Balance

I had what I think is a new and obvious thought, but it's so obvious, that I wonder if I've even mentioned it here before and forgotten about it. 10 years ago, when I finally gave up caffeinated Diet Coke, it took a good THREE YEARS before caffeine free diet coke felt as good to drink as the caffeinated kind. Stopping overeating has got to be the same. Now that I think of it, I'm sure it will take AT LEAST three years and probably more, before eating normally feels as good to me as overeating. Oddly, that's good news. It helps me to have confidence that eventually, normal eating will be what I want to do.

The trick is going to be to find balance. I can't quit eating cold turkey. And when I'm hungry, it's difficult to make good decisions about what my body needs as opposed to what my mind wants. The solution there is advance planning. Overall though, I think the real solution is going to be finding that balance between what I want, what I need, what is simply bad habit, what is nutritional. I want to be conscious of my decisions, but not too much so because that's out of balance too.

I also like the simple idea of moving toward my goal or away from it. Catherine told me of a missionary who had to lose X number of pounds before they would allow him to go, he did it too. She described one day when everyone else had their Wendy's hamburger, and this young man had a turkey sub. These kinds of things are so hard for me to treat normally---I bet the other kids eating Wendy's were thin. Why didn't this poor guy get to eat a hamburger?

Okay, think this through. EVERY person who ate a burger and fries that day was moving AWAY from being a healthy person. If the others were thin, it's because they usually make better decisions. This missionary had made too many poor food decisions which is why he was fat, but he still gets to make the SAME choice. He could have eaten the burger and fries too, and it would have slowed his weight loss down. He made a different choice and it moved him in the right direction. I have to remember that I'M NOT BEING PUNISHED. I am in exactly the same boat as everyone else. I make good choices, I move toward good health, I make poor choices, I move toward poor health. I'm overweight, which means I've made too many poor choices, so I need to make EXTRA good choices to compensate for the poor choices in the past. That thought helps with deprivation thinking.

Today is tough because it's the distinguished professor reception which means my all time favorite--appetizers. However, I've been eating a lot of cheese lately, so hopefully at least the cheese won't seem so special to me.

Here's todays food:

Breakfast: 2 crepes, diet juice. NORMAL

Snack: cake. Thinking--good (I knew I didn't need cake, but was trying to act "normally" and had 1/2 a slice). Result: POOR

Snack: Grapes and cheese. Thinking GOOD (pre-planned and made at home so I could go heavy on the grapes and light on the cheese) Result: NORMAL

Lunch: 6 inch roast beef sub. and baked chips. NORMAL

Dinner: Have hopes of some control. Will eat banana just before going. Thinking: POOR--sure the banana is a good idea, but I get waaaaayyy too excited about stuff like this. I don't think thin people obsess as much as I do.

Uh boy

Oh dear, Things are going up up up up up. I feel fat, I've gained weight and worst of all, I've set a terrible example for Catherine who has gained weight too. I don't want to bounce back to weight watchers though to start the downward part of the yo-yo. But I really hate feeling fat and having my clothes be tight. I'm going to try to find what works for me on a daily basis if need be. Today, I just want to track what I'm eating, whether it's reasonable or not, and how it could be better. Catherine leaves for her mission on Wednesday, and I know we've both got some "last supper" thinking going on. But Wednesday will not be my "last supper" of overeating. I'm determined to keep working on eating and moving normally and let God take care of my body's response.

Breakfast--Normal--was a little hungry.

A thin bun with veggie cream cheese spread

Banana

milk

Snack---Poor, because I wasn't hungry AND it was heavy on calories

small pouch of Scooby-doo fruit snacks

sleeve of chili-habanero almonds

Lunch--Normal--ish. I felt the amounts were more or less appropriate, but since I still wasn't hungry I probably would have been happy with 1/2.

Sandwich--white roll, sausage (leftover from C farewell), cheese and spinach.

