Your Perfect Weight Week 11-13

Exercise goal: Walk five days, 21/2 miles per day

Ever get an uncontrollable urge to snack? We all have. Whether it comes from the pungent aroma of hot buttered popcorn at your local six-plex movie theater or the desire to do anything but the work on your desk, the siren call of food can be seductive, all right.

By now you've probably headed off many of these urges successfully because week by week Your Perfect Weight 52-Week Plan is teaching you smart tricks for getting through those tough, should-I-or-shouldn't-I-have-that-delicious-looking-Big-Mac moments. Along with the muscles you're building via resistance training, you're also building your resistance to impulse eating.

But everyone can use a few extra tips on fighting those powerful snack attacks. Now's the time to reread the list of eating alternatives found in "Change Your Ways, Change Your Weight," on page 89. You need to remind yourself of the many options available to you besides mindless snacking, which is often the result of nothing more than boredom. Just as the best way to deal with a baby's whining or crying is by distracting him with a rattle or some other toy, the best way to deal with your own snack attack is through distraction.

Here's a hit list of distractions to choose from.

* Make a phone call.

* Go for your daily walk.

* Do some mending.

* Wash your hair.

* Record your feelings in Your Perfect Weight Success Diary to determine why you think you want to eat.

* Read the next chapter in the book you're currently reading.

* Play with your kid(s).

* Groom the dog.

* Write a letter to someone you've been meaning to contact.

* Clean out a closet.

* Give yourself a manicure (use slow-drying polish so you can't pick
up food!).

This week think of ways to add to this list. It's handy to have as many strategies as possible to fend off a snack attack.

If all else fails, remember that it's okay to have an occasional snack that fits into your food plan. A healthy snack like a glass of skim milk or a bunch of grapes or some fat-free yogurt is perfectly fine and will help you stick to your sensible eating program. But here's another secret: It's also okay to sometimes have a snack that doesn't fit into your food plan. Deprivation is out.

If a chocolate mint chip ice-cream cone or a slice of pepperoni pizza should enter your life once in a while, and you're following the program to the T otherwise, you're not going to see any real weight gain.

Go ahead. Have that snack, and enjoy it, knowing that you'll immediately return to your normal eating plan. Be sure to jot it down and work it off with a smidgen of additional exercise. You'll be fine. And guilt-free.

Perhaps the best way to avoid unplanned snacking is to give all high-fat, high-calorie foods in your house their eviction notice. This would be a good time to do another kitchen patrol. Toss out all the offending foods that have somehow sneaked back into your home when your back was turned.

Make a list of worry-free snack foods--fresh fruit, sugarless hard candies, rice cakes, frozen-fruit bars--for your next supermarket expedition, to help you ward off future temptation.

And if you haven't done so in a while, go back to your original list of goals from Day 1 to see how you're doing.

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Week 12: Learn how to brown-bag it

Exercise goal: Walk five days, 21/2 miles per day

How do you spell brown-bag lunch?

B-O-R-I-N-G, or so many of us believe. "When people think of brown-bag lunches, they think of a balogna sandwich on white bread, a Coke, and dessert like a commercially made cupcake," says registered dietitian Anita Hirsch, nutritionist for Rodale Press. Not exactly low-cal fare, nor particularly good-tasting. But there's no reason why your carry-along meals can't be as delicious and creative as those you whip up to eat at home.

For instance, check out our Catalina Shrimp in Pita Pockets recipe, on page 316, for a terrific example of a brown-bag meal that'll have you tickled pink. In fact, Hirsch is a big pita fan.

"You can use it as the basis for sandwiches with interesting combinations," she explains. (Shrimp and coleslaw is anything but boring.) "Or stuff a pita with cut-up vegetables--then it's like a salad in a pita. You can also make some bean dip, or you can buy ready-made hummus, and pack it in a plastic container. Wrap the pita separately, to dip in the hummus."

Soup is also a super brown-bag item, whether it's the dried kind you fix on the job, or prepared at home and carried in a Thermos.

Round out the meal with some bread or fat-free crackers, and some fruit for dessert. There are apples and bananas, of course, but Hirsch says: Think exotic.

"Try kiwi or other kinds of less familiar fruits," she suggests. "Or cut up different kinds and make fruit salad."

Look Forward to Lunch

To save morning prep time, use something from dinner the night before. "For instance," says cookbook author Marie Simmons, whose syndicated column "Fresh and Fast" appears in approximately 90 newspapers, "if you're making chicken breasts or salmon steaks, throw in an extra one." You can then brown-bag it the next day for lunch.

"I pack lunch for my husband every day, and he doesn't want to eat junk food," says Simmons. "Today, for example, he took a salad of cooked potatoes, some leftover salmon steak and cucumber slices drizzled with a little lemon juice and olive oil."

In fact, Simmons rejects the notion that take-along food must be bread-based. "I always think it's nicer to eat with a fork, even a brown-bag lunch," she says. "Sandwiches can be hard to handle, and the real good ones don't store that well. So I think in terms of salads and other room-temperature food--pasta, beans, chili, potatoes, raw vegetables and even cooked vegetables are all good at room temperature."

