food

Tiptoeing away from Sugar

Originally uploaded by ::sämyii::

First of all, just another shout-out to Mary who, at her tender young age, has managed to be an amazing mentor for me in so many ways. First, she introduced me to foodblogging which has proved to be nothing short of miraculous. It stopped two binges in their tracks yesterday. Amazing.

Another thing that Mary does, which I observed during her visit with me, but did NOT PARTICIPATE in, is her practice of only eating sugar (processed sugar) on weekends. I was like, hmm. Okay.

Now, as a diabetic person, I probably could benefit from not eating sugar at ALL. And I know plenty of people who do not eat sugar AT ALL. But cutting any food out of my repertoire completely just freaks me out. And it is important to me to feel like I can 1. maintain my weight loss, and 2. maintain good diabetic health, while continuing to enjoy certain sugar experiences once in a while. (cupcakes, anyone?)

I never eat large amounts of sugar. Mostly they are very small amounts of things- a teaspoon of ice cream, a sugar-free candy, (I’m going to count that as “sugar” for now because it does contain a certain type of sugar), some low-carb chocolate or a Skinny Cow. I do not go all out and have a hot fudge sundae.

Anyway, this week, after the big wedding weekend, I decided to come back to “basics.” And I noticed that I didn’t eat sugar on Monday or Tuesday. (today is Wednesday) I noticed it didn’t kill me. Or upset me. Or make me feel deprived.

So I’ve decided to gently see how this feels. I’m not doing it as a Challenge, or a Vow, or anything like that. I’m just doing it out of curiousity, for as long as it lasts. I’m not putting a time limit on it or anything. It’s just…. an experiment.

By the way, I don’t notice any difference (after 2 days) in how I feel. It’s not like I feel lighter and happier and free from the Evil Substance. I’m more noticing how I don’t feel like I’m suffering. Which is fine.

July 21, 2010 10

Week 2 of Foodblogging: What I’ve Learned, Part 2

I’m still at it. I’m having fun. I’m liking it. And I’m still learning new things.

This weekend, for example, I learned that it is possible to take photos of your food and still gain weight! (ha) Saturday was a perfect example of Too Much Of A Good Thing. (well, actually, NOT too much, but perhaps too much to LOSE weight) I don’t regret a single bite of anything. I don’t feel like I binged. But I know, and especially looking back, that that was a day that I ate really healthy food (perhaps with the exception of the bread and butter, and the cream puff at the end!) but more than was necessary, um, physiologically speaking. I mean: grilled vegetables! Salmon! Shaved zucchini salad! It was all good good food. It was delicious. I ate “in moderation.” All in all, I’d consider it a Success. I did not feel deprived; I ate good things, I was happy.

I also learned that it is possible (well, I knew THIS one already) to eat not enough of Not Very Good Food. This was pretty much yesterday. I was still really full from Saturday AND I was really busy so I did not eat very much. But what I did eat wasn’t the most ideal stuff. A lot of carbs, not enough produce.

Last week I took some photos of lunch while at work. I think my co-workers thought I was a little, um… special. As my daughters would say. But I took them anyway.

I’m excited that since I’ve started this process, a few of my blogging buddies have joined in and are photoblogging too. I’m having a great time following their food, and learning all sorts of things. Here’s Karen’s, and Pubsgal’s, and Sweeter’s. Welcome to foodblogging, friends!

The process is continuing to fascinate me and every day I notice more and more new things. Onward!

July 19, 2010 11

Cream Puff Heaven

I went to a wedding with most amazing food! Including cream puffs instead of wedding cake!! All I can say is it’s a GOOD THING I started at a low.

More later.

July 18, 2010 1

It’s Working.. And I Didn’t Even Ask It To

Remember my “wish” to lose ten pounds maybe, like sort of? Well, after much deliberation I decided to not sweat it or “try” to do anything; I’d just keep doing whatever I was doing, and whatever happened, would happen.

Then Mary came to visit and I watched her take pictures of all her food. For the first 3 days, I just watched her, and I ate all the yummy things she was eating PLUS MORE. The weight started creeping up. Then on her fourth day, I started foodblogging as well.

See what happened? That’s my weight up there. From the very first day. This was not on purpose, ie I wasn’t “trying” to lose weight, I was just trying to be more mindful and accountable for what I ate.

The one little uptick you see there is the day I forgot to take my medication which allows me to not look like a watery bloated sausage.

The difference between the top of the graph and the bottom of the graph (today) is 5.2 pounds.

Just sayin’.

I’m taking my camera with me EVERYwhere from now on. 🙂

EDITED: Hmph. Facebook tells me that this blog post has been rated as “abusive” by Facebook users and so they have disabled the link. What is THAT about? Am I being boycotted by anti-scale people??

July 16, 2010 13

Pressure Cooker

Steaming cooker

Originally uploaded by Intrudēr

The next three weeks are going to be the most pressurized, intense weeks of my entire year. I run a camp, that takes all year to prepare for, and it takes place the last week in July.

