i <3 tomatoes

I was going to post a picture of the cute little heart-shaped tomato slice I had with my lunch but when I tried to capture it with my camera phone it looked like, well, a jay-jay, as The BFF would say.  So, let’s just skip that, shall we?

The point of the post still the same, however. I have a very complicated love/hate relationship with food, which should come as a surprise to no one. It’s a blissful romance filled with candlelight and warm-fuzzy feelings one day, and the next, it’s cruel and abusive and makes life very difficult.

Sometimes, it feels like food and I are a divorcing couple that’s been locked in a room together with no escape at all. Sure, we’ve had good times together and there was so much love once. But now I just hate it and I want to punish it for making me miserable, then I never want to see it again. It’s all food’s fault! I was the good one in this relationship! Food let me down! Food doesn’t make me feel good like it used to. Why can’t food do the fucking dishes for once??!?

Unfortunately, my relationship with food isn’t like your standard romantic relationship. I can’t break up with food. I can’t erase its name from my cell phone and set its emails to spam. I can’t pack up all its shit and set it out in the lawn. And while I can make a playlist full of my favorite sad songs, that really does do much for me health-wise.

No matter how mad I am at food, I still have to deal with it every day or I die. It’s that simple. So one of the hardest things for me is to think of food as simply just fuel for my body. Something that I should enjoy but not let dominate my every emotion. Usually the more frustrated I am with myself, the more frustrated I am with food, too. During these periods, I will literally eat pizza every day for a week, because it’s the only food I don’t want to toss out the window and run over with my car. It’s the only food that still gives me a little pleasure.

(Oh, wow! Pizza is my fuckbuddy, ya’ll!)

At the moment, I am trying not to hate food. I am trying to pack lunches and make dinners and plan breakfasts that are relatively healthy that I know I will enjoy.  This girl loves her some tomatoes, so it’s a good time of year to give into that love. Well, except for the recall but still! I love a freshly-sliced tomato with a little dash of salt and pepper. I like it on sandwiches and diced on salad and in salsa and pasta sauce and sauteed with some zucchini. I LOVE TOMATOES! So I am embracing them, in moderation of course. I’m embracing strawberries and raspberries and sweet corn and dark rye bread and black bean dip and guacamole. Things that I love that love me back which is what you want in a happy relationship, right?

Sure, sometimes guacamole tempts m to eat tortilla chips by the bowl full and sweet corn is a lot more carbalicious than baby spinach and, man, strawberries never pick up their dirty socks. But by allowing myself to feel good about what I eat inspires me and motivates me to find more things to eat that I love that will love me back.

(Sometimes I feel very much “fake it until I make it” about these types of posts. If you look in my archives, you can probably find a similar post espousing the same ideals. On the one hand, I feel a bit like a hypocrite because I say it and live it for awhile and then stop. On the other hand, you only fail when you give up completely, right?)

i like bread and butter

Two entries in two days? WHAT? Yeah, I know. But I was reading some weight loss blogs at lunch *points to side bar* and I got a little inspired. (Plus, I get a point! Woo! I like to think of them as sparkly gold stars in my head. Because I am twelve!)

Anyway, I didn’t end up meditating last night like I planned. I read a few chapters of Feeling Good (okay, more like skimmed because jeezo, I get it, this works, can we move on please?) and by the time I was done, it was midnight and I felt a little silly mediating before bed. I don’t want to set up a pattern or I’ll be falling asleep every time I try it.

I had a hard time sleeping, though, so I sort of wish I had tried it. I had one of those headaches you get when you are addicted to sugar and caffeine and you spend a whole day avoiding them. Plus, I only ended up eating around 1,600 calories which is probably a lot less than I’ve been used to lately. I laid in bed for a while, fighting the urge to get up and have a slice of bread with butter. I wanted this so badly, ya’ll! Instead, I just laid there frustrated that, once again, I was obsessing about food. And when I woke up, I still had the headache, plus a serious craving for a donut!

