Day 1 of Project "Liz gets Lean".  I had to wait until after my birthday - I didn't want to have to forgo my own birthday cake (or cupcake as it was).  :-)

Anyways, over many many years of trying to lose weight & get in shape, I've found that being publicly accountable really helps me - while I can pretend to myself that I'm not eating too much, having to write it down and think about it changes that. I've also found a great resource that has helped me drop 15 lbs in the past year - Its the Beck Diet for Life by Judith S. Beck, Ph.D.  I have found that instead of just saying "eat this, don't eat that", she works on overcoming all those thoughts in your head that "encourage" you to eat.  For the past 6 months I've been e-mailing my sister & husband my "Daily Report", in which I record how well I did during the day on the Success Skills. I've decided to make it even more public - recording my day & getting feedback in a blog.

Since I've been working on this for about 6 months (with a break over the holidays), I think that I'm finally ready to move on to Stage 2 of the program.  In Stage 1 you work on the skills needed to eat mindfully - in Stage 2 you actually start to follow a food plan.  So I'll finish off Stage 1 this week, and plan for Stage 2 over the weekend, starting officially on Monday :)

The Success Skills for Stage 1 are:

1) I motivated myself by reading:
 - My Advantages Deck (a list of my personal advantages for getting in shape - i.e. why this is important to me)
 - My Response Cards (cards that I can use to "talk back" to the thoughts in my head telling me to eat
2) I weighed myself just once
3) I ate everything slowly, while sitting down & enjoying every bite
4) I gave myself credit throughout the day for every positive eating behavior
5) I got moving by doing:
- Spontaneous exercise
- Planned exercise
6)
- I identified hunger v non-hunger every time I wanted to eat
- I tolerated hunger & non-hunger without eating
- I recognized that fullness sets in 20 minutes after a meal
- I stopped eating when my food was gone
- I calmed down before I ate
7) I filled in my Food Plan Chart
8)
- I followed my plan precisely
- I used Resistance Techniques (skills to resist temptations)
9)
- I got back on track
- I filled in my Cheat Sheet
10) I contacted my Diet Buddy

Obviously, some of these won't apply every day (i.e. if I stick to my plan, I won't need to get back on track or fill in my Cheat Sheet)

So, I'll be going through my checklist and adding some of my thoughts on the day pretty much daily.