Sunday in the Kitchen

Today was all about preparing myself for the coming week - lots of laundry, picking up around the house and COOKING!  I made yet another batch of granola bars:

A batch of brown sugar meringues (only 11 calories each!):

I am aware that they don't look like the ones you buy in the store - I used a spoon rather than a pastry bag and they look like something out of a Dr. Seuss book!  But I can assure you they taste heavenly and each one is absolutely unique.

I also cooked up a huge batch of brussel sprouts for the week.  Here is batch #1:

 

This one got a little burned, but they are nice and crunchy.  I cooked up another huge batch after this was done - and instead of sauteing in olive oil, I chopped up 2 slices of bacon, cooked them, and then sauted the sprouts in the bacon fat.  YUUUUUUMMMMMMMM:

  

Then I mixed both batches together to share the bacon love.

While all that was going on, I baked some oven-fried chicken and made some corn chowder.  All in all a very productive day, and now I have plenty of healthy lunch choices - no excuses this week!

FYI, all of the recipes except the granola bars & brussel sprouts came from a cookbook I just got from Bookswim called 'Cook Yourself Thin Faster'.  I highly recommend it - there are some great recipes and all of them are very easy!

Support for a Worthy Cause

A fellow blogger and triathlete (well, she's a triathlete, I'm just a wannabe) is raising money for The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society: Natasha, The Unlikely Triathlete has signed up for The Nation's Triathlon in September!  Congrats Natasha!

Here's a link to her fundraising page - please consider donating to support this worthy cause!

There's Hope For Me Yet...

For the past several days I have avoided the scale because I didn't want to see a gain and get discouraged.  I haven't counted calories very closely for the past few days and last weekend I know I ate more than I should have.  And in the past this behavior has always resulted in a gain of a few pounds.  But I decided it was time to face the music this morning and lo and behold, I had a 0.6 pound loss when I got on the scale!  I'm not 100% sure why this happened, but I *think* that I am finally learning to eat intuitively.  The thought 'hunger is not an emergency' continually runs through my head and I try to delay eating my next meal until I'm truly hungry.  I'm learning to not eat until I'm stuffed & sick, and when I do have a snack, it's not a candy bar - it's a few clementines and some nuts or a piece of cheese.  I'm savoring and enjoying my food a lot more, and - get this - I am actually satisfied with less!  There have been a few times over the past couple days where I've stopped myself from going into a binge with the thought "Do I really want to be that person?  Is it really worth it?  Or do I want to be someone who stops before they've gone too far?"  I know it's too premature to tell for sure, but I think I'm slowly redefining my eating habits and relying more on physical cues for hunger rather than emotional ones.

Overall, I'm pleased with my progress - not just on the scale but inside my head.  I'm definitely not ready to discontinue the daily calorie counting but it was exciting to see that some of those subconscious habits are starting to change.  There's hope for me yet...

Pat Pat Pat

The other day I realized that I have been doing 45-minute strength training workouts twice a week with Rena for about eight months.  Without question, that is the longest I have ever stuck with a fitness routine - normally I abandon my workouts as soon as my eating patterns slide.  But for the last eight months, regardless of whether I am eating 'on plan' or not, or whether I'm getting in any cardio, or really paying attention to any other health issues in my life, I have faithfully gone to my twice-weekly workouts.  As a result, I can feel firm muscle developing underneath my slowly disappearing fat, and in general I am just stronger, more flexible and more fit.  Not only am I proud of my new muscles and fitness - I am AMAZED that I have stuck with something for so long.  This gives me hope that I will ultimately attain my weight loss goals and also any other goals I may set for myself - I feel like anything is possible!  Woohoo!

My Inner Toddler

This past weekend two old friends came to visit for a few days.  It was great – we caught up on old times, had a few drinks, shopped and had some great food.   Calorie-wise I ate more than usual, but when I compared what I ate to what my Bodybugg said I burned, it was a break-even situation.  So even though I didn't lose weight over the weekend, I didn't gain.  The real damage was weakening my resistance muscle – several times I ate when I really wasn’t hungry (Karen brought Lindor Truffles and I am helpless around them) and Saturday night I had four pieces of pizza even though I was full after two.  The poor choices continued long after my friends left - last night I grazed my way through the kitchen and this morning I found myself eating a lot of unplanned food.   I finally recognized that my habit of saying no to unplanned food had been broken and needed to be repaired from the ground up.  This afternoon I've been trying to redirect myself every time the thought of food comes up, which means that every two minutes I have to deal with the automatic thought 'I'm hungry, time to eat!'

