What if you are hungry?

I had a large breakfast!

My friend says that she has a large breakfast and she means 1/2 cup of yogurt, 1 tsp of chia seeds and a cup of coffee with non-fat creamer.

NAH. This was eggs, taco meat, country potatoes, cheese, tomatoes, onions and peppers in a skillet. Then we went immediately to watch a movie. I HAD to have popcorn and Blue Dew. I wasn’t hungry. That’s just what I have with a movie.

I find myself getting hungry in my car. When I’m off to an appointment or an event or a meeting, I don’t get 2 blocks from my house before my tummy rumbles. I might get a tinge of hunger at home if it’s 11:30 and I haven’t had any breakfast yet. I eat breakfast because that’s what you do in the morning. Just like that’s what you do in the movie theater.

I was on a diet once where you don’t eat unless you’re hungry. No problem, I thought. I had breakfast about 11:30. Then I had a nap…2-3 hours! I got some work done, then I had some leftovers about 6:00, and stayed up until after midnight. I ate when I was hungry and there was no real schedule. My naps got more frequent and longer (!) and I seemed to be more foggy-brained. I started losing things, and words wouldn’t come to me (names, days, the last half of a sentence that seemed like it would have a point 10 seconds earlier.) I became very short-tempered. Oh, and I gained weight!

Then I was on this restrictive diet. It required a very strict regimen. Everything was scheduled. Wake-up time, eating time, a choice of 1 or 2 foods for each meal, exercise time, what exercises I had to do based on the day, and bedtime. I was tired all the time, sore all the time, and hungry all the time. I was also short-tempered, frustrated, and depressed. Oh, and I gained weight.

Now what’s interesting about both those scenarios was that it didn’t matter if I was hungry or not, the foods I was eating were healthy, and the portions were small. For the last 10 years or so, I have been on a 900-1100 calorie per day diet. I should have dropped a ton of weight, and I gained instead. No, I didn’t cheat on my diet, and no, I didn’t lie in my diary.

Now some folks I’m talking to eat when they’re bored, some when they’re emotionally upset, and some when they’re lonely. I eat chocolate because I love chocolate. I eat pizza because I love pizza. I eat asparagus because I love asparagus. There are just a few foods I don’t eat. I like the taste and the texture. I like to experiment when I’m cooking.

I went on a KETO diet in September of 2021, and I dropped 25 pounds by January 2022. Yay Me! But I haven’t dropped any since then. So I rejoined the Keto community and I’m reading all these horror stories about people and why they eat. Some are in serious condition with their diabetes, some are having heart problems and kidney problems, and some would spend their time in their bedroom alone watching soaps and in severe depression.

It occurred to me that maybe what was hungry was not their body, but their emotional self or their soul. How do you feed those?

How would you?

Well, something’s working

I went to England last week. My weight before I left was 210, and my glucose levels were averaging about 110 per week. On the jet, I had chosen “Diabetic” meals when I booked the flights, so that’s what they thought they gave me.

To understand what diabetics need, I compiled the list of things to avoid when you’re diabetic. The key is avoiding carbohydrates which can come from starchy or sugary foods:

1. sugary drinks
2. transfats
3. White bread, rice, pasta
4. Fruits
5. fruit-flavored yogurt
6. Sweetened breakfast cereals
7. Flavored coffees
8. Honey, maple syrup, brown sugar
9. Dried fruit
10. Packaged snack foods such as pretzels
11. Fruit juices
12. Potatoes, especially fries

All of the diabetic meals on my flights included potatoes (12) and bread (3) of some sort. 2 of the snacks consisted of packages of pretzels (10). I had melons and strawberries (4) for lunch and dinner. I had a brown sugar glaze (8) on the carrots and teriyaki sauce on my chicken. The salad had a fruity dressing (4). I got strawberry yogurt (5) as a snack. So the difference between my diabetic dinner and the normal one was that mine tasted like cardboard.

Then I got to the summit location: Stanbrook Abbey near Worcester. The buffet had English bacon which looks like ham, sausages, baked beans, scrambled eggs, smoked salmon (!), mushrooms, grilled tomatoes, hash browns, cheese, cold cuts, and tea. I didn’t have the hashbrowns or the mushrooms (except that 1st day). Then lunch had some sort of small meat dish with potatoes or pizza or pasta. Dinner consisted of either chicken breast and sides, or beef in some sort of casserole.

