A Four-Day Win

In the new book I'm reading, The Four-Day Win: End Your Diet War and Achieve Thinner Peace by Martha Beck, it all about creating a series of four-day wins. A four-day win is something you do consistently for four days. Beck gives this example of how four really is a magic number...if someone asks you if you play poker and you've played it one time you'd say, "I've played it once" but if you've played 2-3 times you'd probably say "I play sometimes" whereas if you've played 4+ times and someone asks you that same question you'd probably say "Yes, I play poker". Beck identifies 4 days as the amount of time it takes to start a habit. Obviously, you have to continue past four days to truly make something a habit but Beck says, four days helps lay the foundation. And if you think about it, there's nothing you couldn't do if you were only taking it four days at a time (she's calls this chunking your goals). If for example, your first four-day win was to exercise everyday you could probably incorporate exercise into your schedule for the next four days pretty easily. As you can see this book is all about building healthy habits...healthy habits that are formed in the mind but carried out through your day-to-day actions. It's really about making you think like a healthy, thin person.

My First Four-Win
Since I've started this blog I've notice what some of my bad eating habits are. One of which is always eating something sweet after lunch and dinner. Even if I'm full I will still want something sweet after my meal. So my first goal is this...no eating sweets right after a meal. If I still want that cookie or piece of chocolate an hour after I eat then I'll eat it but I at least have to give it an hour. Beck says the most important thing about your goal is that it has to be quantifiable. So say your goal is to eat more veggies, it can't just be "I'll eat more veggies" it has to be something like "I'll eat 3 serving of veggies each day".

As for my progress for the day, here is how it breaks down
6:00 am

•    Boot camp with participants (I participated in at least 35 minutes of it)

7:30 am

• Amazing grass with cranberry raspberry juice

9:00 am

• Jimmy Dean Breakfast Sandwich - It was a whole grain bagel, egg whites, turkey sausage and cheese (260 calories and really tasty considering it's from a box)
• Coffee, fat-free half&half, truvia

12:30 pm

• Red Lobster - Wood-grilled chicken and wild rice pilaf (I only finished about 70% of my meal) (around 420 calories for the amount I ate) 
• 1 of those wonderfully delicious cheese biscuits (140 cal)

2:30 pm

• Right after lunch I wanted something sweet so bad but I waited till 2:30, ate a Kellogg's FiberPlus bar and I was fine

5:30 pm

• Skinny Cow (150 cal)

6:30 pm - Working out 30 minutes with my evening boot camp class

After class I wasn't really hungry so I didn't eat but now that it's almost 10 pm I can feel myself getting hungry so I'll have an apple and call it a night. This is the second day of staying within my calories...I feel like a champ.