Basically, my subconscious is acting like a toddler in a room full of delicate glass figurines.   Oooh! Shiny!  Pretty!  Want to touch!   I have to be hyper-vigilant, watching her every move, or else she will pick one up and break it.  Put that down honey, it might break. No sweetie, put it down, that’s fragile! No! Put that down! I SAID NO!  Sigh.  My entire day has been like this.   I wish I could check myself into daycare so someone else could keep an eye on me for awhile.

What have I learned from this?  Never let my guard down - if I didn't plan to eat it, I should just say no.  It's too hard to relearn habits after a relapse.

I'll get to put my newly learned lesson to the test tomorrow, because I am flying to New Hampshire for the day, which means airports and eating out.  I'll bring some healthy snacks and keep reminding myself that  hunger is not an emergency, but I think tomorrow will mostly be me vs. myself, gutting it out against my subconscious.

In other news, I went to the gym this morning and swam 500 yards nonstop - a new training record!  Yay me!

Girl's Weekend

Got a couple of friends here for the weekend, enjoying some good relaxing girl time and chatter for a few days - promise to post soon!

Freecycle! Changing the World One Gift at a Time

No news on the fitness front today other than keeping my calories a bit below normal to compensate for dinner out last night (and 2 glasses of champagne, yum!).  All is going well in diet-land and I don't have any insights or other thoughts to offer today.

So, I thought instead I'd use this time to write about one of my favorite things, Freecycle.  For the uninitiated, Freecycle is world-wide network of local groups, the members of which give and receive 'gifts' that are actually items that the owner no longer needs (or in some cases is willing to loan out for a short period).  There are groups springing up all over the world, and to find a group near you just check www.Freecycle.org.  The whole thing is done through email and Yahoo groups, and honestly couldn't be any easier to use.

The purpose of the group is to keep otherwise useful items out of landfills - from furniture to egg cartons, almost everything we touch can have a second life with someone else!  It gives me great joy to pass along something that I'm no longer using, rather than letting it clutter up my house or even worse, a garbage dump. 

Here are a few things I have successfully Freecycled (the list is much longer but these are some fun examples):

• Old umbrellas, to a high school drama club staging a production of 'Singing in the Rain'
• Several almost new bottles of expensive shampoo, conditioner, etc. that I used once and didn't like
• Sparkly silver pumps (sadly, a size too small for me)
  
• A gift certificate to a local theater that I knew I wouldn't use
• A box of 3 dozen weight loss books that I've read over the years (yes, I finally admitted that they weren't really helping me)
• Several unopened cute travel toiletry kits from British Airways - these went to a local homeless shelter!
• A couple old cell phones

Freecycle is also a great way to save money - just keep an eye on things that are posted, and you might end up finding someone that is giving away exactly what you need...like the time I lost my car phone charger and someone serendipitously offered one up a few weeks later.  And here's the best part: I had the opportunity to Freecycle the same charger to someone else just this past weekend, so it's getting yet another chance at a useful life!

I could go on and on (and I guess I have) but this is such a great grassroots movement that I thought it deserved some airtime!  Now it's up to you - what do you have in your house that you can Freecycle?

Cookies in the House

We have cookies in the house.  Beautiful tiny shortbread hearts, dipped in chocolate.  Yum.  They joined us last Tuesday night, straight from Whole Foods, and they are flaky and buttery and pretty much perfection itself.  But strangely enough, there are still several left.  I'm not sure what to say about that...this is completely unprecedented territory for me.  Normally they would have been gone in at least 48 hours, and there is just NO WAY they ever would have survived a weekend with me at home.  But instead of eating the whole package as a snack, I've eaten just one cookie per day, right after dinner.  Three bites to savor, and that's it.  I am stunned, amazed and proud of myself beyond belief.

And did I mention the gourmet organic milk chocolate?  It remains on the counter, unopened and ignored since Tuesday night.  It's there for me when I'm ready.  Again, speechless but proud.

