Tag Archive | Dieting

For Now I Won’t Be A Loser

Mar1

I recently entered a “Biggest Loser” contest at work.  The way it works is that the person who loses the highest percentage of weight by April 9th will win the title of Biggest Loser, as well as a monetary reward.  I thought this would be good motivation because not only can I use the money, but a weekly weigh-in is required and I figured that if someone will be seeing my weight every week, I am going to make damn sure it goes down consistently.  It is now 3 or 4 weeks later, and I haven’t lost a blessed pound.  The only reason for this is that I haven’t even tried to lose weight.   Well, I tried on some days and not on others.  I didn’t really try to resist the temptation to eat something I wanted, but shouldn’t have. I finally realized that I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to try to diet.  It’s not that I don’t WANT to.  It’s that I just can’t do it right now.  So, I felt like kind of a jerk about it.  I let the group down, and I let myself down.  I want to be thin, and look great in my clothes, and have people look at me and see a 47 year old, thin, fit, and healthy woman.  But I’m not ready to do the work yet.  And after really thinking about it, I wondered why the hell I should be feeling guilty about it.

I am not in a place in life right now where I feel I can take on a personal goal and be successful at it.  I have more on my plate than the average person.  I have a sick husband who has failing kidneys, and is on so much medication, that he spends his days sleeping, or severely lacking the energy to do much of anything.  My weekdays start at 6 a.m. when I get up to make sure my kids are up for school, and to get myself ready to go to work.  I’m in work by 8:30 and spend my days with 5 year olds.  I am home by 4, at which time I have to make any phone calls that need to be made (if I remember to make them), run any errands, shop for and/or make dinner, help with homework, make sure there is some clean laundry for the next day, straighten up any messes (usually half assedly because I am out of energy by dinner), run any errands that didn’t get done before dinner, have at least a little conversation with my kids, and get ready for the next day.  That is all I do on a good day.

In addition to my full time job, I just took on a part time “small business” that I’m trying to get up and running so I can make some “extra” money.  So my evenings also now involve answering emails and FB messages, learning about the company and the product, and promoting my business.  Soon, there will be evenings that I will be out at parties, selling my product.  Then there are the evenings that my kids have appointments or activities that I need to get them to.  Friday nights are often spent taxiing kids to friends’ houses or to meet them at the movies or ice skating, or even at the occasional concert.

The weekends aren’t much quieter.  They are spent trying to motivate myself to get up and clean the pig sty that is my home.  After a full week of working and running around, it’s all I can do to dust, vacuum, clean the toilet, straighten the mess, and catch up on laundry.  I never catch up on laundry.  My house always feels dirty and messy, even if I clean.  I feel guilty about that, too.  I wonder what kind of wife and mother I am that I can’t keep a neat, clean home, have dinner on the table every night a la June Cleaver, and have everyone’s clothes cleaned, pressed and put away.  I try to do it all.  But my weekends are also spent carting my kids around, or out and about getting things for them for school, or things for the household for the following week.  At some point, I have to get to the godforsaken grocery store…a place I’ve come to detest.  I’m tired all the time.  This isn’t how I want to spend my weekends.

Recently, I thought about all that I do.  When I list everything like I did in this blog post, I realize I do A LOT.  And I do it pretty much on my own.  My husband and kids will help out a little, but the majority is all on me.  Why is it that I always feel like I’m not doing enough?  Why do I feel guilty that I’m not a perfect housekeeper, or a perfect cook, or a perfect wife and mother?  Why do I never feel good enough?  Why do I always feel like I should be doing more?  I compare myself to other women who have neat, clean homes, or who go to the gym and look perfect in their jeans, or who cook a hot meal every single night rather than order take out.  It’s not just me.  I think A LOT of women feel the same way.  Why do we do it to ourselves?  I don’t know the answer to that question.  But at this point, I’m allowing myself to be okay with not trying to lose weight.  I just can’t put that on myself right now.  I need to let something go for now, and so I’ve decided to let the guilt go of not trying to lose weight and being the perfect size 10.  I’m going to be okay sitting in my dusty living room, eating my chocolate chip cookies.  Just for now.

