Diet Coach

One of the things I've had to do for the Beck plan is to appoint a diet coach. I've chosen my middle sister who practices CBT.

I had my first check in with her today, and she's given me a useful technique to practice to help stop unplanned eating. I have to visualise something that I can associate with STOP (I chose a stop sign) and then use this to signal HALT (so I converted it to a Halt sign).

When I feel like eating, I have to ask myself 4 questions - do I feel:

• Hungry or thirsty?
• Angry or irritated
• Lonely or bored?
• Tired?

If the answer is anything except hungry, then I have to deal with that issue first BEFORE having something to eat. So, if I'm thining of eating but it turns out it's because I'm lonely, then I should call someone for a chat (or go online to the forum etc).

Anyway, I thought I'd share this as it seems like it will be a very useful technique. In the meantime, I've changed my PC background to a halt sign so it will remind me.

Updates on Beck plan

So I'm now on day 14 of the Beck plan, and have been doing some useful tasks.

• I read my list of reasons to lose weight everyday - prompted by my phone, which beeps them at me just before lunchtime.
• I eat everything sat down, and eat slowly and mindfully. This felt strange a first, but is already becoming a habit (not the sitting bit, I almost always did that, but I have slowed down my eating a lot). I tend to eat at my desk during the day, and find I have to force myself not to do other things at the same time (such as email, reading etc.)
• I go through a list of all the things I'm pleased with myself for each night - usually it contains sticking the plan, taking my medicine and doing a bit of exercise. Other days it also includes preparing food for the next couple of days and things like that.
• I've made a list of distraction techniques - things to try when I'm feeling hungry so that I don't eat until it's time. However, I rarely feel hungry, so this hasn't been put into practice yet.
• I'm also starting to make daily plans of what I'm doing during the day, scheduling in eating and exercise. This bit is easy really, as my mealtimes are faily fixed.
• Tomorrow is the first day when I will also follow a food plan. Again, this is fairly easy at this stage, as I'm still following the strictness of the Alizonne plan, so I generally plan my food the night before (at least) anyway.

So, that's where I'm up to - I'm finding it useful, even though some of the skills aren't really needed yet, I'm hoping that by the time I go onto maintenance in a few weeks, these will have become habits and will form part of my coping strategy.

Looking nice

Today when I came downstairs, my husband told me I looked nice! This doesn't happen often, so I thought I'd share it with you dear reader.

So, he obviously likes the long sweater and leggings look, and the slimmer me :-)

Have had a good day today. My CBT exercise was to congratulate myself everytime I did something positive about my diet, so it's been a busy day. I've eaten the right things at the right time, eaten everything sat down, and especially tricky - resisted the offerings of cheese samples at the cheese counter in Booths (while husband was selecting his cheese board for tonight).

Now just got my water to finish off, and I'm done for today.

Today's Task - eat everything sitting down

I hardly ever eat standing up, or on the run (hangover from schooldays when we weren't allowed to eat in public I think), so I didn't think this would be difficult. (Not like Kristen Bell in the photo).

The idea is to make sure you realise you're eating, taking time and savouring each mouthful, rather than rushing down food without even registering it.

Today was probably the most likely day in ages that I would have eaten standing, as we went to Harrogate Flower Show - normally I might have had an ice cream while walking about, or some fudge. However, neither of these were on the menu anyway, and each time I did eat (which was 3 times!) I found a bench and took a little time.

I also reread my list of reasons, so it's been a good day!

Getting into the right mindset

My sister, who's a counsellor specialising in CBT, recommended this book to me as a way for me to prepare for ending my diet and going onto maintenance. It's not a diet plan, but a mental approach to dieting or maintaining a certain weight, based on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT).

The book explains the theory and then sets daily tasks for a period of 6 weeks. By starting it now, I should have built up the skills to cope when I've finished with the phased bit of the Alizonne plan.

I thought I'd share with you some of the tips I learn along the way. If you want to join in, you can get the book on Amazon. There are 2 books, the original and a workbook. You don't need them both, just pick one. If you get the original, you will also need a big notebook and you'll need to spend more time writing. If you get the workbook, the pages are all ready for you to write your own stuff in - so it depends what you want to do.

I started this yesterday, and the task was to make a list of the reasons I want to lose weight and keep it off. Fairly easy this one, as you will have seen I already have a list of 60 reasons! But I have to make this list easily available and read it everyday, to reinforce my reasons, so it will be easier to remember them when I'm confronted with temptation. I've set the main ones up on my phone, which is set to go off and remind me of them everyday just before lunch, so let's see how well that goes.

Today, I have to choose a primary diet (easy, Alizonne) and a back up diet to revert to if I get bored. The theory is that by having a plan B now, I won't spend weeks floundering if I need a change. Think plan B will be Slimming World Extra Easy, because I've done it before and think it's a natural fit with the healthy eating habits I'm learning.

I'm sure there will be plenty of food for thought along the way, but so far, so good.