The Science of Self-Help

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Day 319 & To Break Apart Eating or Not

Day 319 Record Keeping
Day 288 Fixed Meditation 
Day 234 Bodyweight Exercise  (3x8 one armed wall pushups)
Day 161 Writing (creative and exercises)
Day 334 Eating = 67
Day 91 Work = 57
Great sleep, great wakeup. 
Eating has been spotty. had a beer last night it definitely immediately bloated me and it was not comfortable. Homemade pizza was on the docket last night and I had it on eggplant - the bread looked really good and I almost cheated. Took a pic instead. Today had pita because I felt really cheaty. 

To Break Apart Eating or Not
Despite the many conversations I’ve had on how to do this eating habit, I think I need to divide it further. And this was the subject of a very long series of conversations.

Lydia reasoning is that like a strong addiction, food is something that needs to be quit cold turkey to gain its global benefits.

So let’s take smoking. Let’s divide it into 1) smoking idly during the day, 2) smoking during a smoke break at work and 3) smoking at night while out on the town. These three things have different emotional triggers.

To her, tackling the problem one at a time doesn’t free you from the physical addiction - you don’t feel better and you cannot know what it’s like to not be a smoker. You’re still smoking at some point in the day, so tobacco is still in your system. The feeling of having your system cleared compared to the memory of it being in your system is a juxtaposition that is highly beneficial and motivational.

Another motivation is the feeling of significant progress. In eating, we both lost a significant amount of weight in the beginning. That would not have happened if it we broke the habit up.

My counter was that there are so many factors in eating that are situational that cause me to have only a partial handle on my eating habit. It’s just way too wobbly, and this is after almost a full year. The time really isn’t important, what bothers me is that I’m not seeing enough clear improvement across time.

What’s going wrong? I already felt the difference in the first two months, and I definitely feel the global benefits. After I eat something cheaty I feel pretty bad. But it’s not enough.

Maybe this is one of those things that needs both. I’ve already done the cold turkey method and it worked to a degree. Maybe what I need to do is do a series of challenges like the no bread challenge. If so what would I do?

No bread, definitely worked well. No beer. Two glasses of wine challenge. No cheese? Automatically snacking on something that’s clean if I feel an urge to cheat? Eating around cheaty parts of meals in a restaurant? In any case I do feel the flash diet really helps even if I don’t post it up here.

The key is really zoning in on  the thing that really is making me fail right now.