I’ve been doing this for six years now. For the first several years, I viewed this period of time (actually, all summer) as an opportunity to completely throw in the towel and give up on any remnants of fitness or healthy eating. It was really just an excuse. I’d cancel my trainer, eat like there was no tomorrow, and it was just stress piled on stress. It felt inevitable. When camp itself came, I would literally inhale the crazy carbs they served: sloppy joes and mac and cheese and tacos and hotdogs and french toast and ALL OF IT, and I believed the more I ate, the calmer (read: more anesthetized) I’d feel.

Last year was the first year that I tried to get through the summer without my customary meltdown. It went pretty well and I managed to get to my Lifetime status at WW in the summer. But the ghosts of past camp seasons are always around to haunt, and it’s so easy to just succumb to the pressures and just say “I give up!” for now.

I really don’t want that to happen this year. This year is the biggest camp in our whole history. We’re in a brand-new site that is giving me HIVES with their incomprehensible difficulties and insane little rules. So I am just prime for all sorts of falling down.

Today we had a staff powwow to assess all we need to do in the next 2 weeks. It is a LOT. And either it will get done, or it won’t. But just making that list almost put us all over the top.

One of my co-workers ordered a sandwich with extra bacon. I suddenly thought, what can *I* have?? I deserve this! I need something extra-special!! All the old song and dance. I spied a triple-decker Havarti grilled cheese on the menu of my favorite takeout place. THAT’S what I want! I thought. But I was deep in a task which kept me busy for a while longer. During which time I got to really think about what it was that I wanted.

I wanted to eat something that would not stress me even further, or put me to sleep, or make me feel bad about myself. I thought. I needed PROTEIN. So I went to the Thai place and got a cup of chicken coconut soup, and some chicken satay skewers. I didn’t touch even a grain of rice. I had the cucumber salad and a little dollop of peanut sauce. Then I was able to go back and face the rest of my afternoon (and evening, as it turns out) of work.

It’s going to take EVERYTHING I HAVE to remain conscious, and present, and healthy, during these next weeks. If I can emerge August 1 in a good place, I will be very grateful. Cross your fingers for me. Or leave me lots of comments for strength. ❤

July 13, 2010 14

Farmers Market with Mom

Today I took my mother to the Farmers Market for the first time. She’s never been with me before. As incredible as this may seem, I normally go to the FM while she is at church. Today is the day of the church picnic, which for some reason she does not enjoy. So she played hooky from church and came to the Farmers Market with me.

It was an interesting experience. I think the open stands and the people giving out food and the crowds and just the sheer experience of it was a little over the top for her. And I think the concept- of farmers bringing their fresh, in-season produce – to neighborhoods, was just not something that she’s ever thought about.

As I’ve been on this “healthy journey,” as we call it, I have had to think a lot about the decades-long habits I first learned when I was growing up. There were a lot of things I look back on now and shake my head. She was doing her best, and doing what many others did at the time. Back in the 70s, when I was young, frozen dinners were seen as this very cool new thing, a convenient, happy thing, and the same with fast food.

My father was a traveling salesman and he was gone 75% of the time, traveling. So when it was both her and me (I was an only child) we subsisted 100% on frozen TV dinners, fast food takeout, or if it was a real special night, teriyaki hotdogs over rice. We’d go through the aisles of the A & P and fill the cart with frozen blocks of food, some her favorites, and some mine. We got to have whatever we wanted.

Every night, she’d offer me the choice between a “vegetable” – usually iceberg lettuce with “Russian dressing” (mayo + ketchup) or a plate of cold tofu with soy sauce on it. Nine times out of ten, I chose the tofu. I think in her mind, tofu = “vegetable” because it was “healthy.” Or something like that. Needless to say I did not ingest many vegetables probably until I went to college. I remember coming home my freshman year and buying alfalfa sprouts and avocados and she was like, Oh you hippy.

Every day after school, she and I would sit down to “Snack” – milk plus cookies or cake or something sweet. (Ding Dongs? Twinkies? Coconut Snowballs?)

That was my life. For her, not much has changed. She still has an ongoing love affair with McDonald’s and gets insulted if anyone insinuates that fast food is in any way bad. Brown rice makes her shudder. Same with whole wheat bread. She will put up with our vegetables and our salads and such, but if given her preference, she would live on chocolate. And salami.

Sometimes I find myself getting annoyed when I see her food choices and I know that I am forever trying to untie the knots that she showed me so long ago, and which still live inside me. Those kinds of foods are the ones that sustained me for almost the first two decades of my life, and where I want to go when I am feeling needy or just, want to GO BACK there. (to a place of mindlessness and just NOT KNOWING how unhealthy it all was)

It was hard not to wince when she beelined to the kettle corn and the chocolate sorbet and the pastries. It’s not what I can do anymore. And as far as her making these choices? Listen. She’s almost 88. She is in good physical condition and who am *I*, her kid, to be telling her what to do? She has made it this far. And for now, food is one of the pleasures enjoys. I’m not going to take them away from her for the sake of her longevity. Maybe I’m an enabler when I buy her chocolate. But she’s 88. She still bowls a 175 every week. She can walk more than two miles. She’s doing so much better than people a decade younger than her.

