so, let's face it, it has been a MONTH since i last posted. that is so crazy. between being sick twice in the last month, mid-terms, and spring break, i have been drowning in chaos. the reality is that my diet has also been in chaos. i have been re-reading "intuitive eating," and though i am trying to abide by the theories, i am also trying to eat more protein and less sugar in my diet. our grandparents who grew up on farms can tell us...its not the bacon that makes you fat, its the bread and sweets. haha. my great-grandmother was all too willing to point out why i was fat, but seemed to overlook her own genetic input. ha!
i have to admit i have had a really hard time not wanting to eat "comfort" food all the time. i have been sick. i am totally stressed about finding a job. i am sooooo over school. i miss my family and friends. all of these things have made me want to eat ice cream, chocolate and grilled cheese sandwiches. to be honest, i have totally given in most of this month, but with summer and a change of scenery on the horizon, i am really trying to be more balanced. i am also taking a lot more time to cook lately. i know that i am eating healthier when i am cooking. i eat more fruits and vegetables and i plan ahead.
i have also been thinking a lot about how much airbrushing actually happens in celebrity photos. i see so many super svelte actresses and models all over magazines and tv and my computer, but i have to wonder how much of what i am seeing is real. who is exaggerating the people who airbrush the photos or the people that tell us how much photos are airbrushed? i know i am never going to look like a victoria's secret model in my swimsuit, but i would take some solace in knowing that the victoria's secret models don't really look like that in their bikinis either.
the last thing that has been on my mind this month is how we automatically equate skinny with healthy. now i know that there are things i still need to keep working on to get healthier, but i do not understand why skinny=healthy in our culture. skinny could mean eating disorder. skinny could mean cocaine addiction. skinny could mean smoking instead of eating. i think that most people would SAY that they do not equate skinny with healthy, but at the end of the day they want to look like the skinny person on the magazine...the HEALTH magazine. who has probably been airbrushed to look "healthier."
okay...getting off my soapbox...putting it away...headed to bed.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Monday, February 21, 2011
your body is a wonderland?
i recently went to dinner with a friend and we were talking about the dating scene here in princeton. we got on the subject of what it would mean if we lived in a way that we had complete confidence in our bodies. we were discussing what it means to keep men in the "friend zone." one of the more interesting aspects of the conversation went something like this: men tend to be attracted to confidence. myself and my friend are both very confident women when it comes to most every aspect of our lives. both of us have many men who are friends and many men who want to spend time with us. the area of our lives that we are both insecure is concerning our bodies, so we never interact in a way that would show physical interest in the men (even when we are very physically attracted to them). this keeps the men in the "friend zone." so, we pondered, what would it look like to just go for it, to not keep the men we spend time with at arm's length, to not assume from the outset that they would never want to be more than friends. this, it seems, could lead to heartache, but it could also lead to something very different than our current experiences.
some of you may be wondering what all this has to do with what i normally write about, but i would say that this is integrally connected. as i am trying to make peace with food and my body in a non-judgmental and healthy way, it is really important that i begin to make peace with my body in relationship to potential relationships. as someone who has spent the majority of my life hating my body, there seems to be nothing more terrifying than being naked with someone i love and hoping that they would be pleased by my body. this, i would say is one of the reasons that relationships with the opposite sex are really difficult. not because i am thinking i will jump in the sack with the guys i date, but i date in expectation that it could lead to marriage. ergo, sex is a part of the consciousness. as i strive for a healthy understanding of food, my body, my brain, etc., this is a part of the equation that is probably really important.
i will keep ruminating on this...
some of you may be wondering what all this has to do with what i normally write about, but i would say that this is integrally connected. as i am trying to make peace with food and my body in a non-judgmental and healthy way, it is really important that i begin to make peace with my body in relationship to potential relationships. as someone who has spent the majority of my life hating my body, there seems to be nothing more terrifying than being naked with someone i love and hoping that they would be pleased by my body. this, i would say is one of the reasons that relationships with the opposite sex are really difficult. not because i am thinking i will jump in the sack with the guys i date, but i date in expectation that it could lead to marriage. ergo, sex is a part of the consciousness. as i strive for a healthy understanding of food, my body, my brain, etc., this is a part of the equation that is probably really important.
i will keep ruminating on this...
