When to Move onto Step Two

I probably should have posted this prior to the Step Two Objectives. As I was looking over my daily diary it just looked like a bunch of information that I wrote down for about a week. What does all of this mean? What should I be doing with this information?

You should review your daily diary twice a week for EVERY step. This is the most important part of this self-help program. It is where we learn what our triggers are, if we don’t already know them. Reviewing your daily log helps us see the areas we need to work on. And by reviewing our daily and weekly logs, we can determine when we are ready to move onto Step Two.

Review Checklist for Step One

·         Have I been monitoring?

·         Can I improve my monitoring?

·         Are any patters in my eating becoming obvious?

·         Am I sleeping on a regular schedule?

·         Am I getting enough sleep?

·         Am I weighing myself weekly?

·         How can I improve my sleep schedule?

·         Can I improve my commitment level to this program?

Moving On

As I’ve repeated before, if you’ve being getting at least 12 days of 6-8 hours of sleep and you’ve been correctly recording for at least 10 days, then you can move on to the next step.

If you haven’t accomplished those items then you need to ask yourself a few questions. Consider the reasons for why you recorded for less than 10 days or why you are not getting enough sleep?

I have to repeat Step One, because recording is very difficult for me. I absolutely hate it. I hate seeing that I binged on paper. Also, I’m a person that has to be kept on a schedule. It doesn’t have to be a strict schedule, but there must be some sort schedule. If I’m not on a schedule, things go haywire. I stop taking my meds, I stop recording, I start binging a lot, I don’t get enough sleep.

Also I’ve been stressed about money, like really, really, really, stressed. When I’m stressed, I can’t sleep. I have horrible coping skills. Absolutely horrible. I used to smoke. I have been cigarette free for a month? Two months? I can’t remember. Smoking is how I dealt with stress. Food is how I deal with stress. I binge.

The one thing that I know works for me is to come up with a financial plan. I have one in place. Secondly, I need to get back on a schedule. Once I do that, I know I will start going to bed at 10 pm, waking up at the ungodly hour of 4:30am, lying in bed for an hour mad because I can’t fall asleep. The last two hours will be spent reading a book or playing a video game. And blah, blah, blah. You get the point.

Wait, I haven’t made the point. Normally because I feel like I failed Step One, I would have gone a binge and quit. Sound familiar? When we diet and restrict calories or certain foods and when we fail our self-imposed rule, we binge to make ourselves feel better and then we repeat the process all over again like we’re on some sort of merry-go-round.

Well I’m getting off the stupid merry-go-round. I’m not going to quit because I didn’t meet all of the Step One Objectives. I’m going to start over and keep trying. Eventually it will become automatic. It will become routine.

If you suffer a set back with this, don’t give into the temptation to quit. Just start over the next day. We need to think of every new day as a fresh start. Leave that binge or set back you had yesterday in the past.