Day 2 - still plugging along

Day 2 was okay...again until the evening.  I had a real dinner, but forgot to make veggies to go along with it.  Oops.  I do need to start incorporating more vegetables into my day.  But then after dinner, I had a little dessert.  Then I was satisfied.  Then I took out the container of pudding, and just ate the rest.  It was a 6 serving container.  Double oops!  But I did walk 1 mile from the office to the bus station.  It was too cold and windy to make the walk in the morning, so I just did it in the evening.

Oh, and I forgot to do the sweet tooth test, again!  Tonight, I promise!

Here's what I ate:

Breakfast: Greek yogurt with a spoonful of fruit preserves and a couple handfuls of Kashi Island Vanilla shredded wheat biscuits, banana, coffee with 1/2 packet sugar and splash of whole milk

Lunch: 1/2 ham & swiss sandwich on brioche, small spinach, artichoke, cheddar soup, fruit salad

Dinner:  started with 6 mozzarella balls and 4 olives, then: onion crusted honey mustard chicken, mac & cheese (homemade, but included "fake" cheese), way too much chocolate rice pudding

Day 1 in Review

I committed to posting daily during this first week on the Mediterranean "diet."

Day 1 went okay.
Breakfast and lunch went well.   I also made sure to walk instead of taking the subway between the bus station and the office.  The problem was after work.  Mondays are tough because I work my day job in the city, go home for a super short amount of time, and then run off to my Mary Kay meeting.  Instead of having a proper dinner last night, I munched on some tortilla chips and then finished them off in the car.  So not French-like!  When I got home, I was totally not hungry, but by 11 o'clock I wanted food.  Not sure if it was legit hunger or what, but I ate instead of going to bed.  Oh well, it's a process.  And it's a new day!

So what did I eat? 
Breakfast - Greek yogurt with a touch of fruit preserves and Kashi shredded wheat biscuits, banana, coffee w/ 1/2 package sugar and some whole milk

Lunch - creamy tomato soup with pasta and meatballs (from local soup place - 90% certain this was made without faux food), slice of 7 grain bread, fruit salad

Snack 1 - tortilla chips with sour cream, 3 portions, from 6:45 to 7:15, 285 minutes since last meal

Snack 2 - 2 bowls of Kashi Island Vanilla shredded wheat biscuits with milk


Dr. Clower recommends gauging and monitoring your sweet tooth.  He touts that following the Mediterranean lifestyle will naturally diminish your sweet tooth as you cut out a lot of processed sugars.  Honestly, I have a huge sweet tooth and I find this hard to believe.  But I will play along just to see.  They way it works is you have 5 cups.  You fill each about 2/3 of the way with water.  Leave one just water, and into others mix in corn syrup or sugar: 1/2 Tbsp, 1 Tbsp, 2 Tbsp, and 3 Tbsp.  Then you take a sip of each, neutralizing the palette with plain water between each taste.  Record on a scale of 1-10 how sweet each cup is.   If a cup is intolerable, mark an X instead of a number.  He recommends doing this daily for the first week and weekly thereafter.  I, however, forgot to do it last night, so I will try this out tonight, Day 2, and update you all tomorrow.

Sick and Tired

One of the things we say in Mary Kay is "if you're sick and tired of being sick and tired, then you need to make a change."

I'm not sure why this hadn't clicked in my head regarding my weight loss and health until this weekend.  I am sick and tired of literally being sick and tired.  It's time to make a change.  Apparently all those earlier posts about losing it how you want to live it and living a life of congruence weren't enough to get me to change.  I "committed" to cutting back on/cutting out processed foods, I celebrated being binge free, I've even talked myself out of binges.  None of these things have stuck.

Yes, folks, that's right.  I am confessing to you that I have binged over the last month.  The exact number of times is unknown, but it is certainly more than once.  The most recent occurrence being just yesterday afternoon.  Not only have I been binging, but I have been having a torrid affair with all my local fast food joints.  Yesterday, I not only decided on Burger King for lunch (with both fries and onion rings to accompany my sandwich and unbelievably "medium" Coke), but then I decided I was still "hungry."  I think I wanted dessert, but having none in the house, I resorted to compiling some leftovers and chowing down.  Now, those leftovers would have been a great healthy meal at any other time, but immediately following fast food... unnecessary! 

So I ate myself into a coma, napped for a few hours until I forced myself to get up and make some business calls before Hamad showed up to make me dinner.   He made a fantastic dinner, but I was still so full from "lunch."  I ate it anyway.

I am completely over feeling sluggish and low on energy.  I'm completely over huffing and puffing after minimal movement.  I'm completely over saying I'm at my highest weight every, only to exceed that weight by another few pounds in the following weeks.  I'm experiencing health issues I've never experienced before, and I can only attribute it to my extra weight, my lack of self-control, and my raunchy trysts with fried "chicken" sandwiches and unnaturally large buckets of French fries.

