Emotion vs. Eating

I am sure that many of you have heard people say, "I am an emotional eater". I have often put myself in that category. But I am an emotional person, so wanting something to eat is almost like wanting air to breathe. Like right now, I seriously want to go into the freezer and eat more of Adam's Peppermint Ice Cream. I am in a minor state of sadness and frustration. I didn't eat very well yesterday or today. Lunch for both days was leftover Thanksgiving stuff. Tonight dinner was Taco Bell. I had a Taco Salad, and it might not have been too bad if I hadn't eaten the shell. The upcoming weeks contain more Christmas parties that I can possibly count and there will be lots of stuff that previously I would not have given a second thought about eating. All of this compared to my weight loss goal is piling in on me, and I feel overwhelmed.

I find myself asking, "What should I do?" I could go to all the parties and not eat anything there, but I worry that this course of action will just make me want more sweets and at some point I will go insane (not that I am not already crazy). Some might say that I could skip a few of the parties, but alas this is not an option. I can't explain all the reasons, you will just have to trust me. I could bring something healthy and attempt to minimize the damage done by the one cookie I will actually eat (but how to choose one?). I could hang this whole thing on a shelf and say "Forget it, I will start on New Years".

I really want to take the last option. I have already shared with you that it's not my nature to stick things out. Even just the thought of not being able to participate FULLY in the coming month almost makes me want to cry.  A friend came up to me tonight and asked what I was bringing to the Women's Christmas Party. I said I hadn't decided and she said that she looked forward to whatever it was, because I always brought something good. It made me not want to disappoint her. So I really want to come up with something totally yummy and seriously bad for you. And I want to taste all the "bad for you" stuff that other people bring. This scenario would repeat itself five times over the month of December, and I haven't even thought about what we are going to do for Christmas Dinner yet.

Can I increase my workout schedule to allow myself extra intake? I worry that this is not a healthy approach and that it won't even work anyway.

Oh! I forgot that Adam's birthday is in the middle of all this craziness. Although he doesn't really like sweets so this might not be too much of a problem.

I am open to suggestions at this point. If any of my local friends would like to help me out and help me pay attention to what I eat at all these parties, that would be greatly appreciated.

For now, I think I will turn on some music and try to distract myself. Hopefully, I can get happy and stop thinking about the ice cream in the freezer.

Insanity

It has been said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. That's how I felt when I stepped on the scale this morning. I did manage to maintain, but I was still hoping for a different number.

If you are following closely you will have noticed that my last post was on Wednesday. That was the last time I actually tracked what I ate. My list of "unallowed" foods in the last three days is a little longer than I want to admit, but I am going to do it anyway:

Mashed Potatoes & Gravy (and a second helping w/ loads of garlic butter)
Sweet Potatoes w/ Marshmallows (and a second helping)
Cornbread Stuffing
Green Stuff (aka Pistachio-Pineapple Fluff) (x2)
Cranberry Jello Salad
Dinner Rolls
Peppermint Ice Cream
Graham Crackers
Tacos

I have been trying to get more exercise in, but most of what I have done has been just doing extra things around the house. Last Sunday my neighbor and I decided that our yard desperately needed care. So just about every day this week we have been out there trimming plants and pulling weeds. Yesterday we hung Christmas Lights. Apparently the stuff that wore me out was not enough to counteract my intake.

I think I have learned my lesson. I don't think I have ever heard anyone say that major change will come in only one facet. When people talk about weight loss, they talk about diet and exercise. So this week the goal is to go gung-ho for both. Today, there will be a banquet at the church. I am pretty sure that the menu will be alright for me if I can just resist the dinner rolls.

Mourning into Dancing

There are very few days like today. As bad as yesterday was, today was good!! And not so much in the sense of what I ate (although I think did pretty well), but just as a whole. This morning when I got up I was so ready to go that I forgot to eat breakfast. My neighbor and I went to Wal-mart and ran a few other errands. Then we went and had salads at Arby's for lunch. That was good except the dressing. When we got home we went for a walk then did some work in the yard. The weather was so nice that we decided to grill for dinner and Adam requested banana pudding. So we went to the store and got the things we needed. Adam and the neighbor's son had steak, while she and I had chicken. We grilled zuccini, and I boiled some brussel sprouts. Then we ate on the patio. Oh, and we ALL had banana pudding for dessert.

