Weight Loss Unexpected

Archive for December, 2009

You know it’s a binge when…

-you stop counting calories
-you lose count of how many pieces of pizza you ate
-you guzzle orange juice instead of water
-you eat globs of cream cheese straight off the knife
-you break into your kids’ Christmas candy and eat some of it
-you pour yourself a bowl of trail mix when you don’t even LIKE trail mix and it is 250 calories for 3 TABLESPOONS
-you consider eating the leftover Halloween candy
-you make a big cup of coffee loaded with sugar and cream at 8pm
-you want Ritz but there are no Ritz so you eat some crackers you don’t even like
-you eat most of the above in private, carefully sneaking around so no one will see you
-you feel incredibly ill and guilt-ridden
-you go to bed with heartburn and wake up with a headache
-you gain 2 pounds overnight

Yes. It happened again. I feel absolutely angry, sad, and disappointed in myself. Last night I felt sick, still. I had eaten very little all day… on the order of 350 calories (first mistake). Then in the evening it hit me. I HAD to eat, I wanted carbs, I wanted fat and sugar. I tried to tame it and eat reasonable amounts but before I could blink an eye I was shoveling food into my mouth with abandon. It really pisses me off.

For three months I have been writing notes on a small paper planner: how many calories I eat each day, my weight, my exercise, my mood, days I feel extra hungry, and my binges. I’ve always logged calories and weight on Sparkpeople, but this paper journal has given me new insight, especially as I look at it this morning. What I noticed:

My eating is almost directly related to my female cycle/hormones. For the first 2 weeks of each month, my eating has been pristine! It is *easy* for me to eat 1200-1600 calories a day. I *never* go over. I feel great, I lose 4 or 5 pounds during that first 2 weeks. Then, midcycle, I seem to crash. EVERY binge or out-of-control eating session in the past 3 months has been right after the middle of my cycle. Every single one! The third week of the month is torture for me. I am hungry, moody, tired, and pacing around wanting to overeat. I gain weight during that week. Then the last week of the month, I get a grip (although it is not as easy as the first two weeks) and drop a couple pounds back off.

Why?? I don’t really get this, but I think it *must* be hormone-related. I’m going to be doing some research on female hormone cycles, which hormones hit when, and the known effects of those hormones. And then I will try and make a plan to prevent the insanity *next* month.

I am disappointed, but I am also aware that having a binge or two per month, at a certain time of month, is far, FAR better than my “old” life of bingeing almost daily. The months of eating whole cakes and pint after pint of ice cream and whole packages of hot dogs and Cheetos… those days are gone. I am so thankful. When I was eating like that, I once gained 40 pounds in 3 months. And I once gained 80 pounds in about 10 months. I think if I had not stopped when I did, I’d be either completely immobile or dead by now. So I am quite thankful for the progress I’ve made.

Another thought I’ve had… my binge was not triggered by any emotional *event* yesterday. It was sheer *desire to stuff food into my mouth*… it was internal, body-driven, and not thought-driven. Not sure what difference that makes, but I’ll note it for future reference.

Goal: no more binges or out-of-control eating this month. I do *feel* like overeating today, but I am going to do my best to control it and feel myself high volume, high nutrition, low calorie foods like roasted broccoli today. And I *think* I feel better enough (from my sickness) to bike tonight.

Keep on working at it… we’ll get it right.

If you’re like me, you may have noticed persimmons at the grocery store but had no idea how to choose one, what to do with them, or what they are for. Up until now, I never tried any type of persimmon. So I figured it was time to do a little research and give them a shot.

There are two main kinds of persimmons usually found at the grocery store: Fuyu and Hachiya. It’s important to know which you are getting, because:

Fuyu persimmons are eaten while still firm and taste fine.

Hachiya persimmons are eaten when they are so ripe they are almost mushy. If you try to eat a firm one you will run screaming and spitting to the trash can and never want to try a persimmon again in your life. Bad, bad, bad. Do Not Try a firm Hachiya persimmon!

So you have to know which one you are getting.

