I’m hardly the only person I know fighting what feels like a never ending battle against their own body. In my office alone there are probably between seven and ten past and current Weight Watchers members.
So when I hear one of the naturally slim slamming one of us as weak willed, laughing at us for saying we want to eat healthy when we never seem to get anywhere, it’s really difficult not to rage or cry.
They do this right in front of me while I blink in shock – wondering if they really think I don’t know that they’re talking about me in addition to whoever is in their targeting sights at present. That those fat slobs over there also refers to this fat slob right here.
Mid September will be a year since I started this blog and this quest and I am currently at almost the exact same place as where I started.
Does that make me want to scream, kick, cry, hate myself? Yes, of course it does. Some days, many days, I do all of those things. I could have nearly been done by now. Except I failed, like always.
Sometimes I feel this incredible self righteous anger – how dare they judge me? Some days I think they’re right, I’m simply too weak and too much of a glutton to ever succeed. I’m as beneath them as they believe me to be.
Then there’s the fear; what if the day comes like so many days before when my will simply fails me and I don’t care anymore. When I can’t get up anymore and plan, parcel, evaluate, weigh and measure every morsel of food I consume that day. When I can’t any longer deal with the nearly constant hunger.
This will never be over, I won’t reach my goal weight and go: WHEW! Thank heck that’s done! This is going to be with me every meal, every day, for the rest of my life.
What if… what if… what if…
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Monday, August 16, 2010
Defining Your Limits
I’ve spoken on the topic of needing to be selfish when in a weight loss process in the past but I think it’s something that bears review.
For a food addict, walking into a crazy-crap-on-the-walls, exercise in excess, 12 to 15 oz. greasy, cheesy, bacony hamburger joint is roughly the equivalent of a recovering alcoholic heading into a bar just so they can sniff the vodka.
Don’t do it.
If your well meaning friends invite you because they love you and want your company, don’t do it. Politely refuse.
If they tell you that you’ll be fine because you can just “have a salad” I give you permission to hurl heavy objects.
I guarantee you, sitting in the burger joint sifting through salad leaves while everyone around you chows down on 1,000 calorie plus fat-burgers and grease soaked fries will leave you cranky, unsatisfied, and downright unfriendly. Just don’t go there. You will not be good company at that point anyhow.
As a side note, the salads in those kinds of places are no help to a weight loser either; generally they’re soaked in things like cheese, sugared nuts and dressing thickened with as much fat as possible. Sometimes they’re as bad as the burgers or WORSE. So you’ll feel deprived and have eaten way too many calories to boot.
This is just one of those situations where you have to do the selfish thing. You say no, you plan activities that do not revolve around food you shouldn’t eat, much less have to smell for several hours.
I no longer set foot in fast food restaurants for just this reason. Sure they sell salads and sad, dry baked potatoes these days – but who wants that? I go in and smell the double fried fat burger dripping with bacon, greased mushroom and cheese and that is exactly what I want. The fact that these things make me feel quite sick later on is moot at that point. I’m no saint; I love vegetables, I love fruit, and I also love the fattiest, most sugar laden foods out there. I love food period.
So why would I even put myself in a situation where I have to want and suffer?
No thank you.
For a food addict, walking into a crazy-crap-on-the-walls, exercise in excess, 12 to 15 oz. greasy, cheesy, bacony hamburger joint is roughly the equivalent of a recovering alcoholic heading into a bar just so they can sniff the vodka.
Don’t do it.
If your well meaning friends invite you because they love you and want your company, don’t do it. Politely refuse.
If they tell you that you’ll be fine because you can just “have a salad” I give you permission to hurl heavy objects.
I guarantee you, sitting in the burger joint sifting through salad leaves while everyone around you chows down on 1,000 calorie plus fat-burgers and grease soaked fries will leave you cranky, unsatisfied, and downright unfriendly. Just don’t go there. You will not be good company at that point anyhow.
As a side note, the salads in those kinds of places are no help to a weight loser either; generally they’re soaked in things like cheese, sugared nuts and dressing thickened with as much fat as possible. Sometimes they’re as bad as the burgers or WORSE. So you’ll feel deprived and have eaten way too many calories to boot.