Day 5: Frustration

This is Day 5 of the new journey, and it was a doozie. I failed to plan ahead for breakfast and lunch, so I grabbed a frozen chicken breast and some frozen veggies for lunch, and a hard-boiled egg and applesauce for breakfast. When I work (if you can call it that), I eat when my client eats. (Side bar: that is the first time I have used the term client, but I don't know what else to call her and it seems wierd). When I go to her house, I usually get her out of bed, make her breakfast, then eat mine with her. The same is true for lunch. However, this morning there was a bustle of activity to get the house ready for Thanksgiving, which included the carpet cleaner and the plumber. The carpet guy came before she was awake, and the plumber came just as he was leaving. She didn't want to get out of bed with the men in the house so we waited. So that meant that the first thing either one of us had to eat today was at noon.

Additional frustration came when I realized that because we had not eaten breakfast, we didn't take our medications either. And because the carpets were being cleaned the dining room table was in the kitchen and there wasn't really room to sit. So I put her in her recliner and fed her lunch there, then went into the kitchen to get my own.

The chicken was still frozen. I put it in the microwave to thaw/cook. I came out as hard as a rock. Not sure why, but I wasn't firing on all cylinders. So lunch became broccoli and applesauce.

As I was leaving work, I realized that I had also failed to plan ahead for dinner. Since Adam had to go to work tonight it needed to be quick and easy and it has become a routine to drive through fast food on my way home. So that's what I did. Dinner: Sonic Bacon Toaster Burger and onion rings.

Absolute failure of a day. I almost didn't post this, but I figured that was more to the point of this thing. If everyone is going to see my sucesses they should see the failures as well.

I am going to go put in an excercise DVD and plan out what I am doing tomorrow. It had better be good, cause we all know already that Thursday will be out the window.

What Got Me Here

This is the story of my journey so far. I have never really been a self motivator or even someone who sticks to things. The only things I have managed to really stick to in my life are Marriage and Bible Quiz. Even the last blog I started only had two entries in it. All the diets and weight loss tricks have been the same. Have a little success but never really follow through.

So why should this time be any different? I don't really know the answer to that. My hope is that by making this journey very public that it will somehow motivate me to keep going. Many of you have already seen my Facebook posts at the beginning of this attempt. You have been very encouraging and helpful so far. The last couple of months have been frustrating. Beginning with surgery in July and the implementation and multiple changes in medications, nothing has really changed. I thought I was eating right. I thought I was taking steps to affect change in my life, but nothing was happening. This led me to really start thinking about what I was doing (and not doing).

On Thursday, I began researching portion sizes and calorie counts, I bought lots of vegetables and fruit, and I started to make changes to my diet and my routine. Not even knowing if I was on the right track, I sought the advice of a friend who is a physician.

On Sunday, my friend recommended a book, The Paleo Solution. The same friend had previously given me an Amazon gift card which I hadn't spent all of. So I came home from church yesterday afternoon, downloaded the book to my Kindle, and began to read. I skimmed the rest of the book today. There is a lot of information and I couldn't really process it all. More than half of the book is why it works, and it took me a while to find the How To. I don't agree with the guy's theology (he talks a lot about evolution), and there are a few curse words, but the challenge is to try it for a month and see how it works. My physician friend says that it really does work and I trust him, so here goes...

The diet portion is very strict and I am not sure that I can stick to it during the Holiday Season (I counted six parties in three weeks, not to mention Thanksgiving). I have decided to begin the other portions which are sleep and excercise and do as much of the diet as I can, but save the really strick stuff until after Christmas.

So heres the lowdown on today:
Breakfast
     Strawberry Banana Smoothie
          Frozen Strawberries, Milk, Banana

Lunch
     Hamburger Patty w/ cheese, Brussel Sprouts, a hard-boiled egg (which I intended to eat at breakfast).

Dinner
   Chicken Fajitas from Chilis (date night with my honey).

Thanks for listening. I really do crave your input. I think I will need lots of help and encouragement in this process and hopefully as the days and weeks go on I will have very good things to report.