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
random thoughts on the week
ZUMBA!
i have been really enjoying exercise in my zumba classes. i was never coordinated enough to do dance, but perhaps it would have been an exercise i would have enjoyed. exercise has never been something i have enjoyed. i have to force myself to the gym. the concept of a "runner's high" is foreign to me. i have always heard that if you find an exercise that you like you are more likely to make exercise a part of your routine. so, i have to say, yay! for finding an exercise that i really enjoy. now whether or not i am good at it is another concept altogether, but there are no mirrors in the classroom, so i can't judge myself. haha.
as far as food goes, i had a pretty bad week. i wanted to eat everything. i was a total bottomless pit. although, i learned something, which is a good thing! i take a birth control where i only menstruate four times a year. the week before one of those times, which was this last week, i want to eat everything. this is so good to know because it will help me gauge what is going on with my body and it will help me not be so hard on myself because i will know that it will only happen four times a year. it was also good for me because i had to think a lot about whether or not i was hungry and why it might be.
i am pretty bummed about the fact that i am so very busy because i am not able to write on here as much as i would like to. i am trying to write at least once a week. some foods that i am really liking lately are sun-dried tomatoes, which are great on sandwiches; blueberries, eggplant, mango sorbet, laughing cow swiss cheese, and kettle corn. i have not been cooking as much as i would like, simply because my schedule is really full. trader joe's has great frozen food items, and a grilled cheese is always a quick meal. i have also been eating a lot of soup from panera since it has been cold.
all this to say, things are going well. i am still learning. i am exercising more. i am exploring foods, and i am trying not to judge myself. not too bad at all.
i have been really enjoying exercise in my zumba classes. i was never coordinated enough to do dance, but perhaps it would have been an exercise i would have enjoyed. exercise has never been something i have enjoyed. i have to force myself to the gym. the concept of a "runner's high" is foreign to me. i have always heard that if you find an exercise that you like you are more likely to make exercise a part of your routine. so, i have to say, yay! for finding an exercise that i really enjoy. now whether or not i am good at it is another concept altogether, but there are no mirrors in the classroom, so i can't judge myself. haha.
as far as food goes, i had a pretty bad week. i wanted to eat everything. i was a total bottomless pit. although, i learned something, which is a good thing! i take a birth control where i only menstruate four times a year. the week before one of those times, which was this last week, i want to eat everything. this is so good to know because it will help me gauge what is going on with my body and it will help me not be so hard on myself because i will know that it will only happen four times a year. it was also good for me because i had to think a lot about whether or not i was hungry and why it might be.
i am pretty bummed about the fact that i am so very busy because i am not able to write on here as much as i would like to. i am trying to write at least once a week. some foods that i am really liking lately are sun-dried tomatoes, which are great on sandwiches; blueberries, eggplant, mango sorbet, laughing cow swiss cheese, and kettle corn. i have not been cooking as much as i would like, simply because my schedule is really full. trader joe's has great frozen food items, and a grilled cheese is always a quick meal. i have also been eating a lot of soup from panera since it has been cold.
all this to say, things are going well. i am still learning. i am exercising more. i am exploring foods, and i am trying not to judge myself. not too bad at all.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
long time gone, now...
hey everyone! i am so sad that it has been 10 days (as my dear friend alicia informed me) since i last updated this blog. my apologies. i have had good intentions, but i have been sick, sick, sick. this is the first day in about a week that i have actually been awake all day. drugs, sleep, and kleenex have been my life. i have had some time to keep reading intuitive eating. i will say that it is really, really hard to do. i did not realize how programmed these bad habits are. some of the most simple things are SO DIFFICULT:
am i hungry? this is such a basic human need. babies cry when they are hungry. the two year old i babysit asks if she can have a "nack" when she is hungry. dogs nudge you on the legs. tigger, my cat growing up, would attack my feet then dart into the kitchen where we kept her food bowl. so when did this become such a difficult thing for me? one of the first steps in this book is "honor your hunger." it is surely hard to honor my hunger when i don't even know what it feels like. i suppose this is a sin of abundance, because i have grown up in a place abundant with food, i have never known what it feels like to be hungry. a different perspective that the book offers is that years of dieting and restricting have taught me to tune out my instincts in favor of an external locus of control i.e. counting something (calories, points, fat grams, etc.).
another thing the book teaches is to eat what you really want. it says, "if you don't like it, don't eat it. if you do like it, savor it." okay, i know this sounds crazy, but i don't know what i like to eat. i certainly have consumed enough calories to make me overweight, but i don't know what i like to eat. in the past i have chosen one of two paths: either i ate what i was "supposed to" on my diet (rice cakes, soup, carrots, fat free ranch dressing) YUCK! okay, i do like soup, but ff ranch is NASTY. the "or" in this scenario was that i was failing my diet so i would eat "bad" or "forbidden" foods (nachos, french fries, pizza, chocolate). neither of these paths ever took into consideration what i like to eat. i really like broccoli. i also really like pizza. there can be room for both of these in my diet. come to find out i still hate carrots and i don't really like nachos as much as i thought i did (except from labodega).
am i satisfied? am i full? am i stuffed? oh, yes, i am trying to relearn the nuances of this. crazy thing is i often have NO IDEA. so thinking about this is where i became really convinced that "dieting" has screwed me up. i do not know when i am satisfied. so many years of my life satisfaction has not been a glimmer of a thought when it came to eating. lean cuisine meals are not about satisfaction, they are about leanness. you eat what is there and stop when it is gone. dieting left me so unsatisfied that the pendulum swung the other direction and i would eat tons of foods high in calories, fat, and sugar. this also left me quite unsatisfied both with my lack of self-control and feeling groggy. so this is what i am striving for...satisfaction.
