Committed

Over the last several weeks, I’ve started a new ritual of cooking for several hours on Sunday.  I know I’ve said it before, but I am still shocked that I enjoy cooking because I hated it so much for so many years.  I’ve realized that cooking is a fun & great pastime and the mess is worth the finished product, even if no one else likes it.

I’m still working on 2 recipes from my new cookbook (How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, which is FABULOUS by the way):  Marinated Vegetables and White Bean Soup.  I also made a great dinner for my husband and my brother:  fancy green salad; baked corn on the cob; baked beans (out of a can - for the men); shredded bbq chicken sandwiches on toasted rolls (whole wheat pita bread for me).  The dinner was awesome and I can’t wait to make it again.  As for the new cookbook recipes, we’ll see.  I don’t expect that I will get a chance to try them until tomorrow since they are supposed to cool.

For the last several months, I have been trying to lose weight relying on not much more than intuition.  The idea was that if I cleared out the junk from my diet (refined sugar & flour, additives, preservatives, etc.), I would eat less naturally and effortlessly.  My hope was that my body would tell me what and how much to feed it.  I did not expect this to happen overnight, I knew it might take years.  But I have struggled with my weight for years - and I wanted to go slow & steady, hoping my weight loss would be 100% permanent and sustainable.

Overall, I have had success when I stick to it, but its incredibly slow - like a pound a month. And as I learned when I fell off the wagon over the holidays, weight comes on so easy, and is so tough to take off.  Last year I lost 15 pounds, but gained half of it back between November and January.  With a plan like this I need to be 100% on my game all the time.

I did not and still do not want to do a traditional diet, especially with regard to calorie counting.  I am a compulsive eater and calorie counting and other strict management of my diet tends to trigger my worst binges.

The time may have come where I need to consider calorie counting or something equally effective.  My health is not great - I have nearly constant back pain and fatigue, and this weekend it got almost unbearable.  I know I’m not sleeping well and I think it has to do with an ever-worsening case of sleep apnea.  I also walk almost every day, and would love to do more walking - but my poor feet are taking a beating carrying my 200 pound body.

I think if I lost about 30 or 40 pounds it would bring the most relief, but I would settle for taking the edge off, which would probably mean I need to lose at least 10 pounds right away.

This is the first time that vanity wasn’t the catalyst for a diet.  Its a different feeling.

Tonight I cooked the most amazing grilled cheese sandwiches. I bought a loaf of gourmet whole wheat bread from the bakery section at TJs, and then added butter, dijon mustard, tomatoes and lowfat American cheese slices. The butter was a dieting no-no, and I will probably try a butter spray next time instead to spare myself a few calories. It was heavenly and I know it was the bread that made all the difference. I’m going to always buy the expensive gourmet bread from now on. It makes it so much easier to eat whole wheat.

Today was tough - I still have a mean case of PMS. The cravings were horrible. I caved and hit the vending machine - but I got Fritos instead of anything sugary. I realize that I might as well have bought a bag of cholesterol, but sugar just bowls me over so I felt it was justified.

Last but not least, today I finished a great book:  The Secret Life of Bees.  I highly recommend it!!

If you ever get a bout of PMS and want to have a hearty cry to get all the emotions out, watch Eight Below.  We’re not talking about typical Hollywood-cliche-sad movie with a slightly-endearing-tear-jerking-yet-redeeming ending.  It is like existential-crisis-provoking sad.  Anything having to do with animals, especially dogs who can thrive on nothing more than loyalty to humans, is unmatched in its ability to take a premenstrual woman down.  I might just spend the next week in bed sobbing.  Either that or quit my job to volunteer with a non-profit devoted to the worship and care of sled dogs.

Today was a great day.  I love it when I have my shit together enough to read several cookbooks to create a menu for the week, build a shopping list, go to the 2-3 grocery stores needed to gather everything and still have the energy to cook for 5 hours.  I cooked healthy bbq pork sandwiches and island rice for dinner tonight, veggie chili w/ rice for lunches this week & next, and a giant batch of Garden Harvest soup (from the You: On a Diet book, which I love).  I even cleaned up afterwards.  The only thing I didn’t have time to do was to cut up fruit for a fruit salad.

