Sarah's Management Thread (August 12th - November 5th 2007)

[Cerulean]

GOOOOOAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



Well I got back from a long walk to Angel, Camden and Swiss Cottage and the weekly shop and to my surprise, I was 3lbs lighter than in the morning - visualisation works then - it's August 12th and my scales show 10st - just like I imagined!

Just as well I had done the shopping!



A different kind of before and after!


Development Management Week One

Guess what's coming to dinner

A preview of tonight's dinner...I bought myself two oysters (they were on special offer at 29p each so it wasn't a great extravagance) I only got two as without shallots and lemon and the usual accoutrements they might have been a waste - in the 'Squid' bag there are 4 little squids that I will grill later.




So my food plan for today is - as follows. I shall make sure I lay my table and clear the paints off it for the eating bit. I may even get a napkin!

After meeting (about 7pm)

Two oysters with salt and pepper

4 small grilled squid

About 8-9pm

Double hot chocolate and bar

[Cerulean]

And soooo. I went to the meeting (although there wasn’t one - the locum was booked for this week so gawd knows why she wasn’t there) so I’m annoyed especially as I had decided to stay as I was alarmed by the fact that my brain had started planning a binge after I realised I was 10st and that the rest of my LL journey is no longer focused on losing over a kilo a week any moreand peculiar things began to happen. I started planning a binge. It began with thoughts of ice cream - oh dear - well - come to think of it I was never actually that bothered by ice cream before LL but that was because it’s something I never had in the house unless I was planning to eat it all in one go in a Bridget Jones style frenzy - maybe all the milk in the packs gave me a taste for it? Or maybe because it was such a comfort after the op? Anyway - glad I had the thoughts because I got them in check - I make the correct adult rationalisaion ‘Buy some water so you can stay to meeting and tell the locum what you were just thinking - ask for help’. And then after that plan was thwarted, on the bus (bless the number 4 - my adult seems to sit on it waiting for me!) my adult ran through all the places I could go to eat and instead to going for a binge purge before my evening food, suggested that this may be genuine hunger as I haven’t had a food pack since yesterday morning in order to get the best official WI weight (no more of this nonsense in management!) and that I was also thirsty as I always limit my water before an LL weigh-in. She also suggested that I try making my planned dinner first then have my food packs and then have a bath and see how I felt about it then. I walked a wiggly route home - crossed the road so I passed KFC (which I hate) rather than Macdonalds (which I also hate, but McFlurries are an issue) and the corner shop I buy my binge food from and then ran past it when I got to my street!
The other interesting thing she suggested was if I really couldn’t help myself and I felt like I had to do it - rather than going mad, just buy the thing I have been craving (it comes in two halves) and eat half of one of the halves and then throw it away and see if I could control and limit what I would consider a binge into a taste that came to about 70 calories. In order to empower myself and teach myself that I can have whatever I want as long as having one thing I want doesn’t turn into eating the entire sweet counter in 30 minutes and then being sick.
This calmed me somewhat and made my ‘divil’ sit up and listen to my adult. I would love to be like my mum - she buys huge bars of chocolate and bags of crisps and has about 2 squares every couple of days or a handful of the crisps - she would never sit there and finish the pack or the bar - it’s just not in her idiom. My father taught me the polishing off syndrome - that’s ex boarding school kids for you.
I thought I was going to breeze through management - I was such an eager beaver for most of Foundation and Development, but hitting goal has sent me crazy - but unless I tackle the crazy right here and now with no deferring.
So I got in and was a bit weird about cooking dinner - part of me didn’t want to do it. But anyway - at approximately 6.30 tonight I had my first meal - I prepared it lovingly and well - 100g sqid and 2 oysters comes to a total of 250 calories and it was a delicious low fat low carb supper - and the George Foreman grill made the squid tentacles crispy and delicious.
I’m glad I made the effort - I don’t want to binge now - Ive had two litres of water and a bar and a couple of cups of coffee.
Confession time - I am currently drinking a cup of PG tips with a tiny splash of skimmed milk and sweetners. I have been using this to control my sweet cravings at work all last week. This is not textbook procedure, but rather this than a binge to be honest.
You may wonder why I am photographing the food - well - there are two very calculated reasons - it’s to show me that healthy carefully prepared food can look just as delicious as cake and calorie laden food and to remind me of how tasty the good choices were (I’d happily have tonight’s supper as a snack post LL and would even serve it to friends)
The other reason is something I learned in therapy for binge eating - When you eat you are asked to consider your meal before you eat it - rather than shoving it in your mouth and barely noticing it - so by taking 2 minutes to look at my food, work out it’s best angle - allow my appetite for it to develop and take the picture I am giving myself this time - suddenly I go from being what my critical parent would call ‘a pig’ and turn myself from someone who has a degree of control at mealtimes.
The most annoying thing about the meal is that the oysters were delicious and an absolute bloody steal at 29p each - I had supplemented the two of them with squid because I was worried they would be insipid and uninspiring or that I would have gone off them in the last year…I needed have no fear!
Warning - contains food