not eating because of what the book calls "emotional hunger." for me, this means not eating late at night when i am lonely, tired, anxious, and/or stressed. because of every meal time being so controlled, evenings were the one time i found enjoyment in food. i "saved up" calories to eat at night when i was lonely and anxious. so, unfortunately for me, this has become a habit. i stay up late working on homework and snack on "junkfood." relearning to differentiate biological hunger from emotional hunger has been the most difficult struggle thus far. i have pretty well not done well on this 7 out of the last 10 nights. BUT, that means i have done well 3 times more than i have in the past! not using food to comfort myself is probably going to be a huge mountain to climb.
overall, i KNOW that i am doing the right things to become healthy in relationship to food. a friend of mine here at seminary recently told me that she also read and applied this book to her life. she told me "its hard, it takes forever, and it works. its the best thing i ever did." okay. i can do things that are hard, i know this about myself. the real difficulty will be being patient with myself. i have given myself 20+ years to "unlearn" and mistrust my instincts about food, surely i can give myself a year to relearn them. a lot of people gain weight when they first begin relearning, but the weight eventually settles in a healthy-for-your-genetics place. so what i need to remember is: a little weight fluctuation at first is worth making peace with food, and striving for ideally thin has yet to work for me, so perhaps i should strive for healthy. healthy for my genetics will probably, realistically, still be a size 12 or 14, the people in my family are not skinny by nature. i think i can learn to make peace with a 12 or 14.
am i hungry? this is such a basic human need. babies cry when they are hungry. the two year old i babysit asks if she can have a "nack" when she is hungry. dogs nudge you on the legs. tigger, my cat growing up, would attack my feet then dart into the kitchen where we kept her food bowl. so when did this become such a difficult thing for me? one of the first steps in this book is "honor your hunger." it is surely hard to honor my hunger when i don't even know what it feels like. i suppose this is a sin of abundance, because i have grown up in a place abundant with food, i have never known what it feels like to be hungry. a different perspective that the book offers is that years of dieting and restricting have taught me to tune out my instincts in favor of an external locus of control i.e. counting something (calories, points, fat grams, etc.).
another thing the book teaches is to eat what you really want. it says, "if you don't like it, don't eat it. if you do like it, savor it." okay, i know this sounds crazy, but i don't know what i like to eat. i certainly have consumed enough calories to make me overweight, but i don't know what i like to eat. in the past i have chosen one of two paths: either i ate what i was "supposed to" on my diet (rice cakes, soup, carrots, fat free ranch dressing) YUCK! okay, i do like soup, but ff ranch is NASTY. the "or" in this scenario was that i was failing my diet so i would eat "bad" or "forbidden" foods (nachos, french fries, pizza, chocolate). neither of these paths ever took into consideration what i like to eat. i really like broccoli. i also really like pizza. there can be room for both of these in my diet. come to find out i still hate carrots and i don't really like nachos as much as i thought i did (except from labodega).
am i satisfied? am i full? am i stuffed? oh, yes, i am trying to relearn the nuances of this. crazy thing is i often have NO IDEA. so thinking about this is where i became really convinced that "dieting" has screwed me up. i do not know when i am satisfied. so many years of my life satisfaction has not been a glimmer of a thought when it came to eating. lean cuisine meals are not about satisfaction, they are about leanness. you eat what is there and stop when it is gone. dieting left me so unsatisfied that the pendulum swung the other direction and i would eat tons of foods high in calories, fat, and sugar. this also left me quite unsatisfied both with my lack of self-control and feeling groggy. so this is what i am striving for...satisfaction.
not eating because of what the book calls "emotional hunger." for me, this means not eating late at night when i am lonely, tired, anxious, and/or stressed. because of every meal time being so controlled, evenings were the one time i found enjoyment in food. i "saved up" calories to eat at night when i was lonely and anxious. so, unfortunately for me, this has become a habit. i stay up late working on homework and snack on "junkfood." relearning to differentiate biological hunger from emotional hunger has been the most difficult struggle thus far. i have pretty well not done well on this 7 out of the last 10 nights. BUT, that means i have done well 3 times more than i have in the past! not using food to comfort myself is probably going to be a huge mountain to climb.
overall, i KNOW that i am doing the right things to become healthy in relationship to food. a friend of mine here at seminary recently told me that she also read and applied this book to her life. she told me "its hard, it takes forever, and it works. its the best thing i ever did." okay. i can do things that are hard, i know this about myself. the real difficulty will be being patient with myself. i have given myself 20+ years to "unlearn" and mistrust my instincts about food, surely i can give myself a year to relearn them. a lot of people gain weight when they first begin relearning, but the weight eventually settles in a healthy-for-your-genetics place. so what i need to remember is: a little weight fluctuation at first is worth making peace with food, and striving for ideally thin has yet to work for me, so perhaps i should strive for healthy. healthy for my genetics will probably, realistically, still be a size 12 or 14, the people in my family are not skinny by nature. i think i can learn to make peace with a 12 or 14.
