What I Typically Eat During the Week

Breakfast

Ok, first off...I know breakfast is the best time of the day to eat your carbs. However I have realized that unless I have a protein-rich breakfast I am going to be starving by lunch time. Snacking a lot does not work for me for several reasons so I go with what keeps me full the longest.


At least three days out of the week I have four slices of original (not the thick-cut) Oscar Meyer Center Cut Bacon. That's only two points of bacony-goodness. With it, I'll have three egg whites (one point). A few days ago I started making a pancake out of 2 1/2 tablespoons of Arbonne Chocolate Protein Powder, one egg, 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder, one tsp of olive oil, and one tblsp of water. This makes a four point pancake, on which I then add two tablespoons of sugar-free syrup for another point. For five points, I can satisfy a craving for carbs without actually eating them.

If I don't have time to make my precious, precious bacon I'll have an 8oz protein shake made with milk (five points) or a Clif bar. Occasionally, I'll have oatmeal. I wish I could love oatmeal as much as I should, but I just don't.

Lunch

I try to stay away from processed/preservative-laden/can't read the ingredient list foods as much as possible. I rarely have them at breakfast and even rarer at dinner. But I have a hard time completely eliminating them from my weekday lunches. My typical lunch at work looks like this:

That's some salad greens with mushrooms and cucumber, a bit of the Salad Spritz for dressing, a Mini-Babybell Cheese, some grapes and a Lean Pocket.

I'll sub in a pita with a low-sodium ham or turkey, or tuna onto the salad or on some whole wheat bread...but more often than not I go with the Lean Pocket. As a Food Addict, finishing a meal feeling satisfied (notice I didn't say "full." Two very different concepts) is incredibly important for me. If I go too long without eating something that leaves me feeling satisifed, then I set myself up for a binge. 

   

So, I sacrifice my attempts at clean eating a bit in the effort of not losing it completely.

With my lunch I drink water, Sobe zero calorie flavored waters or Sparkling Ice. It's not naturally flavored like Sobe, (splenda, I believe) which stinks...but I have to mix it up every once in awhile.

Afternoon Snack

On the way home from work I usually drink a bottle of water and eat a handful of baby carrots. This goes along way towards keeping me from raiding the cabinets while I am waiting for dinner. If I really can't wait, I usually keep the 90 calorie Fiber One bars around for an emergency. 

Dinner

Lots of stir-fries! We used to make a tofu stir-fry at least once a week. Super filling and yummy but crazy low in calories. And then I found out that soy and thyroid issues are not a good mix. I have Hasimoto's and had half of my thyroid removed several years ago, when I grew an orange sized...thing. What is it with me and fruit-sized growths? Anyhoodles, I'm on Synthroid, so no more soy stuff for me. So we just use chicken and shrimp now. Lots of broccolli, zucchinni, onion, mushrooms whatevers in the fridge, really.

We also often sautee Tilapia or make the old baked-chicken-breasts-in-mushroom soup and serve that with Jasmine or Basmati rice and some sort of green vegetable. Lately, we've really been digging the Banging Good Shrimp from the Skinny Taste site

That recipe introduced me to Sriracha and has changed my life. I should have listened to the Oatmeal sooner. His homage to Sriracha.

Tales from the Scales

But first.....

......size 12s, baby!!! Yeah-ya!

OK, fine they are still a little muffin-toppy, hence a loose shirt today, but I really needed another pair of pants and I wasn't going to waste money on another pair of 14s. 

That said, let me tell you a little story about the scale and how ridiculous I am, and probably how most of us are about what it tells us. As I am sure I have mentioned before I am an everyday weigh-er. However, it only counts on Wednesdays, which is when I record it in my WW app. Not surprisingly my weight fluctuates every day in a pretty predictable pattern. Starting on Weigh-In Wednesday, it gets lower on Thursday, lower still on Friday, spikes back up through the weekend and drops again on Tuesday and Wednesday. But then last week I stayed at exactly 190.0 for about 5 days straight. Which I thought extremely odd. Then my college buddy came into town and I did not weight myself at all till Monday. A Monday that followed a weekend of using up all of my weekly and activity points and then some. Scale still read 190.0.

Ok, clearly something is amiss. So I started fussing with the scale, took the batteries in and out and ended up with numbers from 189.9 to 194.5 At which point I figured I must need new batteries. While at Target picking up the batteries, I saw a cheap dial scale and figured, "Why not pick it up for back-up?" So I brought it to work, followed the directions for calibration and it says I weight 215 lbs.

What? What? WHAAAAT? (insert Kyle's Mom's voice here)

I...I can't really still be over 200lbs, can I? Has the other scale been really off for a long time maybe? What if? No. That's silly, I have to be somewhere in the low 190s. Don't exactly know where but.....I couldn't possibly be? Could I?

(head shake)

So what exactly do I weigh? Honestly, for a few minutes I felt panicked. But I talked myself down off the ledge fairly quickly when it dawned on me: What in-all-that-is-holy does it freakin' matter? I'm (almost) fitting into size 12 jeans, my 14s are loose. In terms of fitness I am in better shape right now than I have ever been in my entire life. I surprise myself weekly with what my body has been accomplishing. And I'm going to give myself an anxiety attack over a number? No, sir. That is NOT what this past year has been about.

