one of these things is not like the others

I am not feeling very wordy so how about we just take a look at what I’ve been eating the last few days (pardon the crappy cell phone pics!):

I think #1 needs no introduction. Basically, I did not plan carefully on Friday and a lack of breakfast (and coffee) left me very very vulnerable (hunger-wise and emotionally) at the end of the day. I ate McDonald’s. A lot of McDonald’s.

But I got up the next day and had a good breakfast, a decent lunch and #2 for dinner. What you see there is some tasty Five Star Foodies artichoke burgers (which they were out of when I went to Whole Foods yesterday! Boo!), grape tomatoes and, last but certainly not least, the magic golden-crusted Brussels sprouts that I am kind of addicted to for real.

#3 is my first attempt at huevos rancheros . Not very pretty but definitely tasty. And #4 is the chicken tacos I had for lunch using this recipe for slow-cooker chili chicken. (Which, btw, made a ton of chicken, so I think I’ll be having more tacos later in the week and maybe tortilla soup and possibly some enchiladas!)

I am not going to beat myself up, as 3 out of 4 isn’t bad. The poor planning lesson is one I have learned before. A few thousand times. But I picked myself up and dusted myself off and had a pretty good food weekend, all things considered. Plus, I think I’ve planned pretty well for this week, too. So I guess we’ll just see how that goes.

Miso Crazy and DNW!

I did not want to make a post tonight. I still do not! But  I am doing it!

I DNW to cook dinner. I wanted to come home, sit on my ass watching some Supernatural and just stuff my face with whatever and not have to stand in the kitchen cooking up a bunch of healthy shit. Or cooking up additional shit for lunch tomorrow and Friday. But I fucking did it. (OMG SO MANY DISHES TO WASH! DNW!)

And now I am so very tired. I feel like I have to push myself SO HARD to do these simple, everyday things and stay SO FOCUSED (I typed FUCKED first, ha!) on it that I am drained for just about everything else. I know, I know that it gets easier, but right now, I just want to eat a whole pizza and sleep for a week.

There is a little voice inside of me, that troll I mentioned before, that is telling me that it’s just easier to be fat and unhealthy. I mean, it’s only really painful when I leave the house and people stare at me funny. Or I have to go shopping. Or walk up a flight of stairs. Or think about going on a date ever. And I still have to deal with that stuff even if I am eating better right now! I can’t even stuff my face to deal with that shit! How unfair is that? DNW!

Now, that I have the whining out of the way, let’s talk good stuff! *deeeeep cleansing breath*

Yesterday, I made this miso soup recipe from 101 Cookbooks and it was very very tasty. And then, as part of my continuing effort to incorporate veggies using the magical broccoli slaw, I wipped up a version of this miso dressing except I used wasabi paste instead of mustard and it was also very very tasty. I poured half of it over half a bag of the broccoli slaw and added about 1/3 a cup of mandarin oranges and let if marinate overnight. Then I had it along side the leftover miso soup for lunch. SO GOOD! And now I have enough of that amazing dressing for a spinach and chicken salad tomorrow for lunch. To round out this miso crazy portion of my week, I also made this cashew ricotta “Italian pizza cheese” (I substituted some leftover sun-dried tomato pesto) to have with carrots for a snack tomorrow.

Phew. I am tired just typing that and I haven’t even gotten to the most interesting part of the day:

I ATE BRUSSELS SPROUTS AND LIKED IT!

I know! I KNOW! So crazy. Once again, 101 Cookbooks came to the rescue with her AMAZING golden-crusted brussels sprouts! I have been staring at that recipe for, like, a year. It sounded so simple and tasty. I finally got up enough nerve to try it out and I have to say that, yes, it as good as it looks! I used the aforementioned pesto to make one of these baked stuffed chicken breasts and they went very well together. And no pasta or rice as a side dish! I can honestly say that I am sitting here quite satisfied in my stomach.

