The MakeMeThinner Support Forum

[Elizabeth]

Do you have boundaries with your MF eating plan? If so, please share what they are.
The reason I started this post is because boundaries do help me stay on track and focused. I read about boundaries in Linda Spangle's book...
100 Days of Weight Loss. Linda Spangle is also the author of the Medifast book Success in a Shaker Jar. She is also the author of Life is Hard, Food is Easy. Her books are helping me right now. I encourage anyone who is struggling to pick up her books. I believe you can order Success in a Shaker Jar on your next Medifast order

Day 4...Pg 8
Boundaries, not diets

You've probably heard people say that diets are bad for you and that you should "never diet again". In truth, the problem isn't usually with diets themselves, but with the rigid perfectionistic ways we use them.
If you're like most people, when you're on a diet, you try hard to follow it perfectly. Each day you strive to take in the exact number of calories, fat grams or carbohydrates allowed by the plan.
But if you slip up and eat a delicious (but forbidden) food, you figure you've blown it, so you might as well eat more. Soon you throw the entire diet out the window. This all-or-nothing approach never works because when you are off your diet, you cancel out the progress you made while you were on it.

Boundaries define your diet
Like it or not, to lose wieght, you have to follow some type of system. Your plan can be quite rigid and meticulous or as simple as deciding you'll eat less and increase your level of exercise. Instead of getting stuck on the word diet, learn to think of it as boundaries for your eating plan.

Picture your diet program as a road or a path. You can define the boundaries of your diet road based on the number of calories, points or other factors you choose to follow. As you walk on the road each day, your goal is to stay between the sides of the road. Unlike strict or rigid diet plans, boundaries stay flexible. They provide guidelines, but at the same time, they allow for common sense and good judgement.

During times when you're strong and focused on your diet, you move the boundaries closer together, making the road narrower. When you take a break from your program or work on maintenance, you widen the boundaries and allow more variety in your plan. But even on a really bad day, you never eliminate the road or get off it completely.

Set guidelines, not rules
Boundaries should give you benefits, not punishment! They should provide guidelines for you to live by, but not burden you with rules. You can define boundaries for any type of diet of weight-loss approach. Depending on your needs, you can simply adjust the edges of your plan to match where you are in life. By doing this, you'll be far more successful than if you punish yourself every time you step off the road.


I hope it ok that I posted this from a book. So many of us deal with the disapointment, sense of failure, guilt etc. of falling off the wagon. This helps me alot and I hope it will help others.

I am on the Complete Plan. This plan is 6 Medifast meals per day and no real food. I have set my boundaries from 5 meals per day to as much as 7 MF meals per day plus a L & G as outlined in the 5+1 plan. I hope others will share what their boundaries are.
Thanks for reading.

[cyn]

Great post! Thank you so much for posting this. I am going to check into the books. I am all for any information for making this be the last time I try to lose weight. I dont want to be a failure and give up--this is the one that will truly be my last diet and my new lifestyle. I am also doing the complete plan with only MF foods. I just started Saturday and so far I havent missed the food at all. Thanks Elizabeth!

[Amber]

Provactive subject matter, Elizabeth...
I read your post with great interest. I think that, while boundaries are necessary, it is also necessary for us to be gentle with ourselves. We are all human ie: imperfect. To demand perfection of oneself is not, in my humble opinion, realistic.
I do the best I can on a daily basis. If I have a "bad" day, I do better the next. If I have an especially hungry day (like today) I will do a 6 & 1 or eat an extra l&g, without regret. This is my 14th week with no major cheats; no sugar, flour, junk food, etc... Before I began this program I vowed to NOT give up my Lighthouse Blue Cheese Salad Dressing, used sparingly. I have been able to stay within these boundaries that I have established for myself. I am steadily losing and so consider this program to be working for me, within my parameters.

[Sarya]

I guess I have some boundaries (if I understand this correctly). More than I thought actually, but they mostly revolve around carb intake.