This is just one of those situations where you have to do the selfish thing. You say no, you plan activities that do not revolve around food you shouldn’t eat, much less have to smell for several hours.
I no longer set foot in fast food restaurants for just this reason. Sure they sell salads and sad, dry baked potatoes these days – but who wants that? I go in and smell the double fried fat burger dripping with bacon, greased mushroom and cheese and that is exactly what I want. The fact that these things make me feel quite sick later on is moot at that point. I’m no saint; I love vegetables, I love fruit, and I also love the fattiest, most sugar laden foods out there. I love food period.
So why would I even put myself in a situation where I have to want and suffer?
No thank you.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Weighing In - 268 lbs.
Three pounds down this week, not too shabby. I'm slowly but steadily crawling back out of the hole I dug myself into.
Today I tried cooking quinoa, which I've eaten before but never cooked from it's dry state. Note to self; it gets really gummy really quickly if you overcook it even a tiny bit.
Overall I liked the end result; I made a salad out of it with scallion, cilantro, cucumber, craisins and pecans (recipe at bottom). The dressing, however, needs to be doubled. Quinoa is like potato salad - it sucks up the dressing almost immediately so it can be really dry, in addition to gummy.
Okay this is sounding worse than I intend. It really was okay, and it's a grain with an amazing amount of protein in it which is good - because I don't think I'm getting enough protein in my diet. I need to ensure somehow that I don't loose too much muscle along fat, and yes I realize rejoining the gym would be helpful to that end.
Today I tried cooking quinoa, which I've eaten before but never cooked from it's dry state. Note to self; it gets really gummy really quickly if you overcook it even a tiny bit.
Overall I liked the end result; I made a salad out of it with scallion, cilantro, cucumber, craisins and pecans (recipe at bottom). The dressing, however, needs to be doubled. Quinoa is like potato salad - it sucks up the dressing almost immediately so it can be really dry, in addition to gummy.
Okay this is sounding worse than I intend. It really was okay, and it's a grain with an amazing amount of protein in it which is good - because I don't think I'm getting enough protein in my diet. I need to ensure somehow that I don't loose too much muscle along fat, and yes I realize rejoining the gym would be helpful to that end.
Quinoa, Cranberry & Pecan Salad
Serves 10 / This hearty salad has a zesty combination of textures and contrasting flavors. Plus, it's loaded with fiber and nutrients. Prep time: 15 minutes Cooking time: 25-30 minutes
3 1/2 cups water
1 1/2 cups quinoa
1 bunch green onions, finely sliced
1/2 cup dried cranberries, diced
1/3 cup cilantro, finely chopped
3/4 cup cucumber, finely diced
3/4 cup coarsely chopped pecans
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
1/2 tablespoon sesame oil
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
Pinch of cayenne pepper
1. Bring water to a boil. Add quinoa; stir, cover, and reduce heat to a simmer. Cook until quinoa is soft and water is absorbed — about 25-30 minutes.
2. Add green onions, dried cranberries, cilantro and celery to a large salad bowl. Toast the pecans in a small skillet and add to the salad bowl (optional). Add the olive oil, lemon juice, vinegar, sesame oil, salt and peppers to the bowl. Stir to mix.
3. Stir in the quinoa when it has cooked and cooled slightly. Set aside for an hour if possible to allow flavors to marry; serve at room temperature.
Calories: 197
Fat: 9 grams
Fat Calories: 42
Cholesterol: 0
Carbs: 25
Protein: 4
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
"Don't go Broke" Diet
Recently on a lark I googled “I lost 130 lbs.” because that’s the amount of weight I want / need to loose. I guess I was looking for a little support companionship from people in the same situation as me, who had actually found success.
I blundered upon what is called the “Don’t go Broke” diet – a natural weight loss plan developed by a broke medical student who didn’t have enough money for either a supervised weight loss plan or any kind of weight loss surgery. Since creating it he has lost and kept off 140 lbs.
I have no idea how medically accurate his advice is, but when I read it – it made a heck of a lot of sense. So, here it is for anyone else who’d like to give it a look see.
