Saturday, December 09, 2006

week 1 The Lists: Yellow, Red.Green and NO MATTER WHAT

In this section of my Thin and Serene: A Way of Life program, you will be making three lists: a Yellow List,

a NO MATTER WHAT Red List

and a Green List.

The Yellow List, the caution list, will be very long and have on it anything that you can think of that keeps you from being Thin and Serene around food.

The No Matter What Red List will start out very short. I call it the No Matter What List and whatever you put on that list you will not eat for at least 24 hours No Matter What.

The Green is the teaching list. On this list will be things that will contribute to the making of a Thin and Serene you.

Make your Yellow List first, putting on it any items or situations that might get in the way of your accomplishing becoming Thin and Serene for life. The following is a copy of my first Yellow List to give you some ideas of the types of things that can be on this list. When you make your own list, feel free to use or not use as many of mine as you choose.

No sugar +++(for me, sugar needs to be fifth on the ingredient label before I can eat the item without it triggering my addiction)
No honey+++
No crackers++
No nuts+
No white flour++
No snacking between meals
No eating before 6 AM++
Not eating after 7 PM++
No Pizza places+
No Taco places+
No Buffets++
No Eating in the car+
No Eating standing up+
No Eating at movies+
No Eating at work functions++
No bread+++
No peanut butter++
No chips ++
No fried foods++
No Eating between meals++
No Eating while fixing food +
No Eating while cleaning up+
(in the beginning I had to chew sugarless gum to accomplish the last two)

This list is usually very long and can be added to as you realize other foods and situations that stand between you and being Thin and Serene. Now that you are finished with your Yellow List, go back and put pluses beside your items.

I have done this to my list as an example: three +++ for the big items, two ++ for the medium ones and one + for the smaller ones.

You’ll notice that I put +++ next to sugar. That’s because it is my number one “drug” .of choice. I say drug intentionally because when I eat sugar all hell…………o breaks loose. All I had to or would have to do is take one bite of sugar and I would be gone for months, if not forever. And I would weigh over 300 pound within six months.



The following is how you could set up your yellow list.




My YELLOW List - Week One
1. _________________________________

2. _________________________________

3. _________________________________

4. _________________________________

5. _________________________________

6. _________________________________

7. _________________________________


8. _________________________________

9. _________________________________

10. _________________________________

11. _________________________________

12. _________________________________

13. _________________________________

14. _________________________________

15. _________________________________


*Fill in as many or as few as you need. You can always add more later



The No Matter What Red list

Now for your Red List. The Red List is what I call the “No Matter What” list. Whatever you put on your Red List, you’re not going to do, just for today, No Matter What. This list needs to be kept very short. In the beginning, my No Matter What Red List had only sugar on it.






My RED List - Week One
1. ____________________________

2. ____________________________

3. ____________________________


© For your first week select 1 +++ item or two or three ++ or + items from your Yellow List to put on your No Matter What Red List. Remember you only need to let go of these foods or situations for a day or 24 hours.

© If you select an item that later in the day you feel you are not ready to give up yet, that’s fine, you may choose another item. But you have to wait until the next morning before you decide. Changes can only be made before noon.

In my experience, I’m stronger in the morning and it’s easier for me to decipher between what I want to do and what my food addict wants me to do. As the day goes on, my addict wrestles the control from me especially early on in my recovery journey. This concept of waiting until morning to make a decision has helped me acquire over 6,935 days (or 19 years) of abstaining from sugar and it all started with just one day. Now, I know many of you are saying no way could I do that! Well, that’s exactly what I said the minute before I let go of sugar for the first day.

© Don’t be afraid to choose a three +++ item, you can always change it in the morning, if it really is too much for you.

© If you chose to give up a large item, like I did with sugar, it’s good to have a “safety net” (by a “safety net” I mean something that can take the place of what you are letting go of) When I let go of sugar, my “safety net” was artificial sweeteners. Eventually I let go of sweeteners, too, but I allowed myself a good year of using them, sometimes with abandon in order to keep out of the sugar. We will talk more about “safety nets” when I explain how the use the Yellow List.

© Day count. Your No Matter What Red List is where you will get your day count like my over 6,935 days off sugar. Each day you accomplish what you have on your No Matter What Red List is another day count. This count needs to accumulate back to back (b2b). What I mean by this is; each day you accomplish what you have on your No Matter What Red List will be one day count, but if you have say three days of day count then eat or do something on you No Matter What Red List you will need to start your day count over.

.

Before I began my journey, I really felt that if I did not eat whatever my brain was telling me to eat I would die. I’m somewhat embarrassed to even admit, Now I know it was not me; but my disease/addict commanding me to believe I could not live without whatever she wanted me to eat.






The Green List

The Green List is the teaching list. On this list will be things that will contribute to the making of a Thin and Serene you. This list will be made by me for you.




Your GREEN List - Week One

On the Green List will be items that you will add, contributing to the making of a Thin and Serene you.

