I’ve had two pretty terrible days, diet-wise, and I’m not feeling the love from TBT. Example excerpt from e-mail: “Ya had a cupcake, a muffin, and a cookie…these are treats…not entitlements…there’s a reason people are overweight b/c they eat these kind of treats…it’s not good for our body’s or else it wouldn’t make us gain weight…I Need to know WHY. We’ll overcome this…”
Why? [Update: TBT didn’t know the following when he wrote the above.] Well… It was my birthday? That’s part of it. I was also at a work conference and didn’t have control over what food was available. I am also down because my husband is back in NYC, after spending a week with us. A week was just long enough to imagine what it’d be like to be back as a family again — but an idealized version, because he didn’t have to work during that week. Anyway, these aren’t valid excuses, really. I’m OK with having that stuff on my birthday or occasionally. But, that’s over now. Now what?
I need to get back on the horse, on the wagon, or follow some other Western-type metaphor. The shift that really needs to happen, long term, is that I need to stop thinking of cookies, cupcakes, etc. as “the good stuff” — as in, the stuff that’s universally acknowledged to taste best, and which I want. I need to think of it as “the bad stuff” — as in, the stuff that makes me feel like crap (and not just psychologically, but physically, too). But that’s tough for me. Is my body-to-brain feedback loop missing, somehow? Or does it just take the feedback a LONG time to make it from body to brain?
So far, I’ve done great getting back into “regular” eating. I passed up a bagel this morning, in part because I’d already had (cereal) breakfast. But now there’s a damned company barbecue for lunch. Hot dogs are NOT what I need to be eating. The defeatist POV is: “the deck is stacked against me.” The positive POV (which I will adopt) is: “thank goodness there are good choices for me, even at a BBQ.” Hopefully that will be prove to be true. Someone’s walking around saying “BBQ, BBQ, BBQ” and clapping her hands, so I think that means it’s time for lunch.
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Yes, indeed, I totally know how out of whack these comments by him are — that’s why I included them here. I don’t think he’d fully processed that it was my birthday when he wrote it (I think I mentioned that later in my e-mail to him). We’ve also had a few talks in which I’ve said I NEED to be able to have certain things (a little sugar in oatmeal, a cupcake or cookie now and then) to avoid the “diet mentality” and feeling deprived. And he’s cool with that. I definitely listen to some things, and not others, that he says, based upon my own beliefs and goals. Still, I hired him to kick my butt and get me thinking about the excuses I make for myself. Objective achieved! I’m going to check out your site, too, because I’d love to hear about your approach (include cookie and still lose weight!). 
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Hi there!
Comment by The Lassie 09.13.07 @ 9:01 pmI’ve just recently started reading your blog and today I feel I gotta say something. First of all, I think this guy or girl or whatever it is needs a swift kick up the ass! How dare he/she/it talk like that? Besides, it is NOT the occasional treat that makes us gain weight. I absolutely despise the idea of thinking of food in terms of “good” and “bad”. In a balanced diet, you can eat anything - just that you can’t have the whole box of cookies in a sitting. I consciously incorporate chocolate, cakes and cookies in my diet, because I KNOW I won’t make it long term if I deny myself the rich foods that I like altogether. Seriously, this attitude of his/hers pisses me off. Don’t listen to crap like that, really. It’s not a good way to go about things…Btw, I ate different than usual on my anniversary last week, had a piece of cake and a cookie throughout this week and still lost weight!