Ever hopeful.

I started this blog to help with my healthy eating challenge in 2011. That year I posted 368 times. Last year, in 2012, I posted 50 times. That might seem like almost once a week...if only that were true!  In reality, there were months that I didn't post at all.

On December 30, 2011, I posted about finally understanding why I overeat (see: Day 364 -- Reflecting), and I set out in 2012 to work through some issues. It was a journey. A bumpy, knock-me-to-my-knees, journey. Halfway through the year, I was directed to write about my life (see: "Give me this mountain!"), starting with my earliest memory and working my way forward. (I'm almost done with the Third Grade now...that's right...I'm crawling through the process.)

Along with writing my memoirs, I was prompted to seek counseling to help me through the issues. I chose a therapist who was also a performer, hoping she could understand not only my struggles with emotional eating, but also the creative blocks. On the creative side she was somewhat helpful, but on the eating side she could not relate. At all.

I switched therapists, and that was an excellent decision. My new therapist immediately had me listen to a CD series by Geneen Roth, When Food is Food & Love is Love.  For anyone struggling with emotional eating, I highly recommend listening to those.

At the end of 2011, I had lost weight in spite of my frequent problems with emotional eating, but that's just it...I still had my problems of emotional eating even while eating healthy! On Geneen's CD, she said:

"When you lose weight [through dieting], you don't lose the reasons you turned to food to begin with. You don't lose the reasons you ate. You don't lose your sadness, you don't lose your sorrow, you don't lose your suffering, you don't lose your loneliness. When you lose weight [counting calories, points, carbs, fat grams...] you are still the same person looking out at the world through eyes that don't like yourself, through disappointed eyes, through suffering eyes, through eyes that believe you're flawed in some way."

What does she recommend, if not dieting? She has some guided meditations to help deal with issues about food and love, and she recommends the following guidelines:

• Eat when you are hungry. (Truly hungry, body hungry, not head or heart hungry.)
• Eat sitting down in a calm environment. This does not include the car.
• Eat without distractions. Distractions include radio, television, newspaper, books, intense or anxiety producing conversation and music.
• Eat only what your body wants. (Not what your eyes want or your mind thinks it should have.)
• Eat until you are satisfied. (Not stuffed, not completely full.)
• Eat (with the intention of being) in full view of others. (Not sneaking.)
• Eat with enjoyment, gusto, and pleasure.

Does any of that ring a bell?  I was on the right track in 2011 when I challenged myself to eat when physically hungry and stop when full. 

In 2011, while faithfully keeping this blog, I lost 30 pounds. In 2012, I spiraled out of control while facing my demons with emotional eating, and gained 15. It's miraculous that I only gained that amount. When I used to eat sweets, I would easily gain everything back and then some. So I will take the 15 pound weight gain rather than 40.

Now it's a quarter into 2013, and I although I am still struggling, I am ever hopeful.  I only fail if I quit trying.  I will continue to heal.

And I'm ever hopeful I can be more diligent in blogging about my journey.

Simple pleasures in eating.

"Learning the simple things that please us make for an artful life." ~Julia Cameron

I used this quote on my other blog (Reel Focus) and then considered how it applies to healthy eating.  When I eat mindfully, I find bursts of flavor in simple foods.

1. Crisp, juicy cherries
2. Succulent celery
3. Fresh raspberries
4. Sweet ripe watermelon
5. Fresh peas in the pod
6. Steamed broccoli
7. Steamed, crisp, asparagus
8. Garden tomatoes
9. Crunchy jicama, bursting with juice
10. Plain yogurt with chunks of fresh pineapple and walnut pieces

What simple foods please you?

Remember two things.

Yesterday I felt blah, accompanied by the desire to munch.  Then I came across this quote:


"I tell my retreat students that they need to remember two things: to eat what they want when they're hungry and to feel what they feel when they're not."  ~ Geneen Roth


I decided to figure out what I was really feeling, since it was not true hunger.  


