Positive Steps: Monday, April 3

[Gaelen]

This is an excerpt from a free download of a chapter called "Mistaking Hunger" from Caryl Ehrlich’s book Conquer Your Food Addiction. The author has some interesting perspectives on conditioning a new habit or reconditioning an established habit, in the context of food addiction and the number one challenge (for some of us) to staying on plan--temptation from off-plan foods.

"Do you eat out of habit, not hunger? Identifying habits requires guidance, introspection, and patience, but most of all honesty. Once you acknowledge, “Yes, I do that,” you can decide you don’t want to do that anymore and begin to do something else, instead.

"It is unrealistic and self-defeating to expect to go from habitual, compulsive, or addictive eating behavior to a calm, rational, in-control eating person by reading an article, even this article. You can, however, alter automatic, learned responses by creating new and effective alternative behaviors that will result in permanent change. The new behavioral choices add up to a permanent weight loss, incrementally, not rattattattat. It’s worth repeating: Your original patterns evolved over a lifetime. Now you can consciously plan the person you want to be.

"Food does not contain a narcotic. Food only has the power you gave it by doing the same thing with it each time you encountered it. Food has the power you vested in it as part of a ritual distraction with your mind, many times since childhood, when you might have learned how to cope with stressful situations by using food inappropriately. It might have worked then, but it’s not working now. Now you need to find a new way that will work now.

"I’ll show you what to do if you are not hungry but are tempted. There are many things you can do when food is offered, baked, cooked, prepared, and present just for you. Learn how to handle the compelling urges at the office, in a restaurant, or at home. Learn that an umbrellatopped pushcart, wafting a familiar aroma, doesn’t always mean you have to eat a hot dog.

"Hunger demands to be fed. An urge passes. Know the difference? The next time you’re at home and thinking of food, and you just ate a little while before, set a kitchen timer for 20 minutes and distract yourself with some activity. Sometimes I set the timer, get busy with some other project, and when the bell goes off, I not only forget I set the bell, I’m not even sure why I set it in the first place.

"One woman recalled a walk she took one summer day. She spied a man eating an ice cream cone, (a visual stimulus). She used the mental repatterning techniques she’d created to distract herself. She’d practiced and repeated the words, “Alert. Alert. Cross the street,” which she did while laughing. She reassured herself that everything was going to be okay, and she prompted herself to calm her breathing.“Two minutes later, I’d found the most adorable sequined hat in a store window,” she recounted. The moment clearly had passed.

"The techniques were there in her memory bank because she had written the specifics of her plan, reviewed it daily to remind herself of the details, envisioned it in her mind, so that when the ice cream cone appeared, her new automatic response to say, “Alert. Alert. Cross the street, take a deep breath, and keep walking,” kicked in. It is a process everyone can learn. It begins in your mind."

What positive steps did you take today to keep this process first in your mind?

Gaelen, off to fill my water bottle. ;)

[Nean]

Oh, Thank You!! I love the 'Alert, Alert' :p I'll have to try that. My focus continues to be identifying the stimulus/response patterns that send me toward food. Don't know exactly how to make it a measurable goal. How about, 'Today I will identify the stimulus which occurred before my desire to eat' [and make a concious choice wether to eat because of it]. Of course I mean to always choose to eat only on plan and only when I am biologically hungry :rolleyes: , but we will start with a less perfectionistic approach - just realizing the things that send me in search of a carb fix.

[Mitra]

At first glance, I didn't think the advice about mistaking hunger had much application to my decision to spend more time on reading and music. But, when I thought about it some more, I could see more relevance. There are times when I don't feel like making the effort, and I'll end up either reading something trivial and unsatisfying, or aimlessly web-browsing, again reading unsatisfying bits and pieces. It's the mental equivalent of junk food, and although it has some appeal, it's unsatisfying.

The same ideas we use for food could be used to avoid feeding junk to our minds - have a supply of good stuff on hand, and use the mental "alert" to break the pattern.