The hunger experiments went well this weekend - I managed to eat 3 meals and a snack on both Saturday and Sunday and went hungry in between.  I kept myself busy by organizing things around the house, cleaning, moving furniture, posting things on Freecycle, reading, blogging, watching movies, exercising...anything but eating.  I went to bed a little hungry last night, and woke up hungry this morning.  And strangely enough, I'm starting to like feeling a bit hungry - it reminds me that my body is actively seeking other sources of energy: FAT!

Of course, riding out the hunger at home which is essentially a stress-free zone is one thing, but trying this out at work will be a new challenge.  I'm glad I practiced for a few days before going pro.  I'll check back in tonight to let y'all know how things went today!

Weight Loss Tracker

I ditched the Traineo tracker on my blog because it only shows my progress towards my interim August goal...and I was tired of seeing something that said I'd only lost 4 pounds when I've actually lost 15.  So I decided to put up a ticker that shows my final weight loss goal instead.

Also, I'm now officially counting down the days til my Triathlon in August - less than 7 months to go!

Results of the Hunger Experiment

I'm happy to report that last night's hunger experiment went very well - I didn't eat anything for the rest of the night, my hunger died down to a tolerable level and most importantly...the world did not end.  In fact, about an hour after I wrote the post last night I'd completely forgotten about food because I got wrapped up watching the latest episode of Biggest Loser. 

The Beck Diet has quite a few experiments designed to help dieters learn new ways of thinking.  I'm planning to try most of them out - I'll post about the results as I work my way through them.

Experimenting With Hunger

In her book, The Complete Beck Diet For Life, Dr. Beck writes that you shouldn't eat unless you're experiencing true hunger pangs, and she feels that most Americans don't know what true hunger feels like.  I know I don't - I've always had trouble with this skill.  For example, last night I planned out all my food for today and have eaten everything according to plan.  I had a healthy breakfast and lunch, and just finished a very satisfying 650-calorie dinner about 45 minutes ago.  But I still feel kinda hungry, like I need to eat something else.  Sitting here, I'm mentally reviewing what's in the fridge, trying to decide how many calories I can eat to make the hungry feeling go away without doing too much damage to my daily total.  The urge to make the hunger go away is so automatic that my brain keeps returning to the thought "you're hungry, go get something to eat" about every 90 seconds.  I just can't stomach the thought of being hungry - it makes me feel uncomfortable emotionally as well as physically.  And I do NOT like being uncomfortable!

In Dr. Beck's words, "Being hungry is not an emergency."  And my logical thinking brain knows that it's not, that I'm obviously in no danger of starving.  Hell, I have 451,535* calories stored on my body as fat - that's got to be enough to get me through at least one evening without food, right?  So why do I feel a bit panicky at the thought of not eating and feeling hungry all night?  Do I need to run a marathon tonight?  No.  Am I Scarlett O'Hara (as God is my witness...), rebuilding my plantation after it was destroyed by the Yankees?  No.  But deep down inside...and I really think this is the root of the issue...I equate hunger with being unfulfilled.  And rather than take the time to find out what I really need, I take the easy way out and stuff the feelings down with food, rather than experience and deal with them. 

I could always drink a glass of water to make the hungry feeling go away, but I think this evening I'm going to feel the hunger, and prove to myself that the world won't end if I'm not fed.  I've never been one to just sit with a feeling, physical or emotional, and just experience it.  Not try to change it, fix it, make it better or worse - just experience it.  So tonight I'm going to do just that - I have a quiet evening planned at home, by myself.  I'm just going to putter around the house, maybe read, maybe do some housework, and just be hungry.

FYI - Jen at PriorFatGirl.com has a great discussion going today on this very topic - check out the action here.

*The reason I know the exact number?  I had my body fat checked yesterday.  Ouch.  But that's another post entirely.

Resisting The Cupcakes --OR-- Why Starbucks Is Part Of My Workout Routine

Every morning on the way to work I head to Starbucks to get my daily coffee fix.  It's a part of my morning routine that I look forward to every day - it doesn't add too many calories, I enjoy exchanging a few jokes and pleasantries with the baristas, and the coffee gets me ready for a busy day.  All in all, it's a harmless guilty pleasure. 

But....as I stand in line each morning, I inevitably end up gazing in loving admiration at the baked goods, for which Starbucks is legendary.  Some are year round staples, and some come and go with the seasons (alas, the peppermint brownie has gone the way of the Christmas decorations and music) (not that I care, because of course I've never had one) (yeah, right).  This year the peppermint brownie has been replaced with cupcakes.  Red.  Velvet.  Cupcakes.  Yum.