Its so strange to be enjoying cooking.  I loathed cooking for years.  Most of what I ate was convenience food (freeze dried diet food like Nutrisystem and frozen lunches like Healthy Choice) and fast food (burritos, salad bars, sandwiches).   I don’t like to think it was laziness; more like disinterest.  It seemed like such a huge hassle for not much of a reward.  The food I cooked did not taste that good.  Plus I am a bit of a germophobe.  I didn’t want my hands to ever touch raw meat, which made it almost impossible to ever cook a regular meal.  I am also not one for doing dishes, so when I did cook, I tried to make it using only one pan.  Try that for a week and see how you do.

I recently wondered what it was that made me start cooking more and I that changing my eating habits naturally drew me to have a closer connection to my food.  Like there is more of my own heart in the meals I make myself.  I know that sounds totally new age, but that is how it feels.  Tonight I gave my husband some of the soup and I felt really great knowing it was 100% vegan, and full of heart-healthy vegetables.  I melted when he told me how much he loved it.
I’m even toying with possibly planting a garden in my backyard.  We’ll see.

If anyone has recipes or can recommend a cookbook that apply the following “rules” please let me know:

• No sugar (including natural substitutes like honey)
• No refined flour (including bread, pasta, etc.)
• No sugar-substitutes like equal, splenda, stevia, etc.
• Vegan / Vegetarian recipes are an added plus

Yesterday I weighed in at 202.6. I never thought I could be so happy to see that number on the scale. I’m down about a pound from last week. A pound is not much, but remember that I’m going for slow & steady. I also feel that its somewhat of a small miracle given that I completely fell off the wagon on Valentine’s day. There were croissants, chocolates, and cookies. It wasn’t pretty.

On Friday I inexplicably fell into a super depressed mood and I had to wonder - was it fallout from all the junk from Thursday??? I’ve heard that refined carbs wreak havoc on moods, so its definitely possible. I got through Friday without eating anything on my no-no list, which was tough because I felt so sad and my usual method of soothing myself is to eat. Thank goodness I felt much better by Saturday.

I also have been fighting a migraine headache now for about 3 days. The medication I take makes me super tired, so today I feel hung over. I’m hoping that a brisk walk will get me energized.

Its been a week or two since I had a cooking day, and I miss it. This morning I’ll be cruising a few recipe sites to get a grocery list going. Since this weekend is a long weekend, I may do a few extra special things. Yay for long weekends!!

Its been over a week since I had any sugar. Yay for me. I sometimes wonder if quitting sugar will be like quitting smoking: I can get past the addiction itself, but the urge will spontaneously appear and I just need to accept it. I haven’t smoked in over 5 years. OK, maybe one lone cigarette about 3 years ago (while drunk, so it barely counts), but you get the idea.

As I mentioned yesterday, I ended up being 203.5 at weeks end, which was about 2 pounds down from my freak-out at 205 last weekend. And while we’re on the topic of scales, I had a minor scale emergency this morning that I only hope will be fixed by the weekend. I try to only weigh in once a week, but I got the urge this morning even though my last weigh-in was yesterday. So I hopped on and it said “14″. It took me a minute before I realized my scale somehow got reset to some other unit of measurement. I played with it for a couple minutes but couldn’t figure out how to fix it. I guess that is yet another reason NOT to buy a $75 high-tech scale.

Cutting out all sugar & refined flour appears to be working, just like when I did it last year and lost 15 pounds. Its amazing how tough it was to stick to it. All week it was like I was in an obstacle course of sweets and baked goods. Even last night when my husband and I were settled in to watch a movie, he pulled up a bag (A WHOLE BAG) of cookies to munch on during the flick. I stayed away, but it was not easy - I had to visit my happy place more than once. The great news is that I am down 2 pounds this week - the first time my weight has been down in months.

