So as it turns out, you have to post often to qualify as a true blogger... I gotta get on that.
The last few days have been super pleasant. I guess I wouldn't say the most magical days of my life since I still am living a highly ordinary life-- you know changing poo, scrubbing stains out of laundry, ellipticizing (if that's a real term), having play dates, and going to Target. I will say that the crazy person in my brain who obsesses about food, calories, portions, and weight seems to have gone on a little vacation (please don't ever come back). Looking back, I haven't really given a fraction of the brain juice that I normally do to what I'm going to eat, when I'm going to eat, exactly how much I will eat, etc, etc. So that part of my life actually has been blissful. Hurray.
So speaking of Target, the center of my universe, I did a late night shopping trip there on Satuday night... and there were calories involved... LOTS of them. But I don't think in a bad way. Let me explain.
I first caught myself peeking at the calories in the cheese isle. I usually always buy reduced fat cheese, or anything else for that matter. I was picking up some of those pre-sliced packages of deli cheese. So I started comparing labels. At first when I realized what I was doing, I turned the package back around. I thought to myself "wait, I don't count calories". But then I realized that I wasn't actually counting calories, I was just making informed choices. I mean I could buy cheese slices weighing in at 100 calories with 10 grams of fat, or I could get the ones with 60 calories and just a few grams of fat. It doesn't take an obsessive slave to food to make that choice, just a healthy person making a healthy choice.
So I decided that it is still okay for me to look at food labels while putting them in my shopping cart. In fact I could look at each and every product before I bought them and it would still be okay (though that would be pointless since I've memorized most of the food items that I regularly buy). My reasoning behind this is that I'm still trying to be a healthy person that makes good choices for myself and my family, but I am also trying to get rid of my food demons and OCD-ness. If I make good decisions when I am buying my food, and my fridge is stocked with fresh and low fat products, then I shouldn't have to stress so much about each and every morsel of food that goes into my mouth. I obviously still need to be sensible about my portions, but without measuring or weighing them, and having a panic attack when I don't know how much I ate. If I stopped reading labels all together, then I would be setting myself up for problems on the other end of the spectrum that I'm trying to pull myself out of.
So food labels, your still my friends... I will just try not to read you after I put you away in my cupboards and fridge. We can only be friends at Target.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Remember when...
Remember when I used to obsess about food all day long and freak out about calories? I'm so over that... at least for today. What a liberating day (knock on wood... I haven't actually gone to bed yet)! I'm in the final hours of my day and I have absolutely no idea how many calories I had today. Not in the least! I didn't measure one morsel of food, didn't try to eyeball my portion sizes for a calorie estimate, and didn't ever wonder "Hmm, I wonder what low-calorie snack I should have" or "Dang, I had too many calories at dinner. I guess I should go home and consume the contents of my fridge since I blew it anyway".
Don't get me wrong, I didn't eat enough food today for a Tongan Man. I just tried to listen to my body and eat till I felt... well I don't know, filled. What a revolutionary break-through, listening to my body. Who would have guessed! I have a good nutrition data base stored convienently in my brain, so I still made pretty good choices (salad, beans, grains, fibrous cereal, etc, etc). I did not however have an anxiety attack in the middle of my day and try to count up all that I had eaten. Curious about the breakdown? Check it out:
Breakfast: A bowl of All-Bran Cereal & Soymilk (don't ask me how much though... remember, I'm still in recovery mode). Now this may not be all that impressive to you, but compared to the old me (from yesterday) it was a giant leap. Normally I would measure my cereal and the milk that I put on top of it.
Lunch: A Deli Salad from the grocery store. I usually don't buy these sort of things just because they cost more than making one, but today I was taking my girls to a picnic and needed a quick lunch on the go. I started looking at the deli sandwhiches, which I would have never done in my former life because of A) high calorie white bread, B) lots of fatty mayo C) more cheese than I would eat in a week, and D) no idea how many total calories are in the dang thing. So I actually considered a sandwich today, but they didn't look amazing, so I looked passed them to the salads. Much better choice. The one I chose was a mandrin and chinese chicken salad with those yummy little crunchy things. It had some yummy looking asian dressing on the side which would have turned me off in my past life, but today it was just plain old dressing. You see in my past life I would have looked at it and thought it looked good, but would have passed it over because I would need to buy something that I knew what the total calories were (okay, you're beginning to realize my OCD-ness). So I had a big, yummy salad with protein and fruit on it... harmless right?