Now THAT said, of course I got new batteries for the scale. Let's not get crazy here, it's not like I am going to just throw the scale away. It is a very good tool for making sure I stay on top of things. 

But a number does not define me. My accomplishments and behavior are what define me.

Old habits die hard

An old college buddy visited for a long (though entirely too short) weekend. Even though we did a fair amount of physical activity (a challenging zipline/obstacle course one day, over 8 miles hiked another) we ate out a lot. Even though Kelly is a very health-minded person she was understandably in vacation-mode. Which was hard for me in a couple of ways. Sometimes I made the right choices, but then I felt like I might make her feel guilty for her's by comparison...or in order to not feel like I was acting "better than her" I would make an indulgent choice. Clearly, the answer is to make the right choice. A real friend, which she most certainly is, understands my food choices and is in fact quite proud of me.

It was very enlightening to realize in retrospect how much of our relationship in the past revolved around food...and how easy we find ourselves rationalizing our choices. I remember in the past (and sure enough, again this weekend) we'd both say "Well, we surely walked off so many calories walking around the mall, or hiking (etc) we totally deserve this (insert indulgent food here)."

I grew up having the same conversation with my mother and even just to myself. What I realize now is that my body doesn't "earn" indulgent food. I think, perhaps, I should view it as the opposite. My body earns, or deserves good food. Indulgent food is actually a punishment for it. Now, don't get me wrong, I wholeheartedly agree there is nothing wrong with a little something-something outside your usual caloric/fat/whatever choices. But I need to make sure that that something is something I really want. And it needs to be indulged in really infrequently.

Through Saturday afternoon I had been making really good choices. We were at the mall and she suggested a Cinnamon Sugar Pretzel. I agreed and it was wonderful. I savored every bit of it. And had that been it, there would be nothing to feel guilty about. But of course we ended up going bowling that night, which led to bowling alley fries and the next you thing you know I'm having another burger and more fries for lunch the next day. By yesterday evening I felt like crap mentally and physically. Mostly mentally. I couldn't believe I'd let myself slip into those old habits.

But it's a new day. I'm proud of how many meals I didn't go whole-hog on, and in a bizarre way I am actually glad I feel so guilty about the bad choices I made. Because in the past I would not have felt bad at all. I'd just default to "Oh, I'll just start eating better later." or even worse and most likely, not even realize how very bad the choices even were. Looking up Point Values while out to eat continues to be such an eye opener to me. We played "What's the worse things you can order?" game several times and it never fails to blow my mind.

We went to breakfast this morning before I went to work and she headed for the airport. I made good choices and I'll be running at lunch today, just in case this evening gets too busy. I enjoyed my friend's visit immensely, but  my body and mind are ready to get back to routine.

Before and Currently

A little 'Before' action for you. This was taken a few years ago but is pretty representative of where I was a year ago. I held on to 250lbs for several years. With my former amount of activity and intake, my body maintained that weight happily. (in a perverse way)

At last month's Adventure Race about 195. I've been playing with same 5lbs for the past month. 194 is the lowest I have gotten thus far. I am committed now to getting to 180 for May 9th. That date is the one year anniversary of my hysterectomy and cantelope removal that inspired this transition to a new, fit lifestyle. 

I'm not going to lie, like everyone else I want to lose weight and get fit as fast as possible, but at the same time I knew my only hope in truly being successful was in doing it slowly. Via a lifestyle change, not a diet. Have I gotten frustrated at the pace at times? Hells yeah! But I also know that those who take it off slowly have a much higher success rate in terms of keeping it off. I know now and accept that I will always have to journal my food. I always have to get in at least 30 minutes of real exercise 5-6 days a week. (strolls/leisure hikes don't really count)

And that's ok. A few years ago I had half of my thyroid taken out and I have to take Synthroid every day too. It is what it is. There is no end to this process, well other than ya know, death.

And of course the fringe benefit, beyond a longer, more productive life is that I can do stuff now! I don't have to research the Zip Line or Trail Riding Outfit ahead of time to find out if I am within their weight restrictions. I'm doing mother-loving Adventure RACES! Fairly well, even! I can get on my horse from the ground like it ain't no thing.  A year ago with a mounting block I was struggling. Ass is seriously being kicked. By me.

I'd like to amend that old "nothing tastes as good as skinny feels" saying. You can take your skinny and your size 0 pants and shove it. 

Nothing tastes as good as being fit feels.

Self-Righteous Weight-Loss

I have to preface this by saying if you are overweight and take control of your health, be it by counting calories, using pre-packaged meals, exercise, surgery or any combination of the above or other means, GOOD FOR YOU! (that was an emphatic capitalization, not a sarcastic one. I mean it.)