Thankfully I am married to my best friend, so I went to Kurt and asked him to be my sounding board.  It turned out I had a grab bag of different emotions all disguised into a lump of blah.  As I dug down to figure out what I was really feeling, I pulled out:

• jealousy (someone who used to be heavier than me has lost weight and is now skinnier)
• pride (since the above mentioned person "cheated" by using drastic measures rather than good healthy choices, I must be better than her, right?)
• low self-worth (comparing myself to others)
• need for approval and validation
• discouragement (not attaining some goals I had set)
• boredom (didn't feel like doing much)

After talking things over, I felt much better, and the desire to eat disappeared.  I didn't feel like eating again until this morning after exercising.

I am wondering though (and hoping someone can give me feedback on this)...I understand that I am supposed to allow myself to feel my feelings rather than stuff them down, but what do I do with those feelings once I acknowledge them?  For instance, if I feel angry, should I do something to get rid of that anger (meditation, write my angry feelings and then shred it, punch a pillow until I feel better), or do I just recognize the anger and then move on or ignore it?  What do I do with the feelings I feel?

Any input on that?

Plastics and BPA

Awhile back, we switched to glass containers to hold leftovers for my husband's lunch. He didn't mind the extra weight of the containers... until he started riding a bicycle to work with a pack on his back.  Now he prefers the light-weight plastic containers again (who wouldn't?).

I worried a bit about BPA, but then I came across this quote about recycling codes:

"Four, five, one and two...
All the rest are bad for you."

I went through our plastic food storage containers and breathed a sigh of relief.  They have a code of five.

Glass is preferable, but I don't worry (quite as much) about the plastic containers killing him off any time soon; now, if I could just rest easy while he pedals to work!  (I ask him to text me every day to let me know he arrived safely: not "smished.")

(For more information on the codes and recycling, click here.)

From a "Woman in the Rough"

A friend wrote a  poem that gave me such a, well...belly laugh, I wanted to share it, and she graciously agreed.  Kelly is from my hometown, and we went to high school together.  I was a year older (okay, maybe two), but we really got to know each other in Drill Team and Drama. (Hooo boy... the stories we could tell!)

She has such a fun and sassy writing style and recently started her own blog.  Check it out at this link: Woman in the Rough.


Here's "Epiphany" by Kelly Farley

I looked in the mirror after a shower today,

And the thing that I saw took my breath right away.

Buck naked I stood taking inventory

Of the horrible scene…..Let me tell you the story.

Crow’s feet and wrinkles lined my eyes and my lips,

Cellulite spread on my thighs and my hips.

Breasts to my navel and gut to my knees,

My arms, if extended, would swing in the breeze.

Dimples are cute when they’re placed on the face,

But on fanny and knees make them quite a disgrace!

An axe handle wide is my orange-peeled butt,

And my face, with no neck, looks like Jabba the Hut.

There are corns on my toes and gray on my head,

The reflection I saw made me wish myself  dead.

I couldn’t believe all the skin that was sagging,

I thought, “If I walk, my butt would be dragging!”

I straightened by shoulders and squared up my chin,

Rolled up my stomach; it’s time to begin.

No more junk food to eat; I’ll eat veggies and fruit,

Good bye, Ol’ Fatty….I’ll give you the boot!

Greedy heart.

"Making the food have less fat or fewer calories is not going to make my heart less greedy for food."  ~Gwen Shamblin, author of Weigh Down Diet.

DAY 353 -- Desire diary

This is from the December 2011 Reader's Digest:

"The next time you get a craving, ask yourself if you're stressed, sad, or bored.  If so, you may be eating to fill an emotional void.  Keep a "desire diary" for a week or more, and note your mood whenever you're hit by an irresistible urge to chow down.  If stress is your trigger, exercise more to relieve the pressure.  If loneliness drives you to the Doritos bag, call someone. Remember that true hunger is easy to satisfy; any food will do.  Emotional hunger, on the other hand often manifests itself in desires for specific things like ice cream and fast food."  