Needless to say, it was difficult to avoid the carbs. In fact, I messed up on every meal except breakfast. BUT, my glucose numbers were below 100 4 days in a row. Does that make sense? I was eating 3 meals a day instead of 2, and I was eating the wrong stuff, yet my numbers were DOWN. Hmmm. Well, calories are calories. There was no way I was going to get home from England weighing the same as when I left. 😦

But Jennifer and Andra waved their magic wands and declared that anything eaten in England stayed in England. HA! So I had linguine carbonara. I had shepherd’s pie (once with beef, and once with chicken…they have strange flocks here, apparently. I had potatoes, bread, or pasta every day, but even with all those carbs, I was below 100 in my glucose levels all 4 days of the summit! Something was strange. Then I got home and my glucose levels had climbed up to 167 one day. The numbers are below 100 again now, though.

What was the result of that fiasco that was my diet during this week? I was still at 210 lbs. on 4/11. And I was at 205 lbs. yesterday, 2/14. ???!!!!!

I don’t know how to process this information.

If you want to eat right, move.

Yes, I’ve started a new eating program. It’s supposed to help me keep on a KETO diet and avoid raising my blood glucose measurements which are averaging about 150 when normal is below 100. So I signed up for this program to help me make smart menu choices.

I spent $60 on two meals yesterday. And a lot of the things on the grocery list were prohibitively expensive. I spent over $10 for 3 cups of ground flaxseed meal. I had to have fresh asparagus. I was bad and cut up a single Roma tomato instead of buying 16 cherry tomatoes for $5. I bought frozen cod and that gives me 4 meals for $15. I have to start an herb garden to have fresh parsley, basil, sage, dill… I wondered if it would kill me to use 3 rings of a white onion instead of a red one because they specified red, and there weren’t any available at the store.

If I buy peanut butter, it has to be organic without added sugar and comes in a tiny jar 6-8 oz for $6. I had to have organic mushrooms, a specific type of garlic, almond milk…

And the almond milk you get is 98% water. Well, I guess so is milk from a cow. It costs $6/gal and about $2/gal for cow’s milk. Oh and healthy? Look at the ingredients: Organic Almondmilk (Filtered Water, Organic Almonds), Sea Salt, Tricalcium Phosphate, Gellan Gum, Organic Locust Bean Gum, Vitamin A Palmitate, Ergocalciferol (Vitamin D2), Dl-alpha-tocopherol Acetate (Vitamin E), Cyanocobalamin (Vitamin B12). Oh and check out cyanocobalamin: The most common man-made form of vitamin B-12 (cobalamin) in supplements is cyanocobalamin and although this form includes a cyanide molecule, it is very safe. … Even at a very high dose, it would provide about a thousand times less cyanide than is toxic, and the cyanide is excreted in the urine. This milk is to be preferred opposed to the unhealthy but organic milk from a cow.

Check these ingredients (prepare to be shocked!) Organic Milk, Vitamin D3.

ANNNNYYYWAY, in order to eat “healthy” I have to spend 2x what I normally do in order to get the specialty items.

To be fair, I was expecting to have to spend 1-2 hours preparing these specialty meals, but they only take 20-40 min. If I wanted to get everything on my list, I’d have to go to some specialty food store across town or have it delivered (which adds a whole bunch to the cost.)

Here’s the thing. Very few of these ingredients can be found for a reasonable price in your local grocery store. Heck, I can find foods from Guatemala and Mexico and Taiwan and Nairobi but I cannot find red onions today. So to have a steady supply of the ingredients for my new menus, I have to move to NYC, or LA, or follow my daughter Jo around to her favorite food stores in Pittsburgh.

How did we Rounds kids ever survive my mom’s cooking? She didn’t weigh anything. She didn’t spend hours reading labels and looking for plant alternatives and low sodium and low carb and high protein and…

They LIED!