Friday, January 28, 2011
eating intuitively
so this week i got kinda down on myself one day about not being as strict as i should with what i am eating. i decided to join weight watchers (for like the millionth time) today. last night i was hanging out with a good friends and i told her what i had decided. she made me promise not to join weight watchers until i bought and read the first chapter of intuitive eating by elyse resch and evelyn tribole. because i have had multiple therapists suggest this book to me and because i trust that this friend has my best interest at heart, i promised. i purchased the book on my kindle less than 24 hours ago and have already read 25% of it. i am pretty sure this idea is going to change my world.
in my last post i wrote about not wanting my blog to be about weight loss (which is something i want), but about becoming healthy. that is the idea of this book. it is all about saying "goodbye" to diets forever. it is about freeing ourselves from the guilt associated with foods, and making peace with food once and for all. the idea is based upon two important truths: our bodies have a stabilizing "natural weight" that has to do with our genetic makeup and that our bodies are magnificently engineered to be at this weight. it is about learning to eat like a toddler: eat when you are hungry, stop when you are full, enjoy your food, eat what you like and what makes you feel good.
now wouldn't that be nice, to eat what you want, when you want, maintain your weight and not feel guilty. THIS IS WHAT I WANT!! now, most people who learn eat intuitively, naturally lose some weight, but the focus is on listening to your body and trusting your body. do you know those people that eat a piece of cake when they want one, never over-think food, and still maintain their weight? the idea is that was how we were all created, but diets, societal pressures and self-deprication have gotten us into the vicious cycle of moralizing foods. this book is quick to point out that intuitive eating is not a quick fix or a diet and that if weight loss is the #1 priority this will probably not be successful. weight loss is the eventual effect of the months long process of learning to trust your bodies internal cues rather than externally imposed systems of control.
this is a scary and exciting adventure. what makes me most hopeful is that the dietitians that wrote the book say that their clients were able to have healthy relationships with foods where "bad" foods lost their power, where they gained a positive body image and all around ate better and felt better. i must say that if these are the results of following the plan in this book and i did not lose one pound, it would be worth it. if all it did was break the obsessive cycle of worrying about food, it would be enough. what it is trying to teach is that "i can have any food any time i want" but that "i don't want all the food i thought i did" and that "i don't need to feel guilty for eating the food i enjoy" especially when i stop eating when satisfied.
i admit that this all sounds sketch and too good to be true, but because so many trusted people have recommended it to me, i am giving it a shot. i also babysit toddlers regularly and i see that this is how they eat. there is no guilt associated with cookies. they love their pasta and their broccoli and tell you all about how yummy it is. they are what we were created to be. so as crazy as it may sound, i am going to try it. and let's be honest, it is no more crazy than the grapefruit diet, liquid fast diets, or slim-fast.
in my last post i wrote about not wanting my blog to be about weight loss (which is something i want), but about becoming healthy. that is the idea of this book. it is all about saying "goodbye" to diets forever. it is about freeing ourselves from the guilt associated with foods, and making peace with food once and for all. the idea is based upon two important truths: our bodies have a stabilizing "natural weight" that has to do with our genetic makeup and that our bodies are magnificently engineered to be at this weight. it is about learning to eat like a toddler: eat when you are hungry, stop when you are full, enjoy your food, eat what you like and what makes you feel good.
now wouldn't that be nice, to eat what you want, when you want, maintain your weight and not feel guilty. THIS IS WHAT I WANT!! now, most people who learn eat intuitively, naturally lose some weight, but the focus is on listening to your body and trusting your body. do you know those people that eat a piece of cake when they want one, never over-think food, and still maintain their weight? the idea is that was how we were all created, but diets, societal pressures and self-deprication have gotten us into the vicious cycle of moralizing foods. this book is quick to point out that intuitive eating is not a quick fix or a diet and that if weight loss is the #1 priority this will probably not be successful. weight loss is the eventual effect of the months long process of learning to trust your bodies internal cues rather than externally imposed systems of control.
this is a scary and exciting adventure. what makes me most hopeful is that the dietitians that wrote the book say that their clients were able to have healthy relationships with foods where "bad" foods lost their power, where they gained a positive body image and all around ate better and felt better. i must say that if these are the results of following the plan in this book and i did not lose one pound, it would be worth it. if all it did was break the obsessive cycle of worrying about food, it would be enough. what it is trying to teach is that "i can have any food any time i want" but that "i don't want all the food i thought i did" and that "i don't need to feel guilty for eating the food i enjoy" especially when i stop eating when satisfied.
