5/23/10

I don't own a scale, by choice. And I haven't been able to get over to the YWCA to weigh myself this week. I had originally said I wasn't going to weigh myself for the first six weeks of this plan, so maybe I should just stick to that. I have had many, many compliments. People that I haven't seen in a long time are all saying, "Wow! You look great! What are you doing?" So that really is enough verification that I'm doing something right.

This has been a really important week in my process. I have gotten to the point where I can get myself excited about certain types of food. Instead of craving bacon cheeseburgers I crave chipotle black bean burgers. Instead of chips and dip I look forward to eating carrots and hummus. Usually on Sunday mornings my husband and I go out to breakfast and I have eggs, sausage, bacon, hashbrowns. Today I could not wait to get up and make a smoothie with all the powders my sister sent me (yacon, lacuma and maca). Everyday that gets a little stronger, its so exciting.

While that sounds so inspiring, I am still struggling. This week I had two situations where I let myself "off the hook".

I knew that on Thursday I was going to a baseball game. I had decided in advance that this would me my one night of freedom where I could eat whatever I wanted. We had these great seats in the VIP section where they have a bar and a buffet. I do have to say that I didn't go to the bar and all, and when I went to the buffet I did a quick glance to see what the vegetarian options were. Potatoes, gnocchi, pasta salad and coleslaw were those options: starch, starch, more starch and cabbage covered in mayonnaise. So, because I had already decided I was going to eat what I wanted anyway, I ate hot dogs. Oh, also because I had pre-determined that I was going to eat whatever I wanted at the game I ate at Burger King earlier in the day.

On Saturday my husband and I decided to go to the NASCAR All-Star Race. Now since this was a last minute decision I did not eat crap all day the day of the event. I actually ate Whole Foods Mock Chicken Salad, 365 Woven Wheat Crackers and olives and some soup that I'm going to talk about a little later in this post. But again, because in my mind this was a special event, I ate whatever I wanted once we got on our way. We at McD's on the way there, ate crap while we were there, then stopped at Wendy's on the way home. Let me just tell you, I was sure I was going to die in my sleep from a heart attack last night. All that disgusting food (which didn't even taste that great really) and then all the walking and climbing stairs at the race, I was sure I was going to die. And when i woke up this morning, while I was happy to be alive, I felt like I had drank three bottles of wine.

The funny thing is, after both of those days of allowing myself to eat whatever I wanted I felt the need to purge myself with tons of water, fruits and vegetables. Friday and Sunday were nothing but smoothies, soups, veggie burgers, etc. I'm looking forward to the next "special event" as a challenge. How can I go to something that I normally associate with food and enjoy myself without eating? Or maybe the challenge is still allowing food to be a part of the "special event" but making it nutrient-dense? The good, high-energy feeling that I have when I eat nutrient-dense foods and the sluggish, low-energy feeling I have when I eat fast food is starting to register with me. I like the first one the best.

Even though my realization that I want to feel good is the main topic of my post this week, I am going to say that this week eating a nutrient-dense diet is The Cure to irregularity. Not that I suffer from irregularity, but my bowel movements have tripled since I started this whole thing. Every book I read about good health says that if you can get your bowels moving that is half the battle, I think I'm there.

Speaking of regularity, this week I made Dr. Furhmann's Anti-Cancer Soup. What an endeavor! And what a huge pot of soup! I think I made it last Sunday and we still have a couple containers of it in the fridge. It's good stuff, but a lot of work. I don't have a Vita-Mix and my blender isn't very big so I ended up pureeing the whole thing with a hand blender. The cool thing is that I put some of it in these 1-Liter bottles I usually use for water and just carried it around with me all day. When I was hungry I would just take a swig (got some weird looks drinking what looked like Shrek juice, but oh well). It was kind of like a savory smoothie, and it kept me full all day.