Now, I haven’t had a donut in, like, two years. Oddly, I am not a big fan of them normally. I only have them when someone kindly brings them into the office. But for some reason, I just wanted a gd donut! I even Google mapped to see if there was a Dunkin Donuts near my office. (DAMN YOU, RACHEL RAY!) Thankfully, there was not one within a half mile. On the one hand, if you are going to eat a donut, you should probably have to walk a mile round trip to get it. On the other hand, girl is lazy. Of course, there are two Au Bon Pains between me and my office, so I ended up with a cherry danish and some coffee anyway. Still, I entered the food in my Spark log and I did bring a healthy lunch, so I don’t think it’s going to kill me. I am trying so so so sooooooooooo hard to not make things a huge deal. A cherry danish on a Monday morning? Not a big deal. A cherry danish every day until the end of time? A big deal. One day at a time is so cliche but I’ve got to break it down further to, like, on hour at a time or I’ll go crazier.

I am trying not to make too many eating habit changes too quickly (yes, again) because I tend to get obsessive. Like, I should be eating healthier AND focusing on more sustainable eating practices AND trying to save money AND AND AND! But, really, I think that’s asking a lot of anyone. So I am doing my best to focus on things that taste good that are good for me and working from there.  Once I’ve developed a good habit, then I can find a way to make it cheaper/more sustainable/whatever.

checking the gauge

I’ve totally given up on the cutesy “The Office”-related titles. Please forgive me!

So, The BFF requested an update, as is her due, so here we go. It’s been an interesting few weeks. I’ve been doing okay point-wise, as I took her advice and added a lot of positive-point things and avoided the negative. It is easier that way, so I’ll go on record to say she was right. (I know how much she digs hearing that!)

In the middle of this progress, I had a bit of a traumatic experience. I came home from work the other day and got on the elevator with this young boy, probably around 12, I guess? Anyway, I am sorting through my mail, minding my own business, and after I get off the elevator and almost get to the corner, I hear the little cretin scream out “GO TO THE GYM, BITCH!” and the elevator doors slide shut.

I stood there sort of stunned for a moment. I could feel my face heating up and I ran through so many emotions. Anger, embarrassment, confusion. I did my best not to let it bother me because, hello, stupid child. But it was difficult. It’s not fun having your issues trumpeted back at you by a hellchild that is for sure. And I was angry at society in general, that him saying that was something okay in his head, where he probably wouldn’t not have done so to someone else, you know? There really is a cultural norm that making fun of fat people is okay because we are somehow weak and deserve it. That really pisses me off. A lot.

It’s one of the hardest things for me to deal with, the inability to escape my weight issue, even for a moment. As soon as I do, I walk by a window or a mirror or someone looks at me funny or, jeez, says something and it’s like I’ve lost all over again.

The BFF&Co wanted to go hiking today and invited me along. I took some time to think about it and decided against it. I’d spent all of yesterday going to the grocery store and doing the dishes and my laundry and I knew that I wanted to prepare some of the stuff for much lunch for the next week today. And I knew that if I spent half the day hiking, I wouldn’t have the energy to do those things when I got back and if I didn’t, I’d be more likely to skip taking my lunch which leads to eating out which leads to bad food choices and spending money I shouldn’t. I realize that there are people out there who can do all those things, who have the energy, emotionally and physically, do all those things in a day, and more. I am just not one of those people right now. I aspire to it, believe me.

But it goes back to that issue of never escaping. It takes me so much energy to be anywhere close to normal because not only do I have to physically do things, I have to use so much mental energy to force myself to keep doing it. For me to eat relatively healthy, I have to focus so hard, I end up spending half the day thinking about food, what I am going to eat, how much of it I can eat, what I am going to make when I get home, etc. etc. etc.

I don’t know, maybe everyone is like this and I am just a wimp about it. I get a lot of “why don’t you just…” from people. I used to get it all the time from my dad, too, and it drove me crazy. If I could, I would? I mean, I don’t know how to explain it. He said to me later, after his own health problems and his wife leaving him drove him into a deep depression, that he was sorry for telling me that I just needed to do things, because he never understood how hard that was until he went through it.

I don’t want to be the type of person that makes excuses. I am frustrated by my seemingly small tank when it comes to emotional energy. And I can’t seem to explain it to people without it coming across as just being lame and weak.

Anyway, I wanted to make sure that I actually did the things I wanted to do so that the sacrifice of the physical activity that would have been good to me would not be in vain. So I got up and puttered around the kitchen. I trimmed the fat from a chicken breast and made up some marinate for it. Then I sliced up the strawberries I bought and I had a nice breakfast. Then later, I made some black bean dip and cooked up the chicken, part of it to take in my lunch and part to have for dinner with some sweet potato fries and some corn. In between, I found a neat recipe site full of lots of things I want to try. I even tracked my food and points, read some of my book and did the dishes! Plus, I am going to do a little meditating before I go to bed. So, overall, I feel like it wasn’t a wasted day. I know that Monday will go easier, which makes the rest of the week go smoother.

