Wednesday Web Finds: A Veggie Venture

Affirmation:

I choose to view this journey to health not as a diet but as an opportunity to grow in knowledge and trust of God

On Wednesdays, more or less I want to share food and health related websites that I like or have found helpful for me. Today’s website is A Veggie Venture. I love Alanna’s recipes. I don’t think that any recipe I have tried of hers has not worked for me. This website, chocked full of veggie recipes is a go to website for inspiration for meals.

Alanna is a second generation food columnist, following in the footsteps of her mother. She also continues the food column her mother started called Kitchen Parade. Check it out too, lots of good recipes and information. My favorites are the ones on how to save money on groceries.

Alanna also includes WW information with her recipes and has several zero points soups in her recipe database. Those of you following the WW plan will love this website and mine a bunch of great tasting recipes there.

Make sure to read her about me section. She is one fascinating woman. This bog is a bookmarker for sure; one you will return to frequently. Also you can subscribe to receive her daily posts via email…which of course I do.
Thanks Alanna for such fun and yummy recipes and information and your dedication to share with all of us so generously.

Tuesday Tips, Traps, and Truths: Food Journaling

Affirmation:

I choose to view this journey to health not as a diet but as an opportunity to grow in knowledge and trust of God

A friend sent me this article about food journaling. Since I am in the middle of a personal challenge to keep a food journal for 28 days I thought this would be a great article to share. Personally I still hate keeping a record of all I eat. Even though I keep the journal with in reach, I still forget to record things, I still play games with myself about not putting every single bite down, (like someone is reading over my shoulder???), and I just find it a nuisance.

But on the positive side, I do find myself more aware of how much I eat for other reasons than hunger. It does point out patterns to me that help me to change. I think the most important is that it help me to see that sometimes I get lazy with my food choices and choose easy rather than healthy.

Journaling can be as simple as just writing down the food you eat each day or as complicated as measuring, tracking cal/fat/carb/etc for everything you put into your mouth, and some even take pictures of what is on your plate.

For me the least complicated is the best. I have tried several ways of journaling and tracking my food. The simple writing down of your eating was by far the easiest. But there came a time that I needed to record and remember more about why and when I was eating so that I could look back periodically to see patterns and habits and find ways to break them.

That is why I wrote my own journal. It combines just listing what you eat at each meal and adding a few one – two word observations about what is happening with me and what my triggers to eat are. It is working for me now and has in the past. But I have to be careful that it doesn’t trigger that “diet mentality” in me which sends me spiraling into an eating frenzy out of rebellion. No not a binge, just days of eating what I want, when I want, and how much I want.

I usually don’t keep my journal for more that a month. I usually try to keep one about every 6 months or so. Or if I am feeling like I am using food for more than just fuel. Just as a check to see how I am doing. Sometimes it only takes a week or so to help me see where I am and get back to a better place. But the thing about doing it for a month is that it takes you beyond the “good behavior” phase of keeping a journal. You always do good that first week!
How about you, do you journal? What kind of journal do you keep? Is it working for you?

What's for Supper

This was unbelievably good! Unfortunately the beans were the last of my crop and were tough as shoe leather. Maybe if I would have zapped steamed them a bit in the microwave it may have helped, but I doubt it. I followed Stephanie’s (over at A Year of CrockPotting) recipe as she wrote it. I cooked it in my mini pot – think it is about 1 ½ quarts – and it doesn’t have settings. It cooked in 2 ½ hours and could have come out a bit sooner. I used oranges for the citrus and sliced one up and put it on top of the beans, laid the salmon over it and then placed more slices over the top of the salmon. The sauce is so good, next time I won’t let mom talk me out of cooking rice or couscous to soak it up with. This one is a keeper!

Monday Menus

On Mondays I am going to try to post my menu for the week. I am trying something new this month in an effort to save money at the grocery and to keep unwanted foods out of the house. It seems the more I go to the grocery, the more unwanted food I buy....and eat. Also with my back problems grocery shopping is a real challenge, so I want to do it as little as possible.

