Weighty Matters

Do you read food labels?  I rarely did so in the past.  Most of the time, I only looked at the ingredients to see if a soup, stew or some other prepared food secretly included something I don’ t like, such as mushrooms. These days I tend to with greater regularity.

I’m not a fanatic about it, but there are certain things I try to avoid, or at least minimize.  For example, in bottled dressings, I look for ones where sugar or some form of it isn’t named in the top five ingredients.  Although I really got into making my own soups this past year, I still like to stock convenient, but yummy, varieties in cans or cartons.  For those, I want to see the sodium level.

In all things, the calories matter, as do the carb counts and fat.  One thing I’ll admit that I never paid much attention to was fiber.  Now, a higher number of grams catches my interest.   All of the ingredients with their nutritional breakdowns add up to whether I’m eating as healthfully and appropriately as possible.

I’m a little perplexed this week.  After a couple of weeks where the weight loss was once more moving at a decent rate, I stalled again this week.  I don’t know why.  I’ve logged my food and activity in myfitnesspal every day. I haven’t been wildly eating off plan.  It’s mystery and very frustrating.

Rather than get myself upset, I’m maintaining an even, thoughtful approach.   That’s why I’m noticing labels so much, because I’m looking for less obvious factors that could have slowed my weight loss — like sodium, sugar, and carbs.  I’ve noticed some, ahem, internal system slowdown, so I want to make sure that I get adequate amounts of fiber.  I’m also pushing fluids more, particularly simple water.

Months ago I blogged about how much I always resisted weighing and measuring my food.  I still don’t love doing it, but I’m incorporating the practice more in my daily food prep.  It’s possible that, as months go by, my stomach regains some of its capacity and my quantities could creep up.  Measuring my intake with more vigilance will protect me from overeating.   Granted, my concept of overeating is a whole lot less than it used to be, but I still need to keep things relative.

Instead of guessing that I’d scooped out the proper amounts this morning when preparing the “yogurt parfait” that I wanted to take to work for lunch, I measured.  (I used non fat vanilla Greek yogurt, fresh strawberries and blueberries, and steel cut oatmeal.)  Tonight, after reading labels and choosing an organic, vegan, low-fat split pea soup, I made sure that I measured out half of a cup exactly and that’s all that I ate.

It’s really not difficult or time consuming to take these measures.  I’m not sure why I was always so resistant.  The only explanation that makes sense is that I was simply terminally resentful and pissed off that I was told this is what I should do; what I needed to do for long term success.    (Imagine my aggrieved sigh.)

Sometimes I just need to get over myself, quit bitching and do it.  So, that’s what I’m working on.  Label reading.  Measured quantities.  Hopefully these new directions will help me get over the stall and step up my progress.

I just looked at the post count.  This is number 396.  Holy wow.  We’re closing in on 400!

I went out to lunch with friends today.  We don’t often get to do that because our days at work are pretty tightly scheduled, so the fact that we spontaneously thought of it and could fit it in was a great treat.

I started thinking again about how incredibly fortunate I am to have such terrific, unending support from family and friends.   Even when a couple expressed fear that I’d elected to have major, life-changing surgery, they still clearly wanted the best for me.  If I ever make a list of the things someone needs when heading into this kind of effort, a strongly supportive circle would be at the top.

Asking for help and support is not something that easily comes to me.    Don’t laugh, particularly since I just stated that I’ve been running at the mouth, and at my typing fingertips, about my weight issues, the surgery, my recovery, my compulsive overeating/binge eating disorder and everything else for 395 (and a half, now) posts, but talking about my weight and my issues was never that easy.

It was easier when I was in the anonymous rooms of OA or when I was around friends who also needed to lose weight.  The difference is that when I regularly attended OA meetings, I was focused on remaining abstinent from the disease of binge eating.  When I was around my overweight friends, if it was a time when I wasn’t in program, we might talk about our weight, etc., but we kept right on eating.

Being around friends who can also be eating buddies often makes for a food free-for-all.  An Eating Buddy friend is hardly going to judge your Big Mac, Supersized fries and chocolate shake when they’re ordering the same big amounts of food.

The dynamic can shift, and suddenly so, when one of the buddies decides to go on a diet or do something else, to put forth a seriously committed effort to losing weight.   There are some who feel threatened when their eating buddy chooses a different path.  Some have even been known to sabotage the weight loss effort.

It is much healthier to have losing buddies, a network of family and friends who will listen to you, hug you, spent some quality time with you and support you in your effort.  It’s these friends who might offer you a bite of their rich, decadent dessert and understand if you only want a bite or might pass up the cake at all.   It’s those who don’t push food at you as if they need you to overeat or eat off of your food plan so that they ultimately feel better about what they’re eating.

It’s good to have losing buddies now — whether the friend or two who are also working on weight loss, or those who aren’t but who care so much about me that they’re rooting on every step of progress.   It’s good to have those of you who come here, read and comment.   It all reinforces the effort.

My goal for this week is to be aware of, and acknowledge, the support I receive on a daily basis.  My secondary goal is to always be supportive of a friend who is going through a difficult challenge.  To borrow a phrase from OA, together we can do what we could never do alone.

Over on Reinventing Fabulous, the Sunday post always asks us to share examples of things or experiences when we were happy in the prior week.  I think it’s good to get in touch with our feelings on a regular basis.  Lots of times we can get numb to what’s really going on.  I used vast quantities of food to numb me out a lot of the time when I was upset, angry, lonely, frustrated, sad — you name it.