Above: the squat, round persimmon I am holding on the left is a Fuyu. The two longer, pointier ones are Hachiyas.

When you cut into a Fuyu, it looks like this:

Pretty, huh? You can slice it up like that and it would look really nice on a fruit plate or as a garnish. But you can just wash the Fuyu and eat it like an apple, skin and all. It’s kinda crisp, not quite as crisp as an apple. And you *can* let it ripen further to get sweeter. Personally? I am not a fan. Not as sweet or tart as an apple. Kind of bland, IMO. In fact, the only way I would eat one again is to dice it and put it in a green salad. I think it would be good like that. Good meaning okay… not good meaning fantastic like pomegranates in salad.

Above is the Hachiya persimmon. It also has the same pretty pattern when sliced in half, but I just cut a sliver off this one. You can probably tell it is way softer and juicier than the Fuyu. In fact you are supposed to let the Hachiya soften to the extreme, until as one website put it “you can almost suck the flesh out of it” instead of biting. So I did that, and it was pretty tasty. Better than the Fuyu, much sweeter. But sweet was the defining taste for me. It is so hard to define the flavor. Just sweet. Not much else. So once again, this is not something I would purchase and eat again unless I had some recipe I wanted to try it in.

Persimmons have about 110 (or more) calories each, and they are much smaller than an apple so I’d go with an apple for a snack, myself. They also have 70% of your RDA of Vitamin A, though, which is great, and 20% of your RDA of Vitamin C and 167% of the RDA of B2. These figures are variable depending on what source you get your nutrition facts from and which kind of persimmon you’re eating.

So, yeah, they are worth trying. Maybe you will love them. Persimmons are in season from now through January so if you want to give them a try, now’s the time! Personally, I will stick to pomegranates.

p.s…. I have been sick for over a week now. I think I may be *starting* to feel better but it has taken a toll. I have not been able to exercise in several days (truly unable, much too sick) but have stayed within my calories until last night when I had some toast before bedtime. I ended up with 2030 calories. Funny thing is, all week I was staying closer to 1400-1500 calories because I felt so bad but the scale popped back up to 227 a few days ago. Kinda ticked me off to see a 2-pound gain when I was eating within my range AND was still biking, but I think I must be retaining water or something because I am sick. I’m hanging in there.

I am beyond irritable today, with hormonal mid-cycle moodiness plus once again feeling awful with this sickness, BUT I wanted to give a brief post with a couple of nice NSVs (non-scale victories).

1) Yesterday I attended my first holiday event/gathering (I *was* feeling like I was over this sickness yesterday) where there was a spread of Christmas treats. When I saw the long table loaded with every possible kind of cookie, I stopped and thought for a minute. I could allow myself one. I was letting my kid choose one, and I just decided that it was not that important to me *in that moment* and I didn’t want one that badly. So I had *nothing.* And I did not feel deprived. I rather enjoyed sitting there watching my daughter savor her cookie instead!

2) Yesterday I was in the kitchen when my husband said, “are those new jeans?” I said no, and he said, “They look really good. They make your butt look smaller!” Ha! I love it. This is a BIG deal to me coming from the man who did not notice I was loosing weight until I had dropped over 50 pounds. So yeah. My butt IS smaller!

3) I have homemade spaghetti sauce and meatballs (from the freezer) in the crockpot for dinner tonight. I feel terribly sick at the moment, and oddly enough, when I feel nauseous the only thing I can stand to eat is simple carbs. (This has been true for 2 decades. When I was vomiting every 10 minutes during pregnancy, the only thing I could keep down was sugar cereals like Apple Jacks. Something I almost *never* buy!) I am fine on my calories so far, and I am going to allow myself what I *really* want for dinner, which is a piece or two of french bread dipped in sauce, and maybe a piece of turkey sausage. Lower volume and no steamed veggies is probably a better option for me today. And I am NOT going to bike tonight. I biked all week and I need a day off.

I hope you’re enjoying the holiday season and not swinging to either extreme of deprivation or gobbling up everything in sight, because January 1st is not going to be some magic switch that changes your life. May as well make use of the last bit of 2009. Two weeks can make a big difference… will you be heavier or lighter than you are today on New Year’s Eve? It’s your choice.

