Thursday, September 30, 2010

exquisite food ruins one for mc donald's

I've been away from the blog for almost 2 weeks now, mostly because I've been in a major whirlwind, between the pace at work and suddenly moving out of my apartment.  This has been a period of mostly just work and sleep - which is fine, because it's temporary.

This week, I've been going straight from work to my apartment to clean it out and clean it up, having moved to the spare bedroom in the home of some friends (the price of being released from one's lease early sometimes looks like this, but there are worse fates in life than a month with great friends, eh?)  There's been more to do than time to do it, which has utterly wrecked my eating plan. 

The thing about the plan I devised it that it requires a bit of planning and shopping, as well as time for prep and time to sit down and really enjoy the meal.  I've lacked these elements this week, which has meant some trips through the McDonald's drive through (3 this week, actually....2 of which were my lunch and dinner yesterday). 

I can remember being a child and ADORING McDonald's, primarily, I suppose, because I was raised on good, home-cooked food and this was different than that.  And it was a rare treat, not an everyday occurance.  And it was in the time when, I suspect, even fast food employees cared about producing a good product (an element pretty much absent today at most any Mc Donald's nationwide, I suspect).

For lunch I tried to be good in a bad setting, as I needed to eat while driving to and from an errand I was doing.  I asked for the grilled chicken and the gal behind the register looked at me like I had 2 heads.  I have no idea why this was so hard, but after a bit of discussion she decided I needed the chicken club.  I ordered a strawberry smoothie, too, realizing it's quite likely not really all fruit and I was probably doing the big no-no....SUGAR...but was just in too much of a hurry to work it through.

Eating while driving is so un-gratifying, eh?  I opened the sandwich and directed crabby thoughts at the cook, who apparently couldn't even TRY to make it look like a sandwich rather than a messy pile smooshing out the corner of its box.  Quite a bit of poking and rearranging later, it was mostly edible, though pieces of it kept trying to fall in my lap.  In theory it was a decent choice:  grilled chicken, tomato, lettuce, onion, bun seemed to be whole wheat.  The swiss and bacon were not great choices I guess, and were darn near impossible to keep out of my lap (maybe my guardian angel was shoving them off to save me calories?  LOL) 

Nonetheless it was highly unimpressive, and really too big (which didn't stop me from eating the whole thing - eating, driving, and focusing on portion control is apparently 1 simultaneous task too many for this blonde). 

After work I drove through and gave up on good choices...lunch had been almost $8 and disappointing.  I got the quarter pound cheeseburger meal with a bottle of water.  Sandwich was...eh...whatever.  Fine.  Fries had clearly been reheated...and in old oil, to boot.  I know this from my days working that Tastee Freez as a teen...there comes a time when the oil really MUST be changed, and reheated fries always are hard and tasteless. 

Like the fat girl I am, I bitched to myself the whole time while I polished off every single bite.

All in all a disappointing turn of events, but you know what?  It's okay.  The good things are:

1.  I did it only from being in a hurry (one can shove down a quarter pounder while driving in about 5 or 6 blocks' drive time, as opposed to the 25 minutes needed to make and really enjoy a good salad) and from the simple fact that there was no food, no dishes, no nothing at the apartment where I was working.  IT WAS NOT A BINGE or temptation, I didn't feel compelled.  Was simply a "be practical for the moment" issue, and it worked, and I'm over it.

2.  If I WERE going to be tempted by McDonald's, I'd say yesterday whacked a huge dent in any such future temptation. 

3.  It made me absolutely glory in today's lunch at the Bistro, which was typical fare for my lunch-at-work.  My own table, a good book, half a Greek salad (beautiful, gorgous, spectacular food), and the cottage cheese/fruit plate.  A HUGE pile of food, all of which loves my body and makes me feel good.  Tall glass o' water.  Time to read, to stare out the sliding glass door at the breeze in the tree branches and the sunlight on the flowers....all of these things revive me and restore me infinitely more than crappy fast food or another hit of caffeine-loaded diet soda would. 

All of which, I guess, is continued evidence that God is making what looks like a real and lasting change in my attitudes about food.

Good stuff, eh?

