Wow, this old blog sure is dusty. My weight loss has more than stalled, it has reversed. I put on 5 lbs nearly overnight in September. I’ve only sort of halfway been counting points, only mostly faithful with my food diary, and only occasionally hitting the gym. Honestly, my heart hasn’t been in my weight loss lately. Honestly, my heart hasn’t been into anything much lately.

Three weeks ago I helped my fiance move halfway across the U.S., and I’ve been trying not to think about how much I’m missing him. We’ve been doing the long distance thing for a long time, longer than we actually dated in the same city. But, when he was down in Florida, he was a fun five hour drive away. I’d hop in the car, find some baseball game to listen to on my XM, and then settle in for the jaunt through the backwoods of the South. Now, he is a whopping sixteen hours drive away from me. I won’t be seeing him again until Thanksgiving. And, I’m totally oscillating between (1) feeling like this is a wonderful opportunity for me to take advantage of this time to work on me and plan our wedding AND (2) feeling overwhelmed by the planning, the loneliness, the fear of all the changes that are taking place in my life. I’ve been having restless dreams that can only be defined as loopy. I’m trying to put on a very brave phone voice when I talk to my fiance who has his own problems out in Oklahoma.

So, I give up. I’m gonna stop trying to be so brave and hiding how I feel, which is morphing into added stress, which morphs into added foodstuffs finding their way on my plate (or napkin, or just straight from bag to mouth). Instead, here I am again, back writing in all my strange glory.

And, as an added dose of irony, I’m off to a wedding cake tasting with about 10 points left in my day. Here’s to cake for dinner…

I’ve been keeping my food diary very faithfully now for a few weeks, and that is the only way I can remember what I’ve been eating. I’m in a bit of a funk, and my sustenance has been of either the feast or the famine sort. Case in point: two nights ago, I chowed down on macaroni and cheese (at least I worked out that afternoon); last night, I just didn’t eat. The hunger in my stomach feels somehow more appropriate to my mood, and I’ve no desire to feel full. I know skipping meals is unhealthy, so I basically forced myself to have breakfast and lunch today. I’m supposed to bring dinner to my grandmother this evening, yet absolutely nothing sounds good to me. I usually love food - eating it, cooking it, talking about it, reading about it - so I’m disturbed by this total lack of desire to eat.

It’s very rare for me to go through an experience like this. The last time I can remember feeling the way I feel now was when I was trying to get over a heartbreak. I’m not heartbroken now; I have a very lovely man who pledges always to be in my life. Yet, we are in a period of transition as he prepares to move across the country and we prepare to get married. Can someone experience grief over ending a chapter in her life? That’s what I feel I’m going through now.  I’m closing the chapter on an old, deeply rooted set of hopes and dreams, yet the new chapter hasn’t quite started. I’m foundering in this uncertainty but recognize that I can’t continue with the emotional achy-ness that I’ve become immersed in for the past few days.

There are a lot of things I don’t have control over in my life these days, but I refuse to lose control of my own happiness. Ignoring my friends, eating boxed meals, and climbing into bed at 8:30pm certainly aren’t good remedies for staying happy, are they? I need better remedies. I need to be with friends right now. I need to rest. I need to cook. I need to eat. No one else is going to take care of me, as much as I’d like them to, so I need to be sure that I’m taking care of myself as I close one chapter and start working on another.

Things are changing with me, and I’m so exhausted. My emotions have been so jumbled, so bittersweet lately. Not only am I getting married soon, but so is my brother. My nephew will be graduating from high school at the end of this school year. I’ll be changing jobs and moving halfway across the country in a few months. Perhaps things wouldn’t be so difficult if my family were as disconnected as we once were. But, in the past 5 years or so, we’ve worked really hard to tighten the threads of the family quilt, to be stronger and more closely knit. With all the changes taking place in the coming year, I can feel the threads unraveling again. I’ve been feeling nearly overwhelmed with sadness during what are, by all accounts, happy, happy times for my family. I’m watching my mom become more and more disapproving and rigid in her attitude with my brother, catching me in the middle of their disputes. My sister is withdrawing at a frightening pace. I’m torn between wanting to get the heck out of dodge to be with Andy, and never wanting to leave so I won’t disrupt the family further.

