Your Perfect Weight Week 24-26

Exercise goal: Walk seven days, three miles
per day in 45 minutes

What makes a winner, whether fighting the Battle of Bull Run or the battle of the bulge? One simple secret: preparing for war in time of peace.

What do we mean? That it's simple for any of us to eat smart and exercise daily, even eagerly, when we're feeling good, when our lives are going well, when the weight is falling off, when we're happy--in other words, during peacetime.

But what happens when something rotten happens--the family car has finally given up the ghost or you just had a rip-roaring fight with your sister or your weight hasn't budged for the past three weeks? You are not a happy warrior, and just about any kind of food (the fattier the better) will quickly make you forget that you're trying to lose weight and why.

"When it comes to ingrained habits, it's foolish to think that they'll be gone forever," says Ronette Kolotkin, Ph.D., who heads the behavioral program at the Duke University Diet and Fitness Center in Durham, North Carolina. "Most people are capable of sticking to their diet plan when they feel motivated and do well. The thinking is, 'I feel so good, I'll never go back to my old, bad habits.' But that's unrealistic. Circumstances will cause some bad habits to come back, so you need to know which ones they are. If you can analyze your high-risk situations, you can plan for them because they're always just around the corner."

If you've been pretty much in control of your eating right along, good for you! By now you may have already learned to head off certain binges--for instance, by recognizing your so-called red-light foods and keeping them out of the house, or by getting into the habit of going out for a ten-minute walk so you can chill out whenever you're angry or upset. Jotting down your feelings and how you've dealt with problem emotions is another smart solution you've probably used often.

Yet there are still going to be times when you'll be caught with your guard down, and you'll want to eat to satisfy some urge other than hunger. While negative emotions, including anger, depression, loneliness, boredom and frustration, are among the most common eating triggers, there are others thing that can trigger eating, says clinical psychologist Joyce D. Nash, Ph.D., weight-loss expert based in the San Francisco Bay area and author of Now That You've Lost It: How to Maintain Your Best Weight. These are more insidious.

"You may be walking along, and suddenly you encounter a bakery and smell the most wonderful cookies," says Dr. Nash. "The next thing you know, you wander in and end up eating something inappropriate."

At other times, says Dr. Nash, certain demands placed on us will act as eating triggers. "A mother may be fixing lunch for her children or providing cookies and other snacks, so she might eat inappropriately," she says. "Or if you're having to entertain for business, you might say to yourself, 'If I don't have a cocktail, my customer won't feel comfortable doing it, so I'd better join him,' even if you didn't plan to drink."

Prepare a Battle Plan

So how do you prepare for war in times of peace? Here are some strategies that would even have impressed General MacArthur.

Study your past. It sounds pretty basic, but how quickly we forget. What exactly caused you to go haywire in the past? "Ask yourself, 'How am I going to handle it the next time I'm angry, or tired, or sick?'" says Dr. Kolotkin. Those emotional triggers are going to reappear sooner than you think. You can't dodge them, but you can cope without overeating, through careful planning.

Take a peek at your week. What challenges do you anticipate in the next few days? Do you have a deadline for completing an important report? Is your mother-in-law due for a visit? How will you handle the stress foodlessly? Consult the alternative-activity lists in "Change Your Ways, Change Your Weight," on page 89, whenever you catch yourself sleepwalking to the refrigerator or candy counter.

Keep good munchies handy. "Simultaneously with solving your problems directly, keep the right kinds of foods around," urges Dr. Kolotkin. "Then, if you're thinking, 'I'm going to want to eat because I'll be tense,' at least you can munch without doing a lot of damage." She recommends low-fat, grab-able foods, such as cut-up veggies and air-popped popcorn.

Leave your money at home. It may seem extreme, but it's one way to make sure that your fitness walk doesn't terminate at KFC.

Anticipate lifestyle changes. Dr. Kolotkin recalls one dieting couple who was remodeling their house. But they failed to take into account that during that period of time they couldn't get access to their kitchen (so they couldn't prepare their usual low-fat meals) and that there was a lot of construction chaos (which meant their exercise routine went on the back burner). Guess what? The couple gained weight. Says Dr. Kolotkin, "If they had thought about all this ahead of time, they could have made adjustments."

