Feel Good or Eat Good

Why are so many feelings wrapped up in our eating patterns?  Call it emotional eating, comfort eating, weakness, or whatever.  The foods I love are foods that bring back feelings and memories of the past.  Comfort food.

As I struggle to regain my focus on eating healthy and losing weight, I find myself doing a bit of comfort eating.  A friend and I took her son to his grandmother’s in another East Tennessee city.  We also went back several days later to pick him up.  Both times we took a ride through her childhood memories and they reminded me so much of my own.  I was on a memory high.  On the way back both times, we stopped at an old style drive-in.  You know the kind . . . you drive up and they come to the car and take your order.  Or you can sit at one of the wood picnic tables.  The menu boards list what seems like 100 options, from breakfast biscuits to burgers, hot dogs, chicken, chili, and sides.  And then there are the ice cream options – cones, sundaes, floats, and milkshakes.

Memories from my childhood came back.  I always loved crinkle cut fries with lots of salt and ketchup.  I ordered the large size.  I asked the waitress what kind of milkshakes they had.  She rattled of the standard flavors and then kept going.  She said banana and my eyes got very big.  “With real bananas or just banana flavored?”  She responded, “Real bananas” and I did not have to hear anymore.  Mmmmmmm.  My mom used to make us banana milkshakes.

Emotions definitely come into play when you make choices about food.  I let the emotions control what I ate and didn’t think twice.  I can’t do that all the time or I need to find healthier alternatives that will satisfy that emotion.  This is my biggest challenge on this road to healthy eating.

What is your biggest struggle?

Okay, That’s Enough

After a week of careful planning and thoughtful choices, I let a little crazy creep in.  I spent the long weekend at my daughter’s in Atlanta and it felt like we did nothing but eat and eat and eat.  The food we ate was pretty healthy . . . it was the sweet stuff that was crazy.

I almost never eat sweets.  I eat a lot of fruit but I don’t really like candy and could do without cakes or pies or sweet stuff in general, though I do love good chocolate.  But during that long weekend, I went on a sugar binge – pies, ice cream, chocolate, just piles and piles of sugar.  When I returned home on Monday evening, I continued to indulge in the sweet stuff, things I never eat.  On Tuesday, same thing.  And Wednesday too.  I ate really healthy during the day but at some point daily, I ate sweets.

Every day, I struggled in the afternoon.  I was worn out.  Every evening, I went to bed early and every morning, I had a hard time getting out of bed.  I assumed I must be coming down with something.  My body just didn’t feel right.  I was sluggish and had a hard time keeping my eyes open every day around 2pm, even though I was sleeping at least 9 hours each night.  On Thursday afternoon, I really didn’t feel well and went home around 3pm, crawled in the bed and slept for an hour.  I went to yoga later, came home and got in the bed at 9:45pm and slept until 8am this morning!!!

I was catching up on my blog reading this morning and went to one of my favorite healthy living blogs Loser For Life.  Today’s post was all about her struggles with fighting off the sugar urge on vacation and after she returned home.  She talked about being tired.  A light bulb went on.  I was experiencing the sugar rush and the sugar crash.  And I had kept on feeding it.  My body was reacting to the sugar.  Stupid sugar!

So bear with me over the next few days as I detox and get that stuff out of my system.  Stupid sugar!

And On The Menu Today . . .

 . . . only healthy stuff.  Do you ever just get tired of hearing yourself whine?  That's where I was yesterday.  So after posting yesterday's thoughts, I decided to kick my butt in gear and get back to focusing on healthy, not just on calories.  I always feel better when I focus on health and not just on the weight.

Yesterday was pretty good although it was a little heavy on the carbs - blueberries and vanilla greek yogurt for breakfast, Kashi Lemongrass Coconut Chicken frozen dinner for lunch, wheat thins and hummus for a snack, a chocolate vitatop for another snack, and chicken/apple sausages on wheat buns with greek pasta salad for lunch.  I also had a KIND Coconut and Almond bar right before I went to dance class.  I ended the day at just over 1900 calories, a little higher than planned, about 150 calories over my goal.

After dance I stopped by the market to pick up some more healthy snacks for the week.  I ran across some buttermilk cheese that sounded interesting, picked out some pretty plums and apples and stocked up some hummus from my favorite local restaurant.  I really try to keep healthy snacks around that are easy to take with me to work so I can keep my regular meals smaller.

Today was also pretty healthy.  Breakfast was a canadian bacon and raw spinach on a sandwich thin and I added some of the buttermilk cheese.  Interesting flavor, kind of mild with a cheddar flavor.  For a morning snack I had raw broccoli and sliced cucumbers with hummus.  So yummy.  Lunch was organic turkey, raw spinach, buttermilk cheese and Dijonnaise on Ezekiel sesame bread.  I am generally not a sandwich eater but this was so good and very satisfying.  It's almost 3pm and I still have over 800 calories left for today.  I have my cooler that right now holds a KIND snack bar, a small cucumber salad, and some kale salad so a snack later before dance class should not throw me off my targets.  And dinner after dance class tonight should be ok because I am having sushi with the girls.