For breakfasts I usually have a bagel and low fat cream cheese and coffee, an egg with a piece of whole grain toast, or a slice of whole grain toast with some peanut butter on it. Add a cup of coffee and depending on how hungry I am in the mornings a piece of fruit. In the winter I have hot oatmeal frequently too. What can I say, I am a creature of habit. Also not too awake in the mornings and usually starved, so it is better to keep breakfasts simple and quick.
I use the Internet a lot to find recipes. This next month I am trying out planning a lot of CrockPot recipes. I am in a mood again where I don't want to cook or mess with food. Also by the end of the day I never seem to want to fix dinner anymore. So putting on the CrockPot in the mornings when I have more energy makes sense.

I will link back to the food blog or website where I got the recipe. Most likely I will change it or tweak it to make it healthier, fit what I have on hand or like, or just because. I will try to post my version of the recipe along with pictures and a review of how it tastes daily, or not, depending on the demands of the day.

MONDAY
Lunch: Chicken salad & crackers Peach
Dinner: Salmon & Green Beans

TUESAY
Lunch: Beef & roasted red pepper wrap Fruit
Dinner: Chicken Crock Pot Nachos Tortilla Chips - baked

WEDNESDAY
Lunch: Chicken & Roasted red pepper wrap Fruit
Dinner: Chinese Lemon Chicken in Crock Pot Vegies or salad

THURSDAY
Lunch: Chicken Salad & crackers Fruit
Dinner: Leftover Lemon Chicken

FRIDAY
Lunch: Beef & Roasted red pepper wrap Fruit
Dinner: Steak, baked potato, corn on cob

SATURDAY
Lunch: Chicken Wraps Fruit
Dinner: Chicken Teriyaki Wings Salad

SUNDAY
Lunch: Tuna & Crackers Fruit
Dinner: Leftover Chicken Teriyaki Salad

Sunday Summations

Affirmation:

I choose to view this journey to health not as a diet but as an opportunity to grow in knowledge and trust of God

Sundays are when I look back over the past week and summarize the information I kept in my food journal and analyze and look for patterns and cues that I can work on or ways to create change.

Last week I almost always ate when I was hungry and my hunger lever was well below the ½ way mark. My mood was pretty good all week, I didn’t find myself eating out of emotions.

I have noticed that the difficult days correspond with days I have greater pain than other days. Maybe it is a way of self soothing or a way of distracting myself from the pain. Not sure, but also on the days I have more pain I am less able to work on anything and am in bed or on the couch and watch more TV or read, both of which can be triggers for me.

Exercise was non-existent except for the set given to my by the PT. But last week even those didn’t get done regularly. Too much pain this past week, gave me an excuse not to do them. Even though I do know that not doing them sets me up for stiffness and more pain.

My negative self talk was the “I’m hungry” check, hoping I am hungry enough to justify eating. But my positive self talk was to ask if that was truth, if I was really hungry enough that I NEEDED to eat. Particularly at night, I would ask and or talk myself into seeing if I could wait until morning.

I did struggle a lot with munchies this week. I know that is because I didn’t really plan or stick to a menu and ate kind of haphazardly. Many of my meals were not satisfying, although I was full. It left me with cravings more than hunger. Next week I have planned a menu that should take care of that.
I did find myself less hungry and getting full faster, which meant eating less at meals That is good. I think it will help to remember to use smaller plates to help keep portion sizes at a normal size.

Not One of my Better Days

Today wasn’t a very good day for food or pain. I spent much of the day in bed laying on ice and drugged out by the pain pills. I needed to run out to get gas and mom wanted some pop so I ended up buying us pop, potato chips and dip and a candy bar. Ugh….

The meals went well today, and mostly I at the chips and dip and the candy bar as part of lunch,, but I did snack on a few handfuls of chips here and there through out the afternoon.