**short break while I wipe the drool off my keyboard**

This morning as I was blatantly ogling looking at them while I waited for my coffee I thought "Why on earth do I do this to myself every morning?  One day I am going to give in and it won't be worth it.  Then I'll feel guilty, probably binge as a result, and have to work extra hard to relose the weight I've gained.  I just could buy a pound of coffee, make my drink at home and not have to worry about this temptation."

Hmmm.  ShrinkingJill, you've got a good point there.  Why not set yourself up for success rather than failure?

Then I considered Judith Beck's thoughts about strengthening mental muscles - the giving-in muscle vs. the resistance muscle.  Every time I eat something that wasn't in my plan, I'm strengthening my giving-in muscle, and every time I'm faced with a choice and stick to my plan I'm strengthening my resistance muscle.  When we don't work our muscles, they atrophy.  You wouldn't do biceps curls every day until you had the biceps of your dreams, and then just stop working them, right?  You'd keep doing those curls to make sure the muscle stays exactly the way you want it to be.  So it goes with the resistance muscle...if I don't challenge myself regularly it will get weaker. 

So, I'm going to think of my morning Starbucks excursion as my daily resistance muscle exercise.  My chance to start the day off right by saying NO rather than YES.  Some people start the day with situps or pushups right after they jump out of bed - I'm going to stare down those cupcakes every morning and show them who's boss.   Me.

Random Attacks of Happiness

Does anyone else get hit occasionally with random attacks of happiness, just out of the blue and for no good reason whatsoever?  I know what you're thinking...ShrinkingJill, you might want to think about cutting back on the wine with breakfast...but I'm serious!  It happens most often when I'm driving by myself or just generally letting my thoughts drift, and sometimes I just feel so incredibly content that I think I'll never be unhappy again - like it doesn't matter that I'm 100 pounds overweight, that I can't stand my job, that I have so many unresolved personal issues - I just sort of bliss out and am happy just existing.  It's not like this happens daily, or even weekly, but when it does I feel like everything is right with the world and I could tackle any problem that comes my way.

It's such a good feeling, and I just wondered if this happens to anyone else - without chemical assistance, obviously...

In other news, a brand new Whole Foods opened up in my neighborhood today - it's only 3 miles from my house, is at least 3x larger than any of the other ones in the area and has a ROOFTOP GARDEN!  Wahooo!   I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that they'll have free Wifi, because I can see myself blogging there all summer with a cup of peppermint tea by my side.

The Beck Diet

For the past several days I've been reading The Complete Beck Diet For Life and really enjoying it - Judith Beck is a cognitive behavioral therapist specializing in weight issues, and in this book she provides excellent techniques for changing thought patterns.  Today I was delighted to see the Beck Diet Newsletter pop up in my email box.  I urge you to give it a read, because it provides some good food for thought as well as a flavor of what's in the book.  Hmmm, does anyone else notice how many food-related descriptors I use...

In the newsletter she writes about the idea of 'strengthening your giving-in muscle' every time you eat something that wasn't in your food plan for the day.  In other words, you are actively reinforcing a bad habit when you give in to the candy dish on your coworker's desk - in the same way you are reinforcing a good habit when you follow your plan to have a piece of fruit for a snack instead of a candy bar.  I love this concept!

I also strongly identified with the story about Laura, because I've been there all too often - my carefully crafted plan is derailed due to circumstances beyond my control and I turn into a deer caught in the headlights, hesitating for the briefest moment...and instead of heading back into the woods I jump right in front of the oncoming car.  I always feel a twinge of panic when my original food plan needs to change - and I often end up using the situation as an excuse to eat something I know I shouldn't.  Why?  If I've chosen to include something in my daily food plan it's because I think it will satisfy me.  Deviating from that plan means that I might not enjoy the alternative...and the thought of not getting emotional or physical satisfaction from my food scares me.  Not sure why that is, but it's the honest truth and it's something I need to work on.  There's always another meal, always another snack but sometimes I find that hard to remember.

I guess what I really took away from Laura's story is that it's important to plan for success - but even more important to be prepared for the unexpected and make sure these events don't derail the overall course of your journey AND your ability to enjoy that journey.

