choice of modification. It is important to the success of this endeavor that you take a moment to foresee possible pitfalls and decide beforehand how you'll meet them. Compromise is not failure if you've made it part of your strategy.
One modification for this extreme diet is to only undertake it every other day of the week, three days out of the five weekdays.
Another strategy is to choose just one or two white foods that most impacts your current diet. For instance, if you know that your downfall is french fries, remove that item. If it's bread that is usually the undoing of your best laid plans then take that one food out of this week's meals.
Yet another possible adjustment to the White Out diet is to limit the time of day in which you will engage the diet rather than hold to the challenge for every meal. Breakfast foods are typically composed of cereals, breads and dairy, so rather than fight to find an alternative to that meal, you might take on the White Out challenge only from noon onward.
Food for Thought:
As the week begins, have you a plan in mind that tailors this diet to your life, or are you improvising your modifications? Chances are, diet compromises grasped at the last minute haven't worked well or consistently in your past.
Have you selected the most difficult or the easiest white foods to eliminate from this week's meals?
Conversely, have you taken on more than you can handle? A slide into failure is more damaging than commitment to a smaller but more attainable task.
Notice on which side you find yourself when a food is "almost" white. Bread that appears dark, but is made from white flour for instance. Do you eat it or do you tell yourself, "When in doubt, leave it out"?
This week we omit all white foods, specifically dairy, starches and sugar. A list of white foods includes: milk and all milk products however colored they might be by fruit or later processes, potato, rice, pasta and anything made with flour or sugar. The point is to avoid refined carbohydrates and milk fat.
Make it Real:
The important part of this week's challenge is your choice of modification. It is important to the success of this endeavor that you take a moment to foresee possible pitfalls and decide beforehand how you'll meet them. Compromise is not failure if you've made it part of your strategy.
One modification for this extreme diet is to only undertake it every other day of the week, three days out of the five weekdays.
Another strategy is to choose just one or two white foods that most impacts your current diet. For instance, if you know that your downfall is french fries, remove that item. If it's bread that is usually the undoing of your best laid plans then take that one food out of this week's meals.
Yet another possible adjustment to the White Out diet is to limit the time of day in which you will engage the diet rather than hold to the challenge for every meal. Breakfast foods are typically composed of cereals, breads and dairy, so rather than fight to find an alternative to that meal, you might take on the White Out challenge only from noon onward.
Food for Thought:
As the week begins, have you a plan in mind that tailors this diet to your life, or are you improvising your modifications? Chances are, diet compromises grasped at the last minute haven't worked well or consistently in your past.
Have you selected the most difficult or the easiest white foods to eliminate from this week's meals?
Conversely, have you taken on more than you can handle? A slide into failure is more damaging than commitment to a smaller but more attainable task.
Notice on which side you find yourself when a food is "almost" white. Bread that appears dark, but is made from white flour for instance. Do you eat it or do you tell yourself, "When in doubt, leave it out"?
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Week IX: Faceless Food
Last week we pumped up our intake of water. This week we increase our fresh fruit and vegetables. For the next five days we become vegetarians. People choose the lifestyle for a variety of reasons. There's the global/political rational that the resources devoted to raising food animals would feed all the world's hungy if everyone ate plants instead of animals. Some folks decline to eat animals on moral grounds, "I never eat anything that used to have a face," and others don't eat meat for health and hygiene reasons.
Farmed animals may live and/or be slaughtered under unsanitary conditions. Medications that are used to accelerate growth or to combat disease in animals may end up on your plate. Toxins present in cows and chickens pass the poisons to their mild and eggs. Dietary cholesterol is found only in animal products.
To know the vibrancy and healthy skin of a true vegetarian, we'd have to adhere to the diet everyday until the toxins from consumed animal products dissipated from our bodies. Here we experiment with the discipline for only five days; and for that reason we will refrain not only from eating beef, but from anything that used to have a face.