Dinner: Dinner was blissful. The Fish taco special at Bajio... highly enjoyable! Now, this again would have freaked me out in my past life (you know, yesterday). It was a lightly battered fish with cole-slaw, pico, and a bit of dressing. Battered and mayo (the cole-slaw) would have normally send me running up the canyon, but today I thought "it's just a little of each, it won't put me over the edge". And so that's what I had, with a good amount of beans and rice on the side. I didn't try to eyeball my portions in the least... I just ate until I felt filled again. I did happen to finish the whole plate.
To top it all off: Yes friends, I had a drink with calories. Now for anyone that knows me... I drink water and diet soda. Period. But today, yes today was different. My husband always gets horchata (which is pure magic) when we get drinks at a Mexican restaurant and I get Diet Coke or any other diet option. So tonight he made a coke-chata which is half coke, half horchata. Sounds weird, tastes like heaven. I usually have a sip of his and then nurse my diet drink during dinner. Well, tonight on the way out the door as I was refilling my soda cup, a crazy idea came to me: diet coke-chata... and so I did. I filled my cup halfway with a caloried beverage! And guess what? It was amazing, and I didn't care.
I just realized that this was the longest blog-post ever! Sorry, there is just so much to say. Goodbye for now... I'm off to go not think about food. (posted the next day)
Don't get me wrong, I didn't eat enough food today for a Tongan Man. I just tried to listen to my body and eat till I felt... well I don't know, filled. What a revolutionary break-through, listening to my body. Who would have guessed! I have a good nutrition data base stored convienently in my brain, so I still made pretty good choices (salad, beans, grains, fibrous cereal, etc, etc). I did not however have an anxiety attack in the middle of my day and try to count up all that I had eaten. Curious about the breakdown? Check it out:
Breakfast: A bowl of All-Bran Cereal & Soymilk (don't ask me how much though... remember, I'm still in recovery mode). Now this may not be all that impressive to you, but compared to the old me (from yesterday) it was a giant leap. Normally I would measure my cereal and the milk that I put on top of it.
Lunch: A Deli Salad from the grocery store. I usually don't buy these sort of things just because they cost more than making one, but today I was taking my girls to a picnic and needed a quick lunch on the go. I started looking at the deli sandwhiches, which I would have never done in my former life because of A) high calorie white bread, B) lots of fatty mayo C) more cheese than I would eat in a week, and D) no idea how many total calories are in the dang thing. So I actually considered a sandwich today, but they didn't look amazing, so I looked passed them to the salads. Much better choice. The one I chose was a mandrin and chinese chicken salad with those yummy little crunchy things. It had some yummy looking asian dressing on the side which would have turned me off in my past life, but today it was just plain old dressing. You see in my past life I would have looked at it and thought it looked good, but would have passed it over because I would need to buy something that I knew what the total calories were (okay, you're beginning to realize my OCD-ness). So I had a big, yummy salad with protein and fruit on it... harmless right?
Dinner: Dinner was blissful. The Fish taco special at Bajio... highly enjoyable! Now, this again would have freaked me out in my past life (you know, yesterday). It was a lightly battered fish with cole-slaw, pico, and a bit of dressing. Battered and mayo (the cole-slaw) would have normally send me running up the canyon, but today I thought "it's just a little of each, it won't put me over the edge". And so that's what I had, with a good amount of beans and rice on the side. I didn't try to eyeball my portions in the least... I just ate until I felt filled again. I did happen to finish the whole plate.
