Being & Staying Skinny: the journal continues

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Being & Staying Skinny: the journal continues

Postby roundcoconut » Sat May 12, 2018 3:21 pm

A fresh chapter and a new journal!

The title, “being and staying skinny” has been part of my vocabulary for a while. It comes from hearing a podcast a while ago where someone was talking about how he thought a lot about “making a lot of money” — he really was invested in practicing the skills to make that happen, and putting in the time.

Only years later, after making millions in one business venture and losing millions in another, did he make the wry comment, “I shoulda put my attention on making and keeping money — imagine how differently things would’ve turned out!”

So I got a good laugh at that! AND I started formulating my battle plan around having excellent staying power and lasting abilities in my food patterns and exercise!

So there y’go!



Y’know those jokes about having a magic genie, and telling him your wishes? Like the ones where you phrase your request ambiguously and get something you totally didn’t want?

I think there’s a lot to the words we use. Words are magic! :)

Someone who wants to “find a husband” could easily take delivery from the genie — of a spouse who turns out to be emotionally unavailable and bad with money. So there are better formulations — maybe “find someone who is interested in, and capable of a deep and satisfying connection with me”.

And that’s all for today! My old journal is now going to lie defunct — too many run on sentences! Am turning over a new leaf. ;)
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Re: Being & Staying Skinny: the journal continues

Postby roundcoconut » Sat May 12, 2018 3:50 pm

In the realm of developing unshakeable habits and patterns and practices around food, there are some things that really bear repetition. There are things that you can’t hear too many times — things that keep you on track and things that keep your strategy sound.

Also, there are things that some of us need to hear over and over again, to remember to keep our guard up around various traps and triggers, and also decline to hang out around various traps and triggers when another choice is possible.

For me, I could use a lot of self talk and reinforcement around staying hydrated. I know that many plant based doctors say that I already have a perfect thirst response mechanism, but it is not true in my case. I have been known to drink too much coffee and hardly any water for weeks or months at a time. Not a good scene!

For me, overcaffeinating and dehydrating, are a vicious cycle. A Teufelskreis, if you like the German word better, which I do, which implies that it’s a self perpetuating scheme invented by the devil. Which it is!

The real thing that I need to be told repeatedly, is Don’t even let yourself GET thirsty. Head it off at the pass. Drink three or four ounces of water, just of your own free will. Put a little hydration in the bank, as insurance against drying out. It won’t hurt — your body can pee it out if it needs to.

I would add, a person who is in the habit of sipping some water a few times a day, seems to find water-rich foods more harmonious with their energies, and more satisfying. I’m not sure why this is so, but there really seems to be that relationship — dry, dense bodies crave dry, dense foods; well-watered bodies enjoy and appreciate water-rich foods.

There is my wisdom for today, which may or may not suit anybody other than me! :)
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Re: Being & Staying Skinny: the journal continues

Postby roundcoconut » Sat May 12, 2018 4:23 pm

There is something else that bears repeating — our health matters. It matters a whole effing lot, and don’t let yourself ever be convinced otherwise.

The correct phrasing varies from person to person, but speaking only of myself, I can say 100% that I shine and glow when I am healthy and skinny. My whole life experience is better and brighter when I am in food patterns that support me and sustain me. The vibration is higher.

The energies that I carry around when I am not in right order with my food, are lower and less enjoyable energies. Getting into fear patterns is a big part for me. I start to feel less confident and less capable, and then go into hiding. Hiding in the food because I feel somewhat dark and unhopeful.

Everyone is different, but bad food patterns create or perpetuate other bad energies for people. Eating heavy food, or too much food, starts to change you in negative ways, even before your body starts to store extra calories, and even before your weight starts to go down a bad path.

I sleep like crap when my eating is excessive. I present myself poorly to the world. I get behind on laundry. The sh*t all rolls downhill for me.

So our eating matters, and I cannot reinforce this enough for myself — nothing is worth giving up your shine or your glow. Nothing is worth a trip back to dullness or mediocrity. Protect the shine. Maintain the sparkle.

I’ve needed to remind myself of this several times over the last month! It’s been so freaking helpful to repeat it here, and If applies to some other people here, then good! :nod:
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Re: Being & Staying Skinny: the journal continues

Postby Principality » Sat May 12, 2018 8:01 pm

roundcoconut wrote:I sleep like crap when my eating is excessive. I present myself poorly to the world. I get behind on laundry. The sh*t all rolls downhill for me...