i admit that this all sounds sketch and too good to be true, but because so many trusted people have recommended it to me, i am giving it a shot. i also babysit toddlers regularly and i see that this is how they eat. there is no guilt associated with cookies. they love their pasta and their broccoli and tell you all about how yummy it is. they are what we were created to be. so as crazy as it may sound, i am going to try it. and let's be honest, it is no more crazy than the grapefruit diet, liquid fast diets, or slim-fast.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
i should be writing my final, but...
tonight i had the privilege of having dinner with my friends kaely and delonte. we spent a lot of time talking about body image and the issues that women face. one of the things i found most helpful to talk about is the idea that we have all been sinned against by broken people. whether it is the media, an ex-boyfriend, or a parent, we have all been failed by the human capacity for love. we have not been loved well, and in return we have failed to love ourselves well. when i think about some of the reasons that i snack when i am not hungry, i know it is out of loneliness. when i think about scripture that talks about how God delights in us, i realize it is a foreign concept to me. i think i catch glimpses into what it could mean for someone to delight in me, but to really believe that God loves me so much that he takes delight in who i am seems ridiculous. i have learned through different avenues to hate myself and my body. we are taught by television, by magazines, by our mothers, our grandmothers, and all the women around us.
what i want is a revolutionized understanding of who i am. i want food to no longer be an issue because i want my focus to be on something other than food. i want to be in a place where i am naturally inclined to treat my body well and to not seek solace in food because i know what it means for the living God to delight in me. i want to no longer idolize my body (by this i do not mean worship it in that i think it is perfect, but worship it by virtue of the amount of time i spend thinking about it and worrying about it). so this makes me contemplate both the process i am using and the name of my blog. i am wondering if it is necessary to weekly weigh and measure myself. what if my goal is health in mind and body. how do we measure that? i think that weight and measurements are one other avenue to show how we do not measure up to some unknown ideal. maybe my blog should be called "terra getting healthy."
now don't get me wrong, i want to lose weight. i want to be shrinking terra. i want to get healthy and do all the things that will prolong my life and improve the quality of my life. i do think that a huge portion of healthy living is spiritual and mental health. this is the piece of the puzzle i am so often inclined to leave out. i also tend to believe that better behavior will follow better thought. i think that i will naturally make better decisions about what i eat and how i treat my body if i believe that i am delighted in by God and if i chose to stop quantifying my value by my pants size or my weight. what i long for is that this become an intuitive way of life. i want to take joy in flowers and long walks more than i take joy in a box of hot tamales. i want to comfort my pains in life with warm tea and a good cry rather than ice cream and potato chips.
what i want is a revolutionized understanding of who i am. i want food to no longer be an issue because i want my focus to be on something other than food. i want to be in a place where i am naturally inclined to treat my body well and to not seek solace in food because i know what it means for the living God to delight in me. i want to no longer idolize my body (by this i do not mean worship it in that i think it is perfect, but worship it by virtue of the amount of time i spend thinking about it and worrying about it). so this makes me contemplate both the process i am using and the name of my blog. i am wondering if it is necessary to weekly weigh and measure myself. what if my goal is health in mind and body. how do we measure that? i think that weight and measurements are one other avenue to show how we do not measure up to some unknown ideal. maybe my blog should be called "terra getting healthy."
now don't get me wrong, i want to lose weight. i want to be shrinking terra. i want to get healthy and do all the things that will prolong my life and improve the quality of my life. i do think that a huge portion of healthy living is spiritual and mental health. this is the piece of the puzzle i am so often inclined to leave out. i also tend to believe that better behavior will follow better thought. i think that i will naturally make better decisions about what i eat and how i treat my body if i believe that i am delighted in by God and if i chose to stop quantifying my value by my pants size or my weight. what i long for is that this become an intuitive way of life. i want to take joy in flowers and long walks more than i take joy in a box of hot tamales. i want to comfort my pains in life with warm tea and a good cry rather than ice cream and potato chips.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
so far, so good
the last couple of days have been going really well. i have been eating more fruits and veggies. one of the things that is really helping me is being sure to measure everything. i admit, it is a total pain in the rear to count out cheezits or measure out a cup of cereal, especially when you get 1/2 a bowl less that way. although, it is proven to be really helpful in that i have confidence that what i am eating is not more than what i am writing down. if i go 30 calories over my goal, i know it is only 30 and not 300.
one food that i am really loving lately are honey nut cheerios. they are the perfect amount of sweet, but i still feel like i am eating healthy, grown up cereal. plus, when it does come to measuring, i get a whole cup instead of 3/4 of a cup like a lot of cereals. 3/4 of a cup is no where near a bowl of cereal. haha. i have also been eating clementines. they are so great because they have no seeds. i hate oranges because of the seeds, so clementines are the perfect treat. they are also a great size for a snack.