I added italics to the part that I keep "chewing" on.  First of all, "true hunger is easy to satisfy; any food will do."  That's probably true, to a point, for me; however, if I allow true hunger to go too long (what I call "beyond hungry") I become extremely picky because nothing sounds good to me, even though I feel like I'm starving.  A friend of mine experiences similar reactions when she's overly hungry.  We're both hypoglycemic, so I wonder if that has something to do with it.

I've struggled for years with emotional eating, and I've heard of keeping a food or eating diary before, but for some reason reading the suggestion of a "desire diary" struck me: I need to do that.  I'm not sure I will learn anything more about whether I'm stressed, sad, bored, or lonely, but I think the desire diary will at least help me stop before eating and acknowledge what I'm really feeling and hopefully recognize it's not true hunger.  Plus, I think it will be interesting to determine what specific things I crave for various emotions.  I don't think I've ever made that connection before...if I'm craving something specific it might be a manifestation of emotional hunger.

DAY 303 -- Food and the environment.

When my husband and I first began My Healthy Eating Challenge, and started buying meat from a local farm, we talked about consuming less meat to help balance out the cost of the more expensive meat.  However, I recently realized that I cut the recipes in half since we were eating less, but I was not reducing the amount of meat.  If a recipe called for a pound of ground beef, and I was making half the recipe, I used a half pound of ground beef.  Since our grocery budget never took a hit from buying the more expensive foods, I never gave it much thought that we were technically using the same amount of meat as before.  

Recently we talked about this and decided, to promote even better health, we should cut back on the consumption of meat as we had first decided. In other words, when a recipe calls for one pound of beef and I am cutting the entire recipe in half, as well as cutting the amount of meat in half, then I should only use 1/4 pound of meat. (I know... sad that it took most of the year before realizing this!)

About the time we decided to reduce our consumption of meat, I read a book titled Food Matters by Mark Bittman.  [This is not linked (to my knowledge) to the documentary by the same name.]  In the book the author does a fantastic job of explaining how overconsumption affects our environment.  I feel a little dense because although I knew eating less animal protein would be healthy for us to do, I never took into consideration how eating less meat can actually help the environment!!  I did not realize "global livestock production is responsible for about one-fifth of all greenhouse gases--more than transportation."

I found his book fascinating and easy to understand, since he does a good job of using examples to help the reader visualize the results of various studies.  Here's a section that really hit me:

"Even the most conscientious agriculture has some environmental impact, and though much food production yields greenhouse gases, raising livestock has a much higher potential for global warming than crop farming.  For example: To produce one calorie of corn takes 2.2 calories of fossil fuel.  For beef the number is 40: it requires 40 calories to produce one calorie of beef protein.


In other words, if you grow corn and eat it, you expend 2.2 calories of energy in order to eat one of protein.  But if you process that corn, and feed it to a steer, and take into account all the other needs that steer has through its lifetime--land use, chemical fertilizers (largely petroleum-based), pesticides, machinery, transport, drugs, water, and so on--you're responsible for 40 calories of energy to get the same calorie of protein.  ...


Another way to put it is that eating a typical family-of-four steak dinner is the rough equivalent, energy-wise, of driving around in an SUV for three hours while leaving all the lights on at home. ... If we each ate the equivalent of three fewer cheeseburgers a week, we'd cancel out the effects of all the SUVs in the country.  Not bad."


The author suggests that we cut back on eating animal protein and get our protein from plant-based sources.  "Spinach has more than twice as much protein per calorie as a cheeseburger."  He started what he calls "sane eating" to do his part to help the environment, but the added bonus was weight loss and saving money on groceries. (Same for my husband and me!)  His way of eating is very much like how my husband and I have been eating except for the consumption of animal proteins.  Now, after reading his book, we are more determined to improve in that aspect.  The author does not advocate counting calories, fat grams, carbs, or portions.  (Gee... sound familiar??)

Sane eating by his definition means: eat less meat and junk food, eat more vegetables and whole grains.  It's as simple as that.

Eat sane.  Lose weight.  Save the Planet.


(Quotes and phrases from the book Food Matters by Mark Bittman are written in bold and/or italics.)

