The Magic Mantra for no cheating

[Danni28]

I been on Atkins plan coming up two months now.I have counted every single carb,write down everything, drink all my water,no sweetners....not cheated once, i no it just is not worth it. I feel so much more confident even with nearly a stone off,healthier,fitter...all that high carb food could never make me feel the way i feel now;on top of the world...really great.

I did do the plan once before last year half hearted...this time i did it to the book,been super strict with myself and never had one craving...dabbling in sweetner and cream does not work for me.

Thanks
Danielle

[vek]

What I do it's so funny, that I'm afraid you might laugh.
Knowing I'm using the hands opening the fridge...I'm drawing a plane with a marker on my right hand. The plane means to me the trip I'll take to Europe next month and I want to have a healthy size for my trip. Right now I'm overweight. So, when I see that little plane on my hand, I remember I have to stop touching nasty foods with it...

[Fizgig]

I change the mental conversation from "I can't have it" to "I choose not to have it". That puts me more in control and makes me feel powerful instead of shackled. I also compare a doughnut, or whatever it is, to a plateful of roasted lamb with pureed cauliflower and asparagus dipped in mayo.... Yeah, it's no contest which I'd rather have!

My BF and I are massive foodies and he had, at first, a hard time adjusting to this plan. He still doesn't quite get how it works, and asks me all the time "can you have this?". The answer is either game on, or "I choose not to". I don't like saying can't.

[planetclaire]

Originally Posted by Fizgig

I change the mental conversation from "I can't have it" to "I choose not to have it". That puts me more in control and makes me feel powerful instead of shackled. I also compare a doughnut, or whatever it is, to a plateful of roasted lamb with pureed cauliflower and asparagus dipped in mayo.... Yeah, it's no contest which I'd rather have!

My BF and I are massive foodies and he had, at first, a hard time adjusting to this plan. He still doesn't quite get how it works, and asks me all the time "can you have this?". The answer is either game on, or "I choose not to". I don't like saying can't.

That is really brilliant! You go from being a victim when you can't have something, to being in control when you choose not to. I like it.

[Sunny_0ne]

I change the mental conversation from "I can't have it" to "I choose not to have it". That puts me more in control and makes me feel powerful instead of shackled.

Wonderful perspective!

[chinadoll]

I agree. You are no longer imprisoned by a lack of choices; you choose to be healthy and thin! The mental shift makes a big difference.

[kibskix]

my strategy is to stop it before it starts. i think that cheating starts with letting yourself fantasize about it. thinking about the possibility of 'getting away with it'. thinking about how whatever you want tastes, and that certain feeling of being 'bad' that seems to con a lot of us into cheating. i simply don't let myself ever get to any of that.

i think the first week or so i had unusual cravings out of nowhere. one day i really wanted a brownie, and other times it was a donut. first, i voice it out loud and say 'wow i just got a crazy brownie craving!' this is super important to me, to say it out loud that its a craving, because now i feel more responsible for my actions rather than keeping it secretly to myself. that might sound weird, but i remember being a kid and sneaking food and since no one saw me eat it, it never happened. even as a teenager i'd 'sneak' to taco bell and eat a chicken quesadilla in my car before i got home from work and had to cook dinner.

the second thing i do is simply block it out. no 'lets make something legal that resembles it' or 'lets just go look at it' or 'lets think about why you want it' it takes practice, but i take a no-nonesense, no wiggle room approach to cheating. thats what happened last time, and thats how i gained it all back and more. that -all- started with 1 cheat. being accountable to yourself is everything. the key is to be in control. i'm not -ignoring- the craving, i'm telling it to piss off!

more importantly, i'm forcing myself to be responsible for my own outcome. i've given every excuse in the book in the past. 'i lost control, i had no choice, i was out with friends, it was a gift, it was mindless eating, i was bored, i cant live without that forever!' blahblahblah. i just got sick of hearing my own excuses. the only thing that was keeping me feeling like a loser with no willpower was myself. and no one can cure that but me!

so i sat down with myself when i started atkins this time and had a little tough love session. want to lose weight? dont eat crap. want instant gratification? tough, it doesn't work that way. want to cheat still? don't even start.
i started, and i havent cheated yet! i can't afford to be soft on myself because i -would- cheat, and then go 'aww poor baby you're the victim i know its hard, no big deal' then end up doing it again and again.
sry for the long post, i'm in a rambling mood.... and re-reading through this i see i talk to myself an awful lot.. lol

[msanjelpie]

I crave oatmeal with raisins and milk... Of all the bad foods I could eat, that's the stupid one I want...

I like the line... 'digging my grave one spoonful at a time...'

I calculated how long it would take me to reach goal based upon my usual weight loss and it came out to be 19 months. That was a bit depressing. It seems like forever. But I had to remind myself that each month I will be smaller, so it's not like I'll be this weight for 19 months...

Today I gardened for the first time in 7 months, I planted a rose. I'll smile when it blooms, because it represents what I am trying to accomplish. I was huffing and puffing and my back is killing me, but it's a happy pain, pain with pride.

I like putting pictures on my fridge of bodies that look like I want to look. Although I don't like Tori Spelling, her height and weight are exactly how I will look once I reach goal. So I have her on my fridge without her head

[chinadoll]

msanjelpie, I know 19 months sounds like a long time but you are right--you will be smaller every month. And it took a long time to become as big as you are so it isn't an overnight fix to get small, as we all know.

As far as Tori goes--don't lose that much! She looks like a skeleton lately!

[msanjelpie]

http://justpetstrollers.com/tori_spe...t_stroller.jpg

I go by her older pics where she looks like a real person...