Ask for help. If troublesome times are ahead, recruit the assistance of friends and loved ones. If you feel a cold or the flu coming on, ask the family to fend for themselves a bit more so you can tend to your own needs. If getting ready for moving day is overwhelming you, divvy up the packing chores among the whole gang, and be sure to build in some rest time for yourself each day when you can put up your feet and have a cup of tea.

Be gentle with yourself if you blow it. Every dieter goes off the deep end sometimes. Try to figure out where and why you went out of control, then resume your usual eating and exercise diligence. It will be rewarded.

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Weight:

Week 25: Choose the best
and you'll eat less

Exercise goal: Walk seven days, three miles
per day in 45 minutes

How are you doing this week? If you've been having some hard dieting times lately--and just barely making it through some days without caving in to your cravings--were last week's words of wisdom helpful?

The answer to any doubts about your program--whether it's because your weight has been coming off more slowly than you'd like, or because you've binged once or twice--is to keep on going. Keep drinking your water. Keep eating your low-fat foods. Keep up your daily workouts. Whatever psychological or scale-related plateau you may have hit, you'll get over it in time. Stick to the program and you'll see results.

Perhaps part of what you're experiencing now is the wish that you could somehow eat differently and still lose weight. You're not quite sure what you're craving, you just know that you need to light some kind of fire under your food plan. Well, maybe what you need to do is to perk up your palate and eat better.

After all, gourmets as well as weight-loss experts are in agreement on this subtle yet important point: Fine-quality, well-prepared food is much more pleasing to us than bad food. As a result, you're generally more satisfied with less when the food is first-rate. And if you think we're just talking champagne wishes and caviar dreams, you're wrong.

"If I decided I wanted to spend some calories on, say, a hot dog because I had a craving for it, I couldn't imagine eating a cheap, fatty hot dog--I'd want the best one I could find. And then one would be enough to satisfy that craving," says Jim Fobel, the author of seven books including Jim Fobel's Diet Feasts. Fobel has lost 100 pounds following his own advice. "After you get accustomed to eating the best, you wouldn't think of going back," he says.

"It seems to me that one has less desire to eat in quantity if one is concentrating on quality," adds Edward Behr, editor of the newsletter The Art of Eating. Good food often means the freshest food, certainly when it comes to things like produce or baked goods. And yet, Behr notes, "Few people or stores understand the importance of freshness."

Still, the reality is, lots of us settle for lots of not-very-good stuff, and that's the key right there: how to reeducate your taste buds to appreciate and hold out for truly fine food so you'll be perfectly content eating less. How do you start to treat your palate like a king? A few suggestions from the pros:

Do it yourself. If you have room for a vegetable patch or a couple of fruit trees, grow your own for the freshest flavor. Or bake your own bread. Behr makes a three-day white bread that's very slow to rise and very delicious.

Be a local yokel. "It's generally better to buy locally raised meat--it has more character," says Behr, who gets his lamb, beef and chicken close to home. "The area in Vermont where I live has lots of good pasture, and good pasture produces good meat."

Go organic. Behr says it's a "fair generalization" that organic foods are superior. He acknowledges that the first interest of people who raise organic food isn't quality but to avoid chemicals. But there's a plus. "I think that the same variety of vegetables raised under the same conditions will almost always taste better if raised organically," he says.

Skip dessert; drink wine! You may not be a wine drinker, but Behr has discovered that at dinnertime a bit of good wine, which he says can be had for just $8 to $10 a bottle, undercuts the need to eat desserts. Try this and you'll find a very nice calorie savings, since most wines are only about 100 calories per four-ounce glass and fat-free.

Teach your taste buds new tricks. "It takes work to retrain your taste buds. Most people need help with it," admits Fobel. One way is by treating yourself every now and then to a meal at a really fine restaurant. Adds Fobel, "If you know someone who knows and appreciates fine food, that person can help show the way. I do that with my friends. Once good food is pointed out and presented to you, you'll find that your taste memory is magnificent."