My heart is overfull, and I want to eat any number of good things and replace all the difficult emotions with pasta, ice cream, and cashews. Nearly every day for the past three weeks has been a struggle for me to keep my emotions in check, my eating in check. Thank God I’ve identified that I’m an emotional eater, so I can limit myself to just a third of a pint of Haagen Dazs at a time. Still, I miss those days when life was more boring and green beans and other healthy things could fill the hollow spot in my gut.

My fiance won’t be in Pensacola too much longer. Soon he’ll be heading to Oklahoma to live out his fighter pilot dreams. So, visiting him a couple weeks ago, I had to take advantage of what may the freshest seafood available to us for quite some while. There’s this great fresh seafood market in Pensacola, FL called Joe Patti’s Seafood. It sits right on the water, and boats dock alongside it to deliver their catch. Doesn’t get much fresher than that!

The market has all sorts of really cool (re: intimidating) whole fish, crab legs, claws, lobsters, clams, etc. Wanting to make a quick and tasty dinner, rather than exercise my culinary muscles, I chose some very approachable 21/25 jumbo shrimp.

I love spicy food in the summer (it goes so well with a crisp pale beer), so I decided to make Shrimp Fra Diavolo for dinner - a tasty saute of shrimp served with a spicy tomato sauce over whole wheat pasta. I’ll have to make the Fra Diavolo sauce again to be able to give an actual recipe. Essentially, I used San Marzano tomatoes, a little garlic, fresh basil leaves, cayenne pepper, and a splash of balsamic vinegar. It was too sweet. Then, my fiance got home and decided to dump some cajun seasoning in it, against my protests. Turns out he’s got a pretty good palate after all. The sauce was suddenly nicely spicy and not too sweet. The shrimp, however, were more controlled affair. So, here’s my homespun recipe for Spicy Lemony Sauteed Shrimp (or Shrimp Fra Diavolo when served with the spicy tomato sauce).

SPICY LEMONY SAUTEED SHRIMP 

If you have fresh herbs on hand (especially basil, parsley, or oregano) mince the herbs and toss with shrimp at the end of cooking.

1 tbsp olive oil

1 medium shallot, minced

2 large cloves garlic, minced

1 lb shrimp, peeled and cleaned

generous pinch Cayenne pepper

generous pinch of salt

1 lemon, halved

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add minced shallot to pan and sauté until shallot softens and is translucent. Add garlic to pan with shallot and sauté until garlic just begins to color (do not let garlic turn brown). Carefully add shrimp to pan so oil does not splatter. Stir and sauté shrimp until it is barley cooked, just opaque on each side. Remove pan from heat. Sprinkle cayenne and salt over shrimp to taste. Squeeze juice from lemon over the shrimp. Add herbs, if using. Toss shrimp until well coated with spices and aromatics. Serve immediately.

Serves 4, est. time 30 min (incl. prep), est. 4 WW points 

I had a strange little weekend in Florida these past few days. My pilot, his dad, and I had planned to go to the beach (my double-digit sized tankini be darned), but the mean Navy scheduler decided that my fiancé couldn’t have the day off after all. So, my darling pilot-in-training cursed and went flying with an embittered instructor pilot (who, no lie, started the flight by saying, “I’d rather be with my kids right now than flying with you”) while my future father-in-law and I spent the day together at the beach.

I love my FFIL, but he can be an annoyingly randy old man. He’s not creepy toward me (well, there was that one time he drunk dialed me), but he’s the kind of man who admits to watching Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade simply because “she’s stacked.” Yeah. One of those men. I still haven’t quite figured out how he spawned my lovely husband to be.

Before hitting the beach, FFIL and I lunched at one of those tourist trap restaurants that dot the Gulf Coast. Our waitress blessedly steered us away from all of the fried seafood, suggesting that we try a grilled Amberjack sandwich for lunch. It was truly the best piece of grilled fish I’ve ever had and totally worth sitting through a day with the FFIL checking out women half his age. After lunch, I did my best to enjoy my time with said FFIL and not drown in the red flag surf. We got absolutely pounded by the waves. I’m usually an ocean gal, but it was stressful constantly bracing ourselves against the whitecaps breaking over our heads. Somehow, even with all the beautiful women on the beach, I managed to avoid freaking out about being in a bathing suit. Until, that is, my FFIL decided to take some photos of me jumping over the waves. I saw myself in a picture and thought, “dear Lord, where is my muscle tone?”