But if prep time's short, your midday meal can be as simple as a chunk of low-fat hard cheese and a couple of breadsticks, with some cut-up veggies on the side. If you love yogurt, Hirsch suggests keeping a container of fat-free or low-fat vanilla or plain yogurt in your freezer. Take it to work with you frozen, and by lunchtime it will be ready to eat.

And there's no reason you can't have a totally nontraditional brown-bag lunch. How about a single-serving box of your favorite whole-grain cereal topped with fat-free yogurt or skim milk, along with some cut-up fruit?

What to drink? Sure, there's always coffee or diet soda that you can buy from the coffee wagon or vending machine. But consider carrying along some bottled water or an herbal tea bag and making a cup of hot tea during your lunch break.

Be as wild and crazy with your brown-bag lunch as you dare, and the more fun it'll be sticking to low-fat fare. "Whatever you do," urges Hirsch, "maybe the best thing to do is to tell yourself, no more bologna."

Keep On Trucking

Hope you've been keeping up your three miles a day of walking. Remember that those three miles are burning off a couple of hundred calories! And if you're having trouble squeezing in your fitness walk each day, why not plan to pack a lunch for work one day this week and spend part of your lunch hour walking through a nearby park or working out at your company fitness center? Keep an extra pair of shorts and walking shoes in your desk drawer or locker, and it will make it easier for you to get up and go!

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Week 13: Boost your motivation

Exercise goal: Walk five days, three miles per day

Why is it that the best of intentions get so easily sidetracked? The going was great back in Weeks 1 and 2, maybe even in Weeks 8 and 9. Remember?

If you're like most people, you're starting to feel like your get-up-and-go just got up and went. Slicing and dicing those veggies isn't nearly as much fun as it looks on those 2:00 a.m. TV commercials. And when you tie up those walking shoes, sometimes it feels like you're tying on lead boots.

Sure, you still have every intention of reaching your goal weight . . . someday. But now, despite your many successes to date, that day seems lost in a haze, far, far off on the horizon. And that chocolate layer cake is oh, so close.

What happened to that gung-ho diet spirit you used to bound out of bed with every morning? The explanation is simple, says Peter McWilliams, co-author of DO IT! Let's Get Off Our Buts. It's the law of reversibilty. "That's when everything reverses on itself, and it's a standard pattern with any addiction, like overeating or smoking," he says. "The law of reversibility happens after three days, then again after three weeks, then three months, then six months, one year, two years and seven years. It's at those intervals after starting a new regimen when the desire to go back to way things were becomes very strong, when you find yourself saying, 'I'm tired of doing this' or 'I'm tired of the struggle.'"

And look, here you are at Week 13--three months after you began Your Perfect Weight 52-Week Plan. Luckily, says McWilliams, your what-the-heck attitude shouldn't last too long--just a day or two. But as you well know, that's all it takes to send your eating and exercise program into a tailspin. So the solution is to just hang in there, monitor your behavior extra carefully, and know this attitude should pass within 24 or 48 hours.

There may be other causes of your diet lethargy right now, McWilliams points out. He compares an ongoing weight-loss program to a long marriage. "When you're married for years and years, sometimes the eye starts to wander--it's the old grass-is-greener syndrome," he says. "You may not even want someone else, really. You simply want a change from what's become so familiar."

What you need, then, is to give your lifestyle changes a shot in the arm. Try out a new walking path or a whole new type of exercise you've been curious about.

If you normally work out in the morning, have an early evening session instead. Buy a low-fat cookbook and vow to whip up three new recipes this week. Start saving now for a trip to a nearby spa where you can continue your good diet habits and be pampered all in the same weekend--it'll give you something special to look forward to.

Perhaps the best motivation booster of all, says McWilliams, is to simply remind yourself why you're losing weight to begin with. He suggests you begin keeping a "good book" of all the positive things that have happened to you since launching your diet program. Your book might include everything from "fitting into that red dress again" to "going to the beach and not feeling self-conscious" to "climbing the steps to the attic and, for the first time, not getting winded" to "getting the best check-up in a long time from the doctor."

"Sometimes we focus on the bad and forget all the good," he says. "But if you keep a book listing your positive experiences, it'll keep you motivated and help you avoid food temptations."

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Quarterly Inventory

Hip, hip, hooray! You've completed one quarter--a full 13 weeks--of Your Perfect Weight 52-Week Plan! And speaking of hips, yours must be looking pretty good by now, not to mention your tummy, thighs and derriere.

If the compliments and admiring looks are rolling in, enjoy them! You've worked hard for them.

To help you keep track of your ever-improving habits as well as to keep you going full steam ahead for the next 39 weeks, fill out the checklist on the page 212. There'll be a new one every quarter. If you've checked "Yes!" or "Usually" fewer than ten times, it's time to review this section and see where your weight-loss behavior needs a boost.

Oh, we almost forgot the good news: A positive quarterly "report card"--ten or more "Yes!" or "Usually" answers--should bring with them a fairly major reward, just as you've been rewarding yourself all along. What shall it be for your 13 weeks of diligent dieting? A new head-to-toe outfit? A vacation you've been constantly postponing? A new bike?

Whatever it is, make it something absolutely wonderful. And start now to plan for your next quarterly reward, so you have something special to look forward to. Write it on your calendar. That 13-week mark will be here before you know it!