I think one of the reasons I’ve hung in there with this whole weight loss thing is that I am not terribly perfectionistic with my eating. Yeah, I eat butter. I enjoy cheese. I eat sugar sometimes. Pizza. Bacon. Stuff that diet purists gasp in disgust about. You CAN’T eat sausage and lose weight! Oh my gosh! You HAVE to eliminate every.last.morsel from your diet that is not pure and holy. Or Else.

Well, I am sure that works for some people, and that’s great! Really. But coming from a life punctuated by gallons of ice cream, sleeves of Pringles and liters of Coke, becoming a diet purist just is not on my “doable” list. I am 40 years old. I am willing to change some things, yes. Like cutting out fast food, and learning to eat lots of veggies. But no chocolate? Ever? That is just never going to happen.

I’ve become really comfortable with accepting that doing *better* is often good enough. I do not have to Do It Perfect; I do not have to follow someone else’s Perfect Plan. I do not have to do everything 100% “right” because, frankly, not only is there no “right,” but 100% is impossible and frustrating to aim for. If I improve my eating and behaviors *most* of the time, I see results.

Today my family went out for lunch. It was a diner-type place that we have never been to before, and the menu was typical of diners: burgers, fries, shakes, pies. The “salads” looked like they would leave a lot to be desired (pile of iceberg, tomato wedge, couple pieces of ham, full fat dressing) and the only chicken on the menu was breaded and fried. Soup? Forget it, the only one they offered was a heart-stoppingly rich, cream-based clam chowder. They had all kinds of greasy fried sandwiches, too, like my old favorite, the Reuben. So, what would you do?

Aim for “perfect” and get a tasteless, unsatisfying iceberg salad.
Give up because you can’t be perfect and get a bacon cheeseburger with fries and a Coke.

How about a happy medium?

I started by ordering water to drink, because drinks are just not all that important to me and are an easy place to save calories. Then I looked over the menu and found one of my favorite foods: a turkey club. Yum! I asked them to make it on whole grain bread and “hold the cheese.” (A personal mini-rule I have is: cheese is fine. But if there is cheese AND mayo, don’t have both! One is enough for flavor). My side dish choices were potato salad, fries, or a “side salad” so I chose the side salad with blue cheese dressing on the side (they did not have a vinaigrette).

Along came my plate: turkey breast, lettuce, and tomato layered with 3 slices of whole grain toast, mayo, and bacon. I pulled my usual club sandwich shenanigans and dismantled the sandwich, pulling out the center piece of toast and about half the mayo, removing the fatty edges of the bacon, and the reassembling the sandwich. (Yeah, I am a fun date. No, I wouldn‘t do that in an upscale restaurant, but then, I wouldn’t be eating a turkey club. I’d be ordering halibut or sturgeon or something. Given the deer heads leering at me from the walls of this diner, I figured no one would care that I was making a mess of my sandwich. If you are more anal than I am, you can ask the waitress to leave out the center piece of toast, use half the mayo, and make the bacon extra well done. But it is funner to shred the sandwich with your fingers). I then ate the sandwich but left the crust. The “side salad” was in fact about 3/4 cup of shredded iceberg, a few diced tomatoes and a little cuplet of dressing on the side. I ate the salad, tasteless as it was, just for filler. I pretty much left the dressing off, though. Not worth it.

Dessert? Nah. I was full.

So, you see, I had my delicious turkey club with BACON and MAYO on crispy hot toast and it was so yummy that I didn’t even consider dessert or fries or any other crap. Diet purists all over the world are passing out in disbelief that I call eating bacon and mayo a success. But I do, and it is! What I ate today at lunch was 1000 times better than anything I *would* have ordered a few years ago, or anything I would have ordered had I “given in” to the call of greasy burgers and fries. How many calories do you think I saved? Several hundred, at least. 100 in cheese, 200 in burger meat, 150 in soda, 400 in fries… something like that, not to mention dessert. Yeah, I did great. I am happy.