DAY 274 --

❝ I constantly walk into a room and I don't remember why.  But for some reason, I think there's going to be a clue in the fridge.❞  
~ Caroline Rhea


That quote enters my mind each time I find myself in front of the refrigerator, staring at the my visual reminder (the bow) and wondering, "Why am I here?  I'm not even hungry!"  


It amazes me how often I encounter this situation, and painfully reminds me of the ingrained habit of turning to food for answers.

DAY 266 -- No leftovers served tonight.

"The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for 30 years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found."    -- Calvin Trillin




My husband has eaten a lot of leftovers lately it seems, yet he hasn't complained, so tonight I am making a surprise for him... rib steak (local grass fed beef), a salad of organic vegetables, and a baked organic potato.  He'll think he's at a royal feast!  

DAY 247 -- Fun Quote

Quoting Jay Leno:

"Scientists say they have isolated the obesity gene and that this will lead to new drugs to combat obesity.  Thank God.  I was worrying I would have to eat right and exercise.  Whew."   

DAY 215 -- So true.

I came across this quote and realized it is so true.

Gluttony is an emotional escape, a sign something is eating us.  ~Peter De Vries

DAY 214 -- Reflecting on poem.

I put a copy of the poem "Growth" on my fridge (see previous post) and as I've read it daily, I've reflected on the phrase, "time is wasted by being fat, my aliveness is wasted and I don't want that."  As I pondered on the poem, I realized that particular phrase can be misleading.  Thinness is not the goal for me.  Rather, I am seeking good health and fitness.  Sure, if I end up thin in the long run that would be fantastic and I certainly would not turn my nose up to it!  BUT, it is not necessarily fat that causes a person to be less alive or to waste time.  For me, eating the wrong foods, or too much food, does that.  Eating processed foods turn me into a slug, as does overeating.


So, I have the poem on my fridge to remind me that I can leave food. I don't need to eat it all. It's wasted if I eat it (beyond full) because I feel lousy and sluggish afterwards.


It's about health, not svelte.

DAY 210 -- Poem: Growth

When I posted about Last Bites Mulligan Stew, a reader commented, "It goes to waste if it goes to waist."  Very well said.  It reminded me of a poem, "Growth," I found in a diet book years ago.  


Then this morning I read a blog post about clutter that, for me, served as a reminder of how my time and life are wasted when I overeat, since overeating clutters my body.  Again, the aforementioned poem came to mind.


Even though I cannot give credit to the author of the poem since I failed to record it those years ago, I feel the need to share the poem...and to hang a copy on my fridge.

GROWTH

I can learn to

Give away food and

Throw away food

and leave food

Because

It's wasted

If I eat it.

Time is wasted

By being fat

My aliveness is wasted

and I don't want that.

  

DAY 176 -- Funny quote about Italian food.

This quote gave me a good chuckle, especially since I recently wrote a series of posts about Italian food.

"The trouble with eating Italian food is that five or six days later, you're hungry again."  ~George Miller

DAY 146 -- Quote to ponder.

"We are indeed much more than what we eat, but what we eat can nevertheless help us to be much more than what we are." ~Adelle Davis

DAY 125 -- Humorous quote.

Lately I posted several meat recipes (roast beef, meatloaf, lemon pork)...  today I decided to post a fun quote about red meat....

"Red meat is not bad for you.  Now blue-green meat, that’s bad for you!"  ~Tommy Smothers

DAY 110 -- A quote.

“Those who think they have no time for healthy eating, will sooner or later have to find time for illness.” – Edward Stanley

DAY 94 -- Back on track!

I'm happy to report that I'm doing much better today.   I'm back on track, eating healthy foods, and paying attention to my hunger/fullness signals.  It really helped to have encouragement from others.  In fact, that's one of the reasons I started this blog...to have contact with others who might cheer me on!  Thank you!


Today, I keep thinking of a quote:  "Remember, goals are stars to steer by, not sticks by which to beat ourselves."  ~ Barbara Smith


I need to remember that more often!

DAY 85 -- Food for thought.

Here's a quote to chew on!

Don't dig your grave with your own knife and fork.  ~English Proverb