To top it all off: Yes friends, I had a drink with calories. Now for anyone that knows me... I drink water and diet soda. Period. But today, yes today was different. My husband always gets horchata (which is pure magic) when we get drinks at a Mexican restaurant and I get Diet Coke or any other diet option. So tonight he made a coke-chata which is half coke, half horchata. Sounds weird, tastes like heaven. I usually have a sip of his and then nurse my diet drink during dinner. Well, tonight on the way out the door as I was refilling my soda cup, a crazy idea came to me: diet coke-chata... and so I did. I filled my cup halfway with a caloried beverage! And guess what? It was amazing, and I didn't care.
I just realized that this was the longest blog-post ever! Sorry, there is just so much to say. Goodbye for now... I'm off to go not think about food. (posted the next day)
Friday, March 26, 2010
Yeah... I used to count calories...
So when I say that I "used" to count calories, I mean I did like yesterday. And the day before that, and the day before that... for as long as I can remember. They have controlled my life-- for good and bad.
Thinking back to when the madness all began, I first learned about calories in an undergraduate nutrition class. Before that, I had never really thought about them, or obsessed about them (every hour of the day), or thought they were my best friend or hated them. I mean don't get me wrong, I was a healthy eater up to that point. I ate low-fat diet based on the food guide pyramid and I was a swimmer in high school, so calories weren't my problem... until they were. Thinking back (about 12 years ago), I can remember that it was a class assignment to keep track of how many calories we ate for three days in a row. So that meant reading every nutrition label, looking up food items with no label in a book, and measuring out every morsel of food that went into my mouth... and writing it down... and adding it all up at the end of the day. I'm sure those three days came and went for most of those students in the late 90's. But no, not me... they stuck to me (the calories) like a bunch of leeches. Rude. Why couldn't I have just done the assignment and then just went back to eating my normal, sensible meals as I had done for the rest of my life. It's not like I was overweight. I'm actually quite petite. I guess its the mentality that most teenage girls and women adopt: "If small is good, smaller is better!" I learned that I could manipulate the numbers in my favor to get more lean... which actually backfired on me because then calories were all I could think about. I've managed to stay about the same healthy weight as that semester in which I took the class (mind you 2 kids later)... but so much stress over what to eat, what not to eat, which restaurant would have a low-cal option... I think I'm ready to be done with all of that. And blog about it- I mean I gotta have something to talk about besides how cute my kids are. So here I go... will I be able to make it even a day (or 5 min) without being the human calculator and stressing about how many calories I have left to eat? Or stop freaking out when at the end of the day I "ate too many calories". I'm calling myself a former Calorie-Counting-queen because counting calories was so yesterday.
Thinking back to when the madness all began, I first learned about calories in an undergraduate nutrition class. Before that, I had never really thought about them, or obsessed about them (every hour of the day), or thought they were my best friend or hated them. I mean don't get me wrong, I was a healthy eater up to that point. I ate low-fat diet based on the food guide pyramid and I was a swimmer in high school, so calories weren't my problem... until they were. Thinking back (about 12 years ago), I can remember that it was a class assignment to keep track of how many calories we ate for three days in a row. So that meant reading every nutrition label, looking up food items with no label in a book, and measuring out every morsel of food that went into my mouth... and writing it down... and adding it all up at the end of the day. I'm sure those three days came and went for most of those students in the late 90's. But no, not me... they stuck to me (the calories) like a bunch of leeches. Rude. Why couldn't I have just done the assignment and then just went back to eating my normal, sensible meals as I had done for the rest of my life. It's not like I was overweight. I'm actually quite petite. I guess its the mentality that most teenage girls and women adopt: "If small is good, smaller is better!" I learned that I could manipulate the numbers in my favor to get more lean... which actually backfired on me because then calories were all I could think about. I've managed to stay about the same healthy weight as that semester in which I took the class (mind you 2 kids later)... but so much stress over what to eat, what not to eat, which restaurant would have a low-cal option... I think I'm ready to be done with all of that. And blog about it- I mean I gotta have something to talk about besides how cute my kids are. So here I go... will I be able to make it even a day (or 5 min) without being the human calculator and stressing about how many calories I have left to eat? Or stop freaking out when at the end of the day I "ate too many calories". I'm calling myself a former Calorie-Counting-queen because counting calories was so yesterday.
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