I am supposed to log my eating from an LL and a binge management perspective
LL’s template is as follows
Time What consumed Thoughts and Feelings before Eating How I felt an hour later
The Fairburn model is
Time What consumed Place (Binge/V/L) Comments and context
The Binge V/L bit is whether you binged or not (you usually just mark it with an asterisk so you don’t see the word every time you do the record) and the V/L is whether you purged and how. Place is very important when working out binge patterns and also I want to try to modify my eating habits in general - less scoffing in bed and reclining.
I’m going to give myself the benefit of the doubt and not include those column in my tracking for now - I will use the star and the letter codes if it occurs - I will also include LL’s hour later column as that’s a good idea.



A note on deviation

I am taking a multivitamin - there is no way that some protein replaces what a pack would have given me and I would be at 75% of RDA on a lot of important things (I was never terribly happy that the the packs only covered 100% RDA anyway - 100% RDA is the MINIMUM you should have). This is where LL and I disagree and they have never been able to answer my queries on this satisfactorily.

I am aware that the 5 ml splashes of skim milk in my tea was probably triggered my strange behaviour in the previous two weeks (not to mention using artificial sweetner) so it's with trepidation that I even mention it. But between 10 calories of an ingredient that's in my packs anyway and going on a chocolate rampage tonight I think it's the preferable option.


Homework for Week 1

• Keeping a journal - think about moods
• Write a letter to myself.
• Goal setting for management.

[Cerulean]

I do apologise for the dreadful formatting of this entry - I'd sit here and fix it but I have journalling to do - if you want to see a tidier version you'll have to look at the old blog!

[DramaQueen]

Cerulean,
You are an absolute INSPIRATION to me. I actually got a tear in my eye when I saw your photo of the scales reading 10 stone. I have loved reading your journey. Many congratulations. I shall follow your mamangement with you step by step.

I will be joining you soon - 15 days til I can start.

Love DQ x

[Alan_99]

What a great tip to photograph your food,I think I'll give it a try. I have also made the rule that I sit at the table when I eat my evening meal.

Thanks

Alan

[Geri]

Wow what a great picture - made me laugh as that is something I would do

Great photo's of the food too

Congratulations for getting this far, follow the Management programme and you'll be fine

[Cerulean]

Crikey – well management is hard work isn’t it?

What’s it all about?

I mentioned to Mrs. L earlier today that I had forgotten how I felt at the beginning of Foundation – that I had exactly the same doubts and insecurities that I have at the beginning of Management ‘can I do it? Eek – I’m bound to accidentally slip up, or worse – just have an off day’

Thing is – in abstinence the rules are much more clear cut so you can just beat yourself hard with the discipline of the Foundation stick as hard as you like whilst you’re in the first few weeks – so us black and white thinkers are in the zone during the 100 days! But yes – I did doubt my ability to be one of the people who finished the entire programme right at the beginning – a fact that my counsellor chuckles at when she reminds me of how cautious and reserved I was about my potential for success. So it’s only right that with all these changes to the plan I should experience a return to that doubt of my own abilities. I was good at abstinence (until the morphine!) and now…well – everything’s changing and Management is bonkers for pulling the rug out from under you ‘What? You’re letting me choose things? I have more than 14 flavours to think about? – Er – SOMEBODY TELL ME WHAT TO DO AND WHEN!!! THIS IS SCARY!’ Which I guess is why the first two weeks of management are so strict and plain – just to try to handle that transition more effectively. (Whooo! Sarah in not rebelling against authority shocker!)

And everything changes every week!
New things!
Rapid progress!
I’m used to everything being the same week in week out!
I’m not ready!
I don’t trust myself not to screw this up!

All of our alarm bells start ringing. So – it’s back to behaving like we did for the first few weeks of Development (with the exception of the first point, obviously!)