I will confess that yesterday I baked up this spinach/herbed goat cheese/ham/egg beaters casserole that I had planned to eat for breakfast for the rest of the week and I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. For some reason, breakfast is the hardest part of my day. It doesn’t help that no matter how I walk to work, I pass eleventy billion places to get breakfast. But I don’t trust myself to have things like bagels or bread for toast in the house right now. And, god, my coffee maker is NEVER going to get here. I’ve basically been telling myself that it’s not a big deal since I am not eating out any other meals but eventually I am going to have to deal with the mornings. (Also, I went to bed early last night so I could get up and do some exercising but that didn’t turn out either!)

Basically, I think the point of all this is that I am still struggling to find a balance between taking care of myself and being realistic about what I can accomplish and also figuring out when I am being a lazy wimp and when I should push myself to go that little bit extra when I am really feeling the DNW.

planning, preparation, panic, pain, pathetic, peaceful?

I had this for lunch today:

And I can honestly say that I was extremely surprised and pleased by how good it was. It’s rare that I eat a frozen dinner where I am actually sad when it’s gone instead of struggling through the last bites. Also, beans and I have a strange relationship wherein sometimes I adore them and sometimes they make my tongue sad. These were delicious though and perfect with the crunchy sweet corn. With a nice tart Granny Smith apple for dessert, I am quite satisfied. I will definitely be stocking up on these babies!

I share this positive thing first because now it’s time to talk about my weekend. *SIGH* Saturday, as you may have read, was a good day for the most part. But I must confess that at about 11pm, I started to get pretty miserable and then had a very difficult time trying to sleep. My whole body just didn’t feel….right. I am not talking about pain or anything. Just off in some way. And I started to wonder if I was feeling “normal” and I just didn’t recognize it. Whatever it was, I didn’t like it, dammit!

So of course when I got up on Sunday, my first instinct was to stuff myself to avoid whatever I experienced the nigtht before. I started okay with pizza made with whole wheat pita. I mean, I ate two of them, but all things considered, not a huge tumble from the wagon, nutritionally. On the emotional eating scale, however, I hit about an 8.

However, I avoided going to the grocery store like I wanted and this left me with not a lot in the house to munch on that would be tasty enough to distract me from sliding further down the emotional eating rabbit hole of doom. I made it to about 8 o’clock before I started jonesing for those greasy chicken things I talked about the other day and not even the hotness of Alexander Skarsgård could distract me from my fix. They tasted pretty good in my mouth but my soul was not really feeling it. I don’t want to say I felt guilty, because that wasn’t it. Just sad, mostly, that sometimes food and emotions control me so strongly. I hate that whole saying “nothing tastes as good as being thin feels” or whatever, mostly because it’s true! That 15 minutes of greasy carby delight was not worth what it does to my body or my progress toward being healthier. Gar.

And then yesterday, I did okay. I got a tall non-fat version of the pumpkin spiced latte and small fries with my Chik-fil-a and again tried to ease my way through the evening with another whole wheat pita pizza but that ended up with me eating an extra helping of ham with sauce and cheese because I wasn’t “full” enough.

I am not even going to pretend that it wasn’t another emotional-eating moment for me. Some friends and I went to see the Capitals rookie camp practice earlier in the day, which I enjoyed very much. But as we were leaving, we ran into one of the players and the horrible little troll that lives inside of me filled my head with nasty stuff about what he thought of me (like he even really noticed that much!) and blah. I can’t even articulate it properly without embarassing myself, honestly.

Mostly, I am just very very tired of not feeling at all comfortable in my own skin. Which makes me sad. Which makes me want to eat. Which makes me fatter. Which makes me feel less comfortable in my own skin! How do I get to where I am more tired of feeling like this than I am of doing the work that is required to change it? Is that where my peace is?

are you ready for some spinaaaaaaaaaaaaach?

Today is the first official Saturday of college football season! *\o/* When I got up this morning, one of the first things I wrestled with was, “what to eat while watching all this glorious football?” I have to say that even at 10:30am I was so tempted to reach for the phone and just order a big pizza to eat on all day. I had to take a lot of deep breaths, think about my current favorite happy place, and mentally review the contents of my kitchen to keep myself from a pre-planned carb coma.