So today we went to the farmers’ market. She got a bunch of corn. (one of the few vegetables she likes) She smelled the basil and liked that, but wouldn’t know what to do with it. She bought a cheese Danish and had some samples of peaches and bolanis. She said “no thank you” to the free blueberries and sped-walked past the vegetable stands. I thought about where we came from and where I am now. It’s a lot to think about.

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July 11, 2010 13

It’s An “Energy Imbalance”

balance

Originally uploaded by hans s

Back in June, I went to a staff training for Weight Watchers; it’s part of a series on the science of weight loss. How awesome is this, I ask you? It was hard to get excited about a 12-hour work day especially on a Friday, but I was hoping to learn a lot and learn I did.

On one hand, it was simple and basic and nothing I hadn’t heard before, but on the other hand it felt totally illuminating. Or maybe confirming.

There was a lot of talk about metabolism. What IS “metabolism,” anyway? It seems like this mysterious and complicated mechanism that nobody seems to clearly understand. But as we learned, metabolism is actually a NUMBER. It’s the difference between the calories that one burns and that calories that one takes in. That’s it.

And if we are trying to lose weight, then we want the numbers IN to be fewer than the numbers OUT.

It was kind of stunningly simple. My mind was kind of whirling around like crazy, thinking of my own understanding of my own numbers in the past few months. I’ve been wearing this little gadget called a Philips DirectLife which measures the calories OUT every day. For the first few weeks, I was going gangbusters and burning 150-180% of my goal every day. I was knocking the socks off that thing.

Then I hurt my ankle. Again. Everything slowed wayyyyy down. I could see by the charts on the gadget that even when I tried to walk, I was averaging about 200 calories less per day (burned) than before. On top of that, at the same time, I started a new job that was kind of mentally exhausting. I was going out for coffee 1-2x a day more than previously. And you know, I put cream in my coffee. So there’s 100-200 calories more IN per day. Even if everything else stayed the same.

And suddenly it became glaringly obvious (in a way that just had not clicked before) that this was WHY I was unable to just shake off the last 5-10 pounds I was wanting to lose.

I mean I KNEW it, on some level, that walking was just not the same as running or banging out long sessions on the elliptical. But my little DirectLife was ticking away and showing me in very graphic terms exactly what was going on. Add the extra coffee and there you have it.

So now, my ankle is feeling better and I am able to do more again. AND I’ve been tracking my food carefully on my food blog. And… voila. Happy scale days again.

There was more good stuff in that metabolism lecture; about the different ways we burn calories, and metabolism as we age and metabolism in men vs women, but I’m going to save that for a later post.

July 10, 2010 5

Is Exposing Your Food Like Exposing Your Privates?

One of my friends said to me that my food blog was upsetting her. “I think what we eat is really private!” she said. “And political! I would never show people what I eat.” (or some such thing. I am paraphrasing) This intrigued me. “What do you mean by political?” I asked.

“I would be afraid that people would judge me, for going out to eat too much, for not cooking enough or whatever.” This was fascinating to me. Of course people could certainly judge ME for going out to eat too much because I do it like every five minutes, but that’s not the kind of judgement that I care about or that worries me.

I have been guilty and embarrassed and ashamed of various food I’ve eaten for years decades, but not for political reasons. For deeply personal reasons. I think now, how I would feel if someone had pulled a camera on me when I sat in my car eating a pint of macaroni and cheese or chocolate pudding or one of my other comfort/binge foods. I would have died a million deaths. So for me, it is incredibly empowering to be exposing/outing myself and my food. And to shed light on it is one of the most amazing things I have ever done.

Mary said to me that food blogging basically eliminated most of her mindless and compulsive eating, which pretty much made my eyes bug out of my head. And which made me want to try to do this. So far, I have to say, it’s been an incredible experience. I’m learning so much about myself.

For someone who spent so much of my psychic life eating in a closet, this is really HUGE.

I’m finding that photographing my food is almost like a prayer, a little premeal ritual, and almost like meditation. It is deeply contemplatative. I think about my food, consider it from angle, think about if I do want to eat it, how much I want, etc. I want it to look good. I want to feel committed to it. Believe me, this is something I did not used to do. Often I would almost eat with my eyes closed because I would not want to see what I was doing.

It’s only been four days. But I’ve gotta say, it’s changing me. And I’m not embarrassed.

July 9, 2010 26

Showing My Food

Wow. Second day of food blogging over at What Foodie Eats. (pleeeeease come visit me there!) What a trip it’s been! Already I feel a change in how I approach food. Every morsel I eat is photographed BEFORE I eat it. It’s a totally visual (and different) version of Weight Watchers, “If you bite it, write it!” Because often we track (writing) AFTER we eat. In this method, the tracking HAS to happen before the eating. Every time. Which makes a huge difference. It’s making me slow way way down, and become very deliberate and thoughtful about what I eat.

And talk about accountability. Wow. Wow wow! I feel like this truly does take tracking to a whole ‘nother level. It’s one thing to write things down, or “try to” as I often do. It’s another thing to take pictures of all your food. And another thing to put it out on the internet. How about you? Would you be willing to show the world everything you eat?

I’m learning so much.

July 7, 2010 11

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