Treats

Someone asked me the other day about treats...she wondered how I am with them, now that I'm on maintenance.

Do I eat them occasionally....if so, do I plan for them, do I work out harder than day?, etc.

Well, I wish I could tell you guys that when you get to maintenance you can eat treats...that you can 'schedule' them or plan for them or exercise more those days or whatever...

But you know what? I'd be lying.



Now I TRIED this....I really did!  I looked SO forward to being able to eat 'anything' and 'everything'. So when I got through Transition, I DID experiment a bit.
But it was interesting....and very educational!....what happened.

First of all, sometimes I found that the 'treat' didn't TASTE like a 'treat' anymore! Anything with a lot of real sugar in it...I mean, like a 'real' brownie or cookie or something like that...tasted TOO sweet. Probably because my tastebuds changed, I don't know.
But it was like, I could FEEL my fat cells inside going 'yes yes yes! We're gonna GROW now!' the second I took a bite.
It's probably mostly psychological, but that DID happen. And I'd stop and think to myself 'What am I DOING?'.....because I knew it would only be a matter of time before I'd fall back into my old UNHEALTHY eating habits if I kept that up. So that stopped me right there.

Secondly, NO amount of 'planning' or 'preparation' is going to help...because what happens then is, you're getting back into the 'feast or famine' thing.
You know what I mean?
The diet or 'no holds barred' thing. Which is the way I used to be.
I was either strictly 'dieting' (on whatever plan I was trying to follow), OR I was eating everything that wasn't nailed down! And this sort of works its way into your psyche....and wreaks havoc with you emotionally. If it's Tuesday that means it's an 'eat' day, right? 
Sheesh. What happens if you plan to go out to dinner on a 'diet' day?
What happens if you CAN'T get to the gym on an 'eat' day?
You can go nuts playing games like this. Pretty soon it becomes "I can eat this brownie if I get on the treadmill for an hour at 4.0 mph" and krazy stuff like that. HONEST!
It's NOT.WORTH.IT. 
EVENNESS - 'sameness', if you will, and SANITY in my food plan are better for my head.

Really!  Having a REGULAR plan, something I stick to day in and day out, works MUCH better for me. I'm not stressing over what I 'have' to do today to 'make up' for whatever goodie I'm planning to have (or have had last night). Not worth it.

Now, that's NOT to say that I eat the same exact thing every single day...because I don't. As I've said before, I have a 'repetoire' of about 10-15 L&Gs that I like, that I switch off and eat from all the time. Depending on my mood. But they are all pretty much 5/1 L&Gs, believe it or not.

YOUR L&G IS FOR LIFE.

If you get that into your head you'll be a lot better off. For me, it was no contest....because I don't miss the things like 'real' mashed potatoes (I prefer mashed cauli now! Really!) or macaroni or pasta or starchy veggies. When I first started that week in Transition I did sweet potatoes, butternut squash, like that, and thoroughly enjoyed them...but I don't really crave them or eat them very often anymore. The 'newness' has worn off, I guess. Once in awhile I like a sweet potato...which I can eat with nothing but cinnamon and tastes SUPER sweet to me now...but that's it. Corn, potatoes, pasta, not a big deal. I don't miss them!
I eat extra low-glycemic veggies instead!

And besides, I'd rather 'save' my 'treats' (if you can call them that) for dessert type stuff as I've always had a sweettooth.

And that brings me to the THIRD and most IMPORTANT reason why I don't indulge in these:

- THEY MAKE ME HUNGRY! 
And lead to BINGES. Really. I can tell myself till the cows come home that I will 'only eat one', and maybe in front of my family or DH I WILL only eat one...but later on....oh boy...later on Fat Brain will be whispering to me like krazy and I'll be craving moremoremore and have been known to SNEAK 'more' of the treat when no one's looking. That's my pattern. It's not healthy, it's SICK, I know...but it's what I did as a food addict.
And I've convinced that the SUGAR in 'treats' still kicks that off for me. Whether it's purely physical or psychological or some combination of the two, I don't know....all I know is, it's SO not worth it...because I've had occasions where ONE 'treat' led to a 3 day binge and then a struggle to get BACK on my food plan and lose the weight I gained like KRAZY from a binge. (and gain I CAN! and HAVE!)

And that is NOT FUN. Not fun at all. It makes me feel like I'm (almost) 'back where I started'. Hopeless.

But I pull myself together, cut out the 'treats' and in a day or two I'm fine again! No more hunger...no more cravings...and I'm sailing along again.

It's a constant battle, guys. If you're a true food addict, then 'Fat Brain' is ALWAYS going to be lurking in a corner, waiting for you to eat something that will kick off the physical side, to add to the emotional side...depending on what's happening in your life (and let's face it, your life doesn't suddenly magically become PERFECT when you reach goal, either...you will still have problems...) and the two together..physical + emotional...well, it can be a powerful 'one-two' punch that can knock you for a loop and send you down the binge road again. It's happened to me several times since I've hit goal...and it's awful.

BUT....it's getting fewer and farther between because I'm (finally) putting the pieces together and realizing that certain foods are just completely OFF LIMITS for me.

I don't get all hung up over it or indulge in PLOM (poor little ole me) so much anymore...at least I TRY not to...LOL....I just tell myself I'm 'allergic' to sludge! That's all!

It could be worse, right? Some people are allergic to bees, or strawberries, or peanuts.

I'm allergic to SLUDGE. It makes me krazy-hungry and it's NOT WORTH IT.

So....bottom line, I won't lie to you and tell you it's all 'sweetness and light' when you get to goal. (and I mean that literally LOL).