[Billie]

“Alert. Alert. Cross the street,” which she did while laughing"---is that why all those people are talking to themselves :) ?

Pat excellent suggestions and I will implement them at work...when we can make the behavioral change to do something positive with a negative situation it takes a little time so if it doesn't work right away, keep trying. Like Pat said in the April challenge it takes awhile to make a habit, especially one that goes against what we have been doing for years.

I can hear the "ding ding ding" bell going off in my head...Thanks Pat great tip!

[Gaelen]

I think the message in 'alert, alert' is two-part...first, we have to recognize the trigger or stimulus. Is it scent? Boredom? A picture of something? A situation where you always did X? Once we recognize, the trigger, we can do something about it.

In the early 90s I had a boyfriend who lived in Manhattan. For three years, I commuted to NYC, spending 2-5 days at a time on West 26th St. One of our greeting rituals was to get take-out Chinese late at night the first night. I'd get there, we'd call for takeout/delivery, and then spend a couple hours catching up.

Pretty soon, if I didn't have anything else on tap, I started picking up take-out Chinese on my way home from work on Friday night. I never went out of my way to get take-out on Mondays, or mid-week...only on Friday nights. But soon, unless I was on the road or out eating with friends, the Chinese take-out ritual happened nearly every Friday night. The food was becoming attached to my perception of 'the weekend,' reminding me of my far-away boyfriend, reminding me of the place and the person I was missing. I kept picking up that take-out Chinese years after the boyfriend was history...it had become a habit, and the trigger was a Friday night with no other plans. ;) When I moved, two years after breaking up with the boyfriend, the first thing I sought out in my new neighborhood was a good Chinese restaurant.

I had to first recognize the habit before I could change it, and then recognize what about Friday night was triggering my stop at the local Chinese restaurant. I'd patterned myself into a certain behavior/response to weekends, independent of location, but definitely related to what I had on my agenda--for instance, when at a weekend dog show, I never went looking for Chinese take-out. ;)

I still enjoy Chinese take-out once in awhile, but it's no longer the Friday night ritual it used to be. I made sure I had plans for Friday night...either with friends or at home...and eventually, I didn't need to pick up that comfort food on my way home.

[Belfrybat]

So far so good on the water for the first two days and the bottle is "loaded" this morning. But I noticed yesterday I didn't finish my afternoon tea, so will need to keep an eye out that I'm not substituting water for other beverages. It's supposed to be an addition.

[Shadow]

Oh Pat - great thoughts and article! Boy can I relate to the Friday story - definitely something I need to work on :rolleyes:.... I am off to ponder all of this :).

[LisaS]

things are first thoughts, then they are actions. repeated actions are habits (or conditioned responses <g>)

for instance, when you are training a dog, one of the things you do is watch the dog - let us say he tends to get distracted by other animals (birds, rabbits, etc). You watch him and as soon as the thought tries to enter his head (which you can see if you are in tune) you intervene before it can become an action. If you let it get to the action/tugging/lunging stage you've lost that training opportunity. (not intended to be training advice, just illustrative)

the same is true of people - the thought isn't the action and the thought isn't bad or wrong or *evil* but recognizing the thought when it comes and intevening before the habitual action begins is the key to changing the behavior.

[gitfiddle]

I'm trying to retrain my brain by looking for something I enjoy when I'm in danger of snacking. So far I've been using music to bring up the beta-endorphins (sort of like the sequined hat, only cheaper). I reach for my mandolin, which is a new instrument for me, and get involved in a tune. It not only distracts me, it gives me practice time.

I'm in most peril of munching when I'm frustrated with something. Light reading or web surfing isn't enough of a balm. I actually get the best results from scrubbing or cleaning something so that I can see what I've accomplished. Now you might think my house is sparkling, but I've also got an avoidance habit.:confused: Once I get going, though, I'm great! :)

My biggest frustration right now is computer-related. Tonight I will plug the new printer into the old computer and print a photo to see if the color problem is in the printer or the new computer. That will be one step forward will and set me up for the next one.

