2009 December » Talking It Off

Double-Mindedness

Dec 312009

The double-mindedness of weight loss is one of the hardest things for me to conquer – besides overeating and under-exercising……..

I’m talking about those times when you are really and truly trying to follow a plan but your mind keeps slipping ahead to some food and drink oriented event in the future. And the result is usually to completely sabotage the present because…….. Because WHY?!

This is the thing I want to know.

The past two days have been like that. The mouth speaks the words: “I’m sick of food. I’m eating for health and energy this week.” And my head agrees. So which organ is it that then reaches for the chocolate, the six crackers or an extra large helping of potatoes? And all the time I’m eating that food that I don’t really want, there’s an tiny voice somewhere -or maybe just a shimmery picture in my head – of all the restaurant eating to come this weekend.

It’s weird behaviour that has its roots in the All of Nothing dieting mindset. And even though I no longer choose to have that mindset, it still affects my actions.

So what’s up for the weekend? The husband and I have already decided that lunch will be a soup only affair. Breakfast is harder because avoiding the hotel breakfast means a coffee shop and that involves baked goods. Be right back…….

I just went looking for nutritional information. Starbucks makes it such a palaver that I almost gave up but found that the reduced fat fruit swirl has 440 cals and 3 grams of saturated fat and 9 grams of protein. The Tim Hortons cinnamon raisin bagel has 270 calories, .2 grams of saturated fat and 10 grams of protein.

Bagel it is then. And we’ll buy 1% milk for the hotel room coffee.

Dinner will be a treat. We’re planning on the Irish Heather pub tonight, Keg Steak on Saturday and no plans yet for tomorrow. Maybe even more soup!

For today, I’m thinking about all the healthy and sane food behaviour I can work into the next 3 days.

Eat well

Walk loads

Enjoy the company

I’ll let you know how it goes. OH – And Happy New Year!

I Lied

Keeping Going, Thoughts on the Process No Responses »

Dec 292009

Actually – I think I just failed but I’m not keen on failure.

The feasting stopped but something more insidious took its place: gluttony, greed, simply stuffing in food for no very good reason. In fact…confession approaching…..I ate the Christmas cake that I’d packed up for my mom. Where’s the blushing smilie when you need it?

I don’t feel great this morning and I’m sitting here remembering how good it feels to eat when I’m hungry.

And to move.

I don’t want to turn this into a daily diet blog – but I will if I have to. At least I can go back to basics and report every morning on how the previous day went.

Back to basics it is. I know I’ll be away for four days and eating out all those meals but I think that’s easier than sitting in a house full of food.

So here’s what’s coming:
Today – home and in control of what I can eat.
Tomorrow – the same
Thursday – off to town for new years eve. I will enjoy the evening meal because I will NOT have eaten mindlessly for the whole day leading up to it.
Friday – Saturday – Sunday – Three days of eating out and staying in a hotel.
Monday – back to my own space for a week alone.

When I’m in losing mode, it’s easier for me to eat the same thing for breakfast and lunch. I’ve got porridge and blueberries for the morning but lunch is harder here than back in England because I don’t have a blender for making soup. Maybe that’s something I can pick up in the sales and start making my cauliflower and potato soup which is filling and helps me get in all my vegetables.

Thinking out loud helps but it’s not the same as reality. But my own determination and the sense of accountability I get from knowing that people are reading this do help.

I will not gain weight over the next few days.

Till tomorrow.

After the Feasting

Starting Again Again, Thoughts on the Process No Responses »

Dec 282009

Every year I think I’m going to savour the moments but every year Christmas goes by in such a blur that I can barely remember it.

And every year, after two days of feasting I give the “That’s it! NO more food!” speech to myself then reach for the nearest baked goods. So is this year going to be different? (She asks as she brushes crumbs from the keyboard.)

The only way to make it different is to actually throw all the leftover goodies away. All of them?

What’s left?
Cookies baked by other people. A sliver of Christmas cake. A little bit of lovely fruit bread baked by a friend. A box of chocolates. Some peanut brittle. Half a bottle of good white wine. An almost full bottle of Baileys.

Be right back……..

The fruit bread and most of the cookies are in the bin.
The Christmas cake and snowballs are packed up and going to the care home to share at lunch today.
The chocolates and peanut brittle aren’t mine so I had to leave them or deal with divorce.