Deli olives--about 8 or 9. honey dew and watermelon chunks tomato soup--literally just a few sips because I was full. a few bites of dark chocolate.

Hopefully normal Dinner tonight will be fajitas for Catherine. Not a bad choice diet-wise. We have a lot of goodies at home though and I'm not willing to deny myself anything today. I think my best bet will be to make a determined effort to not graze, and not eat two fajitas, if I'm already full with just one. And I can drink water.

Exercise---at the moment on unwilling hold. My knee is out. So I haven't been walking, but it's not by choice.

keeping track

Better write down what I've eaten today before I lose control altogether. It's almost time to go home and I'm quite hungry, which is fine, but it makes me think that I have eaten too much, will be eating too much and that there are no other choices. Let me get this down. Breakfast-- 2 "morning glory" muffins at about 250 cal each 3 strips bacon-150 1 glass chocolate milk--150 Breakfast---800 cal Snack--6 slices deli roast beef w fat free cream cheese---about 70 cal Lunch--2 small slices cheesecake factory rustic veggie pizza. 300 cal each? celery and red pepper slices--50 olives--60--- Lunch--710 Truffle--80? Snack--fiber one bar--140 Total so far---1730 Oops. No wonder I'm feeling a little out of control. The big problem is that my lunch wasn't filling. So now I've had a bunch of calories with not much to show for it. I'm making a new reciepe for dinner out of the cooking light magazine. I will try to fill up as much as I can on low calorie side dishes and ideally, skip dessert. On the bright side, I went and lifted a few weights even though that's the last thing I felt like doing today.

cheesecake factory

Slowly making better decisions. The other day when I had 250 cal left for dinner? Catherine wanted to take us to Zuppas for dinner. Truth was, I was still stuffed from lunch--that was a huge taco salad I ate. This blog really helped--I went to Zuppas and realized that I was stuffed and decided to get dinner to take home later when I was hungry. The salad sounded good, but i decided I didn't want their high calorie dressing, I got it without and took it home. I wasn't even a little hungry until about 8. I really didn't need dinner even then--but I ate the bread, some olives and cheese and the chocolate dipped strawberries. More than I needed, but FAR less than I would have eaten had I just been on autopilot.

Yesterday we went to the cheesecake factory. There's really no excuse for the cheesecake factory--it's all deadly. But I had it in mind and ate very reasonably for breakfast and lunch. I didn't go out of my way to overstuff at the factory, but I did have exactly what I wanted. Today is St. Patrick's day and we have shepherd's pie and rich brownies that I made for the missionaries who aren't coming after all. I sitll have at least half of last night's cheesecake--BUT since I want those brownies, the cheesecake can wait.

Careful...

Things have gone very well the past two days. On wednesday, I had over 900 calories left by dinner time. Yesterday I didn't count, but I did all right I think). I volunteered at a blood drive and didn't get dinner till late, I probably should have eaten the pretzels rather than the trail mix---but dinner surprised me. We got real pizza to celebrate pi day (March 14), and I only wanted 2 pieces, I also made myself a salad which I ate, but was really thinking that I didn't want to finish it (I did finish it, but maybe next time it will be easier to stop). Catherine came by at lunch and brought me 2 little sweet potato pies for pi day. I ate one and was happy. Today, I sense that if I don't count calories I will slide off into not trying at all. So, I will count. Breakfast--thin bagel w lite cream cheese--about 150 Milk--100 Pear--80 giradelli chocolate (oops) about 100. Total--430 Lunch will be a taco salad from upstairs---all eating out is 1500 cal That brings me to 1930 for the day. Realistically, I doubt I'll be able to eat only 270 cal for dinner, BUT--also realistically, I don't think the taco salad is quite 1500 calories. What this tells me is that I need to go as lightly as I can tonight. Tonight is NOT the night to eat giant desserts or giant portions. I will have had enough. What do I do now though? I'm genuinely hungry and lunch seems like a long time away. I have some cup of soup. I think I'll go ahead and eat that and take the edge off. I do believe in the intuitive eating idea that genuine hunger should be responded to.