• Keep keeping your food log THE GOLDEN RULE
• Keep it Simple (read the manual!)
• Take it a day at a time
• Look after yourself
• Find non-food distractions (more on this later)
• Thought record, thought record, thought record
• If in doubt, drink water!

I choose Management because I’ve wished for it all my life

You’ll see in my letter to myself later that I make an important realisation – much as I may whinge and moan, I asked for this – Management is what sold LL to me. When I was in Foundation it was precisely the same time as AJ was on her Route to Management and watching how she reincorporated food into her life was an inspiration. I have always wanted to learn how to eat again – I always used to say to my friends – if only I could reprogramme myself from scratch – well – this is my chance at that – after 200 odd days of abstinence, this is my chance to do exactly just that – I am on an eating degree – at the end I will graduate with a BE Honours degree (Bachelor of Eating!)

The end of Day 1 – it’s not as easy as you think!

I was awake until 2am last night – despite living in central-ish London my nearest 24 hour shop is 10 mins walk away through streets I really would rather not walk alone at night – this, other than my WILL OF STEEL (I never believed I had one before LL – I blimmin’ well do now!) and my lovely adult and the fact that I didn’t have anything I could feasibly binge on in the house was the only thing that stopped me.

I even have dark chocolate and nuts in the house (but I don’t crave dark chocolate as it is what I had when I was eating after the op).

a. I have always been able to control myself around dark chocolate as it’s not sweet or milky
b. I don’t actually like the bitterness of cheaper brands and the idea of bingeing on it is anathema to me – so when I crave chocolate for a binge it is not the cocoa I am addicted to, but the fat and the sugar of ‘crap’ chocolate.

So it wasn’t that I wanted. I then thought about the maple cookie dough I have in the freezer. I did want that – a voice in my head was telling me to go downstairs and just lick it. (I didn’t)

It wasn’t hunger – I worked that out, but it was a series of cravings. I have a feeling it is something to do with the sweet tea with milk in it – whilst candarel tea with a tiny splash of skimmed milk in it is a low cal lifesaver at the moment – I guess it’s sort of the low cal substitute for crap chocolate compared to the bitter adult taste of black coffee (I also went off that after the op). So – it becomes officially ‘legal’ tomorrow and I can kind of see why there’s a delay in introducing it.

I have a vague theory that it may be related to the antibiotics as since I have been taking them my mouth has tasted like sour milk. But that is at the moment only a vague feeling – but my palate has changed since the op which makes it important to keep it clean – must keep positive and try to make sure that any lapses are controlled and small if they are going to happen.

I am wrote this at 10.24 in order to ward off my cravings for chocolate!

[Cerulean]

Mrs. L's lovely blog post about her mother at the weekend made me want to tot up how much LL has cost me.

I just worked out how much my total spend on foodpacks will come to if I finish Management on November 4th as planned – after 300 days!

2458.50 (!!!) Not including fruit flavourings or savoury drinks (!!!!!!)

If I maintain the 8 stone loss, that works out as about £312 per stone!

If that’s not an incentive not to go the other way, I have no idea what is!

I have also worked out that it would only cost about £450 in chocolate at the rate approximately 2 bars a day every day for 2 years in addition to my base 2000 calories to put it back on again!

Put that another way – I used to snack at that level on top of my daily 2000 allowance almost every day. So if I go back to how I was before without exercising and without including that sort of snacking in my planned foods then…well – you get the picture.

I have to do management.

Cos if I always do what I always did I’ll keep in getting what I always got.

So basically, putting on 6 stone would cost the same as losing one on LL!

[Cerulean]

Day 1 journal entry

I was asked to select the words I felt beginning my journey - so here I am on my path!

Exercising

The other thing LL asks you to do in management is to have a look at building exercise in to your life – so – well – it’s the middle of the month so I am going to hand in my notice at Virgin Active – I’m not overwhelmingly impressed with their clubs in London – I hate the fact that most gyms in Zones 1 and 2 have no natural light.

I got the bus back from my counsellor’s last night to avoid walking past temptation – first time in months – I always walk or cycle) I passed the Sobell centre and remembered that I had an ice rink on my doorstep. I have always loved watching ice skating but have only skated once in my life (and got concussion!) My fear and fatness always stopped me from even contemplating it as a hobby before…anyway – the RtM book mentions dispelling beliefs you had before about your exercising abilities – so this would be one activity that would go against all my negative assumptions about my body and my balance!