So our eating matters, and I cannot reinforce this enough for myself — nothing is worth giving up your shine or your glow. Nothing is worth a trip back to dullness or mediocrity. Protect the shine. Maintain the sparkle


I laughed so hard at the getting behind on laundry. It trully is a slippery slope, this whole living thing. I think this second gem needs to join my signature block with your permission. It is just too good not to flop at the end of every post. So glad I can stop poaching the good quotes from goodreads and inspirational quotes.com.
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Re: Being & Staying Skinny: the journal continues

Postby roundcoconut » Sun May 13, 2018 7:55 am

Yes! Of course you may take anything I say and make it yours.

I have poached many, many sayings from folks on these boards. I have especially poached, “The food should be good, but not TOO good.”

This is another of those things that, if you are the kind of person who has gone overboard in the face of food that’s too good, you may need to remind yourself of this periodically!

I’ve watched people eat, and it’s not necessarily the heavy people who cannot put their fork down when the food is highly palatable. It’s often thin people.

Nor is it necessarily the skinny people who handle certain foods without going crazy. I know people who weigh seventy pounds more than me who eat one handful of nuts and put the rest away.

The people who need to toggle the richness or palatability of their food, so as to reliably remain in the drivers seat of their intake — we know who we are.

The trick is always to keep reminding ourselves WHICH group we are, because there are several people who do just fine with nut butters (they make one jar last for eight months, eating a teaspoon at a time. bastards.) but some of us have to be sure to leave nut butters out of the shopping cart altogether — in our house, in our mouth.

The thing that I cannot reinforce enough to myself, is that if the food is just right — not too tasty and not too gross — then I will hit the mark every time. The reverse — trying to not eat past full when I’ve got a week’s worth of smooshy, salty, well-seasoned lentil soup — has often ended with being Thanksgiving-stuffed, or Halloween-belly.

I am probably past ridiculous that I can consider the perfect lentil soup to be smthng that is too fancy for me to do well on, but it is true. A bowl of plain lentils and rice, I handle just fine. But a pot full of smooshy, salty, well-seasoned lentils, and there’s a good chance I’m going to want seconds and thirds and fourths. :duh:
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Re: Being & Staying Skinny: the journal continues

Postby roundcoconut » Sun May 13, 2018 8:37 am

Here’s another one that comes to mind, in the category of things we cannot hear too often:

Make your environment do the work, so that you don’t have to.

All I can think of by way of example, is that nobody ever white-knuckled it through a dull evening when there were zero goodies lurking on the counter of their kitchen. Like, if you never make a tray of black bean brownies, then there is nothing whatsoever making you want to recreationally eat after you are done with dinner.

A bad environment is the downfall of so, so many Americans. Bad environment in their office culture, bad environment at family gatherings, bad environment at the grocery stores, bad environment in their homes.

I think it is good to craft environments where we hit the mark every time, without really trying too hard.

My personal example, is that for my first five years with this way of eating, I did not keep a salt shaker in the home. So I never oversalted my food.

This winter I experimented with keeping salt in the house. I oversalted my food.

Then threw the salt away, and re-established a simple and salt free home.

If the environment does the work, how happy that is for me! Really, this should not be so difficult. I think we would do well to keep that as a blueprint in our minds to refer back to. This should be the easiest safest environment imaginable.

It is unthinkable to imagine ever doing well in a bad environment over the long haul. Bad environments break us down, or at least they downgrade our chances of success. Don’t enter a bad environment if there is an option to stay away.

On a side note, my version of a bad environment is personal to me. I have gone to the same coffee shop for almost three years, which doubles as an ice cream shop. They make it in house, ten or so flavors of it. And yet, I have not felt tempted even once, to buy anything other than coffee or tea. So, I can reliably say that ice cream shops are a safe environment for me.

I would categorize certain aisles of the grocery store as safe environments, and other areas as bad environments for me personally. I could go down the dairy aisle, no problem. I just don’t have any love for cow pus in any form. Just not a temptation. — However, I have absolutely no business ever going down the aisle with the nut butters, or the breads, because I’ve got a history there. Those were always my trigger foods and my binge foods.

That’s all for this topic! Done. :)
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Re: Being & Staying Skinny: the journal continues

Postby roundcoconut » Sun May 13, 2018 9:11 am

I was hanging out with a guy yesterday, and we were talking about the dating pool. He said, “I’m not really attracted to heavy women”. I said I could easily be attracted to someone who was heavy, but couldn’t be compatible with someone who brought trigger foods into my space. Whether that person was skinny or not.