It was such a frustration to look at pictures of myself and still feel so dissatisfied with my image. Immediately, my thoughts turned to scrambling for my cover up, never eating again, or just eating everything because darn-it I have made no progress dieting in the past year and a half. But, I realized that I couldn’t let my frustration morph into desperation. You know the desperation I’m referring to? The one that means eating an itty bitty dinner because it’s low in calories, only to see your diet melt into a hungry puddle of butter later in the evening?

So, despite being unhappy with the state of my flabby midsection and arms, I didn’t eat a grilled chicken salad for dinner.  No, I ate quite lovely grilled steak and shrimp kebabs. I also ate a little bread (just a little), a little rice, and most of my grilled veggies. I even drank a non-light beer. I felt satisfied and not over full. I repeated the same dining process on Saturday and Sunday, refusing to think about dieting, instead thinking about enjoying my meals. I ate what I wanted, and not too much of it, and I lost 1.5 lbs this weekend. Perhaps this is how thin people eat?

So, I just finished reading Julie and Julia, the book about the Julie/Julia Project. If you don’t know what the J/J Project is, er, was, it was a raucous blog about one woman’s obsessional cooking through Mastering the Art of French Cooking (524 recipes) in the span of just one year. It was also the first food blog that I regularly read. I loved it as an antidote to my Gourmet and Bon Appetit magazines, publications that have you believing that there’s something wrong with you if you balk at paying $28/lb for organic chanterelles. (I actually spent that on mushrooms one Thanksgiving, although I only bought 1/4 of a lb for the salad course, thinking I’d ruin the precious recipe if I substituted a cheaper fungus. Sadly, the chanterelle and pear salad was possibly the most underwhelming plate of food I’ve ever eaten on Thanksgiving.) Well, having finally finished the book about the blog, I find myself wanting to cook, and write, and give my little spin on the recipes I encounter.

Also, I still want to lose weight.

Here’s the deal, though. With the exception of the recipes in Cooking Light, I nearly always hate any recipe that purports to be low-fat, low-cal, or ”points-friendly.” (I most especially have hated the “points-friendly” recipes written by Weight Watchers.) But, since I love to cook and love to eat yet still have 10-20 lbs to lose (depending on how nice I’m being to myself), I most definitely need to focus on low-fat, good-for-me comestibles. So, my plan going forward for my 3fc blog is: when I’m feeling a bit lazy, I’ll cook and share tasty recipes I come across in Cooking Light; when I’m feeling more spirited, I hope to revamp others’ recipes to make them a little more healthful (or, in the case of the WW recipes, a lot more tasty).

I’ve not yet picked out a first recipe to write about here. I’m in Florida this weekend visiting my pilot-in-training fiance, praying that he rocks his checkride this afternoon and the visual navigation route later tonight. He’ll not be in from his two flights until about 11pm or so. That leaves me about 6 1/2 hours to do a bit of recipe research and experimentation. Now, where did I leave my uppity Aug 08 Gourmet?

Really, it probably won’t be too long until someone publishes a book called “The Salmonella Diet.” I’m finally recovering, after being on said “diet” for about a week and a half. I can absolutely, guarantee you that the salmonella diet will help you lose 6 lbs in 6 days - without exercise, and you won’t even feel hungry!!!!  

Seriously, food poisoning sucks. I’m finally through with all my antibiotics and am hoping that my GI system will be normal sometime soon. I’m finally eating again and will be thrilled to never again drink another electrolyte laced sports beverage, if I can help it.

I realize I’ve not given an update here on my headache/weird CT scan issues. Well, apparently my head isn’t perfectly normal, but there’s nothing for me to be worrying about, either. For now, my primary physician is going to keep treating me for migraines and tension headaches. I’m glad to report that I’ve not had a migraine for a few weeks, and yoga is helping me to manage my tension. Thanks to everyone for the good thoughts and prayers when I visited the neurosurgeon. He was kind and cute, but I’m happy not to ever have to see him again!