Letter to myself

Dear Sarah

I am in awe of how brilliantly you have followed the LighterLife programme and I’m sure you’ve noticed that everyone else is in awe as well.

Remember this: You are beautiful, elegant and graceful. You have hidden aspects of yourself and subdued them somewhat to manage your behaviour on this journey. Some of your old behaviours will never return, the best of what you had will come back, step by step as you follow the route to management – and I have a feeling that there will be some wonderful new surprises waiting for you on the way.

It won’t all be Elysian fields and marble hallways on this route and your path through life here on in, and you are realistic enough to know that (but also to believe in the best!) but you have developed a way get you down the dank corridors and miserable concrete bits. Remember that the dark bits temper the light and that LighterLife’s motto is ‘Life in Balance’. Being balanced doesn’t make you boring – I know you always rebelled against the norm due to your formative years – you always wanted to be special but were taught by those you respected that being special comes at a price. You’ve learnt now with your own gentle parenting and from the help of your champions that being special and different is a gift and that you should not be afraid to let those gifts shine. The people who hurt you, that you ate to spite – well – they didn’t win. You’ve beaten them. You are just the way you are meant to be.

Whatever happens from here on in, you have shown mastery of yourself and of food to a degree that you have never demonstrated before but always had in you. I am immensely proud of me – and on the bad days when it gets icky and it goes a bit wrong – well – I can forgive myself and care for myself properly through every single one because I was strong for 200 days in a row so if I do have a bad day and I cave and ever dare to mention to myself that I am useless and incompetent, then I have all the proof in the world that I am not. I am splendid and human!

I am never going back to where I was before. I love myself and want to look after myself for the rest of my days. I will never ignore my cries for help again.

You know now that you were harming yourself with food. What you really wanted were light, healthy meals that left you satisfied and able to function with a clear mind and not be obsessing about the having more of the meal passed - the blind irrational panic over ‘finishing’ food and where the next meal was going to come from. You knew what you wanted and you know that that is your goal – to break free of the tyranny of food as a substance to abuse rather than for its true purpose. Let this be the focus and purpose of management, my darling. It’s not a punishment for not learning how to eat properly as a child, it’s the gift you asked for so many times as you sobbed over your bingeing and secret (and not so secret) eating. You asked to be reprogrammed – this is it! You’ve waited for this chance for 20 years!

I have set the upper range of my set point to 10 stone 10. I am happy at and around that weight so being there is not the sort of personal disaster liable to frustrate me, but it’s where I start to go up a size from here and it’s where I hit ‘overweight’ so let anything over 10st 10 be your ‘take action’ weight from now on.

I am also amazed at the difference a year makes – do you remember how this time last year you hated yourself and the way you looked, you thought that nothing would ever be alright again that all the encouragement and support that you had been given to not be so hard on yourself would never ever work because that self-hatred cut you to the core.

Anyway – you’re an independent soul so I will embarrass you gently and remind you just how many people are rooting for you and want you to have a happy and successful life – who adore your vivaciousness and vitality and intelligence and wit and – yeah – I admit it, your amazing new body.

I’ll end with the affirmation you wrote this time last year at that course where your group leader suggested LighterLife and you looked at her as if to say ‘Don’t be ridiculous, I can’t afford that and I don’t hold with these ridiculous schemes where you buy in your food!’

‘I am Sarah, I am a noble passionate woman, I love and adore every part of my beautiful self. I share my enormous heart with the world.’

They almost didn’t let me use the word ‘enormous’, because I was back then and they thought it was a dangerous word for me to use. But I insisted on it, because at the back of my mind I knew that the day would come that I would need to remind myself that although I may be tiny, my heart will always be a size 24 in terms of the love it can give!

All my love,

Sarah

More detail will be available on my blog later - including the food records and stuff - Day Two was Seabass. Delicious...



Dessert was a fruit flavouring lolly



I have marinated two chicken thighs in red wine vinegar, cajun and creole spice mixes and Tabasco and Worcestershire sauce. I shall have them on salad tomorrow night.

[KerrieW]

Hi Cerulean, what an inspiring letter. You are a fantastic example of someone who has embraced the LL journey and allowed the best of yourself to be brought out and shared. It is truly awe inspiring what you have accomplished, I only hope to do as well. Good luck with management and all the new challenges you face both foody and non-foody. Kerrie x

[Cerulean]

Alan - I find the photgraphing is a great way of stopping me from wolfing it at the stove like I used to - a great delay tactic.