On Dec 26, I entered my meals for the day, my water, and my steps. I hit “Complete Diary” for the day and it told me that if I continued to eat the same way, in 5 weeks I’d weigh 212.5 pounds. Daily averages were 1300 calories, 121g carbs, 50g protein. I’m averaging much less now. 967 calories, 56g carbs, 62g protein. I should weigh 212.5 right? Dec 26 I weighed 218. Today, 5 weeks later, I’m at 219.

Fracas and Round Green Vegies

That would be War and Peas

“I always eat peas with honey
I’ve done it all my life
It does make them taste kinda funny
But at least they stay on the knife.”

After 40 years as a mom, I learned something: some of my kids don’t like peas.

What? I LOVE peas! It’s funny since every time I served them, my kids ate them. They also ate carrots, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, asparagus. Whatever I served they ate. I always used fresh or frozen and the only time I used canned peas was in a tuna-macaroni salad. Now, I have some picky in-laws. If they don’t like something, they just don’t eat it. My kids may not like something that is served, but they eat it anyway. I was going to experiment and invite my kids over and serve only their least favorite foods. But I couldn’t bring myself to do that.

Did I ever sit at the table while a kid stared at his food watching it get cold for 2 1/2 hours? Of course. I warned the stubborn child that if he/she didn’t eat it now, I’d have it creamed on toast for breakfast, and ground-up with mayo and pickle relish for lunch, and in the salad the next night until it was alllllll gone! I didn’t have picky eaters at my house.

I remember once we invited a kid over for supper. I was serving spaghetti, and he announced he was having a hotdog. My kids thought that was really funny. I put a small serving of spaghetti on his plate and gave him the option of just cheese and butter or sauce and he looked at me as if I had eels on my head and asked, “Didn’t you hear me? I asked for a hotdog.” I told him I heard him but ignored him. He grabbed his stuff and went home. My kid was devastated. “How could you embarrass me like that?” It’s not my fault that the kid mistook my kitchen and dining table for a restaurant.

I probably damaged all my kids irretrievably that day.

But they all ATE PEAS when I served them.

 

 

Water you up to?

May 20, 2020

20 days into my water-only beverage challenge.

I got to May 15 and broke down because we had pizza. I order from Pizza Hut because I like their crusts and the fact that the toppings are well distributed and plenteous. SO, I’m in the rewards club and can get 1 pizza free with every single pizza I order until my points run out. Why do I mention this? Because Pizza hut will not deliver an order that is less than $12. In order to get them to deliver, I cannot order just pizza. Which means…dat dat Daaaaaaah…I have to order soda pop. And THAT means that I have to drink some because I’m not going to order a 2-liter bottle of Mountain Dew and not get some of it! 2 pizzas without the reward points is $40+ (that’s $11 per pizza and a delivery fee and a tip) and 2 pizzas with the reward points AND 2 2-liter bottles of soda pop is $21. Doing my math…that means that the soda pop costs about $6. But then I confuse myself and think I’m still saving money and do it anyway.

But! (And this is an important but.) I do not have pizza for every meal, so I have water with those non-pizza meals and sip on water throughout the day. Therefore, when I have my left-over pizza, I drink whatever soda pop is available.

NO, I am NOT making my own pizza. I make rolls and bread. My homemade chicken salad tastes amazing on homemade bread. I made kolaches last week, and this week, my son made banana chocolate chip bread. And his GF made CHOCOLATE BREAD. It feels weird to have chocolate for breakfast, but adjustments must be made in the spirit of self-quarantine. But if I want pizza, I’m going to order it. So there.

I’m not craving sugar like I was before, but my dark chocolate urges are higher. 11 more days of water-only beverage (except on pizza days) should not be a problem.

I fully understand that in my quest for healthy eating, having 1 slice of pizza and a soda pop completely nullifies all the good eating I have been doing for a month. So 2 slices will take me back 2 months and 3 slices will put me back 3 months. If I’ve done my calculations correctly, I have regressed to 1873. If my scale is right, and I’m afraid it’s low, I have gained about 10 pounds.

 

Water update

This is day 5 in the Water Challenge.

Drink only water this month…no coffee, no tea, no juice, no milk, no pop (soda)–only water.

