Cuz I'm Leaving on a Jet Plane...........

This week I am heading off for a work trip. I'm going to New York which means:

-A lot of traffic
-Seeing lots of old friends
-Amazing Kosher Pizza- yum

This is a huge trap for me. New York has a lot of easy, delicious, and readily available food. I've been healthy for a long time, I'm at a healthy weight, whats the big deal if I take a few days off right?

Well, no, not right. A few meals off? Maybe- but breakfast lunch and dinner out and about at restaurants can add up to thousands more calories that I usually eat combined. And I probably won't get to exercise as much as I usually do which means I'l be burning less calories too(unless I run from Manhattan to Brooklyn- hhhmmmm...)

The other side of my brain starts picking up over here- "But I can't worry about my food too!" Which is true. I had a lot of things to tie up at work, tons of planning on details for the kids, not to mention all of the packing and repacking I did to make sure I don't make a fool out of myself in my hick town clothes in front of all of these New York professionals........

Deep breathe, this is all about planning, and reframing. I can plan ahead- and reframe some of my anxious thoughts with "I will be proud of myself, and will strengthen my resistance muscle if I can walk away from this trip having stayed in control and kept to a plan."

Ok- so here's how it can go:

I have decided that dinners I can go and have fun (but I must have a vegetable side dish at every dinner). Fine, easy, done with that.

Second, I decided to ask my friend who I am staying with what kind of cereals she had. She told me that she has my favorite healthy cereal and that she has some strawberries I can cut in. Perfect, done with that. (I hope she has good coffee, hhmmmm forgot to ask)

Third- lunches- which will be the hardest because I am at all day clinical trainings with only 45 minutes for lunch and a lot of restaurants in the area.

Ok, so I am bringing with me:
-a package of wasa crackers
-two apples
-two pears
-three hard boiled eggs
-avocado
-spices
-pre checked lettuce
-a batch of healthy granola bars
-some tea bags of my favorite mint flavored tazo tea

Seems like a lot right? Fits all into one Target back, and took me five minutes to pack up.

Ok, breathe in, breathe out- all better. I have a plan. I know what I'm going to eat, no excuses of needing pizza for breakfast lunch and dinner because I'm away from home. But I still get treats every night in terms of a more lavish dinner so I don't feel deprived.

Once you get your brain in the habit of doing this- pre-planning actually makes your life easier, not harder.

Well everyone wish me luck! Another good thing I just did is make myself accountable. Now you all know my plan so if you see me around next week- ask me if I kept to my plan. Knowing you all are out there will definitely make me stick to the program.

Have a good weekend!

Making a Mental Game Plan

I have to go to a wedding tonight, and this is after having gone to a large party yesterday at my synagogue. Both events mean the same thing:

LOTS OF FOOD!

Meats, deli chunks, cookies, cake pops, brownies, candy dishes, breads, assorted nuts, ................

You get the picture.

I think this is the thing that most people feel the most "out of control" about. Like they have good intentions but then- how could they help it?

They can't be the only one not eating?!!

They can't go to a wedding for 6 hours and not eat?!!

They can't be held responsible for pigging out on their FAVORITE FOOD that they had no idea was going to be there?!?!?

Case closed right? Can't be healthy and be someone that goes to food events- might as well give up.

Not so fast- there is a way to get through this- its really quite simple- but takes some forethought.

Make a plan.

That's it. Make a plan. Decide ahead of time what you're going to eat, how much of it you're going to it, and make a commitment to sticking to it- NO MATTER WHAT

The trick to this is being realistic and fair. A plan could look like this "I will eat one dessert item equal to but no bigger than the size of three fingers. And then I can have five little candies or nuts from a bowl" or "I can have a half a cup serving size of cholent of cut up roast meat- and 3 candies" or "One dessert and as much fruit as I want".

A plan at a wedding could be this ask for the vegetarian or salmon dinner- you can eat salmon the size of your palm, all the vegetables, and half a cup of a starch. Separate out right away to two different sides of the plate what you are and are not going to eat. Stick to it, and either no dessert or a portion of the dessert.