Key #1 - Diet
Calories - Estimate your recommended daily caloric intake by:
1. Taking your height in inches
2. Subtracting 60
3. Multiplying by 50
4. Adding 1,300
(For me this means I should eat 1,650 calories per day. Seems like a pretty fair estimate; on the daily plate I usually fall between 1,300 and 1,800.)
* Never eat fewer than 1,200 calories a day. This prevents your metabolism from slowing down.
* Spread your daily calories over 4 - 6 meals. This will boost your metabolism.
* Never go more than 12 hours without eating, this includes time spent sleeping. This prevents your metabolism from slowing down.
Carbohydrates - Follow these strategies to stabilize your blood sugar. Avoid white carbs. These include white bread, white rice, white potatoes, white flour, white sugar, and white pasta. Avoid other bad carbs such as high fructose corn syrup, other syrups, and other sugars. Eat your beans, other legumes, fruits, and whole-grains before noon. Eat your vegetables after noon
Proteins - Eating protein boosts your metabolism and is essential for building muscle.
Estimate your daily recommended protein intake in grams by:
1. Taking your estimated daily caloric intake
2. Dividing by 20
(For me this means I should be having 82 grams of protein per day. Yike, I don’t get nearly that much because I so rarely eat meat. On an average day I consume usually between 40 and 60 grams.)
Fats - You need fats, but all fats were not created equal. Avoid saturated fats and trans fats.
Key #2 - Exercise
* Strength train for 30 - 45 minutes, 2-3 times a week. Focus on exercises for your glutes (butt), quads (front thigh), hamstrings (rear thigh), lats (back), pecs (chest), and delts (shoulders). These are your largest muscles in size and your biggest calorie burners.
* Do an aerobic exercise, which involves the legs, for 30 minutes, 2-3 times a week.
* Get a pedometer and walk 10,000 steps a day
Key #3 - Water
Drink enough water to make your urine clear or close to clear. This helps to maintain your health and prevent your metabolism from slowing down.
Key #4 - Sleep
Sleep at least 7 hours every night. This helps to maintain your proper hormonal balance, stabilize your blood sugar, and decrease hunger.
Key #5 - Stress
Don't sweat the small stuff and eliminate as much stress as you can. This helps to maintain your proper hormonal balance, stabilize your blood sugar, and decrease hunger.
Key #6 - Laugh
Laugh as much as humanly possible. Watch comedies, read funny books, and laugh at yourself. This helps to decrease stress.
Key #7 - Patience
Be patient. Losing weight is a marathon, not a sprint. Large temporary lifestyle changes lead to fast temporary weight loss. Small permanent lifestyle changes lead to slow permanent weight loss.
Each of these keys is essential to losing and keeping off the pounds. If you address the first 6 keys and practice patience, the pounds will fall off and stay off.
Bonus Key
This is a good weight loss foundation. However for a comprehensive weight loss program, check out my Don't Go Broke Diet. The Don't Go Broke Diet is a well-researched weight loss plan designed to help you lose weight permanently and inexpensively.
Read more:
http://www.articlesbase.com/weight-loss-articles/how-i-lost-130-pounds-and-kept-it-off-454788.html#ixzz0wJ3Fd5uM
I blundered upon what is called the “Don’t go Broke” diet – a natural weight loss plan developed by a broke medical student who didn’t have enough money for either a supervised weight loss plan or any kind of weight loss surgery. Since creating it he has lost and kept off 140 lbs.
I have no idea how medically accurate his advice is, but when I read it – it made a heck of a lot of sense. So, here it is for anyone else who’d like to give it a look see.
Key #1 - Diet
Calories - Estimate your recommended daily caloric intake by:
1. Taking your height in inches
2. Subtracting 60
3. Multiplying by 50
4. Adding 1,300
(For me this means I should eat 1,650 calories per day. Seems like a pretty fair estimate; on the daily plate I usually fall between 1,300 and 1,800.)
* Never eat fewer than 1,200 calories a day. This prevents your metabolism from slowing down.
* Spread your daily calories over 4 - 6 meals. This will boost your metabolism.
* Never go more than 12 hours without eating, this includes time spent sleeping. This prevents your metabolism from slowing down.