1. Drink an eight-ounce glass of water ten to fifteen minutes before each meal. The reason for this is two fold; one, it takes approximately fifteen minutes for your stomach to start feeling full. Most of us being fast eaters, we can devour a lot of food before realizing we are full. Thus, the water will aid us in accomplishing a fuller feeling as we begin our meal. The other reason is that it’s difficult for our bodies to tell the difference between hunger and thirst. Therefore, it’s important to keep hydrated. (It makes me wonder how often in the past I ate when what my body really wanted was water.)

2, Suggested food plan
Breakfast-
4 ounces protein
8 ounces fruit
Optional small serving starchy carb.(Be real careful here.

Many of us food addicts have a strong intolerance to starchy
carbs. Examples of starchy carbs are bread,
rice, potatoes, pasta, cereal, ect.)


Lunch-
5 ounces protein
8 ounces vegetables
1 ounce fat
8 ounces fruit
Optional small serving starchy carb (I can’t eat any starchy carbs.
and live a Thin and Serene Way of Life.)

Dinner- 5 ounces protein
8 ounces vegetables
1.5 ounces fat
8 ounces fruit




3. For lunch and dinner each day, you need to eat exactly eight ounces of vegetables. Your addict respects exactness and is less likely to interfere if you keep your weighing exact. This is also why I recommended you getting a digital scale in the Before You Get Started Part. (Peas, corn, potatoes, and yams may not be used for the eight ounces)

4. You need to have at least four hours between your meals. This also needs to be exact, not three hours and 59 minutes. As I mentioned above, our addicts respect exactness. This boundary will also help you build a strong abstaining muscle. (Even now I sometimes find myself stand in front of my microwave clock waiting for eating time.)

5. Start thinking about how becoming Thin and Serene: will primarily be an inside job

Activity: Here are some positive thought to start saying to yourself. I needed to say these thing hundreds of times a day.

-I love my vegetables.
-Vegetable are my favorite foods.
-I love the foods that are good for my body.
-I alway feel full after my Thin and Serene meals. (If you are not full after your meal keep saying this affirmation until you feel full!!)

Activity
Make a collage of all the new foods that you and your body "could' start loving. (The more I visualize things the more they become my "truth" and my reality.)

- I am stonger that my disease/addict.
-I am a good person becoming a great person.
-I always make the right food choices.


This is the way the Lists will work:

The Red List

Your Red List is the No Matter What List......... And No Matter What, for any given twenty-four hours, you will not eat what you have put on your No Matter What Red List. Remember, changes to the No Matter What Red List can be made, but only before noon. This is because your addict’s a late sleeper and doesn’t usually do mornings. Remember, your No Matter What Red List is where your day count comes from.

The Yellow List

Your Yellow List has more than one use. On serene days you “could” stay away from all the items and situations on this list as well as Your No Matter What Red List, which will aid you in achieving faster weight loss.

Some days will be less than serene. On these days you “could’ use some of your Yellow list items as the “safety net”, I spoke of earlier, to stay away from your No Matter What Red List.

Calendar and Stars
Now get yourself a calendar and put your calendar in a place where you can see it on a daily basis

Any day that you stay away to both your No Matter What Red List and your Yellow List and followed a food plan will be a three star day.

A two star day would be a day you avoided your No Matter What Red List but needed to use some of your Yellow List items as a “safety net”.

Any other type of day would be a one star which is considered a good day. Keep in mind every day gets at least one star. (The reason for this will be discussed in depth in Week five.)



No Matter What
The most import positive affirmation I can give you is this: “I KEEP MY FOOD IN ONE POCKET AND MY LIFE IN THE OTHER, AND I DON‘T MIX”. This is especially true for your No Matter What Red List foods. Keep them down at the bottom of the pocket so NO MATTER WHAT they won’t even see your life, let alone get anywhere near it.

With positive thoughts and abstinence everything is possible! The more your No Matter What Red List grows, the Stronger your abstinence becomes; the more the sky’s the limit for your new way of life. Most days I feel like I’m floating above the ground. I’m getting chills right now even writing this because the life I’m living is beyond anything I could have dreamed for myself.

I’m fifty-two now and plan on living to at least a hundred. This is from someone who lied about her age from thirty-three to thirty-nine because she was afraid of getting older. I started my Thin and Serene: A New Way of Life journey on July 8, l987 and that’s the exact moment everything started changing for the better.

Activity:
Make two pockets a food and a life pocket. Label one Food and the other Life and display them where you can see them daily. Write all you No Matter What Red List foods on slips of paper and put them in the food pocket. You “could” put the food pocket in the kitchen and the life pocket in another room, illustrating the I DON”T MIX part. \
Ps. My suggestion is for you to stay on week one until you have accomplished putting together seven b2b abstinent days staying away from everything on you No Matter What Red List.

.

You could write this on a poster and hang it where you can see it daily.

I KEEP MY FOOD
IN ONE POCKET,

MY LIFE
IN THE OTHER
AND
I DON'T MIX

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