Gobbling

In my previous posting, I talked about how I'd taken some actions to lose a little weight. To clarify the "some" or "a little" in regards to losing... two dress sizes is what I told my trainer that I'm going to concentrate on, with no particular timeline in mind other than "I've heard that 2 lbs a month is ideal." On my other blog, 5 lbs is what I said I'm going to concentrate on through December. Clearly it's hard for me to commit to something concrete, consistent and doable. I've never liked to set goals because I'm a horrible project manager. I tend to get jacked up about doing a very exciting something! for a short burst of time and then I'm over it. Chalk it up to being an Aries, or to allegedly having ADD, or whatever you want. It's me, and it's a pain in the ass.

If you take the self awareness that I'm a not great at achieving long-term goals and multiply that by the anxiety that comes with possibly/maybe/I guess losing some of the weight I've gradually gained since I was eight years old (ie. changing part of my identity), what you end up with is someone paralyzed by the mere thought of embarking on a weight loss plan. Then add in the requisite eye rolling and wanting-to-vomit that comes with even THINKING the phrase "weight loss plan", and you've got a big, conflicted, paralyzed ball of sarcastic anxiety on your hands.

But... I think I've found a way.

During my convo with coworker Janie (also in previous posting), she told me she was using the MyPlate food journal tool on livestrong.com. Janie wasn't pushing the use of this tool; I looked it up on my own accord and have been using it for a week now. My dislike for Lance Armstrong is epic and I didn't want to have anything to do with his world, but I admit that I like it quite a bit so far. Not that I've been perusing the site too much... mostly I just login and track my stuff, but honestly livestrong.com offends me far less than, say, some of the shit published in the Glamour magazines I insist on purchasing and reading every few months. And hey, usage is free! I'd say it's pretty groovy as you put in what you've eaten and then you can view and track as many or as few statistics about your food intake as you'd like (for instance, if you want to look at nutrition in addition to - or instead of - calories). You can also input and track your exercise activities and it links back to your caloric intake, showing how many calories you theoretically burned against what your daily calorie intake is. Here's what that means after running it through the fatspeak translator:

I just did an hour of circuit training with minimal rest... shit howdy, that means I can eat 1200 more calories today and still stay within my calorie allocation! I can haz chocolate shake!!

Well, that's what MY fatspeak translator says anyhow.

But, seriously. One thing I've learned from using the MyPlate tool is that it can be a little surprising what you find out from accruing a few days of data. The first two days I logged my intake, I made no change to what I had been eating (to set a baseline) and was over my calorie allocation by 500 calories both days. On the third, and all subsequent days, I switched up to the healthful, planful eating I always say I'm going to do and I've been under each day by 200-500 calories. I honestly don't feel like I've made some big change to my eating. All I did was get humble about it. I was eating like a rock star previously, dreaming up the biggest, bestest meals I could purchase or make for breakfast, lunch and dinner, meanwhile popping Halloween candy into my piehole all workday long. The upside to that is that I was eating things I liked and even expanding my cooking repertoire in a few instances. The downside is that, in the end, it wasn't even about those things tasting good in my mouth. I was really bored at work, stymied with my social life, and looking for a project to occupy my mind. Of course, all I've done now is shift my focus from eating big to eating humbly... we'll see how that works out for me in the end. I'm the first to admit it's dangerous business and it could blow up in my face.

Which brings me to my next point: I totally see how disordered eating can start in a hot second. I've got one foot on the gas and the other on the brake, and I intuited that I needed to do that from the starting gate. There's no way I'm going to let myself get consumed by a calorie tracker to the point that I'm a slave to it and it alone, but I can see how that can happen so very easily for someone who wants weight loss more than I do. I can see how it can happen for someone who is already thin but doesn't know it, and who is consumed by losing more and more weight. Afterall, the part of Janie's story that broke my heart was her talking about her first Overeaters Anonymous meeting. She sat there as a 300 lb radical, sporting her non-profit look and no makeup, and heard the exact same things she was saying also coming out of the mouth of a blonde, uber fashionable woman who was all of a size two.

In lighter news on the food journaling front: some of the things you think have a zillion calories don't really. Some of the things you think are horrible for your cholestorol are not necessarily. Conversely, some of the things you think don't have a zillion calories totally do, and some of the things you think are harmless to your cholestorol are pretty naughty! Shocking on either end. I've never been one to look at the nutrition facts labels on food because, frankly, I never gave a shit. Now I have to look at them to see that I'm tracking what I eat roughly correctly within the tool, but in terms of what the numbers mean for that specific food - I still don't give a shit. I'm not gonna pick that battle with food overall, and especially not with foods that I love. I like what I like and I'm still going to eat what I want. Granted, it might be in a more humble proportion or farther and fewer between, but I'm still gonna eat it. I think I'd die if I couldn't eat what I wanted to and what I crave.

I keep flashing back to this scene at last year's Thanksgiving dinner. My niece, she of junk in the truck, decided during the summertime that it was time for her to lose weight. I saw her briefly late in the summer when she'd already lost about 15 lbs, and she was super psyched to keep losing. By the time Thanksgiving rolled around, she had lost quite a bit more weight and was visibly pleased that she was receiving positive feedback from family members and told everyone she was gonna keep on going until she got to the size she wanted to be. As we sat down at the table, I looked around to everyone else's plate to compare portions to mine (I think a lot of people do this and just don't admit it!), and my eyes stopped on her plate. She had about half of what everyone else did on their plates. "Huh," I thought, "I guess that's what you have to do when you're losing weight like that." Later in the evening when it was dessert time, our hostess wheeled out the most amazing array of beautiful, hand-crafted desserts. I practically wanted to diddle myself under the table while taking it all in. Our hosts went person by person, doling out what each person wanted specifically, most people opting for a wanting a bit of everything. When it came time for my niece's plating, she said, "No thanks, I'm can't really eat dessert anymore." I wanted to ask her how long she'd been taking the crazy pills. How could anyone turn down dessert? And, permanently?? I felt a little heartbroken for her.

As it's a taboo subject for most folks, I decided not to pepper her with the million questions floating through my head, even if we'd had a quiet moment. The thing I wanted to know most was, Did she miss it? Did she want dessert eventhough she felt compelled to turn it down? Of course, this belies my personal bias towards dessert (and also flies in the face of not judging others for what they want to do with their bodies, but hey, I'm not perfect). Maybe she's not a dessert person, and if so, lucky for her! I recalled this scene with Honey Bunny last night and he nodded and said he remembered. I told him, "Honey, it doesn't matter where I'm going with this. I'll never turn down dessert*." He said, "Good, I'm glad."

Happy Thanksgiving! Eat well and don't turn down dessert if you don't want to.

* Actually, I'd turn it down if the only thing available was pumpkin pie. Yuck!