However, I'm gonna toss some truth at your eyeholes. Some of those who do it without surgical methods do feel a little self-righteous towards those who do. How do I know? Because I'm one of them. I didn't even realize that I felt that way about it until I started talking to a new friend. I found out, several months after having met her, that she lost over 100 lbs in the past year. We started talking about our food addiction issues and how she wants to exercise more. I was giving her tips on how to train for her first 5K. We really started bonding over our conversations about our continual struggle with food and exercise. And then I found out a few weeks later via someone else that she had a gastric bypass. My honest-to-goodness first thought was, "What??!? That's cheating! You can't pretend to have such a hard time sticking to your diet and all the rest when you've had the surgery! I've had to WORK my ass off for every pound. Hell, if I puked everytime I ate more than I was supposed to I would have hit goal weight months ago." Yeah, I know. Not nice, brain.

You see the thing of it is, we who have lost weight without surgery do not judge those who have. We don't think you are weaker than us and that we are inherently better people. However a lot of us would be lying if we didn't say we felt (sometimes) that you took the easier way out. In truth, I know that the surgeries are FAR from easy and have their own difficulties.

However, when a surgical "loser" tries to commiserate in regards to food issues with a non-surgical "loser" the latter is going to be rolling her mental eyes a little bit.

Is it right? Probably not. The differences kind of remind me of the Stay-At-Home Mommy vs. Working Mom issue. Both are ultimately working towards the same goal, but there is a lot of self-righteousness and eye rolling going on in both camps. Of course I believe all sides should put it all aside and just support each other. So why bother with this post? Seeing as it might piss off some people who have had the surgeries?

Because it is a feeling I've noticed pop up in myself a few times now, and the internet has taught me nothing (other than how bad Cat Grammar is) if not that whatever you are feeling/experiencing there are a hell of a lot of other people feeling/experiencing it too. One hopes that by acknowledging said less-than-positive feelings some personal growth will result. One would hope.

Ah, who the hell am I kidding? If this does get read by anyone it'll probably just start a flame war. Whatevs, I got my suit on.

There Are No Good Antonyms For Self-Control

If there were, the title of this post would be "Revisiting the Land of ____." As it stands I did not think "Revisiting the Land of No Self-Control" had a very good ring to it.

I'd been feeling a binge coming for the past week or two. Generally speaking, I don't deny myself things, so I'd tried to satisfy the cravings in a healthy-way. But that was the problem. I wasn't craving a particular thing. There was no "taste" for anything in particular that I was looking for, but instead a desire to eat without consequence. To make or buy the types of foods I have generally tried my best to avoid completely. The processed stuff, the items with ridiculously high caloric and/or fat values. Quite honestly I miss them not. Usually. And that's because I have become really good at finding foods that are healthy and filling and (most importantly) make me happy.

But something in my addict brain tripped the past week or two. I want to be healthy and fit now more than ever. That desire has not waned. But running right alongside it recently has been the desire to eat. A lot. And not the foods that I know are best for me. I talked to a couple of friends about it. One even said, "Well, maybe you should just go ahead and have a cheat day. Get it out of your system." I disagreed, thinking it might make things worse. Though the choice I made was even worse in retrospect. I could not escape the desire, so for the past week I've indulged it...a little at a time. Portion sizes were bigger than they should have been when we got take-out on Thursday. Mashed potatoes instead of just veggies at dinner and then a shared desert on Saturday night, when I knew there'd be some beer drinking going on as well. A not "healthy" choice of entree when were out to lunch Sunday. None of the meals were really bad, and quite frankly on their own, amongst my usual meals, they would have been no big deal. A few weekly points used, but no big thing. But I was doing it at many of my meals over the past week. And then Dave had to drive a friend down to Miami last night, leaving  Holden and I on our own for dinner.

We got a bag of pizza rolls and a box of those TGI Fridays potato skins. Granted, they weren't the "Family" sized bags/boxes, but still. We split the pizza rolls, but I ate all the potato skins myself. We bought a dozen mini-cupcakes. He ate 3, I ate the rest over the course of the evening.

By the end of the pizza rolls and cupcakes, I wasn't remotely hungry or even enjoying it. It was as if I trying to punish myself, force feeding myself the remaining cupcakes. "Fine! You want to be a pig? Eat ALL the fucking cupcakes, Porker!"

Wow...got a little dark there.

And of course, I did the perennial binge-behavior: tried to bury the evidence in the garbage so my husband would not see what I had done. Why? I have no idea. He doesn't monitor what I eat. He's a great supporter of my fitness and weight loss efforts, but he is most certainly not one to criticize or question my methods.The worst I might realistically expect to hear is "Why didn't you save any for me?"

But that's the thing isn't it? If he was around I would not have bought the cupcakes. I wouldn't have bought the pizza rolls or potato skins either. I know I am working on improving my health and fitness for myself, not for him. But why is it his presence that keeps me on task? Granted, I workout everyday whether he knows it or not. But the food issue? When I do succumb to binges, it's when he's not around. And that's always been the case.

Why?

All that said, I feel good today. Made good choices for breakfast and lunch and fully expect to do so tonight. Ran 2.5 miles at lunch and have to teach the PreSchool Fitness class this afternoon. I feel....back on track. Almost...relieved. Maybe there is something to be said for my friend's advice, though I am still skeptical.

Only time will tell.