Make it Real:
As these diet plans progress, we face more and more difficult challenges that require greater preparation and change in food choices. Therefore, if you are already a vegetarian, this wee become a vegan and quit all animal products altogether, including milk, cheese, yogurt, eggs, butter and any baked goods that list dairy among their ingredients.
If you can foresee meals at which you are likely to slip and eat an animal, consider minimizing the compromise. Perhaps becoming a pescatarian (fish eating) this week is enough change and challenge for you.
When you find yourself giving in to temptation and eating meat, at least make sure that you also include a large quantity of vegetables in the meal.
Food for Thought:
Consider how you feel after your meatless meal. Lighter than usual? Less drowsy?
Does the grocery or restaurant bill decrease?
With regards to preparation, how do you approach this challenge? Do you ready yourself with vegetarian cookbooks and include tofu and tempeh or other alternatives when shopping? Is advanced planning lacking from other commitments in your life?
Farmed animals may live and/or be slaughtered under unsanitary conditions. Medications that are used to accelerate growth or to combat disease in animals may end up on your plate. Toxins present in cows and chickens pass the poisons to their mild and eggs. Dietary cholesterol is found only in animal products.
To know the vibrancy and healthy skin of a true vegetarian, we'd have to adhere to the diet everyday until the toxins from consumed animal products dissipated from our bodies. Here we experiment with the discipline for only five days; and for that reason we will refrain not only from eating beef, but from anything that used to have a face.
Make it Real:
As these diet plans progress, we face more and more difficult challenges that require greater preparation and change in food choices. Therefore, if you are already a vegetarian, this wee become a vegan and quit all animal products altogether, including milk, cheese, yogurt, eggs, butter and any baked goods that list dairy among their ingredients.
If you can foresee meals at which you are likely to slip and eat an animal, consider minimizing the compromise. Perhaps becoming a pescatarian (fish eating) this week is enough change and challenge for you.
When you find yourself giving in to temptation and eating meat, at least make sure that you also include a large quantity of vegetables in the meal.
Food for Thought:
Consider how you feel after your meatless meal. Lighter than usual? Less drowsy?
Does the grocery or restaurant bill decrease?
With regards to preparation, how do you approach this challenge? Do you ready yourself with vegetarian cookbooks and include tofu and tempeh or other alternatives when shopping? Is advanced planning lacking from other commitments in your life?
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Week VIII: How Dry I Am
The primary point of this challenge is to disrupt your automatic eating pattern, but instead of mounting a direct attack on your preferred foods, we'll enter through the back door, via your choice of beverages.
Every diet advocates drinking plenty of water, to help fill you up, to flush toxins from your system and to hydrate your cells. This week we address the fluids you consume. We replace all your beverages with just one -- water. The big three liquids that we want to avoid this week are coffee, soda and alcohol. Alcohol is the first beverage to replace with water. If you don't like the taste of alcohol and it already doesn't figure in your diet, then take aim at replacing coffee or soda.
Make It Real:
You may want to begin with replacing just one of your favorite beverages instead of all three. Start with alcohol.
It's okay to flavor the water with citrus or tea. If you go this route, omit sweeteners like sugar and honey, and thickeners like milk.
If you have a beloved ritual such as a couple sharing coffee in bed, allow yourself one cup to celebrate the morning together.
If an entire day of foregoing your favorite drink feels impossible or destined to fail, try shifting to water replacement for just half the day.
As an alternative to eliminating a specific beverage, you could simply add water in great quantity to your other fluids. Nine glasses a day is not too much to ask.
Food for Thought:
Do you associate pleasure or luxury with your favorite drink? "The meal just isn't the same without my glass of wine." Has becoming a connoisseur of certain kind of beverage made you associate your self-image with a certain drink?
Does this exercise help you recognize how little plain water you consume on average?
Could it be true that the bulk of your excess calories are not found on your plate, but in your glass?
Are you surprised by how difficult it is to limit your drinking to water for just five days and evenings?