Now that all of my random health issues seem to be resolving themselves, I’m looking forward to getting healthy and stronger for my impending nuptials. My pilot-in-training fiance and I still haven’t been able to set a wedding date, but we’re getting close. Within a month, we should be setting the date. Today is the first time in a while that I’ve looked at my wedding planning materials, fave web sites, magazine clippings, etc. I’m actually so excited to be venturing forth toward the wedding, but I’m not yet close to my health goals.

My goal to be more active this year has gone no where. After a fabulous weekend with my pilot, I realize that I want us to be an active, healthy couple together. But, it will be hard for us to be an active couple if we’re not active individuals. An old friend I’ve recently reconnected with on facebook has inspired me to get back into my yoga practice. Yoga helps me to be stronger and better balanced, both physically and spiritually. Even after just two practices this past week, I feel better. I hope to find something cardio-wise that makes me feel as good as yoga does. Swimming, stadium steps, zumba? Oh, what will be the answer to my cardio questions? Stay tuned as I try to find out this summer!

I have allowed things to get kind of topsy-turvy for myself lately. I’ve been suffering bad headaches now for several months. A couple weeks ago, my doctor diagnosed me hormonal migraines, prescribed some medicine, and had me undergo a CAT scan just to rule out something else. Since that visit, I suffered for several days with the absolute worst headache of my life, searing pain for about 12 hours followed by 48 hours of a constant dull throb. The meds I had been prescribed did nothing to alleviate my pain. Finally, my scan results came in this week and, the “something else” couldn’t be ruled out; so now I’m set to see a neurosurgeon.

I wish I can say that I approached this health issue with grace, holding on with a deep faith and optimism. But, I’m afraid I haven’t. I found myself withdrawing from  family and friends and stuffing myself with crap food. Normally, I don’t go near a fast food place, yet I ate several full meals from value menus this past week. I felt sluggish and unmotivated all week, even losing my running shoes for a few days. I gained a few pounds, but honestly didn’t care at all that I’d undone my good progress from the past month.

I sort of had an awakening on Thursday, though, after having lunch with a wonderful former professor of mine. Now that I’m graduated, we are moving from a professor/student relationship to a friendship; I still see her as a mentor, and I think she’s comfortable interacting in that role with me. She sympathized about my anxiety over this new health thing, but she also gave me a little kick in the pants. She helped me realize that I’ve been feeling sorry for myself and had sort of shut down.

Since Thursday, slowly but surely my faith and optimism have been restored. I absolutely want to live my life being exactly who I want to be, relinquishing the things I don’t have control over to God, to others, to the ether, whatever, and making the choices that I can make to live more happily. Today, I’m planning several healthy meals for the week using ripe fruits and vegetables of the season, a canteloupe  sorbet and a corn chowder, just to name a few. Also, I’m thinking about starting a new food blog (lack of experience be darned!).

Thanks to everyone who commented on my last blog post. As I’ve learned over the past week and a half, fear is not an effective motivator. How much better it is to live with a postive outlook, incorporating joy and good health into everyday living.

Did anyone else see the episode of Oprah yesterday that featured folks who have lost a massive amount of weight? I don’t usually watch her show and her new-age-i-ness makes me cringe, but I happened to be sick at home yesterday and caught the show on “Weight Loss Heroes and Sheroes.” It was cool, even occasionally inspiring, to see so many people who’ve done well with their weight loss. Still, I have to say that I was a wee bit disappointed in the show. I would have enjoyed seeing fewer people with more time spent on their stories - not in a Dr. Phil way, but in a way that honors the complexities of emotions and experiences that people have as they are losing weight. I’m not arguing with the truths that careful dieting and exercise are the keys to losing weight. But, I would have liked to hear more of the people’s stories: How did family and friends react to their weight loss? At what point did they experience plateaus? What did they do to push through the hunger, through the days when they just wanted to give up? Instead, Oprah seemed more focused on trotting out the formerly fat, asking them their “breaking point”, and asking “what is your secret?” I don’t want to sound like I’m totally hatin’ on Oprah; mainly, I just think she tried to cram too much into one show.