DramaQueen - I hope I have some tasty recipes for you as I get more ingredients to play with - so that you know what to look forward to!

Kerrie - I can't pretend that the last two days haven't been just as hard as week 1 of Foundation. The change makes you so anxious and nervy but excited and elated - it's even more of a rollercoaster than Development was!


Geri - taking the picture was hilarious in itself - my camera is an SLR and weighs about a pound so it was a bit of a balancing/timing act - good job my scales tend to pick a weight and stick with it for a few hours!

[SafcGirl31]

Words often fail me when reading your posts!! In a good way that is! Your letter has me near to tears! I wish I could find such honesty. Well done on getting to your goal, you deserve it. Looking forward to hearing more management posts.

[Chitty]

Alan - I find the photgraphing is a great way of stopping me from wolfing it at the stove like I used to - a great delay tactic.

DramaQueen - I hope I have some tasty recipes for you as I get more ingredients to play with - so that you know what to look forward to!

Kerrie - I can't pretend that the last two days haven't been just as hard as week 1 of Foundation. The change makes you so anxious and nervy but excited and elated - it's even more of a rollercoaster than Development was!


Geri - taking the picture was hilarious in itself - my camera is an SLR and weighs about a pound so it was a bit of a balancing/timing act - good job my scales tend to pick a weight and stick with it for a few hours!

Hi Your story/journey is really interesting and I pmsl when I read about the camera and the scales, I can just picture it. I can just imagine trying to get the weight to stay the same when you picked up the camera.

From a slimmers point of view, I really take my hat off to you, you are really looking out your eating and trying to sort it all out in a really positive way. Hold in there, I'm not as far down the line as you yet, but I am sure you will crack the weight maintance as you have done fab on the weight loss.

I couldn't work out what you did before weigh in, do you not have any shakes until after an evening weigh in...... I think I would buckle.

I will try and keep up with how you are doing.

Luv Chitty.....

[Cerulean]

And just when you think you have it all together you discover that your friends all had a barbecue on Saturday night without you when you sat at home all alone with nowhere to go. People are so weird about LL - I've watched these friends eat several times...why the hell wasn't I invited?

Am I that dull without drink?

[Cerulean]

Just so you don't think it's all beer and skittles (or tea and oysters) round here, I did cave a little last night at 11.30 - it was due to the anxieties I just wrote about my friend. I also started feeling the fat wiggles again (the strange sensation of the fat dissolving). So I ate a little and purged a little and I have now got rid of everything in the house I can possibly do that with and have to hope that these attacks strike after 11pm if they're going to continue - as that's when the 'safe' corner shop shuts.

I had to repeat the phrase 'pink cake pink cake' to myself over and over again to calm myself enough to go to sleep. I need to know why sugar has suddenly become such an issue - I am also furious with my counsellor for going away for 4 weeks and leaving us with no locum (even though she said we would have one for 2 of those weeks) I have no formal counselling support available at what appears to be a very weak time - and I am deeply concerned about the constant sugar craving and I need some help with that. Alas the points where it seems uncontrollable are at times of night when baths and gym are done - it's too late to call anyone and I've already written myself out for the day - so any distractive techniques that aren't knitting or exercising (I hate wool), having a bath (usually already had at least a bath and a shower by that time, using the internet (often triggers me) or going for a walk (that boy who looked at someone funny was murdered at the end of my road a couple of months back so no - it's not safe round here in the evenings) would be useful.

Day 3 quick food log as my spreadsheet is at work

time
06.30 /banana llfp toffee bar llfp/ in bed /felt relieved to be able to eat substantially - a bit panicky annoyed that I couldn't make builders tea due to leaving sweeteners at work so had to have banana foodpack - also have real sweet cravings/ hour later anxious - tried writing about it - more anxious - anxious about work - don't want to go - tired also still bloody annoyed about friend not inviting me and am planning a binge - have been since tryng to get to sleep last night - terrible terrible sugar cravings.

On the upside, I am 9st something (yes I had to get the scales out - I caved after 48 hours!) which is probably about the only thing that will keep me hanging in there y the skin of my teeth today. I am on salad leaves today and I have upped my protein portion to about 5 oz from 4 oz to see if that helps to stop me panicking.