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Weight:

Week 26: See yourself thin

Exercise goal: Walk seven days, three miles
per day in 45 minutes

How do you see yourself at Week 26? As an attractive person at (or close to) a healthy weight? Or someone who's about as trim and graceful as Barney the dinosaur?

The funny thing is, the image you have of your body may have little or nothing to do with the number that comes up on your bathroom scale, your body-fat composition, the way your clothes fit or any other common measuring techniques. "Fat," "thin" and everything in between often has far more to do with what's in your head than what's on your hips. Think of how often you've said to someone, "I feel fat!" only to hear, "What are you talking about? You look fine."

In very extreme cases, this inability to accurately judge body size and an obsession with being "thin enough" can lead to the eating disorder anorexia nervosa, which is gradual starvation. More typically, an out-of-kilter mental picture of yourself can keep you from reaching and sustaining your goal weight.

Your feelings about yourself can actually distort what you see in the mirror. That's why it's so important to get an accurate sense of your body and not let your feelings about it interfere with your weight-loss program.

How do you do that? A number of ways. You can ask a relative or friend you trust for an honest evaluation, and at this stage of the weight-loss game, you're bound to hear that you're looking better than ever. Also pay attention to unsolicited comments, especially compliments about yourself. And keep accurate records of your weight and measurements in "Your Perfect Weight Success Diary," on page 275.

Even with all this proof of your improving dimensions, distortions can still occur. Weight loss experts note that it's common for dieters to continue to "see" themselves as heavy, even as the weight drops off. It's a familiar, comfortable version of yourself that can often be hard to part with, even as you say you want nothing more than to be thin.

If you continue to think of yourself as overweight you may, on some unconscious level, slip back into the old behaviors--snacking when you're not especially hungry, overeating at mealtimes, not exercising. And these behaviors will keep you at a higher weight. Guaranteed.

Getting the Right Picture

"Whenever you catch yourself wondering, Should I eat this? it's good to step back and reflect on where you are in your weight-loss plan and where you want to be," says registered dietitian Judy E. Marshel, director of Health Resources of Great Neck, New York. "Keep that mental picture of yourself at your desired weight in the forefront of your mind, and keep retrieving it. That will help you make the decision about whether to eat just a small piece of that food you crave, or not eat it at all."

You can make that mental picture real by tacking a photo--of someone whose figure you admire, or of yourself at the lower weight you aspire to--in a prominent place, such as on the refrigerator door. Or carry a smaller version of the picture with you in your handbag or wallet, and sneak a peek at it whenever you're tempted to overeat. Be sure the image you choose is realistic for who you are. A 5'1", 49-year-old woman aiming for the figure of a 5'11", 22-year-old model is silly and will only frustrate you in your efforts.

Want more help? Here are some other ways to "see" yourself straight to your goal weight.

Visualize creatively. Visualization is a technique that involves using your imagination to create positive changes in your life. Are people always telling you that you have an active imagination? Then here's your chance to put it to good use! As frequently as possible, conjure up a mental picture of your soon-to-be-thin self. "See" yourself wearing the kinds of body-hugging outfits and doing the kinds of things--proudly walking across a crowded beach, for instance--that might not feel comfortable for you quite yet. Keep forming these pleasant mental pictures, and you'll find yourself motivated to make them a reality.

Say goodbye to your unrealistic body image. Sometimes people get "stuck" at a point in their diet because they cling to an impossible-to-attain body image. They don't look like the women they see in Vogue or turning letters on game shows, and their frustration turns into a binge. But not until you accept what is reasonable for your body can you expect to reach a comfortable goal, one you can be happy with long-term.

Do a body image spot-check. Your body, like the rest of you, will just naturally change over time, due to things like a slowing metabolism and shifts in body composition. So, periodically you may have to adjust your expectations for your body. What was realistic for you ten years ago may not be realistic for you today.

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Quarterly Inventory

Twenty-six weeks down, 26 to go! How does it feel to be more in control of your weight and your health than ever before? If there was ever a time to pat yourself on the back, this is it!

And it's time again to review the good habits you've learned and incorporated into your daily life. As you did before, fill out the checklist below.

Aim for 14 or more "Yes!" or "Usually" answers out of 18, and don't forget about your reward!