Anyway, the book expands on all the concepts in the newsletter, and provides training on many other skills to help you handle situations where a choice is needed.  So far I've learned a lot and I'm getting ready to move into Stage 1, where you begin to document your practice of the various skills - including things like daily motivation, distractions from craving, and rehearsed answers for sabotaging thoughts such as "It isn't fair, other people eat whatever they want".  There is a lot of writing and daily homework to keep you focused on learning new behaviors, which is critical to success for someone like me - I am a creature of habit and it takes A LOT to make me change my ways.

If you want to join an online discussion group about this book, share your experiences, or just hear what others are saying, check out the first assignment (pages 1-50) here at PriorFatGirl.com.

Happy reading!

Swimming

Sunday is normally my treadmill and swim day, but I've developed tendinitis in my right Achilles tendon and have decided to avoid the treadmill for a couple weeks until it heals up a bit.  So my workout tonight was all swimming!  I wanted to stay in the pool for a half hour so I broke up the laps with some pool running to give my legs a workout.  It is HARD to run in the pool!

Anyway, I swam a total of 650 yards tonight when all was said and done, but I'm a bit concerned about my breathing.  I find that my most efficient stroke is freestyle, breathing after every 4th stroke.  However, after about 100 yards I find that it becomes harder and harder to take a full breath to carry me forward and my throat starts to feel constricted.  Breathing after every other stroke is a bit better but it throws off my rhythm and slows me down.  And in general I find that my breaststroke is extremely slow as well as more tiring.  Is there anyone out there with advice on how to improve my breathing?  I think this will end up being the limiting factor in my ability to complete the triathlon in August, so I'd better find a solution to this problem!

Breakthrough

After lunch today I was hit with a strong craving for chocolate cake.  I thought about the food I had left in my lunch bag (4 clementines and a banana) and then thought about the spare change in my wallet (vending machine run, perhaps?).  What was going to satisfy this craving?  Or what if I just tried to figure out what I was really craving?  Was chocolate cake going to do the job (and just for the record I was envisioning an enormous slice of the cake they serve at Macaroni Grill...moist, warm and drenched in hot fudge, mmmmmmm) or did I need something else?  I decided to eat a couple clementines and wander over to Jenn's cube for a chat.  We talked about chocolate cake, and diets in general, and the conversation meandered around for a bit.  I ate both clementines.  And then the most remarkable thing happened - I really wasn't interested in cake anymore.  Perhaps my craving was for a distraction from my work, rather than food?   I think I may have just successfully done what all the diet books tell you to do...redirect yourself when you are craving something unhealthy.  This may not seem like much, but I am so used to giving in to my cravings that riding one out is truly a foreign concept to me.  Judith Beck describes giving in to a craving as 'strengthening your giving-in muscle' and suggests that each time you are faced with a choice you need to decide which muscle you're going to strengthen - the giving-in one or the willpower one.  I know which one I chose today!

BTW, I started reading the Complete Beck Diet for Life and I'm really impressed.  Jen over at Prior Fat Girl started a book club to discuss it - check out the action here.

Now back to work...

Weight Loss Target

I know I said I wasn't going to do it, but I caved and set a target weight for myself.  I would like to weigh 200 pounds before my triathlon in August.  So...I set myself up with a Traineo account and put some gadgets on my blog to publicise my progress.

Starbucks!

Oh Starbucks, how I love your latte.  The creamy foam, the bitter coffee, the sweetness of the syrup.  Nobody does it better.

My usual drink is a tall nonfat vanilla latte (or is it vanilla nonfat tall latte?  or tall vanilla nonfat latte?) and I pretty much start every day with one - I stop on the way to work, say hi to my fave baristas, and then relax in vanilla bliss in the car for the rest of the drive to work.  The 80's station on XM makes the experience complete - nothing beats rocking out to 'Livin on a Prayer' prior to a long day of meetings.

But...I don't think I can afford 160 calories for coffee every morning, no matter how much I love it!  So this morning I'm going to try to ease my way out of the latte habit.  New drink: tall nonfat Cafe Misto with 1 shot of syrup.  This still gives me 6 oz of milk plus my sweet vanilla fix, and comes in (according to the website) at about 80 calories. Hey - that fits in with my morning 80's theme!  I think this new partnership was meant to be.