But that’s not really the point of this post.  I’m experiencing a strangely wonderful feeling today and, by contrast, realizing just how not wonderful I’ve been feeling below the surface for a couple of weeks.  To pull out the onion analogy, we’re like onions and sometimes you have to peel down layer by layer to get a true sense of what’s going on.   On the top layer, I’ve felt like I’ve been chugging along, looking at my positive changes, happy with the big picture progress of the last year and a half.  All the good stuff that I share here on the blog.  Honestly, my life and health are so greatly improved that I can’t help but be happy.  It almost seems small-minded, or shrunken-hearted, of me to be any other way, right?

Yes, and no.  Today I realized that while overall I’ve been super happy, the slower progress and frequent stalls where I haven’t lost as much at all, have upset me on a deeper level.  I haven’t been as much in touch with the frustration, the concern, the “what am I doing wrong or not doing right enough” feelings.  Those not so bright and cheerful emotions have weighed on me and I haven’t allowed myself to really admit they were there and then dig through them.  It’s sort of like if I didn’t acknowledge them, they didn’t exist.  In retrospect, this was a form of denial.

So how come I’m realizing this all today?  No, the dam didn’t suddenly break, leaving all of the negative thoughts and feelings to freely flood until I was drowning in the emotional morass.  Far from it.  At some point over the weekend, I reconnected, or made a stronger connection, back to the big picture but broken down to the day by day.  My energy and commitment rekindled.  I feel stronger and more capable, ready to plow through the remaining pounds that stand in the way.

I’ve been almost goofy inside all day long.  It’s a great feeling.  I’m happier, not only on the top layer, but several levels deep.  Each meal and snack, planned for and eaten on target, reinforces the happiness.  The contrast illustrated to me that while I was happy, I wasn’t happy.  As soon as I got the big “Aha!” moment, I knew that I had to blog it and lock it down in my conscious and on the virtual page.  This is something on which to build and keep me powering through to the end.

We’ve all heard the saying that if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.  So it is with food and me.  This doesn’t mean that I automatically mess up with my eating if I don’t plan in advance, but the percentage of likelihood definitely increases.   Definitely when I plan my meals and prepare ahead of time, I do better at staying on track.

I’ve been sort of la-la-laing my way the last few weeks and progress is slow.  Pardon the pun, but I’m fed up with this stage of my recovery and definitely want to lose the remainder of my weight and meet my goal a.s.a.p.  I know I’m not going to wake up tomorrow 60 pounds lighter.

Wait.  I have to pause here and marvel at the wonder of it all.  Sometimes a terrific realization hits out of the blue, like just happened.  I used to wallow in the heart-numbing despair of thinking, “It will take me forever to lose more than 200 pounds.  I’ll never, ever be successful.”  Now I can look at the journey and know that, holy wow.  I only have 60 more pounds to go!  Woohoo!

Okay, pause over.  As I was saying, I’m not going to wake up 60 pounds lighter tomorrow, but it’s a reachable goal in the months ahead.  Ideally, without fail, I want to have the rest of this weight off of my body before the two year anniversary of my surgery in January.  I’ve said it before and I’ll keep on saying it because I am determined to make that goal a reality.

Without going crazy, I’m stepping up my exercise with a little additional something-something every day, whether it’s an extra 15 minutes of walking, a session on my Pilates machine at night, the opportunity to jog in the pool, some Zumba dancing during television commercials, practicing Tai Chi, whatever.  As long as I do something.

I’m back to logging my food and activity on MyFitnessPal every day too, even creating recipes or finding out the calorie/nutrition numbers for dishes I make from a recipe.  There are programs online that will calculate these numbers for me if I plug in the ingredients.  Pretty cool.

Sometimes the planning isn’t just what I eat or what exercise I do, but organizing my life so that I can fit this all in.  I usually pack my lunch in the mornings while sipping my morning protein drink.  That’s good planning, but it takes a little time.  Some mornings I’m rushed and doing the lunch prep cuts into the period when I would otherwise take the dogs, and myself, for a morning walk.  So, tonight I put together my lunch bag and stuck it into the fridge.  Without that task needing to be done tomorrow, the dogs and I will both get our extra exercise first thing.

The amount of preparation also figures into success.   I’ve learned that if I give myself an inch, I’ll take a mile.   For example, it is not wise for me to take a jar of peanut butter into the office and leave it in my desk drawer for when I want to use it as a snack.   For some reason, I can control myself better at home, but when I’m busy at work, that is just too tempting.  Same thing with hummus or carrots, nuts, or (fill in the blank).  Last year at some point, I visited one of those places that sells in bulk and also supplies restaurants but is also open to the public.  I bought the little containers and lids that are used for take-out salad dressing and the like.  These are perfect for holding a tablespoon of peanut butter or hummus.  (I clean them out and recycle them, I promise.)  I added green apple slices and carrot sticks to reuseable containers.  I measured out some Greek yogurt and fresh fruit in another glass container for lunch.  There you have it.  Two snacks and lunch all ready to go in them morning.

Dinner is also planned for tomorrow so I don’t have to do the whole “shop when I’m hungry” gauntlet.  That rarely turns out well.  I’m also good to go for all day on Tuesday.  A couple of days of planning usually carry me through.  Tuesday evening I have a meeting at night, after dinner.  When that’s done I can hit the supermarket and pick up what I need for meals the rest of the week.

Reading all of this over, it sure sounds like I have it all together.  Trust me, I really don’t.  Every day is still fraught with potential pitfalls, and possible slips.  That’s the reality of life as a compulsive eater.  I could grab and eat for no other reason than food is in my immediate vicinity.  If I lived in a bubble and never encountered any other food possibilities other than the things on my plan, I’d be fine.  That’s not a practical reality.

Instead, I simply try to do the best that I can.  When I’m working a strong recovery, I keep the appropriate foods close and available so I don’t need to make decisions on the fly.  I organize my life as best I can so that I can keep up with my fitness activities.  I plan what I can in order to succeed.