Sunday, September 19, 2010

continued attitude shift, and cooking for company

Had a day and a half of meetings for work on Friday and Saturday.  Huge boxes of donuts were brought in for breakfast.  Noticed again the shift happening in me (must be answered prayer, cuz I have NEVER been able to choose this kind of thinking):  I looked at them and thought, "that would be really bad for my body."  Yes, I still know they are delicious.  But...that somehow now matters less to me than their effect on my health.  CRAZY STUFF!  I love it.  Thank you, God. 

I have company coming today.  It's been a bit of a challenge, thinking through cooking for company.  I eat some truly strange combinations and call them meals - for instance, the other night I ate a baked sweet potato and a pile of oven-roasted brussels sprouts, with a glass of milk.  It was yummy and complete to me, but you know...you don't really feed a meal like that to company!  LOL  And my habit has been to feed really high fat/high carb meals for company.  Takes a whole new approach, doing life this way.

Did some googling (oh Google, how I love you so....) and found a couple of low-fat, hearty recipes - a black bean chili that had me looking for (and finding!) one bottle of dark beer at almost midnight in the grocery store, and a sort of stew with lentils, sweet potatoes, and chicken in it.  I love cooking for company so much - can't wait to see how these come off.  

Anyway I think we'll manage eating healthy and still being a treat, not a hardship.  

Nice that it is possible!

Friday, September 17, 2010

tired = hungry, it seems

Been working a string of ten to twelve hour days.  I'm not having a problem with great temptation to eat foods that are off my plan...but...definitely sometimes when I'm really tired and overwhelmed, I DO find myself indulging in a heckuva big ol' pile o' veggies.  Seems I'm pretty attached to my comfort food.

Today I was in a meeting that included boxed lunches.  I was last in line for mine (no one who knows me well will be surprised by that).  Nothing even close to my plan.  Huge hoagies all on white bread.  Potato salad that seemed to have sugar in it.  Doritos.  Cookies.

So I just ate it and named it my grace day for the week.  Hey...pretty cool that I still had a grace day left on day 6 of 7, eh?

Sleep-deprived to the point of sick to my stomach.  Gonna go work on that.  I keep thinking about the studies I've read that say lack of sleep can impeded weight loss.  

Monday, September 13, 2010

here's to a good week ahead!

Last night was the bi-weekly weigh-in at our COWS meeting.  I've lost another 3 pounds.  Here's the cool thing about that:  I can remember when I'd have been very discouraged about losing "only" 3 pounds in 2 weeks...especially after having lost 14 in the first round.  But the simple fact is that I feel SO MUCH BETTER than I did a month ago.  I feel lighter, less clumsy, less tired.  My clothes are baggier and I noticed last night my face is thinner too.  AND I totally love eating this way - it's so nice to feel good about a meal and what it's doing to my body, instead of that icky guilt that follows the junk food pig-out.  

So it's "only" 3 pounds?  

Dude, I'll take it!

Friday, September 10, 2010

...hey....?! COOL!

I was packing last night for a road trip.  My travelling companion had requested snacks:  Pepsi, Funyons, Beef Jerky.  Wandering through the grocery store last night, I had a revelation:  everything I was putting in my cart for ME for the trip...is exceedingly abundantly good for me.  No junk.  I realized this matters to me now. 

That's a far cry from looking for low-calorie stuff and just thinking about sending the fat away.

Looks like God is shifting my priorities.  I LIKE IT.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Okay, I laughed LOUD...awesome marketing...

baby carrots in a whole new light...3, actually<<

Also...I have enabled comments without having to sign in, just so ya know.

soup so good you could eat it with a spoon...?!

Experimenting with font today as a friend tells me the gray was too hard to read on the background.  Let me know about this one, okay?

Eating plan is still working.  Definitely still learning about this portion control thing.  At yesterday's lunch in the bistro, I substituted tomato soup in for the rice.  With it came...2 packets of crackers.  My natural tendency is to put so many crackers in my tomato soup that one could almost eat it with a fork.  Yesterday's experiment:  just 2 little saltines in the bowl (as I write this I'm asking myself...Karen, aren't saltines white flour?  hmmm...ooops....)

Anyway yesterday I learned that I CAN indeed back off even on things like that...soup was good.  

Running late for my early start.  Happy day, all!

