For Tonight

Tonight I chose to have a salad for supper. I was quite pleased with the calorie count, ~275 calories for a huge glass bowlful. Then I treated myself to 2 rice cakes with peanut butter and honey. It's a couple hours later and I'm not physically hungry but I want to eat. Yep, I'm a stress-eater. I think being a stress-eater is a cruel and unusual punishment! We have to eat to survive, but then when we crave the carbs and the sugars we can't have them, or at least we shouldn't, and then the message we send to our brain is: "You're being deprived of (chips, cheese, chocolate, cookies) which is causing you stress and on top of that, I'll deprive you of your favourite foods." Yep, not too pleasant. I learned something this afternoon, though, in my communications class. I learned that the brain doesn't accept negatives. In other words, you can't tell it to "not think of the little red monkey" because then it will. So when it comes to taking away favourite foods that may not be the healthiest, to say, "You can't eat (chips, cheese, chocolate, cookies)" is not going to register but rather trigger an even stronger desire for those things. I think the purpose is to refocus our desires so we can say, "You can eat a salad with chickpeas and guacamole for supper" and retrain our taste buds so they are pleased with our choices. I'm thinking this analogy may apply to other areas in life too.

Here's the part for honesty: the weight went up. If I step on the scales just once a week, I tend to cheat on my daily calories. If I step on the scales every day, I tend to get stressed out when the weight does go up for various reasons (dehydrated, too much salt, eating out one meal). Either way, I end up being frustrated and tend to want to give up. Unfortunately this time I can't. I've been here before, and sometimes I plowed on through and other times I returned to old eating habits. I like to think each time I find myself at the crossroads I'm a little healthier than I was before. Tonight I made a healthy choice and instead of reaching for a bag of vegan gummy bears, I blogged and reminded myself that a moment of enjoyment would likely mean a week of misery as I'm battling a sore throat right now. Here's to tomorrow and the endurance to make more healthy choices. . .

Late Night Munchies

So here's what works

• 500 calorie meals
• 1 hour exercise daily (every single day. . .)
• 3 servings of fruits and/or vegetables at each meal

Here's what I don't have to do

• Restrict favourite foods
• Eat oil-free, sugar-free, gluten-free
• Eat before 6 pm
• Stop eating out

It worked last time so I guess I shouldn't be surprised that it's working again this time! The one exception is that last time I was following a pre-diabetic meal plan and I did eliminate sugar and oil, but I wasn't counting calories then. I'll admit, counting calories is tedious. Every meal, I have to run to my computer and pull up www.caloriecount.com and type in the food items so I can get an estimate of how much is on my plate. The really neat thing is that caloriecount has a recipe calculator, where you enter in the recipe's ingredients, and it will calculate the nutritional facts and total calories for you.

The exciting part is that I dropped 2.4 lbs in one week! I began this journey by calculating my BMI and BMR and calorie intake and learned that I need about 2,500 calories daily to maintain my weight if I exercise 3-5 times a week. My goal is to exercise 7 times a week and shave 1,000 calories daily so I will guarantee a 2-lb consistent weight loss and have a slight buffer for the birthdays, special occasions, and meals out with friends.

Ah yes, and late night munchies. When I'm craving a snack or something sweet, or I just can't face another apple, my new go-to is dried fruit. About 10 apricots is just a 110-calorie serving so I can enjoy something fun and still feel healthy. For breakfast yesterday, since 9 am was too early to eat, I threw dates, almonds, and apricots into a tupperware, grabbed a tangelo, and was on my way. The 500-calorie "trail mix" kept me full til lunch!

I've also found I can get in one of my veggie servings by boiling down 3 cups of raw spinach into about a 1/2 cup. It takes all of 3 minutes, tastes great, and I'm getting my greens in! Yes, this way of eating is slightly more time-consuming, largely because I'm a penny pincher and refuse to buy pre-cut fruit or pre-made mixes. But I have a little extra time to devote to my health right now anyhow, so I don't mind. To lose the weight and gain the self-confidence will be worth it.

à votre santé!

Clean Eating

I realized today that it's been 6 months since I've posted here, and for that I apologize. I started studying and got caught up in that, rather than my health, for awhile. Now I'm back on track, resolved to lose the weight seriously. You may remember about 18 months ago I was pleased to drop about 18 pounds. Unfortunately, due to stress and life changes, I put about 10-12 of those back on. I returned to feeling upset with myself that I couldn't fit into my clothes (I'd given away all my larger sized clothing); shying away from pictures; and my self-confidence was struggling. My takeaway from this is not that being thin equals happiness. It's that being healthy equals happiness. I knew, even when I didn't want to admit to it, that I wasn't eating as healthily as I could. I baked cakes and cookies as fast as I could eat them, and even while I rationalized that at least now I wasn't eating the Doritoes and the Chips Ahoy, I was still indulging in the same ingredients, just in a different form.

So I've resolved to return to clean eating. I will be the first to raise my hand and say, "It's Not Easy!!!" It requires discipline, retraining my taste buds, and exerting extra effort to prepare a plate of good food. I can't just grab several cookies and pop a grilled cheese sandwich on my plate. Suppers are my biggest downfall and I have to now be intentional about choosing what I eat so I maintain a consistent caloric intake. But I also love a challenge and this time I have a goal.

I created a Success Chart and stuck it to my mirror. Each day that I exercise an hour, I get to put a check mark on my chart. Each meal that is less than or equal to 500 calories and includes at least 3 servings of fruits and/or vegetables, I get to put a tick on my chart. I'm rewarding myself monetarily and incrementally. First, the psychological association with putting a check mark or a tick gives me incentive to fill up the boxes each week. My chart was created for 14 weeks so I'll be able to see all the check marks and ticks accumulate. Second, if I exercise 5 times a week I'll "earn" $5 but if I exercise 6 times a week I'll "earn" $10 and if I exercise 7 times a week I'll "earn" $15. In the same manner, for the first day of clean eating I'll "earn" $3 but each day will increase by 50 cents so that I'm up to $6 by day 7 of clean eating. If I slip up, in other words if I have only 2 clean eating meals in a particular day, then I've lost one step up. So for that week, I would only make it to the $5.50 tier.

Now you have to understand something about me; I'm an A student and a competitive overachiever. If it says to exercise 60 minutes a day, I will exercise 61 minutes. Plus do household chores. If it says to stay under 500 calories, I may keep my meal to 450 calories (though right now I'm working on establishing a baseline metabolism that is comfortable with portion-controlled meals, so 500 is where I'm at).

Each week, I will be able to cash in my rewards, IF I have reached a minimum of $25 which means I'll have to have at least 5 days of clean eating and 5 days of exercise. I can do what I like with the money; I'll treat myself to a full priced DVD, a manicure, books from Amazon, a massage, or a fun outfit! I also get one cheat meal a week because I need to keep my social life alive and going out to eat with a friend is where it's at right now!

In 14 weeks I'll be taking the vacation of a lifetime. I really want to be ready for that; I want to be happy and self-confident and look attractive in my photos. It's ironic that I look back at photos from 12 pounds ago, when I thought I still needed to lose more weight, and now I think, "Girl, you were beautiful there!" I'm looking for that woman and I know I'm going to find her.

Here's to renewed health!