Still Messing Around With The Blog Format

Yes, I've chosen yet another template.  I just can't seem to choose one that makes me happy, and my lack of HTML prowess means I can't do much reorganizing to the templates that are out there.  But not for long...I'm officially registered for a day-long HTML class at Temple in February!  And that's one of my 2010 goals checked off too!

In other news, I got home from work today to find an unexpected package from Amazon.  Apparently I pre-ordered the book Angry Fat Girls last September, and it was just released a few days ago.  Yippee!  I am so excited to read this book - Frances Kuffel, who wrote Passing for Thin, also wrote this book.  I loved Passing For Thin and found her story incredibly inspiring.  I'm hoping this book is as good as the last.

Soy Sauce Rant

My husband makes an incredibly yummy Asian treat that I call Taiwanese mashed potatoes (inside joke) and that most Asian folks call Taro cake.  I am helpless around this stuff - it may not look or sound that good (I was tremendously skeptical the first time he made it for me) but trust me, this stuff is irresistible when lightly pan fried and dipped in soy sauce.  Which brings me to the point of today's post...

Ken made a batch of taro cake at the end of December and of course I totally indulged on New Year's Eve and ate several pieces.  Yuh-huh-hummmmm.  As usual I drenched it in lots of soy sauce.  New Year's Day I woke up with a crushing headache, and since I only had one beer the day before I couldn't fathom why.  Until it hit me - was there MSG in the soy sauce?  I'm pretty sensitive to the stuff.  We had just purchased a new bottle from an untried brand, but since most foods are MSG-free these days I don't normally check labels.  I padded downstairs, grabbed the bottle and...lo and behold, MSG was on the list.  Along with Insinate Disodium Guanylate, whatever the hell that is. And yeast extract.  And sodium benzoate.  Seriously?  I thought soy sauce was supposed to be water, soy beans and wheat.  What's the point of all that other stuff?

Fast forward to last night - my awesome hubby made more taro cake while I was in Indiana and I had some for dinner, forgetting about the stupid soy sauce.  This morning I woke up with ANOTHER headache!  Grrr.  I stopped at the store on my way home from work and tried to find some without any added ingredients.  The best I could do was Kikkoman: water, wheat, soybeans, salt, and sodium benzoate (which is apparently a preservative). 

I started to wonder about the rest of the food in my pantry - what else is lurking?  Here are some alarming results:

Progresso 45% Less Sodium Chicken and Wild Rice Soup - low sodium is good, right?  Nuh-uh, not when there are things like hydrolzyed corn protein, disodium inosinate, disodium guanylate (sounding familiar?), chicken powder (WHAT THE HECK IS THAT???), soy protein isolate, and calcium chloride.  What is all this stuff?

Here's another one: Campbells Pork and Beans - High fructose corn syrup, modified food starch, caramel color and...wait for it...paprika oleoresin.  Seriously?  Is this some uber-flavorful variety of paprika extracted from the oleo tree?

What the heck is this stuff doing in our food???  It turns out that calcium chloride is used to maintain firmness in canned vegetables.  And contrary to what you'd expect, paprika oleoresin is a coloring, not a flavoring.  Disodium inosinate and disodium guanylate are both flavor enhancers, closely related in structure to MSG.  Hydrolyzed corn protein is also an MSG-related flavor enhancer.  Oh yeah - it's also made by boiling the corn in hydrochloric acid and then neutralizing it in sodium hydroxide.  That sounds like something you want to put in your mouth, right?

It seems that MSG is lurking everywhere!  Especially in foods that don't list it as an ingredient.  Over the years I've had many, many unexplained headaches - how many have been related to this pervasive chemical?  Have I been doing this to myself the whole time?

I honestly expected these ingredients to be preservatives of some sort - not flavor or texture enhancers.  Do these products taste that bad without chemical help?  Are these chemicals intended to trigger the addictive areas of our brain to keep us coming back for more?  What's wrong with just making products from real ingredients?  David Kessler (The End of Overeating) and Michael Pollen (In Defense of Food) have both written extensively about the dangers of food additives and the need for us to eat real food.  I think they are definitely onto something.

As for me, I'm going to start reading labels.  Closely.  It may take me a lot longer to get the grocery shopping done, but after my little research project tonight I don't think I'll ever shop the same way again.

