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threadwalkerOne of the managers from my organization at work just started attending our Weight Watchers meetings. booooo!
And rumor has it, he's one of those strict, militant type of managers. I don't work for him, but the guy who's his manager is also at the top of my food chain. Drat! There goes my comfort zone for griping about the catered lunches and some of the crap my project team dump on me. Why? Well, I am reluctuant to "bitch" in front of someone who could possibly be my boss one day. First impressions are hard to shake.
Nurtrition Rambles: End of first week of "Clean Eating". Overall: Yay, Me!
First Impression: So this is what it's like to eat like a diabetic. Hmm... since I'm borderline anyway, this was a good peak at how my friends who are fully diabetic (should) eat. I would say that it does NOT suck to eat this way. Other than my urge to binge on chocolate dipped Oreo's, I ate hearty and tasty food all week and I find myself thinking this might become a long term life-style choice.
In looking back over the last week, I have to face myself and admit I'd let some unhealthy habits creep into my life because their sudden absense resulted in mega-gigantic cravings and internal crankiness. Apparently I became dependent on food for stressful moments and for comfort. What's weird is that in looking back I can see that I was in a head space where as long as my weight was down, "it all good". But what I have uncovered is that even though my weight was down, I was stess eating and I think my exercising was masking this. This is sooo much more unsettling than any small weight fluxuations. THIS is part of my internal landscape that I've been focusing on for the last year and I thought I was "done" retooling. Apparently that is not the case.
Logically, if I ask myself, "Will I ever be done fighting a lifetime of habits and impulses?", I would answer, Of course not. But my guard dropped as I got comfortable with my weight and demonstrated consistency. Like the soldiers of Gondor who slept at their posts along the border of Mordor, the enemy was entrenched before I realized there was a breach. Of course, instead of falling back, I threw everything I had at the "enemy" and I'm working on regaining my ground. This is an intense battle being pitched on my internal landscape. I made it through this last week using positive self-talk, distractions, 10-20-07 as and "end date to this living hell", and the shame I would feel if I gave in.
Now at the end of week 1, I feel great. I feel great physically and (more importantly) mentally. I feel like I'm in charge and I like the choices I've made over the last week. My cravings are less frequent and I've gotten comfortable eating this way.
My specific nutritional shifts have been:
-significant reduction of "white carbs" (white flour and refined sugar)
-cut soda consumption from 6+ diet cokes a day to 2 (one in the am and one in the pm)
-I have replaced sodas with green tea and water at work.*
-I'm eating high fiber grains in the morning with fruit and egg whites.
-I'm eating "probiotic" yogurt.
-My evening "treat" is a peach w/ 1/4 cup dried fruit and cinnamon. If I haven't had enough "points"/calories for the day, I add 1/4 cup plain, fat-free yogurt and (if I still need more points) a cup of berries.
-I actually upped my daily minimum target via Weight Watchers this week by 1 pt.
I'm working very hard to make sure my nutrition is a balance of fiber, protein, dairy, healthy oil, etc. I am watching my calories/points because I don't want to accidentally slip into starvation mode. In fact, my initial weight loss was so dramatic that by Monday I'd increased my daily minimum points.
Even though I've set October 20 for the time to be "done" with my trial of Clean Eating, I really like how alert I feel all the time and how I have more energy. I've become comfortable with this. We have a vacation planned from 10/23 through 10/28. When I get back and I'm once again in my normal environment, I may pick this up again.
*(This was never meant to be a caffeine replacement. This is a anti-carbonation and anti-aspartame choice. Soda = bloating and water retention per one of my books. Aspartame has been linked to lots of illness)
I squeezed in a 30 min stair-master work out last night before my dance class. It's been over 2 weeks since I got in the gym and the sense of "coming home" was really strong. It was soooo nice. I haven't lost much ground on the stair master. On the super-duper good news is that my left leg has sufficiently healed that I didn't get shooting pain when I had to reverse the direction of stepping. yay! pain = bad; fitness = good. fitness w/o injury = best.
Tonight: Spouse has grueling work schedule. He's expecting to work late, so I'm expecting that I can't get to the gym before 11pm (which means "probably not at all"). So my goal tonight is to feed the kids left overs, then run through my yoga warm-up. Then I'm going to go through my gym-less circuit training and butt work out. I will be interested to see if the kids join in. They usually join me when I do yoga at home. ... I wonder if I can do yoga in the kitchen while cooking... that would be some nice multi-tasking... hmm..