Someday, I want to be the person that spends her whole weekend gallivanting around doing lots of productive and fun things instead of using the time to recharge my emotional battery. It’s just going to take me awhile to get there, I think.

posting frequently - motivated - positive - me

One of these things is not like the others, one of these things does not belooooong!

Okay, I promised myself I wouldn’t get all negative up in this entry, even though it’s been TWO MONTHS since I have updated. Let’s just say I have been struggling and move on, shall we?

Yes, things have not been going smoothly, to say the least. There are many many issues at work here, many of which I have been dealing with for a long time. I have a hard time with delayed gratification. I generally do not feel I deserve to have nice things. I really just want a fucking iced coffee every damn morning which is not too much to ask!!!

Erm. Yes, so issues. I am resetting my goals and trying to be more positive. Going back to the basics. Baby steps. One day at a time. Blah blah blaaaah. I can even give myself a point for this rather ridiculous blog post.

But, hey, at least I still have my umbrella…ella…ella.

You tell me who this sounds like: slow moving, inattentive, dull, constantly snacking, shows a lack of motivation.

So, yesterday was a Bad Day. I don’t mean that in terms of what I ate or anything, as I am trying to avoid using such terminology. Positivity! Focus on the fun! I just mean I had a Bad Day.

I found myself crying for no discernible reason. There was just an ache in my chest that wouldn’t go away and all I could thinks was “God, I just want to eat something, everything, right fucking now!” I was convinced it would make me feel better. I resisted because, man, I want to keep those hockey tickets and I don’t want to let me friends down and I’ve wasted enough time already. So I sucked it up and just let myself cry. I curled up into a little ball on my bed, took some deep breaths, snuggled with the cats and waited for it to pass, which it eventually did. I felt a little ridiculous, lying there, but it was better than eating a bad of chips or whatever, and definitely had less calories.

It got me to thinking about food and addiction. I am pretty sure that cutting white flour out of my diet and avoiding sugar was part of what triggered it. Those are both things that I have used constantly in my life to soothe myself when I get depressed. I honestly believe I am chemically dependent on them and I need to remind myself of that when I start feeling crazier when I am eating healthier. I suppose part of it could be psychosomatic, wherein I miss those things and I assume that my crazy is related to them but it feels like a different kind of crazy, if that makes any sense. It’s almost a panic, like if I don’t have these things right now, I am going to…something. Break into a million pieces. Being hungry triggers that feeling sometimes, too. Simply letting myself feel things and not stuff myself with food freaks me out. That’s why planning out my food becomes very important because if I slack off and I end up feeling too hungry, that’s when I make unhealthy decisions.

I am desperately trying to take this slow and not be too hard on myself because I know it hasn’t worked in the past. But I also have to balance that out with making an extra effort to stay on track and actually start making some sacrifices or I am never going to get anywhere.

The BFF’s mantra, as I mentioned above, is that it’s All About the Fun. I think she got this from The Secret or whatever but I try to not think about how she is going to end up in a creepy cult someday if she keeps this up and focus on the part where that makes sense. Just about every self-help book/guru/website/whatever will tell you that focusing on the positives works better than bitching about the negatives. I am working on that, I promise. I made fun mixes to walk to and I got shiny shoes to wear while I am doing it. And I look at that picture of the hockey boys celebrating at least once a day. And when, like last night, I allow myself two cookies, I don’t get down on myself. I enter it into MySpark and move on.

And today, my fun thing was to walk over to Trader Joe’s at lunch. It killed two birds with one stone: I got my exercise and I bought some healthy staples for the pantry! Plus, it was such a beautiful day, I barely noticed the walk. Of course, my calves are now reminding me that I took it, but that’s okay. It makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something. I had to walk by the Bally’s on the way and I caught myself starting to think things like “okay, if you get up at 6am, you can ride the train in and get this much cardio in and still have time to shower and get to work…” and I had to stop myself because, seriously, let’s try to walk for 30 minutes a day three times a week first before we plan our trip down gym junkie lane, right? Right!