I went with some scrambled Egg Beaters and diced ham and a pinch of cheese with salsa, a half a slice of whole wheat pita and some cantaloupe for breakfast instead. So, victory! Then, for lunch, I had a spinach salad with goat cheese, cranberries, sliced almonds and homemade balsamic vinaigrette dressing. And then a little yogurt with almond butter for dessert.

I ate spinach. That was not in a cheesy fatty dip. While watching football. Please, mark this date on your calendars!

I am not going to lie, though. It was fucking difficult. I do a lot of looking at the clock still instead of listening to my body. I feel hungry? confused? all the time if I am eating non-greasy non-starchy things.  So a day inside with nothing to do but hide the phone to avoid takeout is actually pretty difficult. I feel kind of silly saying that but there it is.

Of course, while watching the games, I’ve been browsing Healthy Yum, which is just fantastic. It’s a nice way to get a variety of healthy things to consider. I found some good stuff to add to my delicious. (You can see whatever I’ve added lately on the right sidebar there! *points*) I think maybe that was a little too much obsessing about food for the day but I got some good out of it, so I am not going to beat myself up about it.

And now for dinner I am experimenting with adding more veggies to things I already like! I am making my favorite comfort food: macaroni and beef! But without macaroni and with the addition of 2.5 cups of broccoli slaw to bump up the veggie quotient (a trick I learned from Hungry Girl). So far, it’s tasting pretty good. I am debating on whether or not to add a little bit of whole wheat penne.

Tomorrow, there may be leaving the house to go hiking. Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?

okay, so it’s like this

Five months. Huh. Well, it’s not the longest I’ve gone without posting to this blog (in it’s many forms) but it’s not exactly ideal, no?

I had a bit of a spell where I ate these greasy fried (I typed fright first, ha!) boneless chicken wing things that were delivered hot and fresh to my house at least twice a week. Just typing that made my mouth water, so maybe I shouldn’t even be talking about them. Ya’ll, one time? I dipped them in chocolate.

Anyway, point is, I wasn’t really paying that much attention to taking care of myself. However, at the same time, I was walking to work every day, therefore I somehow broke even, weight wise. I’ll try not to sit here and cry over lost opportunities (I am lying!) and move on.

I’ve been eating better lately, though it’s been a severe test of wills. I’ve created a crazy (no, seriously) way of dealing with it mentally and it’s working, so I honestly don’t care if it qualifies me for a little white coat or not (plus, the book I will write about it is going to be stellar).   I even went for walk yesterday morning and I plan to do it again tomorrow. (Please tell me when the “exercising will give you more energy!” part kicks in because it really just makes me want to sleep instead of work!)

As I say every single time I try to make positive changes, I am doing my best to take it slowly and not beat myself up for misteps. It seems so very simple yet it never is. I mean, today, I couldn’t even figure out if I was full. I was eating lunch (a salad and a bowl of Amy’s Organic Cream of Tomato Soup – Light in Sodium (to which I ended up adding sodium!)) and I literally could not figure out if I was full or if, I don’t know, I had gas or something. I had food left, therefore I should eat it! Like I was mad at my stomach. I mean, this isn’t an issue when I am eating something I really want (the lunch was decent, rather be having a cheeseburger!), as I don’t fucking care if I am full, I am eating it all. Sometimes, I feel like I should just eat things I kind of don’t like to save myself the trouble. But then I get really cranky and want to kill people, so I am not sure that is the best strategy.

Basically, I am at the same place I am usually at in my cycle of crazy, but maybe with a few more tools in my arsenal to break through.

hack it

I have been kind of obsessed with this recipe for Trader Joe’s Butternut Squash Soup with Ginger, Soba, and Fried Pork Crumbles from the Apartment Therapy Kitchn. They call it a “hack” because it’s not really a home-cooked recipe but I didn’t really care. (I made some squash soup a few months ago and while it was very tasty, there was SO MUCH OF IT! Cooking for one is hard!) The first time I saw it, I had to have it. Of course, I had no idea what miso was and whether or not I needed to buy some ginger or any of that. I just knew I wanted it!