1. Keep carbs under 85g per day. I strive for 80g knowing that salad dressing and other random things add up.
2. I can have up to 2 servings of jello a day, but 0 or 1 is better for my head. I don't think that 10 calories and 1g of protein makes much difference if I have the second serving, but it's a splurge that I do too often and want to cut back on. (even though it's allowed).
3. For snacking I try to only have the jello. I'll only have crisps or crackers if I absolutely need a carb or crunch fix. Or if I'm going to the movies. Crisps are my substitute popcorn. This is hard to plan, but I am less likely to have one of these snacks if my meal plan for the day was set up with 80g of carbs or more. I either have to switch out the nightly pudding with a fruit drink to have them or I scheduled it into the day ahead of time (in the case of going to the movies).
4. Somedays I just need more. When this occurs I will allow myself low fat cheese or extra cucumber since I dislike celery sticks without dip.
5. I should have salad most days of the week for my green. I have less chance of going overboard with the salad because it's so low in calories and carbs.
6. No going off plan without really thinking about it. This doesn't mean I don't.. because I do and sometimes in a very elaborate fashion. But I don't want to find myself in the position of little cheats here and there adding up. Or of being blind sided by a piece of cake or something. In my medifast world having an ounce of cheese or a couple cucumber spears is a snack not a cheat. A cheat would be my favorite pickles, or my favorite beets, or something completely off plan like bread, cake, sugar soda, juice, fruit, etc.
7. I try to have a rule about water, but I screw that one up almost daily. The rule was supposed to be 64oz of plain water before other stuff could be drunk. Then it was 40 oz of plain water before anything else. Then 20 oz.. now it's just "please just drink some plain water" sigh.

Places where my rules don't go:

when I "go off plan" (I don't like to call it cheating because I'm doing it with thought and foresight. I'm not willy nilly falling with my mouth open and having an ice cream slide down my throat) it's usually for an entire day. I've tried doing the thing where you just eat your supplements for the rest of the day. It never works for me. This doesn't mean I eat horribly the entire day, but it does usually mean I don't have another supplement afterwards. I may have a L&G or so depending on when the off plan eating occurs.

[Amber]

Sarya,
I'm so with you on the "little cheats" adding up and your definition of snack vs cheat. I think that not cheating is almost more important, for me anyway, than water intake. I can always drink more water, I can never stop cheating.
I love your term "off plan". I use "stepping off the wagon", as opposed to falling off.

[mousehouse62]

This forum interests me since I too have "little cheats" but are consistant about sticking with MF and learning how to live even with cheats. I used to beat myself up so bad that I would think "I might as well eat all I can if I have gone this far"...but not anymore! I now know that even if I may put something up to my lips, I am not condemning myself again! It is about boundries and alot is about loving myself! MF has given me boundries. I do know that every 2 1/2 to 3 hours I will be eating something, or drinking something and that in itself it a great boundry for me!
A book that I have found very interesting is "Eating Thin for Life: by Anne M. Fletcher. It is a book from people who have lost weight and kept it off consistantly. It is very interesting to read their point of view. I just grabbed it from the library and am now interested in purchasing one. Pick one up and read for yourself.

Congrats to all who are losers on the forum. We are blessed with our MF.

[ascicles]

I just eat what's on plan. I can't really say that I've ever paid attention to the calories, carb numbers, etc. of anything other than sauces that I eat with my meals.

I don't try to fit my dinner into the 300/10 mold that people talk about, or anything like that.

[tommysgirl]

thank you elizabeth, this was very helpful to me. i actually have these books at home but have not read them yet. this reminds me that i need to do that. i don't know that i do anything that would qualify as a boundary because i'm so new to the program (again) but i do a lot of positive self-talk in my head and praying helps too. when i feel weak, i ask for help from the big man upstairs. thanks for sharing.

[Aerie]

Your post is similar to my philosophy on this diet. I too have set personal boundaries AND have modified the MF plan some to fit my lifestyle and what I can live with long term while still enjoying sucess. All or nothing is a death sentence to some dieters! I follow my own "rules/boundaries" very carefully but they are malleable and as long as the scale rewards me each week I feel as though I'm doing fine.

One thing I do point out though is if you aren't having consistent losses, you need to re-examine your rules/boundaries because as someone else mentioned it's a slippery slope and I do hear the occasional MFer saying why aren't losing I only ate such and such off plan? Life isn't fair and some can have wider boundaries than others.