I'm not treating my body the way I should.  I'm not loving my body the way I should.  I'm not loving myself the way I should.  But that all ends today.

I've previously mentioned reading The Fat Fallacy by Dr. Will Clower and how it changed my perspective on food.  I read his other book, The French Don't Diet Plan and have signed up for his PATH curriculum.  Both are intended to help you retrain your body and apply the Mediterranean lifestyle to a typical American life.  Though I signed up for the PATH curriculum a few weeks ago, I am declaring today Week 1, Day 1.

In short, the general principles are as follow:

• Eat real food (or, Eat food, not food product.)
• Eat small.  Mind your portions.
• Eat slow.  Savor your food.
• Stop eating when you are satisfied, even if there is food still on your plate.
• Enjoy an ender at the end of your meal to signify the meal is over.
• Only snack between meals when absolutely necessary.
• Be more active in ways you enjoy.
• Take time to de-stress.

I am committing to posting daily at least for the first week.  This first week will be tough as I retrain myself away from binging, away from fast food, and focus on healthy REAL foods.  


Here's my starting point:

Weight: 203.2
Bust: fullest point: 43, under arms: 36
Wasit: 34
Hips: 47
(Waist to Hip ratio: .72)
Neck: 12
Right Thigh: 27
BMI: 35.99 (Severely Obese - yikes!)

The pictures taken at a conference this weekend were the ones that made me "Oh my goodness! Do I really look like that?"  Once I find my USB cable, I shall upload one as a starting point... if I'm feeling particularly brave.

Tinier Than an Ant

Remember that whole "am I good enough" thing? It's back. And likely the only thing keeping me from a binge tonight is that Hamad's coming over for dinner so I won't have privacy.

It started with an e-mail from a dude who used to do my job. Basically, it said that a particular process wasn't up to par and certain things are always done a certain way, but hadn't been in this case. But, as long as I've had access to this stuff (and I can see prior submissions) they weren't done that way. And now then I was questioning a) by ability and b) my sanity.

Fast forward a couple hours, and cue a separate e-mail from my boss. This one basically said that a process has broken down. It was basically the one process in which I was still confident.

Good bye, confidence. Hello, extreme insecurity.

I will not have an emotional binge. There is a reason I have a side business. There is a reason I'm trying to make it my full-time gig. This job is temporary. I need to remember that. But I also need to give it 100% while it lasts. Or at least 90%.

Or maybe I should become a barista until my business takes off...

An A La Carte Catholic

I debated as to which of my blogs I should post this.  I decided to post this here, because it's a addressing a different hunger in me, a spiritual hunger.  I've been trying to regain a spiritual connection for years, and it's suddenly occurred to me I might be going about it the wrong way.

I’m Catholic and have always used Lent has always been a period of personal reflection.  Well, maybe not always, but since I was old enough to realize that giving up soda for 40 days wouldn’t necessarily make me a better person.  At some point, probably in high school, I decided giving stuff up wasn’t for me, and I would try to add something instead.  I cannot tell you what I added 10 years ago, but over the past few years, my Lenten promise has been to get back to church.

I was very involved in the church community in high school and in college: youth group, teaching CCD, singing in the choir, Eucharistic ministry, etc.   I truly believe that going to church regularly when I was in college helped me through my depression and helped me to deal with my father’s death.  After college, the regularity with which I attended services dropped drastically. 

For the past few years, my Lenten resolution has been to go back to Church weekly.  In 2009, I did pretty well.  I’m not even sure if I cared in 2010.  Last year, I think I went once, maybe twice.  This year, I decided it’s time to try again.

But I’m doing a lot more reflecting, also.  Why is it that I make this decision to go to church (and I do it several times a year, not just at Lent) and then don’t do it?  Is it necessary for me to attend regular services to have a spiritual connection?  Most recently, I’ve started to question if it even makes sense for me to align myself with any church when I don’t subscribe to some of their teachings.  And suddenly, I had a light bulb:

For years, I’ve been a non-practicing, a la carte Catholic. 

I figured the things that I didn’t totally buy into were just no big deal.  I belive the big things: we have one God, the creator, who gave up His Son for us; we are born into Origianl Sin, but are absolved through Baptism; I believe in Heaven and eternal afterlife with Christ.  I enjoy the traditions: receiving the sacraments; Lenten reflections; choirs at Mass.   But there were a few things that just never made sense to me.  Generally, these relate to social and political teachings of the church.

I’ve tried to write my thoughts on the specific issues with which I do not agree, but my thoughts aren’t coming out properly.  I think I need more time to explore those ideas.  This is what it comes down to: is it hypocritical to pick and choose in which teachings of a particular faith you will believe?  As a follower of a particular faith, should you subscribe to and 100% believe in all of their doctrines?  Whether I am practicing or not practicing, is it even possible to be an a la carte Catholic?  Most importantly, can I say that I support a faith that blatantly opposes certain social practices I adamantly support?