After some poking around at TJs and WFs (and a little miso assistance from my friend Jenns: “Is it in the spice aisle, Jenns?” “Noooo. Try next to the tofu, crazy!”) (I paraphrase), I finally gathered enough ingredients to give it a go this evening for dinner.

All I have to say is YUM! Seriously. YUM! Now, I must admit I skipped the ginger and the garlic and I used dried cilantro because I live alone and I am not going to buy a big thing of ginger and cilantro. I am not really fans of either in large quantities and the idea of putting pork in a pan with oil in it was kind of boggling my mind (and the sausage was already Thai spiced) but it still turned out fantastic.

I halved the recipe, naturally, and used one of these tasty sausages. It’s not something I ever thought I would want to eat but I am really glad I put half of it away for lunch tomorrow before I ate my dinner because I would have scarfed down every last bite otherwise.  Next time, I will try to up the spice quotient a little bit but I was certainly very satisfied with how it turned out this time. I ran it through SparkRecipies and got pretty decent numbers for one filling (thanks, soba noodles!) serving:

• Calories: 396.5
• Total Fat: 12.4 g
• Total Carbs: 64.0 g
• Dietary Fiber: 3.0 g
• Protein: 16.7 g

In the future, I might try to have some sort of salad on the side (perhaps this, another recipe that has been on my mind since I first saw it) (I wish I understood how flavors go together better!) or at least an extra veggie of some sort.

That makes two nights in a row of cooking triumph, as last night, I took a soup from Sunday night that was “meh” and turned it into a dinner I really liked. More gold stars for me! And yummy soup to look forward to for lunch, too!

3/4 is better than 0/10000000

I made it to about 4pm yesterday on my quest to not eat out during the week. I brought food with me for breakfast (almond butter and a banana), a healthy snack (carrots and fat free yogurt ranch dip), and an easy and tasty lunch (Kashi’s Mayan Harvest Bake). I also had a bag of Glenny’s soy crisps at my desk for any emergency munching. Gold stars for planning!

Of course, I spent the entire day obsessing about the food. Once breakfast was consumed, I started looking at the clock hoping that it would give me a clue when it was okay to eat the carrots. As I was eating the carrots, I was thinking about how much I fucking hated eating fucking carrots and how a fucking bag of potato chips would be a lot fucking tastier. Then I stared at the clock some more, waiting for it to be time to eat the frozen dinner.  Then about 3pm, I decided I need some chocolate RIGHT NOW so I went to the vending machine, which didn’t have exactly what I was looking for so I just got a Diet Coke. And then ate the bag of soy crisps.

Around 4pm, it started to feel like someone had scraped out my insides with a rusty melon baller. All good intentions flew out the window and I began to plan my pizza binge. I even called on my walk home so it would get there faster. I also ordered two cans of Coke. YES, COKE! THAT THING I GAVE UP SEVEN YEARS AGO!

I ate and ate and ate (potato chips, too) and ate and ate. Then I had an ice cream sandwich. Then I went to bed at 9:30.  So much for just letting myself feel the misery.

But I started over today, so we’ll see. My only obsessing so far has been the time I spent at Trader Joe’s trying not to buy every starchy product in the place and this here journal entry.  More gold (a bit tarnished but still!) stars for me.

I did the dishes this weekend, so gold stars for me. Considering I probably hadn’t done them since the last time I posted about it, you can just imagine the mess I had to deal with. It took me about, oh, three hours to get through it all. I also did all of my laundry, too. Of course, by the time Sunday evening rolled around, I was too exhausted to do some of the other stuff I needed to get done.

In between the dishes and the laundry, I went to Whole Foods to stock up on good foods. I have challenged myself to not go out to eat this whole work week. Which means I needed breakfast and lunch foods. I bought my first jar of almond butter (had some with a banana this morning for bfast) and tried to avoid carby things and stick to veggies.