I don’t even want to go down the nut butter aisle. So I certainly don’t want to hang out with someone eating one of those noodle dishes that are coated in peanut butter and soy sauce and red pepper flakes. I mean, it could be my total freaking soul mate, and I’d still be like “Get thy peanut sauce out of mine eyesight!” (Spoken in my best booming, thundering voice.)

The thing I cannot tell myself often enough is, to take charge of your environment, at every turn and at every available opportunity. No effing slack!

Y’get soft on your environment, and you’re the only one who loses. Nobody else.

One wonderful compliment I heard, when the sister of a gold medal athlete, was describing the good qualities of the athlete:
She said, “Gwen is extremely good at telling people what she needs in order to succeed.” (Gwen is the athlete.)

This is a really impressive compliment!

And she said that she is just matter of fact about it. Like, if you need it to be darker, or cooler, or quieter, in order to get a good night’s sleep, then you simply voice that and ask for help making that happen. If you need a break from family gatherings, then you ask others to please excuse you from this birthday party, or that family dinner. If you need somebody to take over the cooking duties, you ask for that.

I cannot repeat this often enough to myself: identify what will shift the odds of success in your favor, and let others know what they can do to help you.

It is entirely possible that not everything you inquire about, can be accommodated, but we can always ASK.

The guy I mentioned above, who I AM interested in, is a meat and dairy eater, which I think is perfectly fine (his body, his life), but I really see myself keeping my environments clear of the foods that are dangerous for me. Don’t like restaurants. Don’t like people bringing my trigger foods around. Gonna head that off at the pass!
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Re: Being & Staying Skinny: the journal continues

Postby roundcoconut » Mon May 14, 2018 8:50 am

Here’s another thing that’s good to chew on:

Skinny begets skinny, heavy begets heavy.

Don’t be discouraged or put off! It’s a good thing, I swear. I see it like this:

We are humans, and that means we are somewhat governed by inertia in various ways. One of those ways is that the mind and the body often seek the comfort of patterns and familiarity.

The mind or the body just wants friendly and comfortable and familiar patterns to revert to. And I don’t believe that it matters whether those patterns are in or out of alignment with your goals — familiar and comfortable patterns can be good for you, or bad for you, but all your mind cares about is that it gets to revert to the familiar and comfortable when needed.

So a person who gets a big blow to their ego or income at work, will likely seek the comfort of their “pattern” when they leave their workplace for the night. Someone whose car naturally drives to the gym after work, will probably drive to the gym after their crappy day at work.

Or someone who habitually goes home and starts chopping vegetables and doing meal prep, will do that.

We seek the comfort of our familiar and well-worn patterns fairly often. Once those familiar and well worn patterns are ones that work in our favor, or are neutral, rather than against our best interests, we have a better and more pleasing life.

More on this in a bit!
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Re: Being & Staying Skinny: the journal continues

Postby roundcoconut » Mon May 14, 2018 9:22 am

So my point is kinda this:

Skinny Begets Skinny, goes something like this:

Imagine that you use the same bowl every day for lunch, and put the same thing in that bowl every day. You can execute your lunch with little thought or effort. You have a bowl filled high with colorful bell peppers, fresh spinach greens, shredded carrots and a cup of garbanzo beans, and you eat this exact lunch Monday through Friday, throughout the entire summer.

Even during the crappiest day at work, you pull out the same Saran wrapped bowl, and the same fork, and sit in the same spot at the same time, and get your food right once again. Easy.

Heavy begets heavy, is really similar, and yet different:

Imagine a person that orders a Calorie Coffee (I made that up!) on the morning break at work, every single day at work. Right around 10:30 every morning, they get up and walk to the little coffee stand on the corner, and they get a sixteen ounce plant milk drink, with a few pumps of vanilla, and a few shots of espresso. Maybe they’re gonna get the pumpkin spice flavor in the fall, but then they’re back to the groove of getting a few pumps of vanilla syrup again.

And even on a day when they just got news of a family member’s unexpected divorce, they still eyeball the clock at 10:45, or 11:00, and say “oh, I’m so ready to get away from this desk and go get a coffee.” And they execute the patterns flawlessly, that put them or keep them in a surplus of stored body fat.

Habits are habits. Somewhat self-perpetuating. Habits don’t care whether they’re good for you or bad for you — they propagate themselves regardless.

