5 days into the trip --- so how goes the theory and practice?

I have thought about reporting my progress and I felt it was really important to give you the reality of my plan and an update on the "epiphany."

Two Apps:  Lose It and Fitbit  If I walk over 10,000 steps I get a small "bump" in the calories and at 16,000 I get a good sized bump.  This reflects what I have always known about traveling, I walk more, I can eat more.  Duh.  I understand this.  I thought about being concerned that I would get used to eating more when I got home, no, even here, I eat up to my Losing it limit 1134, period. 

Okay,  so, I started slow, because I am not counting on the "bump" until I know I am going over 10K.  So, I had an egg and heading out to Photograph New York.  Around 11:30 I was near a special place, a place my mother and I used to go to after a shopping trip downtown, Burger Heaven next to Paley Park.  I had had a turkey burger last week and since I did not know its composition I had to assume that it was a mix of dark and white meat and it was a big hit to my total.  I saw that their turkey burger was all breast meat, so I went for it and it was on a nice bun... I put it in the Losing it program. 

Here is what I am doing.  If I did not get the "bump" I might very well have had only a yogurt for dinner or added an apple or what I did yesterday, a protein salad at 360cal.  Instead, I kept walking until my knees started to hurt at 15, 000 steps, I got back to hotel at 16000 and sync'd my Fit Bit and there was  my bump...

We went to a famous steak house (Keen's, it was fabulous and not wildly expensive in the Pub) and ate off their Pub Menu, Sirloin (8oz) salad, cauliflower and broccoli sauteed.  My dinner with 5oz of beer, 8 oz of sirloin and butter (for sure) on the veggies was COMPLETELY WITHIN WHAT LOSE IT ALLOWED.  Oh yes, hubby got a cheese cake and I had added a potential for 2 oz of it for me, I had about 1/2 but left it as is in Losing it.  Guess what, I have 300 left.  Not hungry.

So, Guess what, followers, it is going GREAT!!!

Lessons... there was great bread on table, and alarm bells rang, I had two small pieces and knew that bread was one thing I could not use my "bump" for, except for on a burger/sandwich, its worth it.  Using it to have 8 oz rather than 6, was okay, being okay with a taste of Cheese Cake.

So far, so good.

B

Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels

Okay, so that was a direct steal from Weight Watchers, but it is true.  I am in Month 2 of Bonnie World recovery mode.  I am down at least 10 pounds but way way up in consciousness, knowledge and, today, a sense of "wow, this is fun" that I have not had since "the fast."

To catch up.  I have created my own world of food.  I am having the best meal of chicken and lots of veggies cooked on my grill pan once, or sometimes twice a day. I am still having a shake for break fast and maybe for another meal if I have over indulged in my "best meal."

Here is what is new and I am really anxious to get this clear and to share with you.  The fast was a complete world.  No decisions to be made about where to eat, what to eat and then, no recriminations about eating this or that, fanaticism is easy.  The rapid weight loss led to many of the happy occaisions I have documented in my other blog (a private blog) about crying (for joy) in a JCrew dressing room when I bought some amazing looking blue jeans. And looked great. [rather than the typical crying when nothing fits that we have all experienced...]

I have said that Moderation is difficult and perhaps, it might be more realistically said to be impossible, based on my 5-6 years of unsuccessful moderation (Gaining back 30 of my 72 pound loss).  Okay, it was still a successful period as I did not got all the way back... Yes, I know that, but Moderation is a bitch.

Okay, so what I have done in FLIPPING THE SWITCH was to have hit 32# up and said, ENOUGH! And I began what others have termed and I now call the Bonnie Modified fast.  Where I have shakes (1-2) and a grilled protein dinner with steamed veggies.  Well, what I am doing now is tastier and getting me to eat many more green veggies and the little bit of olive oil is just calculated in because I saute all of it.

I have my world and to violate it with a candy, a piece of bread is -right now- "screwing it up" as I am losing weight, I am not hungry and I want to keep on going. 

Of course, Esther, long of memory, casually dismissed my timing as "you always do this before you go away."  This gave me pause because it pissed me off, and because it was true.  I knew that I had done this and I also saw that I had gained upon return.  I had realized that I had lost weight before a trip, maintained on a trip because of the increased exercise, but had always gained weight AFTER the trip and it was the after the trip that concerned me.  I realized that it was NOT the after, it was the DURING that was the key.

This is way interesting to me and two weeks ago in group, I really came to an epiphany.  

OKAY here we go

Going on a big trip is like (and for some a reality) going on a cruise, eating at a buffet/smorgasbord, all you can eat special.  "You want to get your money's worth"

I think that it isn't that the food on a trip "doesn't count" like those calories in a partial cookie, or a meal eaten standing up, but that it is the NEW foods, the UNUSUAL foods, the Emotional repeat foods (croissant, Chester heights cookies, Carnegie pastrami, pan quoitren chocolate chip cookie, butter-field market cookies, soft pretzel, French fries, steak, etc, etc, etc and. In Japan, the cake, ahhhh, the cake.

In the "World" as the Viet Nam vets called it, I have a world of foods, ESPECIALLY now that I have created this "BonnieWorld" of the last two months.

I realized that it isn't the amount of food, it is the expansion beyond the calculable, beyond the basic needs, beyond the world, the "bubble" I needed to create to succeed at weight loss recovery.   So, it wasn't the croissant or fries at Paris' heart that went to my gut, it was the fries and croissant that followed me home to the search for the best croissant or a memorable meal at a French restaurant, complete with pomes frites.

So, as I approach 4 weeks of travel, my way is clear.  I will have a special meal by design, but when I am just refueling, I will keep my palette of choices ... Get it, bad pun, my palette of choices in the narrow, calculable, realm of my sphere, of comfort, of success, of "the world,". Of "my world." 

SO, no, I will not go crazy at the buffet even if I have done 16000 steps with new foods.  If I have a 10 oz steak, vs a 6 oz steak, so be it, but don't add in the dessert, it is not part of "the limited world."

Afternoon tea, scones, clotted cream... Need to work that out.  Maybe it is a once/week thing on the trip.  4 times, that is it, no more.  Ok...

Get it?

Got it...Go

NO