I’m happy, but I don’t want the satisfaction to toss me into that emotionally confused area that causes me to binge in celebration. I can never tell if the cause of that celebratory binge is due to happiness, sadness, fear, or self-sabotage. So I’m going to keep my emotions in check, and maybe even try yoga or something similar tonight to see if it keeps me from munching too late.

All week - except one night - I stopped eating a good while before bedtime. Last night I ate pretty late, but went to bed later to compensate. The less sugar & flour I have in my diet during the day, the more likely I am to eat “normally” or at least “less bad” at night. Nighttime is when all my emotions of the day just bubble over and I go into “self-soothe” mode, which inevitably leads to mindless eating and, all too often, binging. Of course I’m never conscious to this until AFTER I have eaten a full box of cereal or 7 jumbo peanut butter cups (hindsight is 20-20!). Once I can master how to take care of myself and my stress without eating and especially mindless binging, I think I will finally be able to sustain my weight loss.

I also think I really need to get to a place of self-love and self-acceptance. Due to some unfortunate circumstances in my childhood, I have used extra weight to protect myself later in life. It works to keep people at bay, because in our society when you’re fat you’re invisible. I feel safer when I’m fat - and until I can fix that, I worry I won’t be able to achieve lasting weight loss and healthy habits. If anyone knows a good book or other resource for information on this topic please let me know.

Goals for the week include sticking with the sugar flour thing, exercising, and avoiding nighttime munchies. Staying strong could be tough with Valentine’s day on Thursday, and with next Monday being a holiday.

On another note, my husband told me this week that he might also consider becoming semi-vegetarian. I was so happy to hear this because it makes the change easier for me. He saw graphic footage on the news of cruelty to cows at a local cattle farm, and he got pretty angry & upset about it. He is an animal lover, and decided he would no longer eat beef and would try to reduce the poultry & pork in his diet also. If you knew my husband (the quintessential meat & potatoes man), you would be shocked too. I love that he always keeps me guessing.

So it can’t all be easy, right?

Over the weekend I decided to try two new recipes.  I spent about 4 hours cutting, chopping, mixing, baking, etc…  I was really bummed when the finished products were not so great.  So much for bringing my own homemade lunch to work this week!!

The first dish, which was made in a very large batch in order to be my lunch all this week, was a turkey & black bean chili.  I like vegetarian chili so much, but this was not good.  Too meaty.

I would like to take this opportunity to digress momentarily to tell you that every day I get closer to becoming a vegetarian.  Sometimes even thinking about eating meat & poultry makes me nauseated.  Bleh!!  We’ll see if I make it through dinner to night (Moraccan Chicken on the menu).

The second dish, which was to be a healthy variation of eggplant parmesan, was my backup plan for lunch.  It tasted OK when it was fresh out of the oven, but it tastes horrible today as leftovers.  So much for “Plan B”.

Speaking of things not being easy, today & yesterday I’ve been staying away from sugar.  So far I’ve been successful, but I am careful to use tentative phrasing (”so far…”) because today is not over yet.  So why in the world would I give up sugar?  Because I’m sugar-crazy and “abstinence” is the only solution that has worked so far.  Sugar is my ultimate vice (second only to coffee of course).  One small taste is enough to trigger me into a binge worthy of a world record.

I have done this successfully before; I had several consecutive months of a sugar-free and refined-flour-free life.  I fell off the wagon last year, my downfall starting with pizza and ice cream on my birthday last September, and ending this past Sunday with oatmeal raisin cookies.   I lost 15 pounds after kicking my sugar habit last year, but I have gained half of it back in the last 3 months.  For some reason the weight gain didn’t bother me until this past week or so when my pants started feeling snug.

Friggin’ chocolate!  Why can’t you leave me be?!

So anyway, all these months I’ve been telling myself I could quit that bad sugar habit any time (spoken like a true addict)!  So this week I hopped back onto the wagon.  Its been much more challenging than I expected.  Staying away from sugar became effortless last year after the first few weeks, but I completely forgot how hard it was at first.  In the spirit of trading one addiction for another, yesterday I stuffed my face with Frito’s just to avoid the M ‘n M’s!!  And today it was whole wheat naan bread to keep away from the cookie jar.