Yesterday I had a session with Jennifer, whom you read about in our previous blog post. One of the main topics of our session this week was rehashing how it went in her first week of enforcing the “no treats from the office kitchen” guideline. In short: She was awesome! Jennifer was able to stick to the guideline the entire week and didn’t eat a bite of unplanned food while at the office. Jennifer also lost two pounds over the past week, although the primary goal was really for her to at least maintain her weight and feel more in control of her eating. The weight loss was a bonus but the real reward was how on track Jennifer felt all week.
Jennifer told me that she learned a few things last week that she now knows will be integral in continuing to stay on track with her eating this December. First, Jennifer has been bringing all the food she’s planning to eat each day to work with her, so that she doesn’t have the excuse of not having a prepared snack as a reason to go and get something from the office kitchen. While bringing all her food is not always 100% necessary most of the year, during December when the office treats are so much more abundant and tempting, it’s a requisite in helping Jennifer to stick to her plan.
Jennifer also found that reading her Response Cards made a huge difference in helping her resist office treats. Whenever the cravings hit (which usually for her was around 11:00am and 3:00pm) she would first go and read her Response Cards and remind herself, over and over again, why it was worth it to stand firm; how proud she would feel when she did; how eating the treat wouldn’t be as enjoyable as she was imagining it would be anyway because she would definitely feel guilty about it. Jennifer told me that some cravings were stronger than others, but generally they would last for about 15 minutes at most, and many of them lasted for a few minutes or less. Just knowing that she was going to have cravings, expecting it to happen, but also knowing that they would pass, helped Jennifer enormously in getting through them. She reminded herself, “I’m only 15 minutes away from success.” Meaning, in 15 minutes (or less!) Jennifer would be exactly where she wanted to be – on track and feeling great.
Jennifer and I also discussed that, while there were some hard moments every day in resisting the office treats, most of the time she felt relatively at peace in terms of her food cravings. This is very different from when we first started working together. When Jennifer first came to see me, she was in a self-described state of “mental anguish” most of the time. She was constantly fighting food cravings and feeling badly about what she was eating, feeling out of control, and very worried about her weight. The only periods of relief she had from this was when she was actually eating, but most of the time it was really hard. Now just the opposite is true. Most of the time Jennifer feels good about what she’s doing, punctuated by moments of its feeling really hard when her cravings hit, but the vast majority of hours are ones in which she feels at peace. Jennifer has gained an understanding that those hard moments are the price she pays for feeling calm most of the time, and it is a cost she is 100% willing to pay.
With one really strong week under her belt and additional knowledge and experience to apply to this week, Jennifer is feeling more armed and ready than ever before to take on the office kitchen.