Angel Food (lowfat)

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 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?

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.

Have you heard the one about the girl who ate nearly all of her Weight Watchers flex points in one day, and had nearly six days left before her points started over again? Not a funny joke, isn’t it? We’re not all points counters, I realize, but my guess is that many 3fc’ers can relate. Yesterday was one of those days for me. I went along swimmingly with my points counting until a bag of chips appeared in my office’s kitchen. There are not many foods I completely avoid, but I have a hard time resisting the salty crunch of chips. I had a bunch yesterday. Since I didn’t measure (who measures a binge?), I’ve no idea how many points I consumed but probably more than I wrote down. I could have recovered from the afternoon’s excess by eating the tomato soup that I planned to cook for dinner (I’ve a new recipe to try). Instead, I went with a can of coke, 2 slices of everything pizza, and a salad for dinner.

I’d like to blame my car battery - it chose to die on me last evening, prompting me to make a dozen phone calls to figure out what to do and prompting me to guzzle coke while I waited on the servicemen and to forego cooking dinner because I didn’t want to eat so late. I’d even like to blame the fact that I’m totally bummed to be away from my sweetie and constantly annoyed at work these days, which seemed to prompt the chips fest earlier in the day. Honestly, though, I really need to take a hard look at myself. Why do I let little stresses hijack my dieting? I always feel worse, not better, after going so way off track. It’s not just feeling emotionally worse and beating myself up over eating so poorly. My body gets all out of whack as it doesn’t quite know how to process all the grease. To boot, I am staring down six days of hunger as I’ve only a few measly flex points for the rest of the week.

I am trying to look upon my next few days’ worth of empty food diary pages with a steely-eyed gaze, but I’m wondering what to do. Do I just chalk up yesterday’s calorie laden cold comfort up as a missed opportunity for weight loss and start over with a full roster of flex points today? Or, do I just accept that I’ll feel very, very hungry until next Monday? I’m leaning toward the latter option, mostly because whenever I try to to just accept a “bad day”, I find myself on a slippery slope toward a string of bad days. I’ve never been good at rebounding from overindulgence, but some crazy part of me really wants to try this time. Am I being foolish for thinking that I’ll feel great on Sunday evening if I can say that I stuck to my points this week?

Friday evening I had an argument with someone close to me, and I ended up staying in a funk all day on Saturday. I hate that I am an emotional eater. For years, I thought that I was overweight/obese (depending on the moment in time) simply because I love good food. I love to cook. I love to eat. But, I know that I’m heavier than I should be because whenever I feel off kilter or out of sorts, I tend to turn to food. I’m not a big snacker or one who furtively eats straight out of the cupboard or fridge. Instead, I like the celebration of a mealtime gathering with friends or family. I’ve not yet mastered how to enjoy a fun meal without eating too much. When I lost down to 135 lbs, I did so largely by avoiding celebration meals or dining out. Of course, I was also terribly lonely that year.

Now, I’m trying to strike the balance - enjoying evenings out with friends, celebrations with family, etc. while eating appropriately for my health goals. Last night, however, the confluence of an evening out with friends with my feeling terrible about the fight I had wreaked havoc on my week’s weight loss progress. For dinner, I chose shrimp soft tacos, probably one of healthier choices at the local Mexican restaurant, washed down with 3/4 of a pitcher (!!) of margaritas. About halfway through my meal I actually thought, “I’m not hungry any more. I’m actually quite full.” But, emotionally empty and drained from my argument and restless sleep the night before, I kept eating and drinking. It was as if by physically overstuffing myself, somehow I could nourish and fill up my emotional life.

I can, and will, move on from my Mexican restaurant debauchery of last night. In some ways, maybe the experience will even wind up being good for me. I identified the dangerous combination of feeling empty emotionally and a celebration-type meal. The next time I feel like I might encounter such a struggle, I’m going to reach out to someone - bloggers, my oh so helpful brother, perhaps even the one I hurt. In my church, we are encouraged to resolve conflicts and sins with others before we approach the communion table. Perhaps, for me, I need to do the same whenever I approach the dinner table.

“Ugh.” That’s the sound my body is making after several days of over-eating and subsisting almost solely on processed foods. The week started well enough at the doctor’s office; she reported that I’ve lost almost 10 lbs since my last visit. But, I quickly derailed Tuesday evening by eating far too much at my parents’ house. I’ve been beating myself up, living on frozen meals and take out ever since.

I’ve regressed to little blah places in several areas of my life this week. The regression, I’ve come to realize, is straight-up fear over what my future holds, in my weight loss, in my relationship, in my career, in my finances, etc. So, I’ve been slipping into old patterns - not exercising, staying up too late, eating poorly, etc. The old patterns, unfortunately, include getting angry with myself for being in the old patterns. Real healthy cycle isn’t it?

The good news, however, is that the old little blah places from my past don’t feel comfortable anymore. I don’t like visiting them. I want to explore the new places fully. I need to get used to the idea that I won’t always have a map to do my exploring. I believe in God, don’t I? As a believer in God, don’t I need to trust that God has the map? Actually, God doesn’t even need the map because God is already in the places that I want to explore. A few years ago when my life changed dramatically for the better, I started exploring where I thought God was. Whenever I let go of my true beliefs is when the old patterns start happening again; I forget about living for joy and wholeness and live just to exist. I wind up feeling awful. On my pursuit of the elusive size 8 jeans again, I can’t forget my pursuit of the places that God is. And, I need to accept that those places may be without maps.