I feel better and I am not hungry.  There is something about eating healthy that just makes you feel good.

This Too Will Pass

It’s been a tough week.   I never really thought I was an emotional eater until now.  In the past, I did not react to stress by going to food.  At least not that I was aware.  I tended to not really think about food when stress came around.  I don’t really have a lot of stress in my life on a regular basis so maybe I just didn’t know.

This week was stressful.  And I wanted to eat all kinds of things that were bad for me.  I wanted a McDonald’s hamburger and fries.  I don’t really even like McDonald’s except for their french fries.  I wanted pizza.  I wanted a foot long hot dog from a local drive-in in a combo with krinkle cut fries with lots of salt and ketchup.  And a milk shake.  And I ate it all over the course of the week.

I don’t really even like fast food.  I have not really missed it at all during the last 8 months.  But in a reaction to the stress, I wanted all that stuff.  I wrote it all down too in my on-line tracker, every day and all of it.  It was a lot of calories every day and I didn’t burn much more than what I took in each day but I did burn more.  The tracking and the lack of calories burned gave me a wake up call.  It had to stop.  And hi, my name is Tere and I am an Emotional Eater.

It made me look at what I was doing and made me realize it has to stop.  I have lost a lot of weight and gained so much more over the last 8 months.  It really has not been hard until this week.  I ate more than one serving of everything.  I ate things I didn’t really love.  All because I was stressed. 

The stress will go away but the weight gained (or not lost) will be here to remind me that I cannot do that.  The trips I have made to the bathroom have also reminded me!  Ugh!

Like I said, this was a tough week but I will not self-destruct.  I have done some self-reflection and learned something.  The stress will pass on by eventually and it is not in my control.  But what I put in my mouth is in my control. 

Meal Tracking 3/16/2010

Today was a busy day and I love being back to tracking my food.  I had enough calories left over for dinner to have some yummy Swedish Meatballs with sauce over egg noodles.  I love that I can have just about anything I want as long as I have just one serving.  And I still have 288 calories left today.

March 16th, 2010

Meal

Item Brand

Item Name

Your Servings

Calories

breakfast breakfast

Laughing Cow Thomas

Light Swiss Cheese Bagel Thins

1.00  1.00

35 110

breakfast

Oscar Mayer

Pre-cooked Bacon Slices

1.00

70

breakfast

Raw Spinach

1.00

7

breakfast

Starbucks

Venti Skinny Cinnamon Dolce Latte

1.00

160

lunch

Kashi

Mayan Harvest Bake

1.00

340

lunch

Jello

Mousse Temptations - Dark Chocolate Decadence

1.00

60

lunch

Navel Orange

1.00

64

afternoon snack

Back to Nature

Cranberry Pecan Granola

0.50

100

afternoon snack

Chobani

Nonfat Plain Yogurt

1.00

100

afternoon snack

Truvia

1.00

0

dinner

Prepared Ikea Cream Sauce

0.25

64

dinner

IKEA

Swedish Meatballs

1.00

210

dinner

Great Value

Wide Egg Noodles

1.00

220

Totals

Calories

1,539.50

It Was A Good Day

The last two days I had meetings and there was eating out.  I didn’t do too badly but I cannot be sure of the accuracy of some of my calorie estimates.  So today, it was back to my routine and carrying my little cooler of healthy food.  I love it when things are in my control.

So here is my food tracker for today.  The only thing not on there is the Endangered Species Dark Chocolate that I will be having here in a few minutes as an evening snack.  I still have about 520 calories left and the chocolate is 210 so I will still be well within my daily allowance.

I hope you had a good day too!

February 25th, 2010

Meal

Item Brand

Item                     Name

Calories

breakfast

Philadelphia (Kraft)

1/3 Less Fat Strawberry Cream Cheese

70

breakfast

Thomas's

Bagel Thins

110

breakfast

Coffee

8

breakfast

Nestle

Coffee-mate Liquid, Hazelnut flavor, Sugar Free

60

morning snack

Hummus

88

morning snack

Tostitos

Multigrain Tortilla Chips

150

lunch

Kashi

Tuscan Veggie Bake

260

afternoon snack

Chiquita

Coconut Pineapple Bites

40

afternoon snack

Back to Nature

Cranberry Pecan Granola

100

afternoon snack

Fage

Total 0%

90

dinner

Spicy Chinese Shrimp and Veggies With Rice

366

Totals
Calories
1,342.00					.

Breakfast That Feels Like You're Cheating

So we all know that breakfast is important, right?  But most of us don't take time to eat it.  Or we eat crap.  Speaking of . . . what justifies crap?  Well, to me it's things that don't fill you up or things that are fast and easy but not enjoyable or things that make you feel blah.  So I have had to work at breakfast.