A gentle effort

It's been awhile! I've thought about this blog, but i've deliberatley not been writing in it. I want to get my focus off of food--to try intuitive eating and give my mind and body a chance to normalize. The catch is that I still have an addiction, I don't "normalize" I gain weight, and I'm still having quite a reaction to weight watchers--meaning that I'm reacting badly to any attempt to control my food. I am still determined never to "diet" again. Yes, I lose weight (at least in the short term) but it just adds to my food problem making it that much harder the next time. I'm back up to 197, which is disappointing. but at least not over the dread 200. I've been thinking why I am so determined NOT to lose weight, but I'm baffled. I was feeling and looking good at 185--almost good enough to tempt me to try weight watchers again. But no. It just isn't for me.

So, here's the latest plan---a very gentle, very loose plan that I think addresses one of the fundamental problems of weightwatchers. I'm going with the old saying, "Act as if." I looked it up on the internet, and IF I weighed about 160 and was moderatley active, I would need to eat about 2100 cal every day. OK!! I know from the Lean and Free program, that left to myself I will naturally eat about 2200-2400. THAT's not so much of a difference! What I want to stop is what happened the other night. I went through my normal day, and after dinner I had probably eaten about the normal 2,300. THEN Catherine made cookies loaded with mm's. I probably ate an additional 800 cal of cookies and milk. I do that kind of thing ALL THE TIME, and it's really hurting me.

I'm not going to freak out over this effort, it doesn't feel like a diet because I intend to eat whatever I want--including 800 calories of cookies and milk if that's what I really want, but if I do that, I will eat more lightly during the day. I think I can put on some very gentle brakes without triggering massive rebellion because I perceive that 2,200 cal is enough for anybody and MANY MANY MANY men eat that or less. I feel as though I'm not being punished for being female. It's still going to be hard---but I hope I will perceive it as reasonably hard--and that for once I am off kilter and bringing myself back to where I should be and how I want to live all the time.

For counting purposes I want to simplify things as much as possible--with the idea that when I get to where I need to be, I can stop counting unless my weight starts to creep back up. I'm going to figure that all cheese is 100 cal an ounce. All restaurant meals are 1,500 cal whether it's burgers and fries or whether it's the cheesecake factory (Saturday's folly), potlucks at the ward and work are 1,000 cal, and all homemade cookies are 120 cal, all random desserts are 300 cal.

I got onto caloriecount.com and decided that it was too clunky to log all food---paper and pencil are much easier, but calorie count is great for looking up random stuff like the olives I have today.

I'm a little excited today--as I always am when starting a new project, but this time, I'm just trying to so what I perceive everybody else is doing, rather than trying to live some plan that is much harder than everyone else is doing. I think I'll keep up this blog, because I still expect this to be very hard---my habits and body are all going to demand more food than is good for me, but I hope to slowly, but truly change.

beans

We had our Honduran dinner tonight. A soup stuffed with veggies--including Cassava (yucca) and a plantain--and GASP---a tiny amount of tripe. A good portion of tripe was supposed to be in the soup--but it looked and smelled awful. I cooked up a little for the three of us to sprinkle on our "authenic" soup. I'm proud to report that none of us died and all of us tried it. I must have eaten at least four or five molecules. The thing that's important to note here is how satisfying and filling that dinner was. We had the soup and then some homemade tortillas with fat free refried beans, mexican sourcream and mexican cheese. They were small tortillas, but those with the soup hit that magic place where I'm not only full, but I dont want any more food. That is a rare experience for me. I need to work on eating more complete combinations like much much much much more often. Right now, I don't want dessert, I don't want to munch, I'm not thinking about tomorrows food. I have well and truly had enough.

5 things to be grateful for: That I don't have to eat tripe (even the cats didn't eat it) That we're almost done paying the Sallie Mae loan!!! That I found my favorite picture of my Dad A warm house. The chance to teach gospel doctrine.