One thing that did really strike me as I watched was something one of the guests (or maybe it was Bob Greene?) said. It was mentioned that if you have a void to fill, you can’t expect that void to be magically filled just by reaching your goal weight; if the void is still there, you most likely won’t be successful at maintaining your goal weight. Certainly, those statements are true for me. For much of my life I was obese, about 50 lbs heavier than I should have been. My “breaking point” is related to my going on a hiking trip with an ex boyfriend and being mortified when I couldn’t make it back up a steep climb. I was being lapped by toddlers and the elderly! After that trip I was determined to start a weight loss program but didn’t do anything for a few weeks. When I saw the pictures from that trip, however, I didn’t recognize myself in the photos, was horribly embarrassed by how I looked, and immediately signed up for Weight Watchers.

Being “horribly embarrassed” motivated me to lose weight, which was great, but I never did work on truly filling my void. Instead, I told myself that I’d no longer be embarrassed, that I’d be wonderfully attractive and happy, when I reached my goal weight. I happened to hit my goal weight of 135 lbs the same day that I met my future husband. It was the happiest day of my life up until that point, but then a terrible thing happened. The first year I dated Andy, a fear took hold of me. That fear told me that, if I gained weight, Andy wouldn’t be attracted to me and I wouldn’t deserve his affection. My fear nearly broke us as a couple, and it caused me to gain 25 lbs the first year I dated him. Eventually, I realized what was going on, and I was able to stop the craziness and maintain my weight (going on Synthroid for hypothyroidism also helped some - although my doctor says no one can attribute more than about a 10lb gain from the disease alone). Of course, my fears about Andy were totally unfounded. He says he never noticed that I gained weight (he’s either really unobservant or really sweet), and since we’re engaged I now feel very silly for thinking that I’d suddenly be horribly unattractive to him.

So - where does Oprah and “filling a void” fit into all this? Well, mostly my void is formed by feeling that I am somehow undeserving. Of what, exactly? Of almost anything good. I’m a smart gal (I’m not afraid to be bold about that), but still I often felt like an imposter in school. I felt like I made A’s not because I was deserving of them but because the work was simply “too easy.” I avoided relationships with guys entirely because I didn’t feel deserving of them. The couple times I did happen into a relationship, I spent the whole time thinking that the guy must have something wrong with him for loving me. In weight loss, I never felt like I deserved to be 135 lbs; somehow, I was still the 210 lb girl fitting into size 6 jeans. Now, as I’m actively counting WW points and working out regularly again, I’m also going to work on the deserving part. I’m going to try to really let the good things that are said about me soak in. I’m going to dust off my Bible, bypass the scary Old Testament prophets, and go straight to all the good bits about how much God loves us. And, I’m going to stare my void in the face and start throwing little pebbles of deservingness into it.

 (BTW - wound up losing 4 lbs last week.)

I’m really excited tonight because I’m finally heading into the weekend having not totally blown my WW points this week. What’s funny is that I’m more focused on food than I have been in a long time, despite being hot and heavy into dieting. Food has long been a passion of mine, and, like many, food is at the center of fond memories of family, childhood, etc. More than simply having heartwarming thoughts about my grandmother’s heavenly biscuits, I’ve also just been downright interested in food for almost as long as I can remember. I distinctly remember learning how to make butter when I was in kindergarten. For me, it was the most exciting lesson of the year (far more exciting than learning my right from my left). I still can remember how it tasted, and how the taste was so different from the butter and margarine I was used to. When I learned that a great aunt of mine actually owned a working butter churn, I was ecstatic and fascinated. My family all thought I was a little weird.

My interest in and passion for food has continued into adulthood. For many years, I’ve been wondering just how to use this interest (culinary school? blogging? teaching?), introducing fear and worry into my love. Well, lately, I’ve realized that I don’t want to continue fretting about food. I want to recapture the joy and fascination I felt when I was a kid. Perhaps while dieting doesn’t seem like the best possible time to recapture my own personal joy of food and cooking. Yet, that’s exactly what I’ve been doing these past couple weeks. I’ve been cooking new recipes and old favorites. I’ve been reading cookbooks just for fun. I’ve been absolutely enjoying myself, choosing seasonal ingredients, cooking and eating things that I really love. I’m feeling more satisfied at mealtimes and am accepting the hunger that comes with dieting much more readily than ever before. (And, oh yeah, I’ve lost about 3 lbs.)