You’re supposed to drink 1 oz. for every 2 pounds you weigh. So I’m at 60 oz. I must weigh 120 pounds then! I just weighed myself. I’m not. I need to be drinking another 50 oz. so I am drinking about 1/2 what I should be.

But last night I slept like a baby for the first time in ages…You know…Wake up every 2 hours to pee.

Anyone else trying this or am I alone again?

How the cookie crumbles…

So according to my plan, I’m supposed to reward myself today. It doesn’t say what for or how to reward myself. I went to my usual after church breakfast and said, “What the heck. I’m going to order the Santa Fe skillet.”  Sausage meat…hot spice (I think chili powder and some cayenne pepper) cheese, red-skinned potatoes, 1/2 a bell pepper roasted, a little salsa, and 2 eggs over easy. In the red zone: Sausage meat, cheese, red-skinned potatoes. Yellow zone: eggs and salsa. Green zone: 1/2 a bell pepper.  My program does an analysis after you enter things into the log. 710 calories. Brace yourself. IT GAVE ME ALL GREEN!  Yeah, Baby!  OK.  Of Course, it’s a glitch.

I went to the gym and got my steps in and some squats too. “Woohoo,” she says curbing her enthusiasm. Got home and had to crash. I’m exhausted. I don’t understand why I’m so tired…oh yeah. 5 hours of Toastmasters yesterday. Makes my brain tired, plus I was part of the main attraction too. GET UP, we have another Toastmaster’s meeting. Follow hubby to the car and head out. Have our meeting at a hotel restaurant. I have a Philly and a bowl of fruit. Now a Philly has steak, cheese, bread, bell peppers, mushrooms, and onions. Steak, cheese, and white bread roll are all Red. Peppers and mushrooms and onions all green.  It put all that under YELLOW! So no red foods today.

Something is seriously messed up.

But I’m not going to tell them…

 

That’s a BIG breakfast!

• 2 poached eggs
• bacon
• low-fat yogurt with berries and granola
• muffin

“WOW!  OMG!  How do you eat that much!  That’s a HUMONGOUS Breakfast.”

What? No. Ultimate Skillet at Village Inn is a humongous breakfast. 2 eggs, 2 bacon, 2 sausages, grits, fried apples, 2 biscuits, gravy, and butter and jelly at Cracker Barrel is a big breakfast. I never have the ultimate skillet or the meat lover’s special. Why what do you eat for breakfast?

• “1 tsp of chia seeds
• 1 cup of almond milk”

Wait that’s it?

“I can barely finish it all.”

The guide says eggs are ok, whole-grain toast, fruit, and broccoli for breakfast. Broccoli? Really? Give up bacon and get broccoli. (By the way, that poached egg breakfast was 1186 calories. It is about 14 calories short of my whole day’s allowance!) Give up hamburger and only have chicken, fish or turkey. Never have sausage!  You can eat as much as you want…as long as it’s green. The “green” designation is food that has a low-calorie density. So 5 grapes and 5 raisins have the same calories, but 5 raisins would not make a dent in your hunger, and 5 grapes, due to the water, would.

I committed to this program. What a fool. I can’t commit to anything. 2k steps/day? Depends on the day. 1 day it’s 800, the next it’s 6000. 3 meals and 3 snacks? Today it was Breakfast (not chia seeds and almond milk I assure you!) and a peach.

I’m always Hangry. I’m also frustrated. My coach hasn’t met with me yet, and I don’t think she will. I asked a couple of questions…well, made a couple of observations and now she won’t talk to me. After 1 abysmal week…over and under my calorie count, completely the wrong foods, inconsistent walking or exercising ( they don’t give you credit for pulling staples out of the floor) and now a crappy attitude, I was UP 2 pounds. Diet, Exercise, Psychology. This really works! Except on me. But, the beginning of every day, I weigh in, beat myself up for weighing more or less exactly what I started, eat breakfast and discover I’ve used up all my calories for the week, and then listen to my tummy rumble for the rest of the day. But you’re supposed to count your foods and estimate your portions and only have what it says on the list. BUT with the exception of today’s breakfast, that is exactly what I’ve been doing. I find myself more tired and irritable after my nearly imperceptible lunch. A peanut butter sandwich is never to be eaten. Why? Because it’s a RED food, you are allowed 380 calories of red foods and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich is 388… my whole allowance for the day. I can have one sandwich OR 2 pieces of bacon OR one hamburger patty, but not all of them. Actually, the sandwich is more high-calorie than the bacon or the hamburger.