Carbohydrates - Follow these strategies to stabilize your blood sugar. Avoid white carbs. These include white bread, white rice, white potatoes, white flour, white sugar, and white pasta. Avoid other bad carbs such as high fructose corn syrup, other syrups, and other sugars. Eat your beans, other legumes, fruits, and whole-grains before noon. Eat your vegetables after noon
Proteins - Eating protein boosts your metabolism and is essential for building muscle.
Estimate your daily recommended protein intake in grams by:
1. Taking your estimated daily caloric intake
2. Dividing by 20
(For me this means I should be having 82 grams of protein per day. Yike, I don’t get nearly that much because I so rarely eat meat. On an average day I consume usually between 40 and 60 grams.)
Fats - You need fats, but all fats were not created equal. Avoid saturated fats and trans fats.
Key #2 - Exercise
* Strength train for 30 - 45 minutes, 2-3 times a week. Focus on exercises for your glutes (butt), quads (front thigh), hamstrings (rear thigh), lats (back), pecs (chest), and delts (shoulders). These are your largest muscles in size and your biggest calorie burners.
* Do an aerobic exercise, which involves the legs, for 30 minutes, 2-3 times a week.
* Get a pedometer and walk 10,000 steps a day
Key #3 - Water
Drink enough water to make your urine clear or close to clear. This helps to maintain your health and prevent your metabolism from slowing down.
Key #4 - Sleep
Sleep at least 7 hours every night. This helps to maintain your proper hormonal balance, stabilize your blood sugar, and decrease hunger.
Key #5 - Stress
Don't sweat the small stuff and eliminate as much stress as you can. This helps to maintain your proper hormonal balance, stabilize your blood sugar, and decrease hunger.
Key #6 - Laugh
Laugh as much as humanly possible. Watch comedies, read funny books, and laugh at yourself. This helps to decrease stress.
Key #7 - Patience
Be patient. Losing weight is a marathon, not a sprint. Large temporary lifestyle changes lead to fast temporary weight loss. Small permanent lifestyle changes lead to slow permanent weight loss.
Each of these keys is essential to losing and keeping off the pounds. If you address the first 6 keys and practice patience, the pounds will fall off and stay off.
Bonus Key
This is a good weight loss foundation. However for a comprehensive weight loss program, check out my Don't Go Broke Diet. The Don't Go Broke Diet is a well-researched weight loss plan designed to help you lose weight permanently and inexpensively.
Read more:
http://www.articlesbase.com/weight-loss-articles/how-i-lost-130-pounds-and-kept-it-off-454788.html#ixzz0wJ3Fd5uM
Monday, August 9, 2010
Confronting Family Dinner
I’m not alone in my love of food and companionship with which to consume it, I come by that honestly from my family; who like eating and talking together so much we could qualify as Greek or Italian.
Being related to so many people who genuinely like one another’s company
We don’t however have to be feeling bad to overeat – we do it all the time just because we like it.
Saturday night I got together with them for a cookout (we don’t really need an occasion to do this, we just enjoy it). We were having grilled chicken, burger and sausage sandwiches, sautéed peppers and onions, corn on the cob, watermelon, macaroni and cheese and one lobster brought home by my sister from Maine on her recent vacation. With drawn butter, of course. Oh and don’t forget the pineapple upside down cake and ice cream for desert.
This is not an easy scenario to face. When you don’t eat hearty, someone tends to assume you’re either ill or unhappy in some way – and it’s not that they’re not supportive of weight loss efforts, we all just suffer from a perpetual sort of ‘tomorrow’ syndrome.
Today we’re together and enjoying one another lets just eat and be happy, tomorrow we will loose weight.
Unfortunately for me, tomorrow never seems to get here – or hasn’t so far in 35 years.
So I selected a small chicken breast sans roll and put pepper and onion on top, a heaping pile of salad with light dressing, corn on the cob and watermelon for dessert. When my poor brother tried to serve me a slice of cake later on in the evening he got both me and Ted yelling at him “no… no! NO!!!”
Other than my dad giving me a little nod of support and acknowledgement I don’t think anyone really noticed my cutbacks. I mean honestly, I ate a lot of food I was just selective about what I chose. It went fine – no one asked me if I was sick or hurt and I managed not to be too cranky about missing pineapple cake.