And rumor has it, he's one of those strict, militant type of managers. I don't work for him, but the guy who's his manager is also at the top of my food chain. Drat! There goes my comfort zone for griping about the catered lunches and some of the crap my project team dump on me. Why? Well, I am reluctuant to "bitch" in front of someone who could possibly be my boss one day. First impressions are hard to shake.
Nurtrition Rambles: End of first week of "Clean Eating". Overall: Yay, Me!
First Impression: So this is what it's like to eat like a diabetic. Hmm... since I'm borderline anyway, this was a good peak at how my friends who are fully diabetic (should) eat. I would say that it does NOT suck to eat this way. Other than my urge to binge on chocolate dipped Oreo's, I ate hearty and tasty food all week and I find myself thinking this might become a long term life-style choice.
In looking back over the last week, I have to face myself and admit I'd let some unhealthy habits creep into my life because their sudden absense resulted in mega-gigantic cravings and internal crankiness. Apparently I became dependent on food for stressful moments and for comfort. What's weird is that in looking back I can see that I was in a head space where as long as my weight was down, "it all good". But what I have uncovered is that even though my weight was down, I was stess eating and I think my exercising was masking this. This is sooo much more unsettling than any small weight fluxuations. THIS is part of my internal landscape that I've been focusing on for the last year and I thought I was "done" retooling. Apparently that is not the case.
Logically, if I ask myself, "Will I ever be done fighting a lifetime of habits and impulses?", I would answer, Of course not. But my guard dropped as I got comfortable with my weight and demonstrated consistency. Like the soldiers of Gondor who slept at their posts along the border of Mordor, the enemy was entrenched before I realized there was a breach. Of course, instead of falling back, I threw everything I had at the "enemy" and I'm working on regaining my ground. This is an intense battle being pitched on my internal landscape. I made it through this last week using positive self-talk, distractions, 10-20-07 as and "end date to this living hell", and the shame I would feel if I gave in.
Now at the end of week 1, I feel great. I feel great physically and (more importantly) mentally. I feel like I'm in charge and I like the choices I've made over the last week. My cravings are less frequent and I've gotten comfortable eating this way.
My specific nutritional shifts have been:
-significant reduction of "white carbs" (white flour and refined sugar)
-cut soda consumption from 6+ diet cokes a day to 2 (one in the am and one in the pm)
-I have replaced sodas with green tea and water at work.*
-I'm eating high fiber grains in the morning with fruit and egg whites.
-I'm eating "probiotic" yogurt.
-My evening "treat" is a peach w/ 1/4 cup dried fruit and cinnamon. If I haven't had enough "points"/calories for the day, I add 1/4 cup plain, fat-free yogurt and (if I still need more points) a cup of berries.
-I actually upped my daily minimum target via Weight Watchers this week by 1 pt.
I'm working very hard to make sure my nutrition is a balance of fiber, protein, dairy, healthy oil, etc. I am watching my calories/points because I don't want to accidentally slip into starvation mode. In fact, my initial weight loss was so dramatic that by Monday I'd increased my daily minimum points.
Even though I've set October 20 for the time to be "done" with my trial of Clean Eating, I really like how alert I feel all the time and how I have more energy. I've become comfortable with this. We have a vacation planned from 10/23 through 10/28. When I get back and I'm once again in my normal environment, I may pick this up again.
*(This was never meant to be a caffeine replacement. This is a anti-carbonation and anti-aspartame choice. Soda = bloating and water retention per one of my books. Aspartame has been linked to lots of illness)
I squeezed in a 30 min stair-master work out last night before my dance class. It's been over 2 weeks since I got in the gym and the sense of "coming home" was really strong. It was soooo nice. I haven't lost much ground on the stair master. On the super-duper good news is that my left leg has sufficiently healed that I didn't get shooting pain when I had to reverse the direction of stepping. yay! pain = bad; fitness = good. fitness w/o injury = best.
Tonight: Spouse has grueling work schedule. He's expecting to work late, so I'm expecting that I can't get to the gym before 11pm (which means "probably not at all"). So my goal tonight is to feed the kids left overs, then run through my yoga warm-up. Then I'm going to go through my gym-less circuit training and butt work out. I will be interested to see if the kids join in. They usually join me when I do yoga at home. ... I wonder if I can do yoga in the kitchen while cooking... that would be some nice multi-tasking... hmm..
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Date: 2007-10-07 11:23 pm (UTC)I heard something on the radio the other day ... no idea if it is true ... that aspertame did not pass any of the health / safety tests before it was allowed on the market. It seems to have gotten on the market when a certain Mr. Rumsfeld was CEO of the company tht produces the stuff.