What other elements of your life might benefit by a week of doing without?
Every diet advocates drinking plenty of water, to help fill you up, to flush toxins from your system and to hydrate your cells. This week we address the fluids you consume. We replace all your beverages with just one -- water. The big three liquids that we want to avoid this week are coffee, soda and alcohol. Alcohol is the first beverage to replace with water. If you don't like the taste of alcohol and it already doesn't figure in your diet, then take aim at replacing coffee or soda.
Make It Real:
You may want to begin with replacing just one of your favorite beverages instead of all three. Start with alcohol.
It's okay to flavor the water with citrus or tea. If you go this route, omit sweeteners like sugar and honey, and thickeners like milk.
If you have a beloved ritual such as a couple sharing coffee in bed, allow yourself one cup to celebrate the morning together.
If an entire day of foregoing your favorite drink feels impossible or destined to fail, try shifting to water replacement for just half the day.
As an alternative to eliminating a specific beverage, you could simply add water in great quantity to your other fluids. Nine glasses a day is not too much to ask.
Food for Thought:
Do you associate pleasure or luxury with your favorite drink? "The meal just isn't the same without my glass of wine." Has becoming a connoisseur of certain kind of beverage made you associate your self-image with a certain drink?
Does this exercise help you recognize how little plain water you consume on average?
Could it be true that the bulk of your excess calories are not found on your plate, but in your glass?
Are you surprised by how difficult it is to limit your drinking to water for just five days and evenings?
What other elements of your life might benefit by a week of doing without?
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Week VII: Time After Time
Last week you divided your portions in half. This week we go one step further, shrinking our portions so that we can graze. Our challenge is to eat a palm-sized portion of food every two hours. For those who start their day around 6:00 AM and finish about 8:00 PM that means eating eight small meals.
The intention here is to experience dieting not only as avoiding certain foods, but also as a commitment to eating at regular intervals so that you don't binge. Our aim is to balance the consumption of food evenly throughout the day, not eat a standard portion-sized meal and then a snack two hours later. You may find yourself deliberately eating when you're not hungry.
You could execute this challenge with pre-packaged convenience foods, but you know that isn't a proper way to eat. Thus, this week involves a great deal of preparation, and for some of you, a great many to-go, plastic containers. At restaurant meals, you will be ordering only an appetizer and beverage. Even the side salad will be too large a portion.
Make it Real:
Look at your week in advance. This exercise may not be realistic every day of this week. You can elect to omit certain days from the challenge. Perhaps three days Monday, Wednesday and Friday, rather than the full five will give you enough of a sense of grazing as an eating lifestyle.
You will have to go shopping for foods that will keep in small containers and you will have to store them somewhere near your person. Most work places do not support such frequent eating breaks. If eating on the job is not possible, you will have to consider where you'll go to eat your mini-meals.
If you can't master the change of schedule the first day you try it, please don't throw up your hands and quit. Modify the challenge and try other food options the next day. Think of this challenge as an experiment rather than a test.
Food for Thought:
Do you eat full meals even though you know you'll be eating again in two hours? Obviously this challenge can take you in the opposite direction from your intended weight loss.
Do you count a bag of chips or an ice cream as one of your meals? Now you KNOW that's ridiculous.
When you forget or get too busy to eat at the two-hour mark, do you double up on the next meal, allowing yourself a full portion because you erred earlier?
Do you see the advanced planning and food preparation as drudgery, or as gaining skills that will contribute to a new and healthy eating habits for years to come?
The intention here is to experience dieting not only as avoiding certain foods, but also as a commitment to eating at regular intervals so that you don't binge. Our aim is to balance the consumption of food evenly throughout the day, not eat a standard portion-sized meal and then a snack two hours later. You may find yourself deliberately eating when you're not hungry.