i also want to give a shout out to applebee's under 550 calorie menu. i went there tonight and i had (shocker!) the asiago peppercorn steak. it was delicious. it was very well seasoned with veggies and potatoes. there were other things on the menu that look really yummy. i think i will go back and try something new. the only thing i am really struggling with lately is finding the time and energy to exercise everyday. i have done it some days and not other days. because my schedule is so crazy and ever-changing, it is hard to make it consistent.
one food that i am really loving lately are honey nut cheerios. they are the perfect amount of sweet, but i still feel like i am eating healthy, grown up cereal. plus, when it does come to measuring, i get a whole cup instead of 3/4 of a cup like a lot of cereals. 3/4 of a cup is no where near a bowl of cereal. haha. i have also been eating clementines. they are so great because they have no seeds. i hate oranges because of the seeds, so clementines are the perfect treat. they are also a great size for a snack.
i also want to give a shout out to applebee's under 550 calorie menu. i went there tonight and i had (shocker!) the asiago peppercorn steak. it was delicious. it was very well seasoned with veggies and potatoes. there were other things on the menu that look really yummy. i think i will go back and try something new. the only thing i am really struggling with lately is finding the time and energy to exercise everyday. i have done it some days and not other days. because my schedule is so crazy and ever-changing, it is hard to make it consistent.
Monday, January 17, 2011
yummy soup and tricks of the trade
today was a good day. both yesterday and today i felt "free" as far as what i have been eating. i have not felt like i was restricted to a diet. i keep trying to remind myself that i can have anything i want. no food is off limits or bad. i know that i have to remember that i am seeking balance. today i was really craving mexican food. so, my roommate and i made taco soup. it was a really cold day so it hit the spot! it had ground turkey meat, black beans, kidney beans, pinto beans, corn, cilantro, green chiles, tomatoes, and taco seasoning. after it was done i had it with some fat free sour cream, cheese, and a few chips. it was so great! it hit the spot and did not throw me into the caloric black hole of mexican food. something else that really helps me is that i have a candy jar at my house. right now it has some peanut butter cups, m&m's and fun dip in it. it is so great for me because i know that it is there and available should i want it. just knowing that it is there and i could have it if i wanted to, makes me less tempted to want to eat it all.
there are two other tricks that i have been up to that i hope are helping me with my lifestyle change. one of them is that i have given up drinking caffeine. i have not been drinking any caffeinated beverage for about three weeks now. the first week was hard, and i do occasionally want some. there have only been two occasions that i actually stopped and got a decaf coffee or a caffeine free diet coke because i was really craving the original. i hear that giving up caffeine will help keep the body significantly more hydrated. i suppose this is true because mostly i drink only water these days. my hope is that by staying hydrated my body won't confuse thirst for hunger. the second trick is taking a multi-vitamin each day. i have so much more energy when i take a vitamin. i also hope that it will help curb cravings that could come from vitamin deficiency occurring in my diet. blessings to you all! -t
there are two other tricks that i have been up to that i hope are helping me with my lifestyle change. one of them is that i have given up drinking caffeine. i have not been drinking any caffeinated beverage for about three weeks now. the first week was hard, and i do occasionally want some. there have only been two occasions that i actually stopped and got a decaf coffee or a caffeine free diet coke because i was really craving the original. i hear that giving up caffeine will help keep the body significantly more hydrated. i suppose this is true because mostly i drink only water these days. my hope is that by staying hydrated my body won't confuse thirst for hunger. the second trick is taking a multi-vitamin each day. i have so much more energy when i take a vitamin. i also hope that it will help curb cravings that could come from vitamin deficiency occurring in my diet. blessings to you all! -t
Saturday, January 15, 2011
learning experience
each day is a new chance at life and a new opportunity to learn. there is always so much to learn about ourselves, even though we have been ourselves our whole lives. what i have learned about myself today is that when i am sad about something, i have more anxiety about eating. today i was upset about my grades and it made my decisions about food really difficult. i wanted to eat healthy, but i could not decide what to eat, so i did not eat. i went to the movies and by the time i was out of the movies i was really hungry. i still was so worried that i would "mess up" and eat something that would be high fat or high calorie that i felt really sad. so i ate a salad and heated up a microwave meal. i found that i felt really frustrated and sad about eating. what i am learning, though, is that i did not own my feelings. i actually was feeling sad and frustrated about something totally unrelated to food. it seems that i often use my weight and eating food as the scapegoat for all kinds of feelings that have nothing to do with my weight. i am finding that i am substituting one feeling of incompetence for another. the real issue is that i am feeling unsure about my future. i made my first "C" in seminary. it makes me feel like a failure because in most all grad programs it would be a failing grade. i also made a "B" on my paper for intro to hospital visitation. intro to hospital visitation. ha! i did a residency in hospital visitation. i know that this is something i am good at. it is something i can see myself doing long term. i am applying for jobs in this area, and i just made a "B." i am so sad about this. it makes me feel like i am not good enough to do what i want to do. what i have learned today is that when i am sad about things that make me feel incompetent, i push those feelings onto the thing that makes me feel most incompetent: my weight. so i try to hyper-manage my diet in a way that leaves me completely bound. this was what i learned about myself today.