BUT....there are two VERY very important reasons why I continue to say it's WORTH -NOT- eating the treats:

1). STAYING SLIM and healthy!  It's so worth it....worth more than all the sugar-coated donuts in the world. Every day there are MULTIPLE times during the day when I'm GRATEFUL that I stayed OP and GRATEFUL that I continue to watch what I eat everyday. Because every time I look in the mirror I'm happy now! And that NEVER was the case before.
PLUS I can DO so much more....around the house, in my life, etc. I'm more relaxed, less hung up, more confident, STRONGER inside than I ever dreamed I could be. I speak up now (it's a side effect I think of 'saying no' so often to the food pushers in my life LOL).
I defend myself. I try to look on the bright side of things. I tell myself 'this too shall pass' (because it SHALL). I'm calmer, more in control, more flexible physically and stronger, and leaner (obviously), which makes life SO MUCH EASIER! No more worrying about breaking chairs...or not being able to get my seatbelt fastened...or....oh, so many many things I had to think about when I was obese.

2). STAYING SANE. NOT having food run my life. When I eat sugary stuff it just kicks off the food addiction. PERIOD. It's a fact and I've had to learn it the hard way. I get totally OUT OF CONTROL. And I HATE that! I hate that when I'm in 'binge mode' all I think about is FOODFOODFOOD. It sucks. PERIOD. I'd rather LIVE my life for OTHER things than just EATING, you know?

Now. I'm not saying, either, that I NEVER enjoy what I'm eating, either. NOTHING could be further from the truth! But my TREATS are different.

My "treats" are now things like....
An 'apple brown betty', made with an apple and crushed MF apple cinnamon chips on top! (mmm this is incredible). NO SUGAR. Just cinnamon!
Or an orange. Just an orange! All by itself. Or sometimes dipped into greek yogurt mixed with vanilla and splenda.
Or high fiber cereal with almondbreeze. Or mixed with PS ricotta. Or greek yogurt.

Or an MF brownie with PB2. Or an MF choc mint soft serve with an MF brownie (torn into pieces) is a real treat for me, and plumped up it makes a huge bowl of what tastes to me like a brownie sundae! 

Hey...I'm not DEAD, right? LOL

I just KNOW MY LIMITS now. At least I THINK I do. I still run into problems occasionally...it's weird how you can be eating a food for quite awhile and all of a sudden it turns into a trigger for you....that happened with PB2 with chocolate for me a few months back...and I had to struggle with it and finally STOP BUYING IT.
But the secret is, when you start craving it TOO much, you know it's become a trigger and it's time to STOP it, nip it in the bud before it can do too much damage.

The other piece of good news is, this DOES get easier. You DO get to 'know' yourself more, and what your triggers are and aren't. You do develop a sense of CALM about your eating once you work out a decent food plan that causes you to maintain your weight.

And that means for me, 6x a week, small meals, always some protein involved, and YES I still eat as many as 4 (sometimes even 5) MF meals a day....because they are quick, easy, and the nutrition can't be beat.

I structure these as my 'fill in' -go to- snacks whenever I'm at a loss, because I know they won't kick off my food addiction.

The rest of my day is things like decent lean protein, high fiber cereal, almondbreeze, PS ricotta cheese, plain greek yogurt (again I add a little vanilla and Splenda for taste), and once in awhile a piece of fruit (but nowhere near as often as I thought I'd eat it!)
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And lots and lots and lots of....VEGGIES!  < /font>
YEP, VEGGIES. Boy if I had known how into veggies I would've gotten a couple years ago I would've told you you were NUTS. I hated veggies.

The other day I was having a hard afternoon...it was raining all day, I had just gotten over a bad 'binge mode' time...ugh....and fat brain was at me BIGTIME.
Know what I did? I made myself a lettuce salad with an MF approved salad dressing!
HONEST!  It filled me up, gave me something to eat (which is what I wanted, just the PROCESS of 'eating' something) and it got me through it.

Now hopefully I'll have fewer and fewer of these occasions when I feel 'at a loss' without eating. That's another thing I'm working on. CHANGING MY LIFE so it doesn't revolve around FOOD. And that's a bigger issue, I think. For many of us.

Anyway. Getting back to veggies...

Now I LOVE them. I adore them because they fill me up and make me FEEL GOOD.
I add veggies to as many meals as possible. I love my salads. My favorite L&Gs have oodles of veggies in them. And lately, when I want 'something more'?  I actually will eat another VEGGIE versus something else. My L&Gs recently are composed of at least 4 greens...sometimes 5! 

CHANGE! Is the nature of the game.
When you stay on this plan long enough your eating WILL CHANGE...for the BETTER.  It's sort of a 'diabolical' (yet in a GOOD way) 'side effect' of this plan...eating those 3 greens a day becomes HABIT forming in a wonderful way!

And you learn...the HARD way...through trial and error as you go through Transition and then, especially, maintenance....that the TREATS just aren't worth it.

I hope this helps and doesn't depress you....that's not my intention...because believe me, I LOVE how I eat now. No more sugar headaches or fatigue or dragging myself around because I ATE TOO MUCH (that overfull 'bloated' feeling....ugh...you can KEEP IT). No more hot flashes! Not as many, anyway...they are rare now. Really! (must be the soy protein). No more worrying about gaining weight...because once I established my food plan and saw it worked, then it just becomes a matter of STICKING TO IT.
Like anything else, PRACTICE makes PERFECT.

Keep on keepin' on!


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--
Linda
Linda Leiby
Take Shape For Life Certified Health Coach
"Keep on keepin' on!"
For Orders: www.Catlover77.tsfl.com
My blogs: www.lincoach.blogspot.com