Also, thanks to Half of Me (which, if you are not reading, you totally should because she is AWESOMELY inspirational and I can’t wait to read her book!), I found the Couch-to-5k running plan, which I think I am going to try (eventually). It’s just the sort of easily understood, baby steps plan I can get behind.

And now that I have updated this, I can give myself another smiley face on my goals page! WOO!

I feel faster already

Inspi(red)

You may be asking yourself what a bunch of happy hockey players have to do with my health but, trust me, I am going to get to it! This isn’t just an excuse to post that awesome picture. Although I do adore looking at it. *stares for a moment*

Okay, here’s how the story goes. A few weeks ago, The BFF e-mailed me a proposition. “Let’s set some health and fitness goals,” she said. “And then when we reach them, we’ll buy season tickets for the Capitals!” Sometimes, she has awesome ideas. So we started to plan. However, the Caps threw a little (yet extremely AWESOME) wrench into our plans: THEY MADE THE PLAYOFFS! C-A-P-S! CAPS! CAPS! CAPS!

Uh. Anyway, after some research, we realized that a)season tickets were selling out fast, and b)if we bought them now, we were guaranteed playoff tickets at a discounted rate. After much conferring, we decided to go ahead and get them. Now, if you know me, you know that delayed gratification is an Achilles’ heel for me. To make this as legit as possible, we are all (The BFF’s roommate is also in) going to sign a contract stating that if we do not make our goals, we have to SELL our beloved tickets.

We decided to make Friday the deadline for coming up with our goals but I think I have them down for now. I tried to be as realistic as possible. And while I will be watching my weight, I have decided not to make any set weight goals, as I feel that eating better and exercise will naturally lead to it (hopefully!) and obsessing about the numbers is not really in my best interest at this time. I am trying to incorporate things that have worked in the past and leave behind the things that haven’t. We’ll see how that goes.

Here is what I have so far:

1. Exercise at least 3 times a week for at least 30 minutes.
2. Bring lunch to work at least 3 times a week.
3. Update this here blog at least once a week.
4. Eat more fruits and veggies!
5. Track food on Spark
6. Avoid white flour as much as possible.
7. Avoid eating out as much as possible.

I’ve set up a little widget from Joe’s Goals to help me track my progress, which I will add to my sidebar as soon as WP stops being a bitch.

The first five goals give me positive points and if I slip on the last two, points are taken away. I am trying to be realistic without being too vague and/or easy on myself. How am I doing? Should I be more strict? Not strict enough?

Hopefully, if all goes well, I’ll lose weight (so I can fit into the teeny arena seats better!) and have more energy (for cheering) when this is all said and done, as well as AWESOME season tickets to the Caps. However, I promise to never ever wear this. Probably. Maybe. Okay, no. Seriously. But I reserve the right to wear ridiculous things like that in the future if the spirit moves me.

Faxes from my future self

I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about how happy I am going to be someday. I’ve pretty much convinced myself that there is a day coming where I will be able to shop wherever I want, sit comfortably in an airline seat, flirt without it feeling pointless, etc. etc. etc. I just know that as soon as I’ve lost some weight, things are going to be great! Of course, I want it to just magically happen without any effort. Which is why I am here and not there.

I am thinking about this particular fallacy right now because there was a Hockey Night In Canada t-shirt that I desperately wanted but could not buy because it only came in those cute girlie XL-is-actually-sort-of-a-medium-if-you-stretch-it sizes. Y’all, it was sparkly. If you know anything about me,  you know that hockey+sparkly on one shirt is my dream sartorial choice.  So I started to have this crazy idea where I would buy one and then hang it up somewhere in my apartment as motivation and set a goal to fit into said shirt by a certain date (that happened to coincide with a certainly fan convention thing that I was thinking of attending). I was well aware that this was probably a Bad Idea. But whatever. I have them all the time! I went to the site today to order it and, of course, it’s no longer there. A shirt I would love beyond reason is lost to me once again because I am too fucking fat. I know my severe emotional reaction to the situation was probably less about the shirt and more about my issues. But I still found myself sitting at my desk, mourning a t-shirt!

Then I was at SXSW last week and I literally thought to myself “When I come to this next year, I am going to be thinner so I can flirt with all these adorable geekboys.” I am so ridiculous, you know? And I actually sat there and daydreamed about it for a minute. And then I went and ate the biggest plate of Mexican food ever in the history of the world plus a basket of chips and a pitcher of margaritas! I KNOW!