And so I commit to attending church regularly for the next 6 weeks (at least weekly, possibly a once or more during the week) while I search for and pray on the answers to these questions.  I’m not saying I’ll have all the answers when I’m carving into the Easter ham, but at least I’ll be working on it.  It almost seems silly to go to church to figure out if you should continue going to church, but this is my comfort zone.  It's helped me work through issues before.  Maybe it will again.  Or maybe it won't.  Either way, it's worth a few hours a week to find out.

I also commit to giving up fast food.  But that’s for another reason entirely.

Lose It How You Want to Live It

I'm not 100% sure if this advice has been given to me, or if I've just heard (i.e. read on the WW's boards) it given to others, but either way, it resonates.

The idea is that you don't want to do anything now (while you're losing weight) that you wouldn't want to keep up with when you get to goal and maintain your weight.  (You know, for forever.)

And while I love Weight Watchers, and the tools it provides, I do not want to be counting points and tracking my food foreverrrrr.  I just don't.

Let's backtrack, shall we?  The year is 2004, I'm 20 years old, about to enter my final year of college, and realize I'm at my heaviest weight ever.  I got an e-mail from Weight Watchers Online that contained the success story of a young woman who was my height, had my starting weight, and had achieved the goal weight I had in mind.  I joined immediately, learned how to count points, haves snacks, and reasonably enjoy meals out.  I didn't drink at the time, so keggers weren't an issue for me, like they are for a lot of college students.  I also was living off-campus and had my own kitchen and was able to prepare my own meals.  It was awesome, and I felt I learned so much.

Nine months later, I had lost 40ish lbs and felt and looked the best I ever had.  It was the first time I can clearly remember being happy with my body.  Around the time I was reaching my goal weight, some friends suggested a book to me: The Fat Fallacy by Will Clower.  In a nutshell, the book discusses the French Paradox and the author's experience of losing weight and getting healthy in France, despite is resolve to give up worrying about calories and fat grams.  The basic recommendation was to eat whole foods, ditch the processed stuff, listen to your hunger signals, and eat in moderation.

That just made so much sense!  For the next year and a half, I'd say I followed Dr. Clower's advice about 90% of the time.  I still had my indulgences, but they weren't frequent.  And I maintained my ideal weight that whole time!  It wasn't until I started graduate school that I began to make processed and fast foods a part of my regular diet again.  And that's when I started to gain the weight back.  Some of it was stress eating from a stressful work environment, some of it was eating out too often when I became involved in a new relationship, but a lot of it was that I just didn't take the time to make wholesome foods anymore.

I recently wrote that after conquering my emotional binge eating episodes, it was time to refocus on my weight loss efforts.  I rejoined Weight Watchers Online.  But I've found that I'm burnt out on counting points.  I've been doing on and off for the past 8 years, and more on than off in the past 4 years.  I have to get honest with myself: Am I willing to count points forever?

This is a scary question for a loyal(ish) WWer.  You think, "If it's worked before, it'll work again, so I'll just keep doing it."  And don't get me wrong, Weight Watchers is a fantastic program.  But I'm sick of counting and tracking and I don't want to do it forever.  I know that I've had success with just "watching what I ate" and listening to my body, so I've decided to wean myself off of WW. The first step is to stop counting points.  Since I currently have my Weight Watchers Online subscription through April, I'm not giving it up just yet.  I am switching my tracker to the Simply Filling Technique and I will track what I eat, but not count points for it.  I decided to keep tracking for the moment because I sometimes tend to do a lot of "well, I haven't had a treat in a while, I can eat this cookie."  But really, I had a treat earlier that week, or maybe for breakfast that day.  I'm also going to keep my weekly WI to hold me accountable to my choices.  If I start gaining, then I'll be able to go back and see just how often I have a "once in a while" treat.

While I didn't track anything over the weekend, and do think I listened to my hunger signals, I'm calling today Day 1 of no counting.  I'm keeping my WI's on Friday.  I need to do some cooking to make sure I've got good meals to get me through the week. 

Project Eating Real Foods starts now.

The Year of Congruence

Last week I had the privilege to attend a woman's networking event with a panel of women leaders.  The topic was "Ways to Leadership."  There were a lot of interesting things and topics discussed, but there was one that really, really, struck me.

One of the speakers started talking about how every year she chooses a word to represent that year.  She reflects on the previous year, assesses if anything was missing or needed more attention, and decides her word for the current year. 

Naturally, I decided to reflect on 2011.  It was the year of setting and missing goals.  I wanted to lose weight, but instead I became a secret binge eater.  I wanted to build my business, but I lacked the consistent action necessary to achieve that.  Those were pretty much my two main goals.  I realized, however, that if an outsider were to look at my actions on any average day of 2011, they would not have been able to determine what goals I was trying to achieve. 

In short, my actions were not congruent with goals.  So my word for 2012 is congruence.  I want my actions on any average day to indicate the goals I am working toward. 

If you had to come up with a word for this year, what would it be?