If a typical breakfast is 1 tsp of chia seeds and 1 cup of almond milk, why bother? Drink a cup of weak tea and just call it. But don’t pour any milk into your weak tea. Milk is a red food too, btw, but almond milk is ok. (Ever try to milk an almond? Just about the time you’re on your 12,000th almond, it kicks the bucket over and you lose your whole cup of milk!)

Now go for your 10k step walk every morning, have a nice cup of salad with salmon slices on it. NO SUSHI!  There’s rice in them there rolls. NEVER rolls or muffins. No cheesecake, no pudding, no icecream.  AND YET, they say, “Oh it’s perfectly fine to go off script once in a while! You can’t deny yourself all the time.” And then they deny me all the time. But it’s insidious. “YAY!” my program gushes. “You logged all your foods and it’s under 1200 calories!” It makes no mention that though it’s under 1200 calories, I ATE ALL THE WRONG FOODS! 380 Cal of Red foods?  I had 888. 250-500 calories of Yellow foods? I ate 298. 0-800 calories of Green type foods? I had 58. Completely upside down. And I wonder why I’m 2 pounds heavier on less food and more exercise.  Silly me.

I think it’s hopeless.

 

I’m Fat

I was listening to a show on NPR this morning and they did an issue about obese people. Fat people haven’t always been considered gross and disgusting. Botticelli and Raphael featured full-figured women in their paintings.

   

Now, they are considered lazy, undisciplined, and weak.  Wait?  What does that have to do with weight? Do people think that fat people just don’t care about how they look?  And it is alllllll about how people look isn’t it.  Observe in the pictures that the women do not have defined abs and muscular shoulders. Normal people cannot attain that measure of fitness, but we’re shamed by the fact that we don’t.

The woman in the interview said she came out to her family and friends that she was fat. This was not news to the people she told. She didn’t do it for them, she did it for herself. She now defined herself as a fat person. How can weight define a person?  That’s ridiculous! She had some valid points though.

People view fat people in two different ways. Sloppy, lazy, undisciplined, weak fatties, and fat people trying to get thinner. They patronize the fat people trying to get thinner. They shame the fat people they perceive aren’t trying. They complain about sitting next to them on public transportation, in movie theaters, at events, because they take up soooo much space! They consider fat rolls gross. They make fun of women of significant size in leggings.

What do I mean about patronizing fat people trying to get thinner? “Oh, you just have to eat more salads!”  “You should try this exercise.” “Are you going to eat all of that?!” I have news for those well-meaning people. You couldn’t keep up with me in the gym. That’s right.  You heard me. I do 90 pounds on the crunch machine. I do 70 pounds on the lat pull machine. I do 15-20 pound biceps curls. I do 80-pound leg presses. I can go 30 min on an elliptical machine on level 6. I do 90 crunches and 45 push-ups. I live on about 1200 calories a day. I do not eat burgers and fries three times a day–more like 3 times in a month. I have pizza twice a month. So yes, some of us are really trying to lose the weight. It is NOT however because we can’t find clothes that don’t look like circus tents or Macy’s white sale bedding. It is NOT because eventually, we’ll be diabetic. It is NOT because we feel guilty that our “fat-related” illnesses are a drain on the public health system.

Why do we try so hard? Because we remember how it felt to be thinner. We remember not having to have help getting out of the couch or the car. We remember not wheezing when we went up the stairs. We remember not hurting when we walked long distances. We remember being able to walk into a store and just buy something because it looked cute. We remember knees and ankles and backs that didn’t crack when we moved. We remember running to fly kites and taking hikes and climbing trees.

My Fat does not define me. (Obie is surprised–Obie is my sentient fat by the way.) My size does not determine my intelligence, my work ethic or my self-discipline. It does restrict my activities and how I feel.

I am fat. And I don’t like it. And I’m working to get rid of that fat.