Update on 07Jan10: This morning I went on a wild frenzy and pulled everything out of the pantry that had any kind of freaky chemical in it.  Buh-bye Gatorade powder, Kraft mac-n-cheese, Rice-a-Roni, random generic brand corn taco shells, Progresso soup, pumpkin pie filling, and so much more.  I filled an enormous shopping bag with everything and left it up for grabs in the cafeteria at work.  I feel a lot better about my kitchen now!

Back With A Vengeance, Baby!

The past few weeks have been an exercise in reckless, rebellious, I'm-cheating-on-my-diet-and-you-can't-stop-me eating.  I wouldn't qualify it as full-on binge eating, but I was not counting calories at all, and was actively seeking opportunities (some would say making excuses) to chow down on my favorite foods.  A lot.

But today I truly got back on track and it just felt so good!  Not like a sacrifice, but more like a gift I was giving to myself.  I was (of course) a little hungry all day, and my workout tonight was REALLY hard (due to muscles shrunken from extended couch surfing) but honestly I was getting tired of the reckless eating and it was just such a relief to relax back into my nice routine.  Sore muscles and all, I feel like my hard drive has been rebooted. 

And here's the best part - just after lunch I was on my way to a meeting and passed a basket of fun-size candy bars on the admin's desk.  Without thinking I exclaimed 'hey, free candy!' and gleefully took a piece.  When I got to the conference room I looked in my hand and thought - I don't even want this, why did I take it?????  High fructose corn syrup, refined sugar, preservatives...no, not today.  So I put.....it.....back.  Yes, you heard me correctly:  I. PUT. IT. BACK.  And ate a clementine instead.

Books Books Books!!!!!

I received a truly amazing gift for Christmas this year - an unlimited supply of books, in the form of a subscription to BookSwim.  For the uninitiated, BookSwim is like Netflix for books - you have a reading list and for a small monthly fee they send you the first few books on your list, with no shipping charges.  When you are done reading them you mail them back, with no late fees or shipping charges, and the next book(s) are dropped in the mail.  Seriously, this is a dream come true for me!  I used to spend literally hundreds of dollars a year on books, many of which ended up on my bookshelf half-read because I'd find something more interesting to read.  Then I became hooked on the library - the books are free and you can request books from any library in the network and have them shipped to your local library free of charge.  However, there is a time limit on reading these books and often you have to wait several weeks until your name gets to the top of the waiting list.  And of course there are late fees if you don't return them on time.  With Bookswim, you keep the books as long as you want and there aren't any long waiting lists!

This means that one of my favorite activities - spending a few hours at Borders with a latte and a stack of books - has become even more fun.  I still gather a huge stack of books to page through, but now I can bring my laptop and put the ones I like on my BookSwim reading list rather than purchase them or wait for them to become available at the library.  And!!!!  If there is a book you would like to borrow, but it isn't in the BookSwim library, you can request it - if enough people request the same book they'll add it!  And for you students out there, they also have textbooks to lend.

Here's my list so far:

1. The Hour I First Believed, by Wally Lamb
2. Head First HTML, by Eric Freeman
3. Heat, by Bill Buford
4. Belong to Me, by Marissa de los Santos
5. Losing It, by Valerie Bertinelli
6. Cook Food, by Lisa Jarvis
7. On Writing Well, by William Zinsser
8. Cook Yourself Thin Faster, by Lauren Deen
9. 29 Gifts, by Cami Walker
10. Deeper than the Dead, by Tami Hoag
    

I am completely smitten with this website - and would love to hear if anyone else has subscribed to the service!  And of course, any recommendations for my reading list would be greatly appreciated.

Happy reading!

Weekend Trip

Happy New Year everyone!

This morning I am jetting off to Lafayette, Indiana to visit my friend Kim for a few days.  I am incredibly excited for this trip because we haven't been able to get together in a couple years and we always have a great time together.  Kim is a fantastic cook and always seems to know the best restaurants around, so I know there will be many gastronomic pleasures this weekend.

With that in mind, I'm not planning to lose any weight over the next few days - but I'm confident I can maintain.  My strategy is to eat mindfully and enjoy every bite of food and sip of wine, rather than just to shovel things in my mouth without appreciating the flavors and textures.  And of course to stop eating before I am stuffed, so that I can relax and enjoy good conversation after every meal, rather than falling asleep or feeling uncomfortable and sick.  And maybe even sneak in a walk every day, if it's not too cold!

I'll resume posting when I return!