Ben's Excellent Journey Towards Good Health

[f1jim]

Ben
Do it!!!!!
f1jim

[pinemeadows]

It sounds like you have made a decision.

If it takes a little fear to get you moving in the right direction, then so be it.

We're here for you.

[SactoBob]

Ben,
I wouldn't be too concerned about the binge at this point in time. Right now you are defenseless and over-matched by addiction to SAD food and your lack of any habits and recipes to counter that. I am concerned if you have gotten down on yourself and stopped developing the habits and recipes that you will need when it is time to confront these addictions.

I'm talking about habits like having brown rice warm all the time and things in the refrigerator that can be heated up quickly, such as last nights leftovers. I am talking about having a plan for breakfast, lunch and dinner, which may include having some type of Bento Box for lunch, and having rice warm and available when you return home. I'm talking about regular shopping trips and knowing what to buy. Once you are no longer defenseless, then it is time to learn how to confront the transition from SAD to healthy eating.

If you want to take the "no-processed-food" challenge, I welcome you. But i don't think that you have the tools yet to do it. Without the knowledge and habits at your disposal, it is just going to be too hard. I wouldn't be surprised if you have already found out how hard that is.

Ultimately, changing your lifestyle is not a matter of a single dramatic resolution. We see that fail here all the time. It is really about doing the work that you have to do that will make it possible for you to make the daily small and habitual decisions that you will need to succeed.

Getting to where you want will take some will power. But will power alone will not cut it IMO. So stay on the plan we discussed. Find the foods / recipes that you like, and get comfortable making them efficiently. Learn how to use you rice cooker and cooking tools to have a breakfast every day that you like. Eat healthy foods at every opportunity - as much as you comfortably can. Don't worry that you can't yet control your urge to binge on SAD food. It is the long run that counts, and for that you are going to have some new abilities and habits. So let us know when you have some solid menus and plans for how you will plan breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

There is a time here for patience, and a time when patience is not useful. For you and where you are, you need to be patient while you work on the tools that you need. After that, there may come a point where we should not be patient with you. But we aren't there yet. So don't feel bad, and spend your time working with those recipes and don't be down on yourself. You're just being human and doing just what anybody would expect.

[Ben]

Well so far my 'excellent journey' has not been so excellent My last resolution made it to the first meal and then it was gone.

Thanks for your kind words and thoughts Bob. You are probably correct.

I have a plan for tomorrow but I will tell you about tomorrow after it has happened. I am getting embarrassed about continually making bold pronouncements here

Ben

[pechke]

Hi Ben, I'm a lurker, occasional-poster, and I just wanted to give you my words of support too. Sactobob said:

"I wouldn't be too concerned about the binge at this point in time. Right now you are defenseless and over-matched by addiction to SAD food and your lack of any habits and recipes to counter that."

I just wanted to re-iterate that...I think we often think that eating healthy food is only a matter of will power, and hence we load on the self-blame when we make bad decisions. But we also don't realize how insidiously addictive these foods (ESPECIALLY fast foods) are, and how much pressure they put on us and warp our thinking!

For example - I quit smoking, after many, MANY attempts to quit smoking (I've been on and off smoking for about 10 years). I tried all sorts of aids - patch, inhalers, etc., and it's been one of the hardest things I've ever done. I've been quit for sometime now, but I still sort of think of it as a work in progress - because temptation will always be there. I've also had a similar struggle with my food choices. In fact, I think getting away from SAD foods has been even HARDER than quitting smoking! The same sort of physiological pressure, and the same weird thinking that happens when your body is pressuring you to get the drugs it's used to. But unlike smoking, everyone needs to eat, and eating SAD food is socially acceptable - so you don't even get the social support that cigarette-quitters receive in spades. Quite the contrary!

I only say all this in the hopes that it gives you some additional perspective on how to think about your SAD addiction. Those "foods" aren't really food - they are powerful drug packages, and we have all been junkies! For me, I'm only one cigarette away from being back to a pack a day habit. I'm also one meal away from triggering that cycle of SAD food addiction and cravings! You are in the throes of it now, and I feel for you!

But much kudos to you for recognizing it and trying to do something about - so many people do not even want to try. I hope you can work on developing the tools that SactoBob mentioned. Good luck and I'm rooting for you!!!

Perinne

[Ben]

Thanks Pechke.

Well today I fired up the rice cooker. I must admit to not using it much in the last week. I had oatmeal and a banana for breakfast. I had just plain rice for dinner and enjoyed it. Although the food I ate between breakfast and dinner was not great, I have not wanted to eat anything since dinner, and I am going to bed soon so I wont be eating any more. Normally I eat worse things at night, and much later into the night than tonight.

Ben

[nomikins]

.

[Mrs. Doodlepunk]

Ben, Bob is right about the challenge. It is a bit more difficult, IMO, and you should have some time on the program under your belt before you go hard core like we are doing with the challenge.

I can't emphasize enough having a few recipes or things that are legal that you like to eat. Find those and don't be afraid to eat a lot in the beginning. Even when we started the challenge, I was eating big plates of food at meals but after a couple days my appetite just dropped right off.

[SactoBob]

Ben, I'm not disappointed that you can't do the "no processed food" challenge right now. But I am disappointed that it appears that you have not tried to cook up any recipes yet. I want to give you an assignment.