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Diet Delusions

Apr8

I recently decided to eliminate wheat from my diet, and seriously restrict other grains as well.  I also decided to “give up” sugar.  By “give up,” I mean reduce the amount I consume on a daily basis from 5 pounds to 2 or 3 pounds.  Don’t laugh.  While I am exaggerating, giving up even a small amount of sugar is really, really hard for me.  That’s because it’s addicting…REALLY addicting.  And I like sugary stuff.  Remember, grains are sugar in disguise, so I’m almost insanely sugar free.  Thankfully, there are some wizards out there who have come up with alternatives to the white stuff, and they are just fabulous if you have no taste buds, whatsoever.

The first would be fake sugar…Equal, Sweet and Low, Natrataste, etc.  These are shitty tasting chemicals that cause cancer,  digestive issues, the bubonic plague, hangnails and other icky things that people tend not to enjoy.  There is also Stevia, the “natural” sugar alternative that people like to use because it’s much better for you.  Let’s be honest though…it gives food a nasty aftertaste that leaves me feeling that it’s nothing even close to sugar.  Stevia is okay in baked goods, but it’s atrocious in a cup of coffee.  I love my coffee, and I’ve tried hard to like sugar alternatives in my coffee, but I just can’t do it.  I still drink my coffee with good, old fashioned, white table sugar.  If that makes me unhealthy, then so be it.  Nobody messes with my coffee.

Another love of mine is ice cream.  There was a time, not so long ago, that I could and would eat a ginormous bowl of ice cream with either hot fudge or chocolate sprinkles piled on top.  It really is my favorite dessert.  I never get tired of it.  I could eat it every single night for the rest of my life and die a happy woman.  However, in my quest to lose weight, feel better, and be all around healthier, I have seriously restricted my ice cream intake to maybe once every few weeks (except for the past 3 nights because I made the mistake of buying mint chocolate chip and I hear it calling my name from the freezer at approximately 10 p.m. every night until it’s gone).  This morning, I stumbled across a suggestion by another wheat and sugar eliminator, to eat yogurt topped with strawberries for dessert because it’s “just like eating ice cream.”  Um, excuse me?  What kind of delusional, crack smoking, half wit has the nads to suggest that THAT would be anywhere close to the same as eating a bowl of ice cream?  The only thing even remotely close to ice cream, is friggin ice cream.  End of story.

There are numerous grain free desserts that call for ground flax meal.  I was so excited to try a chocolate muffin-in-a-mug one night, because I was PMSing and I wanted some damn chocolate.  It was really quick and easy to mix up and pop in the microwave for two minutes.  They suggested topping it with whipped cream, so I did.  It smelled heavenly.  I couldn’t wait to eat it.  I took one bite of that atrocity and nearly gagged.  It was like eating chocolate flavored coffee grounds.  I tried to like it for several bites.  I decided that it wasn’t fit for the dog.  I don’t care how good it is for me, I won’t bake anything with flax meal again.

One food that is allowed and encouraged when you eliminate grains and sugars from your diet is chocolate.  However, it should be 85% cacao.  The antioxidants are really good for you, and it’s low in sugar.  VERY low in sugar.  TOO low in sugar.  In fact, it’s nothing like a Hershey bar, or Dove chocolate, or kisses, or M&Ms, or Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.  The “anti wheat people” claim that it’s such a wonderful treat.  They eat one whole square of it and are satisfied.  These people are freaks.  They shouldn’t be allowed to breed.  I will eat dark chocolate…the normal dark chocolate, thank you.  And I will eat more than one square.

Don’t get me wrong.  I am really enjoying the wheat free lifestyle, and most of the food is just delicious.  I feel great, have a lot of energy, and have started losing weight.  I don’t miss wheat, or other grains, and I’m okay with not eating most sugary stuff.  Sometimes, I fall off the no-wheat-no-sugar train, and that’s okay.  I’m not doing this to prove to anyone else that I can do it.  I’m doing this for me, and if I choose to drink my coffee with sugar, or eat a bowl of ice cream once in a while, or eat a Hershey bar with almonds one night, then I’m okay with that.  I don’t need to impress the non-wheat people, or the people in my life who point out that I’m not following my “diet,” or who think my way of eating is “just a fad.”  The point is, I’m a lot healthier, but I’m still enjoying a few of my favorite things.