[banshee]

Reporting for the weekend as well as today. (I don't like to get online during the weekend, as I'm on the computer all day at work.)

Saturday I started and finished the touch-up painting in my office. (Removing carpet and putting in pergot resulted in the baseboards being about an inch lower, so there was a lovely yellow line around the room below the white walls we had painted when we moved in.) I even spent the time to do it right and get rid of the wallpaper that was still behind one of the baseboards, to paint the area that had an inch of wall showing between the baseboard and a cord run above it, and to do some touchups on corners where paint had gotten nicked off from furniture moving.

Sunday I moved the biggest pieces of furniture into the office and then spent 30 minutes going through my two small filing cabinets and separating papers into throw-away and file archive piles. I threw away the trash pile, and filed the small archive pile. I emptied 2 drawers, which allowed me to use one for stationary that had been sitting on top of the desk because I had no place to put it.

Tonight I'm going to spend my 30 minutes going through another file cabinet to do some more purging. I have this bad habit of saving unused paper, either loose or in old partially used notebooks and pads. I need to get rid of this stuff somehow - I probably have several reams worth of it - but I don't just want to throw it away - that seems so wasteful. I suppose I could bring it in to work and put it in the recycling bins for paper. Anyone have any other ideas?

[LisaS]

people on freecycle will take almost anything - try just giving the partly-used notebooks away :)

[avnndd]

Ah, yes...Freecycle...last summer I got rid of a PILE (and I DO mean a PILE) of bicycles in various stages of disrepair and ruin...and the person seemed genuinely happy to get them! I also got rid of a rototiller that no longer worked.

[Claudette]

Great thoughts to ponder, Pat, thanks for sharing them with us.
I can think of many ways to implement changing the behavior that triggers my overeating.

Hugs,
Claudette

[hawk]

A lOOOOOOOOOOOOOng time ago when I had 50 pounds to lose and lost it in 6 months after my first son, I made a list of things to do instead of eating.
10 push ups,
file my nails,
clean a drawer
write a thankyou,
wait a half hour...
etc.
except what do you do when you get hormone cravings????? ALert Alert!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Janis]

I did not get online all weekend - good heavens, alert the media! - and yesterday was INSANE, so I'm reporting in for the weekend and Monday now.

First of all, Galean, I liked your story of the boyfriend in Manhattan. I spent the better part of a year commuting several hours away every other weekend to visit with a boyfriend, too; we didn't do anything near as nice as get chinese takeout when I first arrived. ;)

I don't think I realized how much I allow other members in my household to walk all over me until I decided to spend some time just for me every day. However, I have successfully taken some "me" time every day since the challenge started - in fact, I just about took ALL of Sunday - even when the days have been crazy, like Saturday and Monday (I'll post about Saturday on the "One Day at a Time" thread later; it should be good for a laugh - or at least relief in the knowledge that you're not me). Yesterday was hard, because the time change affected us all badly and everyone woke up late, then it was absolutely non-stop for the rest of the day - we didn't even get out of the office until nearly 6 p.m., and when we got home we were faced with a housefull of kids and their homework. I did decide that no, I was not going all-out for dinner and bought a rotisserie chicken, and then I simply locked myself in the bathroom and washed/moisturized my face for about 20 minutes before someone threatened to break in the door. :rolleyes:

Well, today will be crazy as well - DSD#2 is going on a 3-day field trip to Washington DC tomorrow morning and I can guarantee you I will spend ALL evening getting ready for that (DF, the fink, left on a business trip this morning), but I'll find some me time once I've gotten the little monsters to bed tonight, assuming, of course, that DSD#2 can calm down enough to go to bed.

Is holding on to sanity by sheer will considered a positive step?