Friday, January 14, 2011
chevy's, p.f. changs, and olive garden...oh my!
ah, the wonderful world of eating out. this, for me, can be one of the most difficult tasks to navigate when trying to be healthy and get in shape. one of the biggest struggles is that eating out is unavoidable. it is one of the primary places we socialize. we go out for a drink. grab coffee. meet up for lunch. get together for happy hour. go out to dinner. these are some of the places that i am most likely to see my friends and have a great conversation. the problem is that sometimes it is not fun. if my mind is so focused on what to eat or not eat, there is hardly much brain power left to concentrate on just enjoying my friend. i have decided that i need a game plan. i think i need to brainstorm some "safe" foods that i can eat anywhere i go out. these will be the foods that i can order without stress and research before hand.
today for lunch i went with a great friend to a diner. it was a spur of the moment decision. the problem was, when i got there i was overly hungry. it was 1:00pm and all i had for breakfast was dried fruit and nuts. so, i ordered what sounded good. french onion soup and a roast beef sandwich. the sandwich had cheese and it was served with french fries. i basically "put a snake in my cart" as my old weight watchers leader would say. so, i knew when i got my food that i was going to have to administer some self control. i ate only half of the french fries and skipped most of the cheese on the soup. i will say that it was a bad choice to order the roast beef. let's get real: i have never liked beef. i am not sure why it sounded good. so, the result was i ate the bread and cheese and not much of the beef.
now, i have choices to make. will i let this derail my entire day? in the past, i would be inclined to think: dang, i screwed up already anyway, i might as well eat some chocolate too. now that i am turning over a new leaf, though, i know i need some better thinking. i think i will say: this was not the best thing i could have eaten, but i can make better decisions for the rest of the day. i read a book that said, "make the next best choice." that is what i am going to do. i will still exercise, i will eat healthier for dinner. i refuse to believe that our excursions in eating out have to derail everything about our diets. another way to look at it is that the food i ate still had value: bread has carbs that our bodies need, cheese has calcium and protein, and beef has protein. plus, she refilled my water at least twice, so that was good for me!!
today i weighed myself and i plan to take measurements of my hips, waist, thighs and arms. i have been struggling with whether to put those numbers on the blog. honestly, i find them pretty embarrassing. i think that what i will do is tell you all when i have lost/gained in pounds and inches, and even how much, but i don't think it is necessary to put my starting numbers on here. maybe when i am a whole new person i will want to share that information. now, though, i am still starting out and i am still living in those numbers that i wish were smaller. thanks for your love and support!
-t
today for lunch i went with a great friend to a diner. it was a spur of the moment decision. the problem was, when i got there i was overly hungry. it was 1:00pm and all i had for breakfast was dried fruit and nuts. so, i ordered what sounded good. french onion soup and a roast beef sandwich. the sandwich had cheese and it was served with french fries. i basically "put a snake in my cart" as my old weight watchers leader would say. so, i knew when i got my food that i was going to have to administer some self control. i ate only half of the french fries and skipped most of the cheese on the soup. i will say that it was a bad choice to order the roast beef. let's get real: i have never liked beef. i am not sure why it sounded good. so, the result was i ate the bread and cheese and not much of the beef.
now, i have choices to make. will i let this derail my entire day? in the past, i would be inclined to think: dang, i screwed up already anyway, i might as well eat some chocolate too. now that i am turning over a new leaf, though, i know i need some better thinking. i think i will say: this was not the best thing i could have eaten, but i can make better decisions for the rest of the day. i read a book that said, "make the next best choice." that is what i am going to do. i will still exercise, i will eat healthier for dinner. i refuse to believe that our excursions in eating out have to derail everything about our diets. another way to look at it is that the food i ate still had value: bread has carbs that our bodies need, cheese has calcium and protein, and beef has protein. plus, she refilled my water at least twice, so that was good for me!!
today i weighed myself and i plan to take measurements of my hips, waist, thighs and arms. i have been struggling with whether to put those numbers on the blog. honestly, i find them pretty embarrassing. i think that what i will do is tell you all when i have lost/gained in pounds and inches, and even how much, but i don't think it is necessary to put my starting numbers on here. maybe when i am a whole new person i will want to share that information. now, though, i am still starting out and i am still living in those numbers that i wish were smaller. thanks for your love and support!
