Planning for Success

Menu planning.  The phrase brings to mind words that might describe television moms from the 50’s: frugal, housewife, efficient, homebody, coupon clipper.  Nothing negative about any of these other than they are “not me”.  Financially, I could afford to stop by the fresh market everyday and pick out whatever I wanted.  I could eat out or take out any and every day of the week.  For some reason words that didn’t come to mind were gourmet, exotic, fresh, and that’s what I wanted my life to be.  Without a little bit of planning, the truth included phrases like time consuming, wasteful, unprepared, and woefully disappointed.

I realize now that the phrase was tainted for me and that doing some planning was the key to me being able to have great gourmet meals every day that were healthy and fresh and essential for setting up an environment in which I could be successful in my health goals.

Spending about 20 minutes a week planning what meals we will be having and creating a shopping list means that we are prepared and have everything we need as soon as we arrive at home to put together a recipe we have selected.  It means that whoever gets home first knows what to start doing and we can work together in the kitchen and enjoy the time together instead of one of us having to spend time in the produce aisle every evening.  It means that when I get the munchies and open the fridge or the pantry, there are only good things to tempt me and they are all part of the plan.  A lapse in will power doesn’t have dire effects because my environment doesn’t allow it.

I created a great planning spreadsheet that lets me choose recipes that I like for the week, then with the press of a button, generates a shopping list that any of us can take to the grocery and fill in one trip.  Our list is flexible.  It has items like “seasonal vegetables” and “seasonal fruit” so that I can be impulsive at the store.  This is flexibility that I build in for my own personality quirks.  Others may want everything spelled out.  What I’ve learned is that a little bit of planning makes it easier to be creative and I can spend more time doing the fun parts of cooking.

Here is a link to the spreadsheet.  You'll have to download it and open it in Microsoft Excel...it won't work in google.  There is an instruction sheet so you can see how to put your own recipes in.

Excel Planning Spreadsheet

Equilibrium

c.1600, from L. aequilibrium, from aequus "equal" + libra "a balance, scale, plummet"
1. A condition in which all acting influences are canceled by others, resulting in a stable, balanced, or unchanging system.
2. Mental or emotional balance; poise.


One of the lectures at H3 given by Bob Wright that had a big impact on me was regarding goals, habits and the idea of set points.  One thing we discussed was the possibility of not setting a final weight goal.  It took some of us aback.  What?  Not have a final weight goal?  But then the discussion went on and we talked about  the idea of "set point" and something clicked.  It started to make sense.  Whatever it is you do regularly, whatever it is you eat regularly will get you to some point of equilibrium.  I have been at my current state of equilibrium for 15 years.  It's the weight I was shortly after my daughter was born and I have been at or near the same weight, eating the same things and doing the same amount of activity.  There might have been some short periods of variations along the way (diets that didn't last), but for the most part my habits since then have kept me at about the same weight.


So to be at a different weight, I have to do something different, and that something will eventually get me to a new state of equilibrium.  I don't know where that is now.  When I get there, if it isn't where I want to be, I'll have to change my habits again, if I'm willing, to find a different state of equilibrium.  We have to accept that a number we've pulled out of thin air (trust me, it's thin) may not be at a place that we are willing to habitually live. I have to decide how I want to live, and that will determine the state (in health and weight parameters) in which I will live.  The good news is that you get to the "how you are going to live" goal faster than the "where you are going to live" goal.  Remember the story of the kids on vacation that keep asking "when are we going to get there" while the adults know that the journey is the goal?


So for now, I'm quite comfortable with the changes I've made and my new habits.  I'm eagerly awaiting the day when I find my new equilibrium.

Dinner and a Movie

A last minute sleep over for my daughter turned into an opportunity for us to see a movie and to have dinner before the movie.  It took a while for me to finally commit to a place at which I was willing to eat.  Nothing looked as good as what we could make at home, but I finally picked something I could live with that was close to the theater.  Unfortunately, we couldn't get reservations and we waited as long as we could until we decided we would miss the movie.  At that point, we decided to eat after the movie, and made our way to buy tickets.  The theater we go to gives assigned seats, and when we saw what seats were still available (the ones in the front where you get to look up the nostrils of the actors), we decided a movie at home would be better.  Man we are getting picky.  Dinner is better at home.  Movie is better at home.  Is it picky, or are we just better at cooking and making things right. 

