Posts tagged diet

Apples with goat cheese is ok, but red peppers with goat cheese is freaking amazing.  It SO satisfied my sweet and salty craving today.  Also dark cocoa almonds are a gift from the heavens.  I ate about an eighth of a watermelon tonight and I have only one regret - that I have gone so long without it in my life.  Dessert?  Who needs dessert?  I want a giant bowl of watermelon and rhubarb and I don’t even need a fork.

Now that I’m finally able to do crazy bananas likeplan aheadandactuallyexecutesaid plans, life is a lot easier.  And my recipe invention mojo is back with a vengeance.  Last week, when I realized I was going to be working early a few days and I’d need a filling, high-energy, low-GI breakfast, I made these sort of mini frittatas in green pepper cups.  I put extras for later in the freezer and I just move them to the fridge the day before so they thaw, then pop them in the microwave for less than a minute.  They are a pretty fantastic breakfast if I do say so myself, and they pack a big nutritional punch without a lot of calories or money.  I think I worked it out that they’re like $1.65 to make one, and they are really easy to batch out for a week at once.  And they’re less than 250 calories.

Tomorrow I go into work late instead of early so I’m making a bunch of tamales (another great make-now-eat-all-week nutritional powerhouse.)  I fell in love with pork tamales in Honduras, but I’ll be making lean beef tamales and black bean-sweet potato tamales.  I like them spicy, so tonight I made a cooling salad to go with them that’s kind of a quick-pickled hybrid of salad, relish, and slaw.  It’s shredded Napa cabbage with grated radish, carrot, and zucchini, and it’s soaking in vinegar seasoned with salt, sugar, garlic powder and oregano.  When I eat it I’m going to toss some fresh chopped tomato on top and just OMNOMNOMNOM. While I’m at it, who wants me to post some recipes?

And I’m noticing patterns really, really clearly.  Like how if I’ve been at work for a few hours and I’m thirsty and my blood sugar is low, I want sweet and salty and caffeinated.  Such as the unfortunate combo of a Starbucks doubleshot and a bag of “fully-loaded baked potato” chips for a combined total of nearly 700 calories.  Or how after dinner I always crave something sweet, and I don’t seem to care if it’s pie or ice cream or handfuls of M&Ms. 

So I’m trying to plan accordingly.  For tomorrow at work, I’m packing a thermos of green tea for my hit of caffeine, and a sliced apple with goat cheese for my sweet n’ salty fix.  And I’m going to pick up a variety of fruit to see what satisfies my dessert-obsessed sweet tooth best: pineapple, watermelon, oranges, or sweet Meyer lemons.  If that doesn’t work, I’m thinking super-dark chocolate.

It feels so good to be able to make these observations and choices again.  I’m fighting the temptation to take on everything at once, though.  I want to do ambitious things like do a 30-day sugar detox and work out every day alternating strength and cardio and cut my calories down so I can lose 2+ pounds a week.  But I know that way lies burnout, injury, and disappointment.  For now, I’m focusing on taking this journey one step at a time, enjoying the process, and just generally appreciating myself for how far I’ve come already.  Right now, that feels way better than “skinny” ever could.

It sounds silly, but I don’t bring cash to work.  It’s how I ward off temptation and stick to my planned lunches.  If I did have cash on hand, I would probably be going in on the fast food lunches the rest of my office enjoys.  Without it, I save myself from Subway, Starbucks, the local pizza joints, and Dunkin Donuts.  

My church had a potluck dinner before Ash Wednesday services, and even though I tried to be responsible, it was still a much bigger meal than my tummy is used to.  I enjoyed the food immensely, and the company as well, so I have decided that I will not let myself feel guilty.  What’s the point?  I had a bad day basically up until I got to church.  I’m not going to spoil the best part of my day.

