Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Expanding my reach

I'm not sure how many days people will be interested in reading about what I eat and don't eat.
Perhaps I should write about other things as well. That would make me a blogger-wannabe of the worst order!

Until recently, I have been seriously suspicious of the whole "web 2.0" revolution, blogging especially. I spent 6 years working on Internet technologies in the height of the tech boom actually making web sites that did things - like e-commerce. To me the web was about increasing efficiencies in business and personal transactions. Why on Earth would I want to read other people's opinions about some arcane news item or let people know what I fed my kids for dinner?? 

But of course now that my kids are older and I have some time to waste I'm finding it pretty fulfilling to have a sense of what my friends are doing that I lost touch with 20 years ago - and my friends are surprisingly interested to hear me confess when I serve dino nuggets for dinner. And as for blogging - I was just on the wrong side! I'm the queen of unsolicited opinions. Really, it is a daily struggle, one that I often lose, to keep my unwanted opinions to myself. Years ago when passing a vacant storefront my husband joked that I should open a store, "Opinions, $5." So blogging is perfect for me, and I don't have to pay to rent a storefront!

At any rate, it seems I should expand upon topics aside from what I eat. Surely this topic will grow boring. I only started posting that info as a way to be accountable. But I'm kind of in the swing of things now in terms of healthy portions, even getting good at determining real hunger from transitory hunger or boredom. For the record real hunger is when I start to get really angry AND it's more than an hour from a meal. I'm making wiser choices about the kinds of food I eat, snacking less, exercising more consistently. So it is kind of like Cheers after Sam and Rebecca get together. It's boring. 

Of course there are more struggles to come. I'm not at my goal weight - not even close, but I did lose 12 pounds, as evidenced by the scale in Bed Bath and Beyond today. What else would a person who has missed 7 days of work in the past two weeks do on her first day back but run to Bed Bath and Beyond to accomplish the suddenly vital errand of buying a new shower loofah?

I'm afraid to buy a scale as I feel it would lead to obsessive, unhealthy, twice-daily weight checking. Instead I come up with silly reasons to go to Bed Bath and Beyond to use theirs. 

But I digress from my point. My point is that I will try and address issues aside from my dieting foibles from time to time.  Tonight however, I will detail how pathetic my afternoon was. 

First of all, after eating only 4-5 points each for breakfast and lunch I was starving and looking for a snack. I was at work so I ate my plain yogurt with no flavor and was not enjoying it. It was just something with protein to fill me up. Now when I add a little honey and a handful of Go Lean Crunch it's quite tasty - a mix of textures, sweet, sour, etc. I felt kind of like an idiot wasting a perfectly good snack on just trying to get full. That is not a way to enjoy life!

Then at home I was just dying to eat dinner starting at about 4:30. I kept trying to eat bits of things like chunky salsa with baked tortilla chips and tea with a splash of milk. The baked corn chips were so cardboard-like that I just switched to celery. Then Natasha and her friend were hungry for dinner at 5:15. I was trying to wait until 6 but ended up picking at their food. I had some turkey with bad low-fat gravy, some of Natasha's plain potatoes and was still hungry. I was not sitting, was picking at things, and was completely unsatisfied. It was so pathetic. I could have made a nice sit-down family dinner but just ate standing up instead and we all ate at different times! I hate that!!! I did realize that trader Joe's prepared Cuban-style black beans have only 1 point for half a cup. I rounded off my meal with some of them - warm and filling. I'm not having dessert of any kind tonight except for 2 prunes because I'm annoyed with myself for not really enjoying my food today.

Food log - must eat more fruit
breakfast
whole wheat roll with egg white and tad sharp cheddar cheese
lots of coffee with milk

lunch
very nice salad with 1 tbs blue cheese dressing (delish) 2 slices procuitto, another small roll

snack
10 cardboard corn chips
1/4 cup black bean and corn salsa
celery

dinner
this was a really pathetic state of affairs. 
3 oz turkey
1/2 cup roasted potatoes with sweet mustard sauce (this I made the other day)
1/2 cup Cuban black beans

dessert
2 prunes

exercise
770 stairs with ipod - officemate not in due to weather

1 comment:

  1. I do have a scale, but avoid it mostly. I weighed in today and had lost 4 pounds since I last checked about a month ago, so that was very encouraging. Sometimes the scale can help, but it is a mistake to get enslaved to it.

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