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?
Sunday, June 6, 2010
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?
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Week V: The Silent Treatment
Last week you savored and rated the taste, smell, temperature and texture of your food. This week you'll appreciate its sound. Snap, crackle, pop! The challenge is to eat in silence.
This exercise makes the meal a meditation, a mini retreat. You will take a moment each day to step away from a world where the pace of change frequently accelerates. Not only will you not talk while you eat, you'll not listen to anything else, just your own chew and swallow, no television, radio or other auditory stimuli. Silence.
Make it Real:
Not every meal may accommodate silence this week. You'll have to choose your battles, the meals in which you can realistically keep quiet. How many times per day, and on which days of the week, can you arrange to be silent in a place without auditory stimuli? Three meals a day in silence may be impossible for those of you who do business over lunch. Can you manage (commit) to two or even just one a day for five days? If not, decide ahead of time which meals on which days can engage this challenge.
Total silence may not be possible, but that doesn't mean you can't limit conversation or those sources of sound over which you have influence. The greater point is that you must make a change, assert yourself and go beyond convenience. You could eat your main dish prior to a social meal or shortly after, and just enjoy an appetizer and beverage during the conversational rendezvous.
If breakfast and lunch require a noisy environment, and you typically eat with a family or spouse at dinner time, you may have to excuse yourself and eat alone in another room this week. Whether you explain your diet program or not, leaving the family table, or turning off the stereo or television, (even if it's only thirty-minutes to an hour), may prove to be a helpful practice and demonstration of declaring your personal boundaries.
What do you notice about the qualities of the meal and your eating behavior when you have nothing else upon which to focus?
What happens when you assert yourself in a way that requires change in your lifestyle and impacts others? Who complains the loudest?
This exercise makes the meal a meditation, a mini retreat. You will take a moment each day to step away from a world where the pace of change frequently accelerates. Not only will you not talk while you eat, you'll not listen to anything else, just your own chew and swallow, no television, radio or other auditory stimuli. Silence.
Make it Real:
Not every meal may accommodate silence this week. You'll have to choose your battles, the meals in which you can realistically keep quiet. How many times per day, and on which days of the week, can you arrange to be silent in a place without auditory stimuli? Three meals a day in silence may be impossible for those of you who do business over lunch. Can you manage (commit) to two or even just one a day for five days? If not, decide ahead of time which meals on which days can engage this challenge.
Total silence may not be possible, but that doesn't mean you can't limit conversation or those sources of sound over which you have influence. The greater point is that you must make a change, assert yourself and go beyond convenience. You could eat your main dish prior to a social meal or shortly after, and just enjoy an appetizer and beverage during the conversational rendezvous.
If breakfast and lunch require a noisy environment, and you typically eat with a family or spouse at dinner time, you may have to excuse yourself and eat alone in another room this week. Whether you explain your diet program or not, leaving the family table, or turning off the stereo or television, (even if it's only thirty-minutes to an hour), may prove to be a helpful practice and demonstration of declaring your personal boundaries.
Food for Thought:
How will you find silent surroundings for your meals this week? The challenge becomes a threefold task. 1.You must endure a silent meditation. 2.You must consider potential pitfalls and plan ahead. 3.You'll also have to declare your intention, go public, in other words, ask for support for this effort.
Compromise and enlisting allies is a good strategy whenever you dare a sizable goal.What do you notice about the qualities of the meal and your eating behavior when you have nothing else upon which to focus?
What happens when you assert yourself in a way that requires change in your lifestyle and impacts others? Who complains the loudest?
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Week IV: Vote with Your Fork
This challenge is about satisfaction, recognizing and defining your pleasure. Every time you eat, rate the food and beverage on a scale from 1 to 10, the higher the number the better the meal. Rate not only the overall quality of the meal, but each part of it (i.e. salad was okay but nothing special = 5, main dish was delicious = 8, dessert was stale = 3).
Define what gives each eating experience its value: taste, smell, presentation, texture, temperature, color, ambiance of the room. Don't miss the flavor at the end of each bite (the lingering after taste of chocolate is my favorite part of candy). Locate the primary physical area of the pleasure in your body (i.e. coffee in your nose, salty foods along the roof of your mouth, sweet at the tip of your tongue). Then look for patterns in your habits.
Most importantly, don't forget the sensation in your torso. When your hunger is getting gratified, the feeling may start out as a ten. Watch for the moment the satisfaction level in your belly drops to below 5.
Make it Real:
It is okay to eat something that is less than pleasing because you're hungry and it's all that is available at the moment. Indeed, this is a circumstance forced upon most of the people on this planet. In our case it's a choice, so let's set a limit to this compromise. Know how much mediocre food you'll consume to forestall hunger and STOP there.
You can realize that a familiar food is no longer satisfying, eat it and plan on changing the flavor or the situation later.
If writing the rating down helps your focus then use your notebook from the Week I challenge: Written in Stone. Your host or hostess doesn't need to know what the low number rating on the page signifies.
Food for Thought:
Do you usually give highest marks to breakfast foods, dinners at home or lunch out?
After assessing a food with less than a rating of 5, do you eat all of it anyway? Do you keep eating beyond your delight? Will you drink a second glass of bad wine?
Does the food or flavor become less interesting or satisfying as you chew or after several bites, dropping from a high rating at the beginning of the meal to a lower number by the time you finish?