I am torn between being angry and sad. Sad that I missed something but angry at myself for being stuck in this moment for what seems like years and years and years. I know I could go back through this blog and find other posts with similar stories. Over and over again, I dream about one day and never do anything about it. If I spent half the energy I waste planning for that ridiculous future time and actually did something about it, I might actually land there someday. But I don’t.

When I think that I am ready to start making changes,  I start counting up all the days, months, weeks, years that I have already lost and I get overwhelmed and I want to do everything RIGHT NOW because contemplating more lost time is sometimes too much for me to bear. But I can’t seem to stop my brain from making the leap from ‘how about we stop eating McDonald’s every other day’ to ‘eat perfectly and exercise or it’s all pointless!!!’.

New digs…

So, I am all about change. Except, not really. I mean, making like positively, life-altering changes? Not so much. But moving from Blogger to WordPress? WATCH ME, CHANGE! WOO!

I always feel like when I make a post to this (it’s been awhile), I am “officially” starting something which to me means I am on my way to messing it up. Negative self talk and I are very good friends.

I did some financial inventory the other day regarding the amount of money I spend on eating out and the number was so astronomical, I had to take stock of my priorities. And since I am going to have to make eating changes anyway to keep myself out of the poor house, I might as well try to eat better now too.

My usual MO is to make huge sweeping changes that work for a short time and then I end up giving up because I don’t have the energy to keep up the pace. I realize that’s not the best strategy but every time I sit back and look at where I am and where I want to be, it always seems like I’ve wasted so so so so soooooooooooooo much time that I want to put my foot down and just GO even though the map I have is bad and I have a quarter tank of gas and no headlights.

All I’ve really learned so far is that, no matter where you go, there you are. So the look and address may be changing, but it’s still me and my library full of issues. I want to update more. But I want to win the lottery, too, so who knows how this is going to go.

That’s how I roll

We had a work happy hour at a nice sushi place last night. I was very diligent and put what I planned to eat in my Spark log before I left. Can you see where this is going yet? If you are thinking I am going to talk about how I followed my plan, you have been reading a different blog.

Yes, I ended up eating one extra roll. Um, a shrimp crunch roll which, while tasty, was probably about the worst thing I could have chosen. Did I mention tasty? Part of it was because my boss was buying, so the extra incentive to only buy one California roll and some edamame to save money sort of went out the window. How can I turn down FREE SUSHI?? It would have been criminal! And instead of just ordering one roll at a time, I got two because I was scared to be hungry. I was literally afraid that I would eat my edamame and my roll and then, I dunno, starve to death? Have to have a piece of fruit when I got home?

The sad part is that I was actually a little too full when I was done. I probably could have at least halved that shrimp roll. But I shoved that whole thing down because it was there. I’ve been actively telling myself that there isn’t anything I *can’t* eat, I just have to be smart about it, so that’s the main reason I am disappointed in my choices. However, I could have had a free martini and I stuck with iced tea, so I get one little gold star for that.

It’s funny, sushi always makes me think of Erin of Lose the Buddha fame. She was one of the bloggers that inspired me when I first started this thing so many years ago. I remember not understanding how someone who “only” weighed 170 pounds could suffer as much as me. I would look at her “before” pictures and think to myself, “I would kill to weigh that!” But I liked her writing and I was still inspired, so I kept reading.

Then one day, she posted an entry about how she used to get sushi to go. She described eating it and being so full and not being able to stop because it tasted so good and how she loved the whole experience of it, from the flavors to the carb coma afterwards. I am paraphrasing, as her old archive isn’t working. But the point is, she did get it. And that’s when I realized that it wasn’t the actual pounds that mattered, it was how I gained them. I mean, that was years ago, so I obviously still have a lot of issues with that concept and I still get on the scale and tell myself I would feel less miserable if the weight would magically disappear. Which, is sort of true, but also you are always you, no matter what size you wear. Sometimes I need I reminder of that, I guess.

Anyway, I was thinking about that and then Gretchen left me a super nice comment about how I inspired *her* that kind of made my day. Anyone who says that the communities you are part of on the interwebs don’t count somehow is, well, stupid and lame and you shouldn’t listen to them. I know I would be a lot worse off if it weren’t for people like Erin and all the other people I’ve read and linked to in the past.

And of course now my blogrolling is broken! Irony, thy name is Blogger.