As we drove home, I started thinking about what I would have done four weeks ago.  We would have eaten bad food someplace else.  We would have picked a crummy movie with better seats so we could sit and eat salty popcorn.  But that's not what I do now.

Still driving home I also had the thought that "this is how it is now, this is just what I do now."  It was a different sort of thought.  It wasn't a "this is what I do while I'm on this diet and things will be different when I'm done."  I realized that I was done. Done with diets.  This is just how I am now, this is just what I do now.  I eat good stuff and I won't compromise.  I do fun stuff and won't sit in a bad seat.  There isn't a done.  And I like that.  I'm not waiting for some magical scale event for the "fun stuff to start".  This is what it is, it's now, and it's fun!

Habit @ Your Habitat

I saw the title of one of Bob Wright's lectures  and totally misread it.  In a previous lecture, he had talked about Brian Wansink's book Mindless Eating and about the studies that have been done showing how much our eating is affected by our environs. I think I was also affected by the fact that I had left my prescription glasses at home and wasn't seeing clearly.  Bob was intending to give a lecture about the "Habits of Successful weight loss Managers" but the word I saw was habitat.  It was at that point that I realized that a big piece of my success would be setting up my habitat.  I've begun the process over the last few days. The refrigerator has undergone a renovation and the pantry has been reborn.  I'm working on (and working out in) my basement exercise room.  My plates have shrunk and my crystal has been rearranged so that the tall thin glasses are in front.
What habits does your habitat encourage?

I Need a Superhero

It's obvious who the villains are:

Fatman (AKA The Capered Crusader, The Dark Chocolate Knight)
Fatwoman (think of an overweight Pfeifer or Halle Berry with pointy ears)
The Nibbler (nibble me this, dieter)
The Choker (big grin)
Cravin'
Wonder what I ate Woman

(This is Fatman)


(This is Wonder what I ate Woman)


You get the drift. But I need the fat fighting superhero. The one that makes me want jumping jacks instead of flapjacks.

This super hero has to be a girl and has to be active.

I'm thinking along the lines of Fit Girl



Fighting fat and chopping vegetables, she has the skill and weapons for both.

She'll make fat free swiss out of your gouda intentions.

Left Something Behind at the Horse Show

2.2 pounds got left behind somewhere at the horse show. I have some ideas about where they may have gone.

Saturday was a cold, misting, sometimes rainy, gusty winds day. I went for a nice ride in the morning to get my mare and my own brain reacquainted with the arenas. We had a nice quiet ride.

In the afternoon, I started warming up before my test (white breeches alert) when the german cowboy rode his stallion into the warm up arena. My mare who is experiencing midlife crisis and is hearing her biological clock ticking loudly at her own stables that don't do foals or stallions, decided to play hard to get and hard to stay on. It was a handsome stallion, but explosive canter departs are not my idea of a good warm up before a dressage test.

(certainly, this is what she was trying to do)

Against the recommendation of my trainer, I decided to enter the arena and ride my test anyway. Winds were gusting, and the tent flaps were flapping, and the the tent poles were being raised and pounding the ground behind us. It wasn't the best test, very stiff and tight, but I kept her on the pattern and we stayed in our arena. Our exit from the grounds was again explosive when the tents almost blew over. I dismounted and walked her up the hill to the stalls (look, exercise!!!!)

So even though things were different, difficult, and distracting, I stayed on course. Hmmm. I think I can extrapolate that lesson to something related to my eating and exercise habits...

I was mostly concerned this weekend that I would lose my nice pattern of eating, spending time on SparkPeople for motivation, and logging my food. I did bring my regular breakfast and tons of good veggies and fruit to snack on. I forbid myself to eat cheese and crackers which is our normal show grounds fare. I did drink all the champagne I wanted, but I filled up on celery, carrots, and hummus first.

I was so physically busy with riding, grooming, tacking up, cleaning tack, video taping other rides, that I really didn't think too much about eating and I kept moving.

So I think it is my job that makes me fat. My work is intellectually intense, but doesn't require much movement other than my fingers across the keyboard and electrical impulses between neurons and sparks jumping over synapses in my brain. I could stop being an engineer and business COO, but after seeing my riding scores this weekend, I think I'll keep my day job.

The 2.2 pounds I lost were significant. Well, the 3.2 ounces (the .2 pounds) were the significant part. They put me down a notch in the first digit of my weight!

This Alice is in Onederland, and will be chasing the 65 pound jabberwock the rest of the way home.