Then- here's the next important step- picture yourself actually doing it- close your eyes- and envision yourself walking into the room full of food- only taking the food you have planned on your plate- and then being done. Picture other people around you pigging out, eating a ton of food around you- and then imagine yourself smiling about the fact that you're going to stick to your plan no matter what. Then picture yourself walking out of the room or event proud of yourself for what you've accomplished.

One important side note to this is a behavioral technique on top of the cognitive one listed above- Eat before you leave. Have a bowl of cereal, vegetable soup, or a whole wheat sandwich before you leave the house. Do not walk into these events hungry, that is a recipe for disaster.

So plan ahead- don't underestimate the power of mental pre-planning, and be proud of yourself consciously every time you keep to your mental game plan.

You can be the social event diva that you want to be- without the extra calories.

The Biggest Loser: When It Goes Too Far

People are sometimes not impressed when I present to them the "mind" or "mental health" side of being healthy and losing weight.

"Whats the big deal? Either you have self control and you do it, or you're lazy and you don't."

The other thing that people get agitated about is that throughout Dr Beck's book that I use heavily in my group program- she requires you to 'give yourself credit' every day for every good decisions you make about food and exercise.

People always say to me "thank you very much for your therapisty hippy feel good love everybody garbage- but I am not going to be a dork that says 'yay me' each time I don't eat a stupid cookie"

With all due humble respect, both of those outlooks are wrong, very wrong. And this is exactly why:

For those of you who haven't heard about this- this is the video above of Rachel, the past seasons winner of 'The Biggest Loser'. On the biggest loser contestants compete against one another to lose weight, and then at the end, they all go home for a few months, and the three finalists weight in at a finale, where the winner gets a quarter of a million dollars.

Although it's been 15 seasons, this is one of the first times that the overall winner came out looking, well, anorexic. Rachel is an athletic person, and in episodes before this you saw her as muscular and fit looking. Here, at the finale, she is gaunt, she trips up the stairs, and seems to have lost all the awesome muscle she had in her arms/legs.

Anorexia is a very serious illness where in a person's mind they literally cannot see their thinness the way other people around them can, they see a fat body in the mirror. They treat themselves like a slave driver, have a lot of strict and rigid rules around eating unhealthily minuscule amounts of food, and can only see the "mistakes" they make without feeling any pride or strength in their bodies.

But I know a lot of people who don't even have full blown anorexia, they treat themselves, their bodies, and their lives as if there's no sense in feeling accomplishment, it's all about pushing themselves harder, stronger, faster, and with no mercy. Often we see that backfire, way before anorexia sets in.

People who push themselves like that, without stopping to be kind and take care of themselves mentally and physically, often times rebel against themselves. Often you will see people binge crazy amounts of food, or stop exercising completely for weeks at a time, or cringe when anyone compliments their appearance genuinely.

The ability to be thin, healthy, and fit, MUST be accompanied by the ability to build yourself up on the inside. To take pride in your gains and when you overcome something. Otherwise, when you treat yourself harshly, it's as if you are taking a baseball bat to the very mind and soul that you're counting on to get you to where you need to be. You're breaking down and minimizing the very body that you're supposed to be taking care of in this life.

One of the greatest signs of mental health in this arena is the ability to be cognitively flexible, to be strong, and still to feel lazy every once in a while. To make lots of good food decisions, and to make a mistake every once in a while. To plan in a treat, and be flexible if you decide to take that treat on a different day, but still strong enough to not eat more than planned. This also includes the ability to not make rigid rules, to not berate yourself and feel shame every time you "mess up", and to truly believe inside of you that you can do it because you're awesome.

Rachel from the biggest loser, I think, went to far. At some point along the way she forgot the point of this health journey. You can see it on the faces of the trainers when they see her, they look away, horrified. This is not what they taught her, this is not what people who make people healthy want for their clients.

The moral of this story is this- mark every health accomplishment and self control decision you make with a conscious statement giving yourself credit for that feat. And don't ever discount the role of the mind and mental health in our quest to get healthy. The goal of this is, and should always be, the healthiest whole you- not ever about empty numbers on a scale. And the second you or anyone loses sight of what this is supposed to be about- it's time to reassess big time.

For Rachel, I hope you get back to that fit healthy girl you wanted to be when you started the show. I think all of America wants that for you.

(and for people here in Chicago, I am starting a new group soon, contact me if you're interested)