Day 6 I am not a dustbin & Day 7 Enjoy

I threw away the sad cake (after picking off the icing!). I also brought the remainder of the cake to my breastfeeding clinic and shared it with the other ladies there. This not only stops it going off, but prevents me from pigging out on it.

Day 7 (today) is supposed to be about eating something I really love and enjoying my food - mood food I suppose. At the moment I have a sleeping baby so I think the next task is to go into the kitchen and pick something for dinner. And tonight I fancy butternut squash chips with lamb mince chilli and oven roasted vegetables. http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/database/butternutchipswithro_87033.shtml Mmm. I'm hungry already.

Day 5 - stop when you are satisfied

I've become quite good at this most of the time but was better before I had Rosie. Now I have a tendency to overeat a little because I'm unsure when I'll have another really good meal.

I'm more likely to go back for seconds at the moment because of breastfeeding, I've found that I am more hungry and have a larger appetite than is usual for me. Currently I can eat the same amount as Rich before I'm satisfied whereas previously I was leaving some on the plate.

Tomorrow is along similar lines - I am not a dustbin, throw away what I don't need to eat. I'm happy doing this with savoury foods but less so with sweet. So I have a little challenge as I've got a chocolate cake left over from my birthday last weekend (ie just over a week ago) that is starting to go a little hard. I'll be throwing it away, icing and all!

The chocolate cake that I made is still okay I think (I never did get around to eating any). I'm going to cut one slice off to enjoy at some point tomorrow and send Rich in with the rest to his work. I don't really need to eat it and it's a shame for it to be wasted! If it's a bit sad too, it'll just have to go in the bin.

Day 4 -put it on a plate and focus

Hmm, I'm good at doing this at mealtimes, less so when I'm snacking and I'm sorry to say that I didn't eat my snacks last night mindfully and really ate more than I enjoyed.

I need to come back to this. At this rate I'll be doing the fornight again immediately afterwards!

Today I'm supposed to be stopping when I'm satisfied. We're having roast lamb for dinner (one of my faves, especially roast potatoes) so I'm committing to both tuning in and eating mindfully for that meal.

Day 3 - be hungry when you eat

This is my 3rd daily task, to notice when I'm eating for reasons other than hunger. At the moment I swing wildly between starving and being unable to eat because Rosie needs me or not very hungry but having time to grab a snack.

I've been eating chocolates because I was given some for my birthday, but I'm not really hungry when I do it, it's just because I like the taste of them in my mouth or sometimes because I want a break and eating gives me that excuse to take one.

I've only just read the email for today and it's already 6.30pm but I'm going to really notice my hunger levels for the remainder of the day.

Day 2

I'm sitting on this one for a few days, primarily because I wasn't sure I could sign up to the service immediately and was going through old emails and then found that I wasn't too late.

So how has my tuning in gone? Not too bad, I've felt a little resistant sometimes when snacking - in fact my emotions were specifically feeling flustered and rushed and taking some time for myself.

It's therefore probably a good thing that I can pause over this fairy task for a few days. I now have a shiny new laptop (arrived today) so will have another go at tuning in tomorrow as it'll be easier to log my tuning in.

Day 1

I've put all of the SW magazines into a black bin liner and they're just waiting to be recycled. So my first task is complete. I don't actually think very frequently about dieting nowadays, primarily because it just doesn't work for me - I only last a few hours so it's pointless and I want to eat more than normal to use up my points/syns/whatever.

Day 2 - my task is to tune in and ensure that I eat when I'm actually hungry. This isn't a problem with my main meals, but I'm commiting to doing it specifically with my snacking. I'm going to write down when I'm eating, how much and how I've felt at the time. I did this when I first started IE, using Normal Eating's method (which is based on Geneen Roth's journaling of food).

When I'm out I'll 'tune in' carefully beforehand and record it afterwards as I'm hoping to go to Baby Boogie and am likely to have a scone afterwards. The commitment is to only eat if I actually need to.

I don't really have the time to write it all down for a week or more, but feel I could manage one day. So that's my plan...

Lost

I feel like I've lost my way with IE/BC at the moment. My life is flashing by in a whirlwind of night feeds, expressing and feeling I've had a successful day if I've managed to get out of the house by 1pm!

After a very useful teleconference call, I've dug out my BC daily fairy tasks that I signed up to over a year ago. To get back on track a little, I'm going to do one of the fairy tasks each day for the next fortnight and document my daily achievements on my blog.

So, my first task is to spring clean all of my diet books. This is ironic, given the fact that I've got a stack of SW magazines in the lounge that I've been promising myself I'll get rid of. So tomorrow, I'm going to stick them all in a binbag and put them in the car so that they are recycled. The only other 'diet books' are also recipe books and have some nice recipes in them so I'm going to keep them. I've bought some 'full fat' books such as the Nigella bakes book to counteract them, so I'm happy with this.

I'll report back tomorrow whether this task has been successful...