Still sick!

WOW!  I have never had time in my life like this. Leg out--sick and sick again. I'm a lot better, but still sick. Appetite out of whack, exercise out of whack.

Another cold!!

Sheesh! Another cold? Seriously?? As always, I'm hoping I can shake it before it really goes bad. Food-wise this weekend has not been good. I took Valentine's day off. We went to Famous Dave's BBQ. Delicious. 5,000---6,000 cal? Sunday was supposed to be counted, but Catherine wanted rouladen and of course, I caved. Actually, I don't know that those are sooooo terrible. Sure, it's meat and bacon fried in butter. But the whole recipe was "only" 7 Tbls of butter, and bacon doesn't actually have that many cal. I tried hard not to totally pig out and my breakfast and lunch were ok. Yesterday, was "high fiber." Meh. Worst thing, we took C back to Provo and came back much to late to cook. So we picked up greek food. No saving that meal.

Fine---get back on track right? Right. I'm supposed to be counting today, but I'm not. I'm sick and I work till six and then have therapy with Lisa after that. I'm tired in advance and can't wait for the day to be over. I've brought healthy food. I made the Asian zero point soup--which will feel good going through the congestion. And also a light potato leek soup to eat on the way down to therapy after work so I'm not starving to death.

Soup next week

Must make the zero point soup next week. I didn't this week, because I threw out a huge batch of it. But this week has been tough without it. Still, I'm hanging in there, and the weather has been so nice--weird February! that I've been able to walk to work. Let me carry on with my very inconsistent food journal. Yesterday was 1600.

Breakfast:
2 slices Ezekiel bread with 1 TBL of peanut butter, milk
Snack: 13 mini rice cakes
Lunch 2 ww tortillas with a little horseradish, 1/2 slice swiss cheese each and a lot of veggies. dill pickles and 5 olives.
Dinner: One slice cowboy pizza. Salad with Ken's dressing
Evening dessert: 1 reeses heart and 25 cal hot chocolate.

I'm not quite sure how I'm going to deal with today. The challenge is that I've been asked to go to the monthly international student meeting which always includes ethnic food. Today is China. No possible way to track the calories. It's at 1:30 so I don't dare wait lunch that long. These can vary from small snacks to full meals. Do I have the discipline to just eat a little? I don't know! It's Chinese food!!!  I don't get Chinese food very often. I really can't handle Chinese buffets and the calorie count at panda express is so horrific that I don't there very often. And don't tell me to eat the vegetables and chow mein. Why bother going if I'm going to do that?

Keeping the bad decisions?

Well, I really don't know what I would have done differently yesterday. I did GREAT all day long. But I forgot it was our date night--poor Dave, he's trying so hard. We went to Station Park, a very romantic shopping complex. We found a new dessert place--Cobblers--which serves cobblers with ice-cream and toppings. We could have skipped it (I was the one who urged him inside), we could have shared one. But we didn't. It was all I could do to not order the hot chocolate as well.

Was that a mistake? Calorie-wise, sure it was. Relationship-wise, no. And what about happiness-wise? It's one of life's great pleasures to be somewhere new and try a new food. I don't exactly want to just excuse this, certainly not just say it's ok to go everywhere and eat everything I want, but I don't want to lose weight at the cost of Wednesday date night. But does date night need to include fattening food? Well, yes. Most of the time I think it does. It's about connecting to one another even when we're busy and tired. And food is both unifying and easy.  Maybe I'm just rationalizing and making excuses. Or maybe I'm protecting certain boundaries and consciously establishing what I want my food-life to be.

Refusing the guilt, accept imperfection, and hope to lose weight anyway!

Comfort Food

I read an article yesterday about comfort food and that it's OKAY to use food as comfort. Just make sure that your comfort food really is comforting and not just food that is both empty of comfort as well as empty in calories. I like that. After all, food is used to comfort us literally from the day that we are born.

It was good timing on that reminder because I deliberately used food for comfort yesterday. The day went well, but it was still a high anxiety situation for me and I'm deeply grateful that it's over. Food-wise, it was good. It wasn't a day where I lost weight, but it was a day where I genuinely comfort much more than I needed to lose weight. I ate cheese, I had roast beef on homemade rolls with a side of cheese and chips and dip (light) for dinner. I was nice and full and then had cake and milk. I'm totally ok with that.

Today is a new and different day with different needs. It's a 1500 cal day. It could be 1600 if I use my wellness time to walk or something for one hour, but the stress lab is calling to me. I really think I'll go up to the gym and spend some time in the massage chair. I love that it's really my choice. I walked to work today, and that's very healthy, but it doesn't "count" as exercise. I really can choose to either eat a little less or work a little more and it really is ok to just eat a little less.

A ways to go

I've been doing so well and feeling so slim that it's a real shock to put on a shirt and look in the mirror and realize that it still doesn't fit very well. Not surprising!!! I'm hoping to lose 3 or 4 pounds in Feb for a total of 7 to 8 pounds. That's great and a big help, but not enough yet to make a drastic visual difference.

I still struggle with days when I "get" to eat what I want. Today is high protein day. I brought a protein bar for a snack. Fine, but I'm not really hungry, but I ate it anyway. Ditto the nuts. Actually, I'm just not all that hungry today. Today is the dread meeting with the therapist. I can't wait for it to be over. I deliberately brought comfort food and a comfort book. That means cheese. Tomorrow is a calorie count day, but that's fine. I'll get exercise and I can have whatever I want so I shouldn't need to eat today because I can't tomorrow. If it gets to be lunchtime and I don't want all the cheese I brought (a strange mental state!), will I be able not to eat it all?  It's so weird that that concept is so hard. I'm not talking about being good at all. I have license to eat 6 pounds of cheese today if I want it. All I'm trying to do is to not eat what I don't want. Kind of like not stepping on a tack. It shouldn't be hard, but it is!!

Still good

Things continue to go well. I'm rather proud of myself for yesterday--1600 cal. Saturday was 1800 but I only ate 1600. 1600 is usually difficult for me, but even though I made a great dessert, I didn't just switch to an 1800 cal day.

So why did I make a great dessert? Because it sounded so good was the real reason. Also, because it was a cake, I could cut a small piece which I did. I think it's important for me to fix real decadent food from time to time just to reassure myself that I can. But one thing I would love to point out to all diet cookbooks and chefs--if you have to cut a 9 x 9 pan into 16 pieces (which I did last night) you HAVEN'T MADE A DIET DESSERT!! It's fine cut cut something into 16 pieces because the calorie count is ridiculous and you know it to be so, but lets not have any nonsense that it's diet.