I don't do carbs for breakfast - no cereal, no sweet stuff.  I gotta have me some protein.  I am a meat girl when it comes to breakfast.  And it must be portable.  I usually eat it in the car so you can see how cereal might be a problem, sorta like texting while driving.  Fruit is okay but rarely does it fill me up.  So, again, I have to work at breakfast.

I like breakfast sandwiches and that's usually what I have each morning.  Don't turn you carb hating noses up at me! There are tons of good options (calories, fiber, and lower carbs) out there now for breakfast breads:

• Thomas' Better Start Multi-Grain English Muffins  (100 Calories) 
• Arnold Multi-Grain Sandwhich Thins (100 Calories)
• Thomas' Bagel Thins  (110 Calories)

You can trim calories for the meat portions of a breakfast sandwich by paying attention to serving sizes and using leaner cuts.  Sodium can be a problem so compare labels.  My favorites:

• Jones Farm Canadian Bacon (60 calories for 3 slices)
• Jimmy Dean Light Bulk Sausage (140 calories for a 2 oz. patty)
• Center Cut Bacon (50 calories for 2 slices)
• Johnsonville Smoked Turkey Links (110 for a whole link, I usually use half)

Can you tell I love pork???  Which brings me to a point - don't deprive yourself of things you love.  If it is something you are not willing to give up, don't.  It will only make you miserable.  Just figure out a way to make it healthier and eat less of it - like JUST one serving instead of 6.

So . . . back to breakfast. 

I choose a bread and a meat and then . . . my favorite substitute for decadence . . . Laughing Cow Light Wedges.  I love cheese.  Truly love it.  And not only do I hate fat free or low fat stringy, yucky cheese, but it's hard for me to stop at a 1 oz. serving of the real thing.  But Laughing Cow is a great substitute.  And it is only 35 calories per wedge.  I use it in so many recipes, some of which I will share later, and it makes my breakfast sandwiches feel like I'm cheating.

So, for example, my most favorite breakfast:

• A Better Start English Muffin, toasted
• A wedge of Laughing Cow Light spread onto the muffin
• 2 slices of semi-crispy center cut bacon, halved and layered between the muffin

It's a very filling breakfast for only 185 calories.  Sometimes I use 4 slices of bacon just 'cause it's so yummy and I can still keep it below 250 calories.  That is so much less than a fast food breakfast or a frozen breakfast sandwich.  And less than a bowl of cereal too.

As you can tell by now - I only count calories.  I pay attention to sodium, fat, fiber, carbs and protein but I don't limit myself in any area.  I am very healthy despite being fat so someone with health issues might not be able to do things the same way I do.  But this is what works for me.

Hope it works for some of you too.

Food Diary and Yummy Yogurt Bowl

I am posting my food tracker diary here not only to hold myself accountable but to also share some healthy recipes and low calorie food ideas.  I had a yummy treat today of 0% Fage Greek Yogurt, Truvia sweetener, sliced strawberries, sliced banana, and Udi’s Vanilla and Almond granola.
Today’s food:
Total of 1899 calories taken in, 2643 burned for a deficit of 744 calories.

Food Item	Servings	Cals
Nestle Coffee-mate Liquid, Hazelnut flavor, Sugar Free	4.00	60
Coffee	4.00	8
Lotsa Cheese Mac and Cheese	1.00	448
Turkey Chili with Beans	1.00	406
Banana, medium	1.00	105
Fresh Strawberries By Weight	0.33	18
Udi's Vanilla And Almond Granola	1.00	120
Nonfat Plain Yogurt (fage Total 0%)	1.00	80
Spinach, Tomato and Goat Cheese Pizza	3.00	654
Fitness	Minutes	Calories Burned
bodybugg (manual)		-2,643.0
Totals:		-744

I Need Another Blog Like I Need . . .

It was this picture . . . 






And this one . . .
And this one too . . .  






All of these photos were taken in the spring of 2009, two of them in May, one in July.  They are the photos that made me decide that maybe . . . just maybe . . . I needed to change my life.
There you see me in all my 292 pound glory.  There . . . I said it.  292 pounds.  I have not said that out loud to anyone but my doctor and now it is out there . . . in writing.
So I decided to change my life.  You can call it a diet but I choose not to do so.  I have not figured out what to call it yet.  I have another blog where I write about everything in my life, including my weight loss but I needed to say more about this journey and felt a separate blog would be a better place to share more about the struggles and successes I have had over the last few months.
I started the first week of August, 2009.  Since that time, I have lost 46 pounds and today weigh 246.  Again, I have not told anyone that.  But I will share here.  I will share my story, my daily food tracking and calories burned, the weight losses and my real weight, tips for food and alternatives for exercise as well as my thoughts on food, weight loss and diets.
I hope you can identify with my thoughts or feelings and if it helps one person then great.  If not, I know it helps me.