-t
Thursday, January 13, 2011
the first day
the longest journey begins with the first step. today was my first day, my first step. i have had a great day today. i am proud of myself. for breakfast i made pancakes using heart smart bisquick with splenda, pecans, and oatmeal. they were very yummy. for lunch i had a tamale from trader joe's. they have cheese and green chili tamales that rock my world. for dinner i made one of my favorite salads: raw spinach, dried cranberries, toasted almonds, feta, turkey, and light basalmic vinaigrette. I really wanted some bread with the salad, but i went for some flatbread crisps. they were super yummy.
as far as exercise, i walked at home. i used the leslie sansone dvd. i did three miles in forty-five minutes and it was actually a really difficult workout. the great thing is that i do not have to go anywhere to do it. i can just put on some tennis shoes and go for it in my living room. my roommate and i have a couple of the dvd's. one is really difficult and the other is not so hard. i really recommend the "5-day slim down." i am sore but it is not so hard that i never want to do it again.
tonight the youngster i babysit asked me if there was a baby growing in my tummy. the beauty of children is that they always speak the truth because they do not know the taboo things they are not supposed to say. he reinforced my decisions today.
as far as exercise, i walked at home. i used the leslie sansone dvd. i did three miles in forty-five minutes and it was actually a really difficult workout. the great thing is that i do not have to go anywhere to do it. i can just put on some tennis shoes and go for it in my living room. my roommate and i have a couple of the dvd's. one is really difficult and the other is not so hard. i really recommend the "5-day slim down." i am sore but it is not so hard that i never want to do it again.
a workable plan
one of the most important aspects to this journey is that i have a plan that is reasonable. melinda said it well when she said, "remember that this is a marathon and not a sprint." i need to have tools that are available to me. one of the helpful tools i have decided to utilize is "the daily plate" on the livestrong website. it is an online tool that does calculations for me. i put in my weight, activity level and desired weight loss and it scales it based on a standard weight maintenance diet. it has a huge data base where i can search foods and exercises to apply as i eat and burn calories. my cousin, kyle, has been highly successful in his weight loss goals. he utilized this resource until he was able to eat intuitively in a more healthy manner.
the other aspect to the weight loss goal is my exercise plan. exercise has always been a struggle for me. when i was young, i had severe asthma which made exercise very difficult. i never really enjoyed sports because i was not good at them. my parents put me in sports: dance, soccer, gymnastics. unfortunately, the steroids i had to take for the asthma made me gain weight. i was not good at sports and they were pretty humiliating for me most of the time. as a result of these things, i never formed habits of exercise and i never fell in love with sports. my hope is that this can change. i have some "walk at home" dvds that are fairly enjoyable and a good work out. i also have a pilates dvd for flexibility. my goal is 30-45 minutes of exercise each day. my friend katie has also proposed working out in the evenings together.
many of you have asked how you can best support me. first of all, this is so meaningful to me. i thank you all for your love and encouragement. the best thing is to know that you are reading this blog. that will encourage me to stick with my plan and write about it. please comment with your advice, questions and encouragement. peace to you all. -t
the other aspect to the weight loss goal is my exercise plan. exercise has always been a struggle for me. when i was young, i had severe asthma which made exercise very difficult. i never really enjoyed sports because i was not good at them. my parents put me in sports: dance, soccer, gymnastics. unfortunately, the steroids i had to take for the asthma made me gain weight. i was not good at sports and they were pretty humiliating for me most of the time. as a result of these things, i never formed habits of exercise and i never fell in love with sports. my hope is that this can change. i have some "walk at home" dvds that are fairly enjoyable and a good work out. i also have a pilates dvd for flexibility. my goal is 30-45 minutes of exercise each day. my friend katie has also proposed working out in the evenings together.
many of you have asked how you can best support me. first of all, this is so meaningful to me. i thank you all for your love and encouragement. the best thing is to know that you are reading this blog. that will encourage me to stick with my plan and write about it. please comment with your advice, questions and encouragement. peace to you all. -t
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
we have to start somewhere...
so this is where i am starting. i have decided that the best way for me to actually get support and be held accountable is to blog this journey. for as long as i can remember, i have wanted to lose weight. i have wanted to be able to go into a store and find cute clothes that i feel comfortable in. i have wanted to go to the pool and not be obsessed about the horror of having to be in a bathing suit. so this is the beginning of my journey toward a different lifestyle. much of this journey also has to do with health. i am not getting younger, and i know that diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease all run in my family. i do not want to be affected with any of these ailments. so many times i lay in bed at night and think: tomorrow is the day. tomorrow i will be more motivated to make this change, but the reality is, each day i am still trapped in my own head. i need support, i need someone in the world to give a damn whether i exercised or not. i want someone to care about what i have eaten and how it affects me. so in this blog i will be talking about many things. i will be telling you what i am eating. i will be telling you about my exercise. i will be telling you about my feelings. the fact of the matter is, i am an extrovert in the truest sense of the word. i get my energy from others. i need people. i need you. i process my thoughts and feelings externally and i need dialogues. i am far too often stuck inside my own head. i need to change my life: my mind, my habits, my body and my techniques. blessings to you! -t
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