oh the places you've been

...which are obviously not on this blog...

I had one of those spontaneous moments of motivation this summer.
Nestled in the base of the hill at work is a tiny diminutive business that advertises "personal training" in its shop byline.

Curiosity got to me and on 4th of July weekend I found myself with a date with a trainer.

I had never done the trainer thing before, I've only witnessed their acts on TV....

Back to Work & Recap

I took a vacation recently, an eating vacation. Remember that whole celebration month of December? Yep- that's the vacation month. Piled with parties and gift giving, candy making and cookie nibbling.

And I think I survived. Now that I'm halfway thru January, I can say I'm back on track to my life long habit of eating healthier.

Recap:
November was an odd month. Having just read that my eating strategy of reduction was in fact plain old starvation was frustrating, demoralizing and full of accomplishment at the same time.

Heck- if I can survive a starvation strategy, I can now remind myself that lack of will power is not a viable excuse anymore to give up.

So you know what I did that month of November? That month I didn't write any updates because I was busy being a human guinea pig. I put myself on a no carb, high fat diet to test if I would gain weight.

The outcome: I lost weight while pouring cream into my coffee.

I was stunned. And feeling no-carb diet naive. I thought that was going to be my life long future eating plan: meat and cheese.

Except, avoiding sugars and carbs proved too hard for my resolve when smacked with the Christmas month of Holidays.

November and December were challenging but great months. I learned to be flexible, not restrict myself, and to continue to loosen up on judging myself. Even if I'm restricting carbs- having waffles for two days straight on Christmas is just fine. Really.

What I'm doing now:
- I'm not basing my meals on refined carbohydrates.
- I'm not restricting fats.
- I'm in love with nuts.
- I'm addicted to udon soup.

And I'm down 20 lbs from my beginning weight.

Viva la Revolution!

sustainability

I've been reading Good Calories, Bad Calories, by Gary Taubes.
The road of reading that book has been so up and down- a mingling of anger, frustration and astonishment. To quote an amazon reviewer of the book: "The research level is staggering and evidence so overwhelming that portions of the book are downright infuriating."

His historical culmination of obesity research seeks to weave the story of scientific research getting caught up in not explaining why people get obese. His relentless hammering of the point of causation vs correlation has been very illuminating.

I'm not even half way through reading the book (its very dense). But what I do know is that what I'm currently doing with my diet is not viable. The frank naming of it in the book really drove home its intent: a balanced semi-starvation diet. I don't want to starve myself for the rest of my life just to result in a wasted, starved person in an attempt to look normal.

So I'm changing my journey and my path.

Hopefully after some thinking this weekend I will have a battle plan in place.

Crackin

No surprise- I found my crack this weekend. Or rather it found me: stuffing and chocolate mousse.

nom nom nom.

It was a delightful vacation island in the sea of knowing better.

le sigh

Spreadsheet Food Diary

I'm not really sure if I'm going to continue updating my spreadsheet food diary.
My work computer has been in the shop for the last week- which kind of has the spreadsheet out of my hands during the week- when I use it most.

It has been good about keeping me mindful about my eating habits and helping me cut back on the simple carbs.

Can you have your cake and eat it too?

I survived my birthday week pretty much intact!

Having multiple nights of eating out was a good way to cement in my head that I have to be realistic about this.

I just made sure to eat fairly good, low carb, low meat the earlier part of the day in order to save up those denser foods for the restaurant.

One of my favorite meal strategies was eating Chinese with a bunch of friends. There were 6 (+Ellie) of us and at least one entre per person. Grabbing just a bite or two at a time from the entres worked well to let me sample lots of different flavors without taking too much of each.

I feel good about this- it was a good way to equate eating out with not eating too much.

Weigh-in week four and atonement

I haven't posted one of these weigh-ins for awhile- though I have been doing them.

And here's the punch line, my body is having a joke with (at?) me: I've been hovering just at 200lbs for a week.

I think my body senses my issues with numbers. You see, I haven't made peace with that 200 number yet. It's been my homework this week, and well, I've been hoping to avoid it.

I can't trust myself to say "Never Again". Or more precisely, I'm afraid to say never again.

Last time I lost weight was through a weight loss center called Healthy Weigh. There, I was weighed by strangers, had my food diary checked by strangers, and was complimented on my progress by strangers. They set up my goal weight, set up my mini-goals along the way, told me when I was doing well.

And I did do well. For maybe a year.

Looking back on the experience- it worked, but I was a little mentally checked out of the process. It turned into me doing this for them, and removing responsibility from myself and moving it to that food diary and those weigh-ins.

When I went below 200lbs before I was told I'd never see that number again. I was told it.

Here I am sitting in the same place and tasting this nervous yet exhilarating experience in my mouth all over again. This time I'm not being told what to do, I'm not being told about my fate in numbers. I have to do this for myself.

And I have to forgive myself for coming back here, to this stage of body issues yet again.

I'm not going to put myself in this place again. Never again.