Please get out your Esselstyn book and find the quick chili recipe. Now go to the store and get the ingredients (get enough for several meals). Now make the chili and pour it over brown rice and eat as much as you can. You should have leftovers in the refrigerator. When you are hungry at night, again, warm it up and eat as much as you can. Be sure that the rice cooker has warm rice all the time - you can turn it off at night.

The problem now is that you are perceiving the problem as one of lack of resolution. I believe the problem is one of lack of effort. You just have to start cooking some recipes, and if you don't do that, you will continue to binge on the bad food. So get to work ASAP.

[SactoBob]

Ben,
Another thing we should talk about is whether this public journal is the best place to do the coaching. I meant that others could see it, but not that others would offer their own help which might be different than what I would recommend.

My approach would be first build a strong foundation of recipes and habits before you start to concentrate on actually abandoning the SAD food. I see that you had plain brown rice for dinner, and I wonder if that was because you had nothing in the refrigerator to put on the brown rice. We really need to get you comfortable cooking good food and having it available. That will be your best defense against reverting to the SAD food once we go at it in earnest.

So work on those menus and let hear how you do. We'll also talk about whether the journal is a good idea, or whether we should try a different approach. We might to it by PM, which would allow you more confidentiality and me a bit more freedom too. Once we get you healthy, which is a sure thing if you will continue to work at it, we could edit and publish correspondence in a thread. There may be some other ways that would work too.

[Ben]

Actually Bob, I have been thinking about this today, and I have decided to bow out of this journal and the coaching.

I REALLY appreciate the time you have put in to help me, but I have come to the conclusion that I need to move at my own pace and not feel like I need to check in with anyone else. I'm not saying that you have made me feel like either of these things - you've been great. But I don't think that reporting in to someone is a good thing for me at the moment.

Although I have not taken the best possible actions yet, I do feel like I have the knowledge of what to do, so I am going to keep going. I may even begin another journal here in a few days or week or so (I probably will actually)....but I just want to post whenever I feel like it, and not feel like I should be reporting in to someone (even if they are being wonderful!). I will also not be using it to make any large announcements about what I will eating from that particular moment

So thank you very much Bob, and everyone else who has posted here. I appreciate it a lot.

And I will be seeing you around. I'll still be reading the boards everyday and posting semi-regularly

Ben

[SactoBob]

Ben,
I hope it will all work out for you, and if I can do anything to help I am willing to do it. Since I was just giving you step by step instructions, I want to share with you my general plan. It's a concept that I developed as a result of a past failure to change my eating habits, and my current success.

I think that the commonly accepted way that we look at overweight is completely wrong. The common thinking is that people are obese because they are either unlucky genetically or lack some kind of moral or emotional balance. But I believe the science that Doug Lisle talks about in his DVD's.

Animals in the wild don't get obese because all animals have a very reliable system that tells them when to stop eating. The problem is that this system does not necessarily work well with foods that have been altered to increase their calorie density. Everybody's appetite works with foods that are part of an animals natural history, but not necessarily with other foods.

Dr. Lisle explains how lab rats will not gain weight even if they are deprived of exercise or put through tremendous emotional stress. However, if they are allowed chocolate, they will all get obese. So it is not a problem with will power or emotional strength. The reason people are obese is because they are eating a diet for which they were not designed, and they lack their appetite doesn't work with the processed foods.

Most people know what are healthy foods. But not many people eat these foods exclusively. The trick is in changing to healthy foods when so much in society tells us that it is ok to eat the processed foods. Just look at the commercials on TV or what is on the menu in most restaurants.

I think that you want to change what you eat, but lack the tools to do it. You have very strong habits regarding your old food. And even though you know these foods are bad, as Dr. Shintani puts it, when you are hungry, you are going to want to eat. And if you haven't prepared in advance to surround yourself with healthy foods, you are going to eat the familiar foods.

You are a teacher, and so necessarily pretty smart. You also know what you are doing to your life with your current lifestyle. Your main hurdle in my opinion is that you have no reasonable alternative to your current lifestyle because you don't know how to shop for and prepare healthy meals. All the will power in the world is not going to help if you are hungry and don't have good food available in advance. When you are hungry, you are going to eat. That is a hard wired instinct.

So my plan was for you to develop a repertoire of menus that you could cook in advance, and have you start getting used to these foods. The more the better. Next was to work on how to transport these foods to work and away from home. With that in place, you would have been able to transition to eating only healthy food. You would have still needed a lot of will power, because the transition can be difficult for 30 days or so.

But IMO, the only thing standing between you and dramatically improved health is some new food preparation habits and about 30 days. Once you get past that, it becomes natural and easy. But it is a steep climb initially.

I'm sorry that this thread didn't work out for you. I hope that you don't think that there is something about you that will keep you from success. You have the knowledge and the intelligence to succeed spectacularly. I hope we will see you succeed.

And I have learned something from my own failure here as coach, too. I doubt that I will try to help somebody online like this again in public. I have had success coaching people in person, and thought that I could translate it into a public forum, and I think I have changed my mind on that opinion. So thanks for giving it a try. It has added to my own experience. Best of luck and please contact me if there is any way I can help. This forum is full of people who have succeeded on this program, and there is nothing that can stop you from becoming one of them.