I think this is interesting. The real insight is, there is real ease to be had, once the patterns of comfort and familiarity are relatively supportive of well being. :nod: I love this.
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Re: Being & Staying Skinny: the journal continues

Postby Principality » Tue May 15, 2018 6:58 am

Cultivating suportive habits, makes sense to me. Good info practically explained as usual.
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Re: Being & Staying Skinny: the journal continues

Postby Rosey » Tue May 15, 2018 9:08 am

Good points on Habits. Trying to get out of some of my bad ones at moment getting there.
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Re: Being & Staying Skinny: the journal continues

Postby Principality » Tue May 15, 2018 9:26 am

I’m with Rosey, they say that it takes about 30 days to ingrain a habit. It seems a long time when focussing on doing the right thing and flies by when mindlessly doing the wrong thing.
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Re: Being & Staying Skinny: the journal continues

Postby roundcoconut » Tue May 15, 2018 9:34 am

I think this is true:

Get the vegetables right, and you’ll get your weight right.

It’s a little bit like keeping up with the laundry or something — it’s one of the unglamorous underpinnings of having a beautiful home.

Having a practice of eating vegetables — many raw, some cooked — lays the right groundwork for keeping the rest of life beautiful and manageable.

I’ve never overdone it on tomatoes and then said that I feel too stuffed and uncomfortable to get to the gym. That just doesn’t happen.

Also, I don’t finish a bowl of Brussels sprouts and feel there is extra volume in my stomach needing to be filled. The veg gives me a lot to chew on and a lot to expand my stomach.

I would add, if we eat the right amount of veg to keep us hitting our targets, then we are also calibrating our calorie density desires and expectations, to keep us smoothly and effortlessly on track.

Someone who has down-shifted their calorie density desires and expectations, really lives at a new normal. It is like resetting the clock to an era where things like dandelion greens could be found in abundance, but berries were not to be found every day of the week, let alone every month of the year. When you’re downshifted, you’re happy to eat asparagus, spinach leaves, tomatoes, cucumbers — and your gut microbiome is not hassling you for hummus or mangoes.

Being down-calibrated from the unnatural calorie richness many of us started at, is like having a gut microbiome that is like a well behaved child. You can certainly give it mango or garbanzo beans, but it is happy to get it and thankful for it. It doesn’t pester you and shout at you, demanding to know when it’s gonna get more beans, more mangoes.

This is totally true, in MY experience, but maybe not anybody else’s. (I am that woman who probably puts on weight at 1400 calories — well, I suspect this is true, but I don’t count).

By volume, the thing i thrive on as a small female, is to eat lots of vegetables, and fill in the edges with starch and fruit. That plan of attack hits the target, nearly every time. Whether the largest caloric load comes from starch, is neither here nor there, because my mind and my eyes are the ones doind the grocery shopping and the meal prep. :wink:
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Re: Being & Staying Skinny: the journal continues

Postby roundcoconut » Tue May 15, 2018 9:44 am

Yes about habits! (Rosey and Principality)

Y’know the people who are described as naturally skinny? I honestly think they are no better than anybody else — just ppl who stumbled into comfortable and familiar patterns that keep their calorie load right in line with bodily leanness. Nothing more or less than that!

And honestly, if I could go in and tweak the minds of Americans, i would erase their belief that nondestructive behaviors are harder or less sticky than destructive ones.

It’s totally easy to maintain a nondestructive habit, like put gas in your car before it hits empty.

Forming a habit, aka replacing a habit, is not monumental either (my opinion only) — just requires a big helping of attention and intention over the first 7 days, and far less after that!

People get way too intimidated and give up. We CAN have good habits, without heroic battle — no great shakes.
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Re: Being & Staying Skinny: the journal continues

Postby Principality » Tue May 15, 2018 9:47 am

roundcoconut wrote:I think this is true:

Get the vegetables right, and you’ll get your weight right.

It’s a little bit like keeping up with the laundry or something — it’s one the unglamorous underpinnings of having a beautiful home

Being down-calibrated from the unnatural calorie richness many of us started at, is like having a gut microbiome that is like a well behaved child. You can certainly give it mango or garbanzo beans, but it is happy to get it and thankful for it. It doesn’t pester you and shout at you, demanding to know when it’s gonna get more beans, more mangoes.



I love these statements! So true and practical. Though I feel like a spoiled child a lot of the time. I want and get things I would never have let my kids get away with. Guess I need to retrain myself in the lines I used to throw at the kids, “You get what you get and you don’t throw a fit.”
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