Saturday, September 4, 2010

nice day and a God project

Really great day.  Started with some "awesome God" stuff that left me crying all the tears out of my head.  Continued with my son coming to lunch - he's on the same track that I am, eating-wise, so it was easy, fun, and a pleasure to whip up something for the 2 of us.  Afternoon of catching up on laundry and other small assorted things.  Food's been easy today.  Looking in the fridge, and checking my bank balance...hmmm...there may be challenges between here and payday!


Oh well, I'll just take that one to the Lord.

Friday, September 3, 2010

better coping techniqes

I stopped for food on the way home from work tonight.  I was exhausted and could feel that it would be very easy for me to just go get a large pizza and eat the whole damned thing myself.  Instead I hit the freezer section and got some lovely stir fry...wandered through another aisle to find sugar-free lemonade (sometimes I am just TIRED of water and milk all the time...and don't really need soda...)  Last of all:  sugar free chocolate pudding mix, cuz I was feeling the longing for sweet and of course I've been out of sweets since the infamous day of falling/diving off the wagon.  

Dug a candle out of the closet (somehow I have lived here 7 months and hadn't unpacked candles yet from the last move), turned down the lights, and found the most soothing music I know.  

Being very good to my very tired self.

This feels so much better than a binge. 

Thursday, September 2, 2010

notch this, baby

Today was yet another working lunch - happily there were good choices available again, and it wasn't hard to skip the bag of chips that was offered.  

My belt tells astonishing tales of late.  Awhile back when I was working out faithfully, I had gone 2 notches smaller on it.  Right before I started COWS, I had moved back out those 2 notches - a very depressing development, indeed.  

Monday it was moved back in a notch.

This morning, another!

So I guess I've regained the ground most recently lost in the battle.  

Most importantly, I'm loving the eating plan.  It works in my life.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

i'll take mine black, thanks

I have substantially less sugar in my life these days than usual.  I didn't realize before limiting myself to 3 sweets a week exactly how much sugar was sprinkled all the way across most of my days.  

Tonight I was in a meeting and got a tickle in my throat...one of those that threatens to just never go away, you know?  There was hot coffee in a carafe right in front of me...decaf, even.  A hot drink ALWAYS does the trick for me with the terminal throat tickle.  I looked around...within arm's reach was the real sugar.  The substitutes, though...nothing even remotely accessible without making a big clumsy scene amidst important conversation.  I generally dump 2 or 3 packets of sweetener in a small styrofoam cup...you don't even want to know how many I put in a big coffee mug.

So I poured myself half a cup and drank it straight.  Let me tell you that awhile back I joined some of my Sunday school kids in a test of the theory that switched my mom from doctored coffee to black, back when I was a little girl...someone told her and a friend that if you drink it black for 2 weeks, you learn to love it that way.  I remember those 2 weeks (I was a nosy little kid always lurking around to overhear what the grownups discussed).  And mom always took her coffee black after that.  

So anyway, I told my class that story and the next thing you know they were trying the 2 week test...so I tried it with them.  It worked for some of them.  But it didn't work for me, despite the fact that I gave it more like a month.  I learned to be able to swallow it without shuddering, but it still tasted....so bad.  I used that to teach the kids:  don't form a 30+ year bad habit - it's harder to break than one you've had for 1 year or 2.  

Tonight, though...the black coffee...it was fine!  I mean, I wasn't like, "YUM" but...it was fine.  Enough so that I poured another half cup and drank it too.  My throat was much better, and my brain was abuzz with amazement about not hating on the unsweetened coffee.

The lesson here seems to be that stripping my sugar down to almost none...is making me more receptive to other tastes.

That's pretty nifty, eh?

battles about nothing and moving right along

Yesterday was another lunch meeting at work.  I was a bit worried about it, because I was having a very hungry day and we know how well I managed temptation the day before.  Emailed a friend to pray, and I also was praying as a steady backdrop to my morning.


Lunch was good choices and right portions.  But my dread was...dun dun duh....dessert!  Someone at the table speculated that it might be cheese cake.  Let me tell you, a battle happened within me between Karen Who Wants to Stick to the Plan and Karen Who Wants Whatever Is in Front of Her.  I prayed, prayed, prayed.  And came to a place of peace - I could turn down the cheesecake.  It wouldn't be easy, but I felt the resolve happen in me and it was good.


After all that drama...there was no dessert offered.


LOL LOL LOL


Pondering the blues of the day before yesterday - causes, effects, etc.  


No answers there.


Here's to Wednesday!