.
Define what gives each eating experience its value: taste, smell, presentation, texture, temperature, color, ambiance of the room. Don't miss the flavor at the end of each bite (the lingering after taste of chocolate is my favorite part of candy). Locate the primary physical area of the pleasure in your body (i.e. coffee in your nose, salty foods along the roof of your mouth, sweet at the tip of your tongue). Then look for patterns in your habits.
Most importantly, don't forget the sensation in your torso. When your hunger is getting gratified, the feeling may start out as a ten. Watch for the moment the satisfaction level in your belly drops to below 5.
Make it Real:
It is okay to eat something that is less than pleasing because you're hungry and it's all that is available at the moment. Indeed, this is a circumstance forced upon most of the people on this planet. In our case it's a choice, so let's set a limit to this compromise. Know how much mediocre food you'll consume to forestall hunger and STOP there.
You can realize that a familiar food is no longer satisfying, eat it and plan on changing the flavor or the situation later.
If writing the rating down helps your focus then use your notebook from the Week I challenge: Written in Stone. Your host or hostess doesn't need to know what the low number rating on the page signifies.
Food for Thought:
Do you usually give highest marks to breakfast foods, dinners at home or lunch out?
After assessing a food with less than a rating of 5, do you eat all of it anyway? Do you keep eating beyond your delight? Will you drink a second glass of bad wine?
Does the food or flavor become less interesting or satisfying as you chew or after several bites, dropping from a high rating at the beginning of the meal to a lower number by the time you finish?
.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Week III: Good Till the Last Bite
In this, our third behavioral experiment we will count the number of bites until we feel full. For our first day, let's just count the solid food. Feel free to go beyond that bite when you register fullness. Just note when it occured and eat all that you want.
Then let's begin to count swallows of liquid, even water, while we're eating a meal. You'll certainly feel full drinking a glass of milk sooner than you would a thinner beverage. Let's even count swallows of water until fullness.
Finally, admit that you usually fill up around a certain numbers of bites, and discontinue eating when you reach that number.
Make it Real:
If you require a little notebook to tally bites, then use one.
Watch out for meals where you drink alcohol. It's harder to keep count when you're drinking.
Food for Thought:
Notice which meal, and the hour of the day that requires more bites of food than at other times to satisfy your hunger.
Do you reach that moment sooner with some kinds of food than others?
Do you scheme to beat this exercise by taking larger bites than normal?
On the weekends, when you're free to eat as you wish, in this case without counting, are you more aware of that moment when you achieve and then go beyond a sense of satisfaction?
Then let's begin to count swallows of liquid, even water, while we're eating a meal. You'll certainly feel full drinking a glass of milk sooner than you would a thinner beverage. Let's even count swallows of water until fullness.
Finally, admit that you usually fill up around a certain numbers of bites, and discontinue eating when you reach that number.
Make it Real:
If you require a little notebook to tally bites, then use one.
Watch out for meals where you drink alcohol. It's harder to keep count when you're drinking.
Food for Thought:
Notice which meal, and the hour of the day that requires more bites of food than at other times to satisfy your hunger.
Do you reach that moment sooner with some kinds of food than others?
Do you scheme to beat this exercise by taking larger bites than normal?
On the weekends, when you're free to eat as you wish, in this case without counting, are you more aware of that moment when you achieve and then go beyond a sense of satisfaction?
Monday, March 1, 2010
Week II: Look Ma, No Hands!
"Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art." - Leonardo da Vinci
This week, put down the fork after every bite. Fork, spoon, knife, chopstick, sandwich or burrito...put it down until you swallow. It's the ideal way to eat in polite company anyway, civilized dining instead of brandishing knife and fork over your plate like a sentry guarding the treasure. After all, you are not a hunter warding away other predators from your kill.
While chewing, chew. Do not multi-task by preparing your next morsel. Our intention is to bring habitual behavior to consciousness.
Perhaps part of the reason that we eat fast is because we get nervous and embarrassed when we don't know what to do with our hands.
Make it Real:
If there is a time of day when you must rush through a meal or balance too many objects in your hands (i.e. eating lunch on the road while driving with several misbehaving children in the car), omit that meal from your challenge.
If all you're drinking at your meals is water, don't bother counting sips.
Food for Thought:
What is your posture like at table, your breathing, and how does it compare with those around you?
When you take the time to be more deliberate about your movement and remain still while eating, do people eating nearby appear barbaric, shoveling their food without pause?
You may notice other activities that due to frequency or familiarity you perform automatically. Let's bring awareness to detail. What other tasks to you take for granted while executing them?
Perhaps part of the reason that we eat fast is because we get nervous and embarrassed when we don't know what to do with our hands.
Make it Real:
If there is a time of day when you must rush through a meal or balance too many objects in your hands (i.e. eating lunch on the road while driving with several misbehaving children in the car), omit that meal from your challenge.
If all you're drinking at your meals is water, don't bother counting sips.
Food for Thought:
What is your posture like at table, your breathing, and how does it compare with those around you?
When you take the time to be more deliberate about your movement and remain still while eating, do people eating nearby appear barbaric, shoveling their food without pause?
You may notice other activities that due to frequency or familiarity you perform automatically. Let's bring awareness to detail. What other tasks to you take for granted while executing them?
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