BambiS - Congratulations on securing remote work! I'm sure your husband will be happy to have you there, and hopefully you will find things more manageable.
Great observation about how varying environments can present obstacles or support our efforts, and also how restricting volume can sometimes cause feelings of deprivation.
Enjoy those beans!
Rebecka22 - Awesome efforts! I'm so happy to know that you are feeling confident in your ability to navigate this weekend's festival. Certainly planning and preparation should be a great support. Best wishes for a fun, successful outing, and enjoy the time with your family!
Hjklost55 - Yay! I'm glad you are feeling better this week, Holly; meal-by-meal, one step at a time, you will work your way out of the Pleasure Trap.
Best wishes for your PT appointment and a happy resolution to your back trouble!
Gimmelean - Celebrate your success with those "pretty terrific days," and all the recommendations to which you can answer "YES!"
Getting back to basics and refocusing on the fundamental principles is almost always the best approach when things feel inconsistent. Do you feel like anything specific happened or changed on Wednesday to contribute to that decision at work? Was there anything else, aside from the mere presence of pizza, that felt like it was driving things in that direction? Learn what you can, offer yourself compassion, and focus on what you want to achieve with your next opportunity. Ever onward!
Lizzy_F - Congratulations on those BEAUTIFUL results from your checkup! Very validating, I'm sure.
Much as you describe, I'm quite happy with simple meals made from the recommended foods that I most enjoy; I think your observation about foods that "love you back" is quite astute. It seems to me that you are probably doing fine in regard to "comfortably full." Personal satisfaction with one's meals and eating to satiety really are fundamental principles of the program, and artificial restriction can often put us on the path to future lapses. The simple question to ask yourself when you finish a meal is "am I physically uncomfortable?" From my perspective, if the answer is NO, then you're doing fine.
Some of us are just naturally inclined to need a greater volume of food to feel satisfied, and that doesn't tell us anything about our health (the quality of that food is paramount), nor does it impugn our character. I can pretty much guarantee that, whatever volume of food you enjoy, it is still a smaller amount than what I typically eat in a day, and I feel like I'm doing great!
I include that aside, not to tell anyone how large or small a volume of food they should eat, but rather, to make the point that we're all on a spectrum with respect to this. We all can be at different points in the overall distribution, and that is ABSOLUTELY FINE.
Give yourself permission to be yourself, trust your physical sensations, and just keep doing your best; with such awesome blood work you must be doing something right, no?
Taters - Hello, welcome, and welcome back, Rachael! Seems like you are off to a pretty solid start!
Taters wrote:My lunches consist of a huge salad so I'm not sure if I should count that as a yes.
I'd say, if you judge that big salad (which I assume includes the starch component of the meal, too) visually, and it seems like it is more or less equivalent to a preload + a 50/50 plate in volume, then it satisfies the guideline (Jeff discusses the recommendations as guidelines, rather than black and white rules in
this post). You can just assess "by eyeball," as Dr. McDougall says.
I think the situation you describe, around various foods one can have in the house without "bother" versus specific foods that are more troubling, will feel familiar to many of us who cohabitate with loved ones who don't practice this way of eating. Something to keep in mind is that you can take a particular action or make a particular choice now, in the present, and that doesn't have to mean that you will do the same thing always and forever. Since dry cereals feel troublesome for you right now, it might make sense to keep them out of your immediate environment, as a way to support your current efforts. In the future, when you feel like you are in a good groove, and feeling more confident and settled, you might find that you'll be able to bring those foods back into your home for your family, and not feel disrupted. Dry cereal was actually one of the foods that gave me the most trouble in the past, and now it's on the shelf for my wife and daughter and doesn't bother me at all. I just think of it as "not my food." Our situation and context changes with adherence across time, and things don't always look the same as they did in the past. I totally relate to what you mentioned about wanting to take advantage of "such a good deal," I was raised that way myself, and I tend to be quite frugal. Perhaps the way to think about it is "how much money would it be worth to me this week to take an action I believe will support my efforts toward my personal goals?" Peace of mind and contentment have material value,too, right? Carry on!
VegSeekingFit - Great work, Stephanie! It seems to me you did a pretty excellent job navigating those "lunches out." I will take progress, learning, thoughtful assessment, and adjustment over perfection every time.
23 games of pickleball!
That sounds like loads of fun! Enjoy the outdoor mentoring!