I’ve sort of resigned myself to be miserable when it comes to food for awhile. Yeah, I know, I should eat things I like but…I like potato chips and take out and large pizzas and crap like that. So it really doesn’t matter what I cook for myself, I am still not going to be happy about not eating exactly what I want to be eating. If I am not using food to stuff down my emotions, I am going to have to actually, you know, feel them. So, I feel like I need to just own that and suffer through it and try to find other ways to deal with it, like writing in this thing or reading a book or having a temper tantrum on the floor. It will get better eventually, right? And I figure I am really sort of miserable even when I am eating all the crap I want to eat, so at least this way, I’ll be eating better.

back to the future

I just emailed the therapist I had when I lived in Houston to see if she’d consider counseling me over email or something. She was really really awesome and I swear I considered not moving because I didn’t want to stop seeing her.  I found her using the Eating Disorder Referral and Information Center which I highly recommend. It’s comforting to know going in that the person you are seeing at least recognizes that being overweight is an eating disorder. I tried to use it to find someone here but none of the therapists listed are covered by my insurance. SHOCKING!

There is part of me that doesn’t really see any value in continuing to go therapy. I mean, I know, I know what my issues are and where they come from and what my danger zones are and how I feel about my mother/father/4th grade teacher and what to eat and what not to eat and what my trigger foods are and how my body is addicted to carbs and sugars and how if I don’t exercise I am going to die young and have full-blown diabetes and so so so many other things that you learn in therapy. I’ve been doing it since I was ten. I have so much knowledge, I feel like my brain will burst with it. It’s the doing that I have a hard time with. I can (and do) talk about my problems for HOURS and type about them for YEARS and it doesn’t do any damn good if I don’t DO DO DO something.

Of course, now I am going to go stare at my email and hope that she emails me back soon.

my darling clementine

I’ve been craving fresh fruit lately (probably because of the recipe surfing and saving I’ve been doing) but my kitchen is such a mess, I haven’t been up for buying them. But it got to be such an obsession, I picked up a bag of these

to keep at my (much neater) desk at work. Yeah, it would make more sense to clean my kitchen but baby steps! I am trying my darndest to go with any healthy impulse I have, no matter how wacky/expensive/complicated/whatever. And not to let any sort of “well, first I need to x/y/z before I can [insert healthy thing here].”

For instance, two weeks ago, I accidentally bought approximately a billion bottles of  instead of       .

It was pretty traumatic at first. But then I started to notice I was sleeping better. Who knew not having one two bottles of regular Diet Coke after 6pm would be bad for sleep! Okay, I totally knew that. I just didn’t know it, you know? Now I am contemplating using this mistake as a way too ween myself from Diet Coke (at least at home) all together. There are many reasons to do so, really. It’s expensive, heavy to carry,  and full of chemicals. Plus, I think that I eat more when I drink soda with my meals.  I haven’t committed to giving caffeine up completely (omgcoffeeilu) but I think this is a baby step I can handle.

You see, summer is coming and I have nothing to wear. I mean, things fit okay but I have clothes from a few years ago that don’t and my favorite pants are starting to wear out. And since we all can’t be Lady Gaga, I’m eventually going to have to buy new ones, which can be rather complicated for someone as short and round in the middle as I am. If I could just get some of my spare tire to migrate down to a badonkadonk, my shopping would be a lot easier. Unfortunately, fat doesn’t work that way so I’ve got to toss out the spare tire so I can fit into actual petite pants.

I’ve been reading this from the Amazing Adventures of Diet Girl for inspriation. I can still remember finding her early on in my diet blogging days and following her progress. Along with Lose the Buddha, her site is one I would recommend to anyone curious about how it really gets done. Of course, both of them have busted a lot of lard in the last eight years and I’m pretty much right where I was (size wise) when I started this thing. I try not to let that get to me while I am reading the book and just focus on the fact that it can be done and that there is a pot of gold lurking out there somewhere at the end of the rainbow. I get afraid sometimes that I’ll have to be obsessed with this stuff for the rest of my life and I get tired even thinking about it. But both Shauna and Erin show that you can get a point where maintenence is just part of a regular day and that getting healthy doesn’t have to consume your every thought forever.