At lunchtime today I wasn’t hungry for food. Everything I thought of eating sounded unappetizing to me. I still feel all hollow and worn out inside from arguing with my boyfriend last night. He’s coming for a visit this weekend, and I have no idea how it will go. I’ve not been able to see him for more than a month, so I will be genuinely glad. But, I still am sad and hurt because he never seemed to get what was upsetting me. He keeps talking about being married, but I’m hurt that it is taking so long to get engaged. I feel like until I have a ring on my finger that my parents and coworkers will just think I’m crazy to be expecting to be a Mrs. next year.

So, I’m blogging now becaue my way of “dealing” with feeling crappy at lunch today was to grab fast food at Chick-fil-a. I wasn’t even hungry. I just wanted something that might be comforting. But, my chicken wrap and waffle fries didn’t make anything better. Why in the world would such food be a comfort? If anything, they’ve made my day more difficult now. The food I ate wasn’t healthy and certainly won’t keep me feeling energized for very long. But, I’m pretty much stuck not eating anything the rest of the day to make up for my lunchtime excesses.

I’m blogging to remind myself that there are other ways of dealing with the bad days in life besides eating. Also, I’m blogging to remind myself that my healthier life and dieting will continue on in spite of this minor failing. Writing about this setback is reminding me that with another blog entry comes another chance at redemption. Here’s to a healthy rest of the day.

My weight today is 157.4 - a -.2 lb weight loss for the week. Only a fifth of a pound lost, but I’m moving in the right direction.

 I continued my trend of blowing my diet on Friday and Saturday. My weight was 155 on Thursday, but even the promise of such a healthy weight loss didn’t keep me from eating too much this past weekend. My brother had come for a visit, and he needed some TLC after a really rough week. “TLC” often means good food, of course. We had our usual chili - it was great, but already I’m getting tired of it. The real kicker on Friday night was pear crisp with ice cream. My stomach was already full, but I didn’t pass all that butter and cream. I would have felt much better if I had.  Saturday, my brother came to my house for dinner. One of my roommates had kindly bought steaks to share. We also baked potatoes and made mac n cheese. Why the double carbs? The steaks were NY strip and so, so good. At least I packed away half of mine in the fridge before digging in.

Despite the stark reality of my weekend overindulgence, I actually feel pretty good today about my dieting. My progress is slower than I’d like, but it’s progress all the same. Planning my meals is really helping during the week, so I just need to be smart and plan my weekends, too. I also sat down last night and sketched out a reasonable workout schedule. I’ve been telling myself that I’m too busy to exercise with work and school. But, I’ve realized that if I have hours to spend playing Wii Golf and watching the Food Network, then I definitely have time to work out.

So - specific weekly goals:   155.9 (1.5 lb weight loss) by 10/15 and cardio 3 times this week.

My motivation to eat a sane amount of food over the weekend lasted about twelve hours. Friday night, I had one bowl of chili at my parents house. When I got home, my roommate and his family had made juicy ribeyes and baked potatoes. I love ribeyes. I was able to resist their beckoning sheen of fat, solacing myself with four glasses of wine (8 pts, I know) and some fried okra.  Saturday I was even weaker in the face of adversity (re: unhealthy food). Where did it all come from - the brunch, the mac n cheese, the grilled burgers, the chocolate chip cookies? I ate about twice what I should have.

It was no surprise that on Monday that I weighed: 159.0. A - .2 weight loss for the week, which barely counts.

This morning, after a mere 1 day back to counting points, I am already at 157.6. (At that rate, I’ll weigh 20 lbs by 2008!) Joking aside, I am cautiously optimistic about this week. Counting points seems to get easier every day. My big goals for the week are to exercie more and to be 157.0 by October 1. I was a dismal exerciser last week, only doing one day of cardio, one day of weights, and one day of yoga. I don’t want to be skinny and flabby like before. I want to be skinny and strong. Blogging and an email support system is really, really helping to keep my encouraged and moving toward those size 8 jeans again!

There’s a chill in the air here. Ok, not a “chill” exactly but at least a freshness of fall. When I was a kid, our family always looked forward to fall because it meant that mom would start making her chili again. Yesterday, I was doing well sticking to my WW points. I squeezed in a cardio and attempted to go to yoga, only our flaky yogi didn’t show up for the 2nd time this month. That’s where things went wrong. Not only did I miss the yoga practice, but this poor woman in my yoga class told me a sad story about how her husband had suddenly left her last month. The pain and hurt this woman was clearly feeling unnerved me.

Perhaps it was this unnerving that prompted me to call my parents. Staring in the face of an engagement soon (hopefully) with my boyfriend, I needed the reassurance of a happy, long marriage. My parents have been growing old together for 34 years.

Just as she did when I was younger, my mom had celebrated autumn by making her famous chili. Mmmm. So comforting. I semi-resolved that I’d only eat one bowl. I ate one bowl and thought, “I’ll just have one half bowl more.” Of course, I wound up eating a whole second bowl. It’s Tuesday and already my weekly flex points aren’t looking too good!

The moral? Well, I usually haven’t considered myself a comfort eater (although something must have been driving me all those years to eat more than my share). Last night was a big wake up call for me. Also, semi-resolutions don’t work. After dinner I was over-full and annoyed with how I ate. I fully (not semi) resolved not to let the evening be a total wash and did a yoga DVD before going to sleep. The yoga helped to ground me and made me feel strong again.

This week’s resolution: to keep counting points and to eat only one serving of a dish per meal.