Better is only good enough, though, if it is reasonable. I mean, you have to think, better than WHAT? It has to be better ENOUGH to make a difference in your weight. I used to eat 5 candy bars at a sitting, but that doesn’t mean I can be happy eating three or four candy bars now instead, because that is “better” than eating five. The “better” has to be in context. It has to work for you.

But when you think you have to be perfect and only eat veggies and salad and grilled chicken you *might* be setting yourself up for distress when the day comes that you cannot have or do not want to have that kind of meal. You will be at your mother-in-laws and she will have made her famous family recipe lasagna *just for you* and you will not be able, in that moment, to say “no thank you, I brought this chicken breast in a baggie” and you will eat that lasagna. And if you are all Diet Purist Perfectionistic, that will spiral you into a vortex of shame, guilt, anger, and regret. It’s a piece of lasagna! Get over it. Eat more salad with it or something. Just do better. Better is okay. You do not have to lose 20 pounds a month to be a success.

In the context of my day, I am well. For breakfast I had a delicious Chai tea latte, a big bowl of oatmeal with pumpkin, flax, walnuts, cinnamon, vanilla, brown sugar, and milk, and green tea. As a snack in the afternoon, I had a french vanilla cappuccino and a bite of donut. (Yes, A Bite!). Dinner was a nice helping of cabbage roll casserole and a handful of fresh blackberries. So, that turkey club at the diner was just fine, in context. I ate 1286 calories today (so far… I may have a 100-calorie cup of pudding before I go to bed). I biked for 30 minutes. I feel great aside from this weird cold/flu thing I am fighting.

Try not to be too hard on yourself. Enjoy your food. Be moderate. Do better. Not perfect.

For the last couple of days, I’ve been eating a little more and not exercising because I’ve been sick. I try to eat according to appetite (i.e., listening to my body) within a range of 1200-1700 calories per day. And I try to exercise for 30 minutes a day, 6 days a week. I did stay within my calorie range, but didn’t exercise, and with all the higher carb, saltier types of foods I was eating and the tons of water I continued to drink, I wondered if I might have a bit of a gain on the scale. But, ya know, just the other day I was saying how happy I am to be in the 220′s and how seeing 227 on the scale was just fine with me. I’ve been in a mindset of being really okay with a bit of a plateau for a week or two if need be.

So this morning I got on the scale expecting another 227, but instead got 225! Wha??? I got on and off a couple of times but indeed I now weigh 225. I’ll take it! A whoosh is always nice.

The last time I weighed 225 was on 4/8/09… eight months ago. And the last time I weighed 224? 12/15/08… almost a year ago. Wow. I really am thrilled!

I’m almost over my flu/cold/whatever it was, but still have a headache. It is really cold outside but I have some shopping to do and errands to run, and I plan to take a 10 or 15 minute walk in the sunshine (just until I am too cold to be comfortable). I’ll also bike for 30 minutes tonight.

One of my usually wonderful, almost-adult kids is giving me major amounts of stress right now. MAJOR. One thing he is teaching me is that if one is not motivated to do a particular thing, no amount of consequences will budge you. Being too fat to walk, hurting whenever you move, acid reflux, heart palpitations, acne, fatigue, clothes not fitting, pants having holes worn between the thighs, busting out in fat rolls all over, seclusion, inability to fit in chairs… all of those things might *seem* like they would force someone to lose weight, but if a person is not motivated FROM WITHIN, they will keep on plugging along, eating what they want, not changing, even with all of those embarrassments and discomforts. A vague desire to “be thin” is not motivation. You might *want* to be thin but unless you are motivated and determined to do the work to get there, you’ll just sit suffering and miserable and blaming everyone and everything else and not make any changes. The desire to change has to come from within.

My kid isn’t fat, but that is what he has taught me with the *other* issues he is going through right now. And no matter what consequences I impose or what effects come naturally to him because of his behaviors, he will not change until he is motivated to do so from within. And neither will you.

Nurture your motivation, people. It’s the only way you’ll get to your goals. Motivation, determination, and just plain commitment.