You could execute this challenge with pre-packaged convenience foods, but you know that isn't a proper way to eat. Thus, this week involves a great deal of preparation, and for some of you, a great many to-go, plastic containers. At restaurant meals, you will be ordering only an appetizer and beverage. Even the side salad will be too large a portion.
Make it Real:
Look at your week in advance. This exercise may not be realistic every day of this week. You can elect to omit certain days from the challenge. Perhaps three days Monday, Wednesday and Friday, rather than the full five will give you enough of a sense of grazing as an eating lifestyle.
You will have to go shopping for foods that will keep in small containers and you will have to store them somewhere near your person. Most work places do not support such frequent eating breaks. If eating on the job is not possible, you will have to consider where you'll go to eat your mini-meals.
If you can't master the change of schedule the first day you try it, please don't throw up your hands and quit. Modify the challenge and try other food options the next day. Think of this challenge as an experiment rather than a test.
Food for Thought:
Do you eat full meals even though you know you'll be eating again in two hours? Obviously this challenge can take you in the opposite direction from your intended weight loss.
Do you count a bag of chips or an ice cream as one of your meals? Now you KNOW that's ridiculous.
When you forget or get too busy to eat at the two-hour mark, do you double up on the next meal, allowing yourself a full portion because you erred earlier?
Do you see the advanced planning and food preparation as drudgery, or as gaining skills that will contribute to a new and healthy eating habits for years to come?
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Week VI: Half Way There
We have arrived at the mid-point of our twelve-week diet program. It is time for assessment and an intermission. This week your assignment is to divide your portions in two and then wait a full ten minutes before eating or drinking the second half of your meal. Yes, the soup will get cold. The ice cream will melt. Our intention is to reduce portion size for good. You may elect to eat all or just a small amount of the second half, but your aim during the intermission is to confirm that you've already eaten enough. Instead of just cleaving the single plated portion in two, dirty an extra plate right from the start. Set the second half aside for later. It makes the decision to eat the remainder of your meal clear and dramatic.
Thus far the Never on Sunday diet has targeted your awareness but has not demanded any change in what you eat. The desired effect is a shift in attitude so that you are prepared for permanent behavioral change. The remaining six diet challenges test your control and ask you to alter your food choices. Advanced planning and preparation will be necessary in order to assure your success. Modifications to this week's challenge, also made in advance, will likewise sustain your sense of control.
Make it Real:
When rushed at meal time, you can abbreviate the intermission to five minutes instead of ten.
Having a to-go container at the table, before you sit down, is a smart addition.
Breakfast foods don't divide or travel well. You may want to allot yourself only half a bowl of cereal or half a cup of coffee at a time.
Food For Thought:
After the ten-minute intermission, once the dish gets cold, do you finish the entire portion anyway?
Do you cheat by giving yourself an extra large portion at the start so that eating half still assures you a lot of food?
Have you discovered a growing sense of control? Are you eager to apply your skills toward diet modifications that might reduce calorie consumption?
Does the addition of exercise now appeal?
Thus far the Never on Sunday diet has targeted your awareness but has not demanded any change in what you eat. The desired effect is a shift in attitude so that you are prepared for permanent behavioral change. The remaining six diet challenges test your control and ask you to alter your food choices. Advanced planning and preparation will be necessary in order to assure your success. Modifications to this week's challenge, also made in advance, will likewise sustain your sense of control.
Make it Real:
When rushed at meal time, you can abbreviate the intermission to five minutes instead of ten.
Having a to-go container at the table, before you sit down, is a smart addition.
Breakfast foods don't divide or travel well. You may want to allot yourself only half a bowl of cereal or half a cup of coffee at a time.
Food For Thought:
After the ten-minute intermission, once the dish gets cold, do you finish the entire portion anyway?
Do you cheat by giving yourself an extra large portion at the start so that eating half still assures you a lot of food?
Have you discovered a growing sense of control? Are you eager to apply your skills toward diet modifications that might reduce calorie consumption?
Does the addition of exercise now appeal?
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