Still down

YAY!  Still at 196 today. I was a bit worried because the Zuppas dinner probably put me a little over my 2200, and yesterday I was quite hungry for dinner and had a second sloppy joe which put me right about at 2200. No problem!  Whew!  I'm trying not to be too concerned with the scale, which is oddly, why I'm weighing myself a lot just now. I don't want to weigh myself on the last day of the month and have the number reflect a flux either up or down. If I weigh frequently during the last week and take an average, that should give me a better sense of what my goal should be for the next month.

Today we're going on the ward campout and I really feel as though I can have whatever I want and still be ok. I'm not going to freak out over each calorie--I'm eating to leave myself a good 1000-1200 cal for dinner and I doubt I'll eat much more than that. That still means a good breakfast and lunch for me too. Here's today's happy non-weight watchers menu.

Breakfast--1 serving oatmeal with a whole apple and cinnamon
2 slices bacon
milk--about a cup 1%
juice--diet--almost no calories.

Snack--banana

Lunch
2 homemade pieroshis (meat turnovers)
yogurt to dip the turnovers
a thick slice of cheddar cheese
a large helping of peas
10 olives
apple sticks--this is junk food tastes kind of like apple jacks but you get a whole lot (38 sticks) for just 110 calories
Diet fresca

Dinner
2 hotdogs with all the toppings
Baked Lays
chip dip (fat free sourcream with onion soup mix)
1 or 2 smores

The ward is fixing breakfast for us tomorrow. No doubt it will be heavy, but who cares? I'll try to be moderate, but if I can't manage it, I'll adjust the rest of the day or exercise, or simply get right back on track with lunch.

The plan du jour

Try and try and try.  Catherine is off and doing fine--phew. And I've been to Disneyland and Hong Kong since I last wrote. I was re-reading a couple of my last posts. I still feel largely the same way. One thing I learned from weight watchers is that losing weight takes a whole lot more time than I like it too. I hated that if I went off the program even slightly, the weight loss would stop.  Better, was our insurance program, where if I lost only 3 pounds in a month, the insurance would pay for whatever program.  That was still the best, most motivating plan I've ever found.

I think if nothing else, I've learned to respect the process of weight-loss. I can't focus on it too much or too little. Personally, I can't (don't want to) move very fast. But I DO want to move.  I've put back almost all the weight I so laboriously lost on weight watchers. Never again. Meaning--never again will I diet like that and do that to my body.

My current idea is to simply lose TWO pounds a MONTH--not a week, a MONTH. If I lose more, great. If I lose the two pounds I will celebrate--weirdly enough by getting some kind of a food that I want. I know you're not supposed to reward yourself with food. But food is truly motivating for me, and I think most diet rules are flat out wrong anyway. The idea is that I'm learning to control food.  So, why not? If I make goal this month, I'm ordering some Mama Crimin's cookies. They're supposed to be amazing.  It's interesting to note that I could not have done this plan 5 years ago.  I didn't have enough respect for the amount of effort even 2 pounds takes, and I would have eaten everything I wanted and then tried to lose it in the last week.  That may have even sort of worked when I was younger, but not anymore. I think if I put out a good effort on most days--not a perfect effort necessarily, not a weight watchers level of restriction, but a good effort I can do it.

I'm keeping my calories between 1500 and 2200 and exercising. Most days I hit around 2,000. So far, in June I'm down 4 pounds! The funny thing is that I often feel physically the way I did on weight watchers. I'm usually good and hungry for meals and I have that light feeling, but I haven't felt deprived at all because I really am eating what I want and even the portions I want. Happily, my body really dosen't even want much more than 2000 cal. What IS different is the stupid grazing between meals, giant bowls of ice-cream, large amounts of cheese and popcorn for no reason. If there IS reason---ie: I WANT it. Then I seem to have a large enough calorie range to accomodate that. Also, I haven't worried too much about celebrations--we had a luau at work--I ate whatever I wanted.  Last night I was starving and light headed--we went to Zuppas, and I had what I wanted. The fourth of July is coming up and that means fried chicken and pie of course. I feel happy that I can enjoy these things. Four pounds down, it's a good start. The goal for June is 198. I'm getting my mouth ready for Mamma Crimins.

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.