That leaves the alcohol which is really up to me, isn’t it? It doesn’t make me feel great anyway so I’ll have a glass of white at dinner and not buy any more. The Baileys can go to the daughter.

Hmmmm. Should it always be this easy? I stuffed myself for one more day than I wanted to do. Heavy over-eating seems to have to come down in stages. I can’t seem to go from feast to fast in one step, but I CAN cut down and get rid of the rubbish before a 3 day feast stretches into a 3 week binge.

The next stage is getting back to journalling – always a struggle after a time of massive consumption. It takes work and carbs make me lazy.

Be right back………..

OK – Breakfast – including the cookie – is journalled.

It’s a start. And here’s my plan for the rest of the day.

Lunch – soup and a piece of bread with low fat cream cheese.
Dinner – Escalloped potatoes (made with a light white sauce), black forest ham and peas – and 1 glass of wine.

I really don’t need any snacks if I eat well at meals. I’ll probably have a small square of Christmas cake with Mom because she eats better when someone eats with her. I will sacrifice a few calories to stop her wasting away.

I’ll let you know how it’s gone.

Christmas Eve Blessings

Thoughts on the Process No Responses »

Dec 242009

Wishing everyone a Christmas full of blessings – love, laughter, feasting and gratitude.

It’s Beginning to Feel a Lot Like………

Thoughts on the Process No Responses »

Dec 222009

Isn’t it?

I can be a Scrooge and a Grinch all the way up until about now and then it seems to kick in. The tree smells lovely. The gingerbread house adds to the festive nose-feast. The only thing playing on i-tunes is my Christmas music. OK – I’ve got the Spirit.

So how’s the eating going to go for the next few days? I’m not sure that’s the right question.

How am I going to feel about my body by New Year’s Day? That’s a slightly better question.

My weighing every day experiment may end up to be the best thing I’ve ever done from a maintenance perspective. It has completely obliterated (yes, that dramatic) my tendency to get off track and stay off track.

Last year at this time, I also had “a something” that required surgery. I also got worried that my weight loss was due to illness – just like this year. I also lost my appetite and decided to eat what I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t really dying. But it was entirely different because I stopped writing and I stopped weighing myself. I did all that stuff with no controls whatsoever.

This year I’m also not feeling great with an entirely different problem that will probably require surgery. I have experimented with the appetite thing. I’ve experimented with the quantity stuff. I’ve stopped journalling which means I’ve put away any expectations of losing weight until the new year.

But I’ve kept other controls – just by coming here and saying what’s on my mind and stepping on that digital slab once a day. And it seems to be working. This is what’s happened to my weight this month:

December 09

1-144.4 Canadian scales
2-144.2
3-145.6-after a day of pretty heavy eating. interesting.
4-145.6
5-148 Really? In 24 hours? Interesting……
6-144.4 after one normal healthy day – see why this was a good idea?
7-144.8
8-144.8
9-144.8
10-144.4
11-away
12-away
13-144
14-145
15-145
16-146
17-146
18 -forgot or didn’t want to – can’t remember
19-out of town
20-out of town
21-145.6
22-144 – is my scale broken or is it premenstrual madness?

I’ve always seen the scale as my nemesis – certainly not my friend – but now I’m seeing that the personification of a bathroom fixture just can’t be a good thing. This experiment has helped me to see them the same way I view my measuring cups. How can I be anything but emotionally neutral about measuring cups?

Wow. I’m heading into Christmas with the gift of scale neutrality. Bring on the turkey.

Pizza v Pizza

Keeping Going, Thoughts on the Process No Responses »

Dec 212009

The weekend was a lovely blur of socializing and Christmas shopping. We stayed at our favourite hotel – with the comfiest bed in the universe. Really. We had three dinners and one lunch with friends and caught up with fifteen people we hadn’t seen since summer. We shopped and I had a brainwave for the supposedly (but not really, come on, it’s Christmas!) adult children’s stockings. We even wrapped a pile of presents. And now I’m home.

But this is about pizza. View the following:

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

After many years of living with a Pizza Express on every corner, Exhibit B is our “normal”, ubiquitous even, pizza. And we had completely forgotten the bad old days of deep dish cheese-fest pizza – until Saturday night. It was gastronomically overwhelming, and not having the greatest stomach these days, it was a struggle to eat even one piece.