Now all I have to do is sustain this eating style for the next sixty or seventy years…
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Scaling Down
I did it today. I finally broke down and bought myself a scale. I need to be able to keep track of what’s going on with my weight, maybe if I’d been doing that all along I wouldn’t have rebounded back to my starting weight so easily. Also, I realized I can’t rely on my mom’s scale because hers only tracks effectively up to 250 lbs. That would explain why it measures me as rather jarringly weighing ten or twelve pounds heavier or lighter in a twenty-four hour period.
So I did a little research online, chose my weapon, went to Bed Bath & Beyond this morning and picked it up – pretty simple and painless as my shopping experiences go. I chose the “Homedics Body Mass Index HealthStation” which retails at BB&B for forty bucks. With a 10% coupon I brought it home for about thirty-three… sweet!
It measures your weight, then calculates your body mass index based on height, age and gender and figures out what your calorie intake probably is (or was) to achieve the weight that you currently are. It also weighs effectively up to 400 lbs. Not that I need it to thankyouverymuch.
The box is decorated with an obnoxiously smiley, healthy looking guy and proudly displays his perfect BMI of 23.2 so right away, I wanted to kill him.
Set up was pretty easy; it’s got slots for four users and very few buttons so it doesn’t take much to select User 1, punch in my height, weight and age and then step on for the weighing. Since it needs a flat, hard surface to work correctly I hid it away on the hardwood floor in my back bedroom like a dirty little secret. Nice thing is it’s a perfect spot in my house to get naked before I have to confront the thing.
As of today, I’m 271 lbs. with a BMI of 42.6 – pretty depressing. But at least the scale didn’t start whooping an alarm at me and screaming “Morbidly Obese!” “Morbidly Obese!” Actually it didn’t classify me as “Morbid” at all, just “Overweight” – so I guess it could be worse. And yes, those are my feet.
I set up Ted as user two and showed him how to use it, since he’d like to loose a few pounds as well.
Overall I’m pretty happy with my purchase. Ted classified it as another tool in my tool kit or weapon in my arsenal – then he offered me one of the Pretzel Bites he’d picked up around the corner at the Pretzel Factory.
*sigh*
We’re both still learning.
Friday, August 6, 2010
Gifts of Food
Okay, I admit – this is a weird reaction.
Someone gave me a chocolate bar as a gift today, and it frightened me. I stared at it in the palm of my hand and thought “what am I going to do? If I eat it, the floodgates will open and I won’t be able to stop eating EVERYTHING.”
Is this the equivalent of giving an alcoholic a full shot glass as a present?
Am I over-reacting?
I don’t know. But I came home, handed it to my husband, and asked him to please do something with it. I didn’t care what as long as I didn’t have to worry about it winding up as part of my backside.
I don’t know if I really need to be this militaristic but I feel as though my journey right now balances on a knife edge, I’ve had successes and setbacks, and I just want this so much.
My husband said to me that all he wants is for me to be happy, so if I won’t be truly happy unless I take off this weight, then he’ll do what he has to do to help me.
So… he took the chocolate bar and made it disappear. He also mentioned that he felt he might need to impress more strongly on the people around me how serious we are about what I’m trying to do, and how difficult and delicate a thing it really is.
For a non-food addicted person, I would imagine it’s somewhat hard to understand – but I think the concept of handing a precariously balanced alcoholic a shot glass filled with rum is probably the best way to try to describe it to people.
So to anyone out there who may be listening… I love you all, but please don’t give me food as gifts unless it’s obviously safe food – like a gorgeous piece of fruit or vegetation you want to share. Anything you’d normally consider to be a “bad” treat is going to cause me difficulty.
This is wholly my problem and my own fault that it’s my problem – but it is what it is, at least for right now.
The truth is, I made chocolates at Christmas and binging on them threw me off my road for about five months – enough time to set me back every pound of progress I had made.
That is the nature of my problem, and that’s the fight I am fighting.
It’s my battle and I can do this – but if it’s at all possible I ask of everyone, please – don’t tempt me off the road.
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