But I don’t like the stuffed feeling I was having.  I gave it some time to get down, and then did this workout, much of which is from the December 2009 issue of Women’s Health:

• Plank position, forearms and toes.  Get in plank, squeeze your glutes, and hold for 15 seconds.  Rest for 5 seconds.  Do as many of these as possible.  (For me, that is four right now.  I would say even a fit person should call it off at ten.)
• Oblique v-ups.  (I love these)  Lie on your right side with your legs angled forward from the hip about 30 degrees.  With your right arm on the floor for gentle support - don’t push up with it - and your hand behind your head, lift your legs and torso up off the floor.  Slowly lower.  Do 10-15 on each side.
• Superwoman barrel rolls. (I also love these, even thought they kick my butt and are hard because of how much wider my hips are compared to my shoulders.)  Lying on your back with your arms extended overhead, tighten your core and lift your arms, legs, and shoulders if you can off the floor.  Hold for five seconds, then roll  onto your belly, keeping your arms, legs, and possibly shoulders lifted off the floor.  Hold for another five seconds.  Roll back.  That’s one.  Do 10, alternating which direction you roll in.
• Diamond reverse crunches.  Lie on your back.  Position your legs so that the soles of your feet are pressed together, your knees pointing out to the sides.  Tighten your core and slowly raise your legs, keeping soles together.  Lower slowly.  Do nine more.
• Ten push-ups
• Five triceps dips from a chair (only five because I haven’t done a triceps dip since high school phys. ed.  Yowza!)

That is one set.  Do three.  Then top it off with:

• Five diamond push-ups - hands positioned with thumbs and forefingers touching, keeping your elbows close to your sides in the lowered position
• Five wide-set push-ups - hands spaced shoulder width + half
• And five knuckle push-upsups - give the mat two thumbs up for a good workout!

I’ll be honest, this workout kicked my butt, in the best way.  I love the way my body feels when I put it through its paces.  So now I feel even better about my choices for today: I indulged, but in a positive way, and I balanced my indulgence with some fun, challenging physical activity. 

I usually wake up at six.  Today it was absolutely imperative that I wake up at six because I had to go to a breakfast meeting at seven.  I set my alarm clock for six and put it just out of reach so I couldn’t hit the snooze.

The next thing I knew, my dad was yelling “Anne, aren’t you supposed to be awake?”  At six. fifty. eight.  With my still set but mysteriously silent alarm clock taunting me from just out of reach.  

It’s mornings like this I am so glad I work out after work, because I was all showered and ready to pull on clothes while brushing my teeth and muttering “Ohcrapohcrapohcrapohcrap.”  Since I was already late I figured there was no harm in putting together my gym bag and grabbing some fruit for later.

This meeting was supposed to be a breakfast meeting, but because I got there late it was a “sit down in the only available seat all the way at the front of the room and stare longingly at the buffet that it would be rude to go to while everyone else eats” meeting.  The outcome was good.  The experience was torture.

When I left the meeting for work I figured “There’s a McDonald’s just up the street.  I’ll go buy a bacon-egg-and-cheese sandwich.”  For reference, already dead Lent pledges aside, the bacon, egg and cheese McMuffin is not nutritionally terrible.  It’s high in protein, low GI, and 360 calories.  By comparison, the oatmeal is only 290 calories but has 32 grams of sugar.  That’s how much sugar is in the small caramel cappuccino.  

By the time I have that in the car I am so hungry, so I pull it out and unwrap it… and find that they’ve decided that a sausage patty is the same thing as bacon.  No, disgruntled McDonald’s employee, no it is not.  That sausage patty is 210 calories on its own.  The bacon is about 60.  I just pulled the patty off and had just the egg and cheese.  Still ok.  But man, I was not happy.  So, anyway, now I’m at work, with only half a lunch, braced for whatever today’s going to throw at me next.  Good grief.

I was raised Presbyterian, so my family is not so big on the Fat Tuesday traditions - but that said, I work literally around the corner from a firehouse whose fundraiser donuts were an essential part of my childhood, and they are selling them just for today.  Am I going to get some?  Of course.  Some things I’ve learned about indulgence:

1. Plan ahead.  Trim a few of your normal calories to make room for your indulgence, or plan to make the indulgence the way you eat back your exercise calories.
2. Indulge wisely.  If there is one food that is your must-have indulgence, eat it! But don’t indulge in other foods that you don’t really, truly enjoy out of some feeling of obligation.
3. Indulge moderately.  Just have one.  Say it with me: just have one.  There is an old saying, “The feast is in the first bite,” and it’s true.  The first donut (or cookie, or scoop of ice cream) tastes so good as the sugar and fat light up all the pleasure receptors in your brain.  But every bite after that, the sensation is dulled a little more.  So have your one treat and
4. Enjoy it!  You are indulging responsibly.  If any feelings of guilt are getting in the way, write them on a piece of paper, crumple it up, throw it away, and get back to savoring your responsible indulgence.