The whole experience sure highlighted how it really is possible to completely change the way you think and feel about unhealthy, even favourite unhealthy, food. There was a time when the gooey nightmare would have been our take-out order of choice but that is now a distant and almost unbelievable memory. Really? We preferred that?

What’s even more bizarre is that the healthy looking rocket (arugula) pizza is now a rare treat because, let’s face it, it’s not a piece of fish and a pile of steamed vegetables. And I actually had a piece of fish and a pile of vegetables (not quite steamed) for dinner on Friday night.

I think I’m having an identity crisis. When did all this happen to me? When did I become a person who ordered a hunk of white fish for a dinner out? When did I stop treating every restaurant meal as my last? When did I stop craving and even start feeling queasy about a pound of melting ooze on a chewy bread base?

I guess the whole “this is a lifestyle, not a diet” rhetoric eventually actually becomes reality. You start off forcing yourself to stick to a plan, repeating that unconvincing phrase because it sure as hell feels like a diet! Then one day you wake up craving a thin crust, a few parmesan shavings and a pile of slightly bitter greens.

Weird but wonderful.

Back to the Beginning…

Giving up, Starting Again Again No Responses »

Dec 192009

I know it–I’ve entered weight-loss hell. I found myself wondering how I could lose 20 pounds by this afternoon. I’m SO unhappy with how I look and feel. I have ALL the tools I need to deal with that, so why am I NOT dealing with it? Ok, let’s be realistic–I CAN’T lose 20 pounds by this afternoon. But maybe by Christmas Eve? Ok, now I’m kidding. But seriously, I have fallen right back into that ugly place where I’m looking for quick fixes and the latest fad diets to get to where I want to be. Yes, I know they don’t work. No, I’m not going to try one. But I sure the hell WANT to. THIS is why I became a remedial buddy in the first place. I find myself ending up back at this same spot no matter how much I’ve learned and how much I’ve grown. It’s like being 15 and SO incredibly lacking in confidence in myself. I don’t understand how that can happen so easily.

What to do now? I’ve signed on to Weight Watchers Online. I wish I could afford meetings, but that’s not going to happen right now. Maybe someday, because I know that works better for me. The rest I will have to do myself, with the support of my blog buddies, my BCB buddies, and the friend at work who just went back to WW meetings. I know I can do this. So why is it such a struggle?

Time to go back and read the attitude adjustment post from December 8th, and move on from there…

Ok, attitude adjustment exercise:

I have 2 GREAT daughters, 24 & 27, and I’m proud to say I’m their mom.

I have a family I love, even in the face of all our dysfunction.

My family will celebrate the holidays with all the joy and cheer that makes it a very special time for all.

I have a good relationship with my ex, which is good for my daughters.

I have a job. Many people don’t.

I LIKE my job, at least most of the time.

I have off from said job from Christmas to New Years Day.

I have the physical ability to exercise.

I have the mental ability to make better choices.

I have the brains to make all this work FOR me.

I have motivation to be strong, healthy, and fiscally fit, so that when spring gets here, I can fire up my Harley, modify it any way I want, and ride like the wind. (A slow wind, of course…)

I have awesome friends and a great support system! Shout out to all my BCB buddies, and Millie, Donna & Mardee at the blog! (IPB too, you know who you are!)

I am strong enough, and smart enough, and tough enough, to do this and to do it well. I can get my eating, my spending, my level of physical activity, and my attitude, all under control and headed in the right direction.

Ok, now that I’ve given myself a pep talk, I can start my day with a smile on my face, and the desire to change my circumstances.

Having gone back and reread that, I feel better. I know that this struggle is just one part (although a very important part) of my life. But when I look at my other successes, I know that I can win at this game, because it is a deadly-serious game–one that I have to win. For the sake of my health, for the sake of my children and any future grandchildren I might have, and for those others in my life who are important to me (especially my brother, who struggles with his own demons, and who I am incredibly close to). It must be done.

Checking In

Things to try, Thoughts on the Process No Responses »

Dec 182009

It’s not as though I haven’t been thinking tons about what I’m doing and not doing – but the actual act of writing it all down has got lost in the tinsel, gingerbread and shopping lists.

I’ve put on two pounds which may or may not be “real”. I need vegetables but can’t find them in any satisfactory form at a reasonable cost.

I will be eating out three meals a day until Monday so commit to the following:

order smallest size of everything – it’s always enough

everything on the side – tastes better that way

don’t bother with desserts – they always disappoint

don’t even think about the baked goods that could accompany every single cappuccino

Enjoy the company
Enjoy the food
Get the shopping done!

See you on Monday.

Reruns. Again. When will there be something new??

Giving up, Keeping Going, Starting Again Again, Thoughts on the Process No Responses »

Dec 152009

I wish I could go back. I miss it. I miss the excitement. I miss learning about what’s new. I miss the awesome feeling of starting out fresh and full of motivation. I miss the opportunity to find a new gadget or two just for kicks. I miss that first week of being on WW–the determination, the drive to succeed, the steadfast refusal to fail. Lately, it’s all about having done this before. Countless times. And failed. Countless times. It doesn’t seem like a new start these days, so much as unwelcome reruns of a bad sitcom. Everything is stale and old. It’s not exciting, it’s S.O.S.–the Same Old Sh!t. And that makes it very hard to make it work. I’ve been there, done that, over and over and over. And now I’m doing it again, because I haven’t gotten anywhere all the times I’ve done this before.

How can I make this new again? I know WW is the right program for me. It’s healthy, it’s simple, it’s sensible. But it’s not new. Why do I need it to be new? What is it about “new” that makes this seem easier? Maybe, like the first day of school, it’s because it’s all fresh and clean. It hasn’t been mucked up yet. And as a perfectionist, once it’s mucked up, it can never go back to fresh and clean. Why does that matter? What’s wrong with starting over after erasing mistakes and giving it another try, instead of just giving up? All through school, I would do just that–make a mistake, erase, and then end up berated for the less than stellar condition of my paper. Dirty mark from the eraser, maybe a hole in the paper, clearly not fresh and clean, like Kathy S.’s papers always were. So give up and don’t even try. Because you can’t do it right, perfectly right.

I’ve messed it up so many times that I just can’t start over one more time. What’s the point? I’LL TELL YOU WHAT THE FREAKIN’ POINT IS! It’s about taking care of myself, not about being perfect and neat and right. It’s about caring for myself as much as I care about others. It’s about being the best I can be, whether I’m sloppy or neat. Why does that get lost in the process? Why is that so hard to grasp? Because I learned right at the start that it has to be clean and neat and perfect, or they won’t like you and you’ll get yelled at. But it can’t be clean and neat and perfect, so why bother?

More on this later. This really isn’t where I expected this to go. I have to let this marinate between my ears for a while to see where else it takes me…

Those Miracle Weight Loss Ads

Body Image, Thoughts on the Process 2 Responses »

Dec 152009

I caught the tail end of some news magazine tv show a week or so ago. You know the kind, something like 20/20 or Dateline. It was talking about the magazine and internet ads for weight loss. You know the ones I mean, it shows a before and after picture and the ad says something like, Take Off 50 Lbs in 2 Weeks With This Amazing Weight Loss Secret. It always has a before and after picture and a testimonial from Wendy or Joe or Bonny or whoever. According to the tv show, one of the women featured in the ad HAD taken off weight, but had done it over a longer period of time by working out and reducing her food intake. She made the mistake of posting her before & after pictures on the internet and the pictures were pirated to be used in the ad. Apparently there were several other people who had the same thing happen to them. One guy sold his picture and the company that bought it then used photo editing software to create the after pictures.

As skeptical as I am about these ads, I must admit that it didn’t occur to me that the pictures were stolen or photo shopped. I guess if I had really thought about it, I would have figured that they had either just exagerated the story or there was some creative photography taking place. So why did this story stick in my mind? Because anytime I see those ads, there is always a split second that I’m tempted. Maybe it would work. Maybe there is a magic something that would melt off 50 lbs in 2 weeks without exercise or diet. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Clause.

I will admit that I have been suckered into some of these pitches in the past. I remember trying the grapefruit diet, there was one very silly one involving aroma therapy which was supposed to stop your appetite. There was even one that involved getting needles every week and the scary thing is that I have no idea what was in the needle. I know that there is only one way to take off weight – eat less, move more. Too bad it took me so long to come to this realization.

Older Entries

Talking It Off

Double-Mindedness

I Lied

After the Feasting

Christmas Eve Blessings

It’s Beginning to Feel a Lot Like………

Pizza v Pizza

Back to the Beginning…

Checking In

Reruns. Again. When will there be something new??

Those Miracle Weight Loss Ads

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