I have noticed a direct connection with giving myself permission for a food treat when the pain level gets too high for too many days in a row. Yes, I know the food doesn’t ease the pain, and yes I know that in the long run it really makes me feel worse. But there it is, I did it today. Now to redeem myself, or is it justifying? Don’t know, but it was a small container of dip. Ok…ya I know! But it is better than the food treats I gave myself permission to eat in the past years. And I still have over half of the bag of chips left in the kitchen tonight. I’ll take any small victory I can.
Tomorrow is another day. And I will soothe myself with watching the movies that should arrive from Netflix tomorrow. Not food.

But I did keep track in my journal...as much as I hated writing the junk food down.

SUNDAY SUMMATIONS

Affirmation:
I am fearfully and wonderfully made

I have kept my journal every day so far. But I find that I really don’t like keeping track of the journal…both what I eat and keeping track of where the journal is. (grins) I always seems to be where I am not when I need to record something in it.

But it is showing me something. I do eat less when I keep track. I am more aware of my hunger levels. I am more able to tap into that self dialogue where I ask myself if I am really hungry or if I just want something else. Right now I am realizing that my pain level affects my desire to eat. I think that it will distract me from the pain, or maybe it is that I feel the need to soothe myself or that I deserve a little something something because I am hurting.

I have also realized that how important it is for me to make meal plans. It helps me so much with the “I don’t feel like cooking tonight, let’s order pizza” syndrome. I also am finding that using the crock pot to cook dinner in is also a lifesaver. Getting the dinner on first think in the morning, I feel like cooking more then. The trick is to find ways to make those recipes healthy. I have found a few that I have adapted.

Tonight’s crock pot recipe is Pasta Sauce with Meatballs. This is a really easy one. I get the Italian meatballs at Sam’s. But you could make your own. Cooking them long and slow in the pasta sauce makes them taste wonderful. I usually cook enough for 2 meals (for mom and me) and have enough meatballs and sauce left over for Meatball poorboy sandwichs at lunch one day.

Quickie Crock Pot Meatballs in Pasta Sauce

Ingredients:
1 large bottle of your favorite pasta sauce (I use the large bottles from sam’s of Clasico sweet basil)
10-15 meatballs, depending on size, thawed
½ cup water to wash out pasta sauce jar

Toss everything in crock pot on high until hot and turn to low and cook until supper. Because all the ingredients are already cooked you can cook this for as long as you want, but at least 2-3 hours to develop flavors.

NOTES: I have made this with cut up Italian Sausage and added sliced green pepper and onions to the sauce. Yummm.

Italian Poorboy Sandwiches

Ingredients:

Crusty hoagie buns
3-5 meatballs (or as many as you need to fill the size of your bun)
spoonful of sauce
sprinkling of mozzarella cheese
Warm meatballs and sauce in micro or on the stove top (if cold). Add the meatballs to the bun in a nice little row. Spoon some of the sauce over it and sprinkle with the cheese. Run under the broiler until cheese is melted. Serve…careful not to burn your mouth on the hot cheese!

SATURDAY SALADS

On Saturdays I will share my favorite salad recipes. Most of these will be meals in themselves. Many will come from the many foodie blogs I read, but some will just be my own concoctions. I hope you will enjoy them.

Today I will share one of my own. It is a salad that I wait all summer to eat and eat it I do. Almost every day! Anyone who knows me knows how much I LOVE tomatoes. This year I had 7, yes count them 7 pots of tomatoes on my patio garden. I had one that was called black seaman, it was a brownish color blushed with red and sweet as sugar! I also grew sweet millions, brown babies, and a long yellow one that I have forgotten the name of. Not such a good one to eat out of hand but broke down nicely and quickly to make a quick and fresh tomato sauce for a summer veggie pasta dish.

I also grew a zebra tomato. Took me 2 years of growing them to figure out just the right time to pick them. They stay green you see. When the tops just get brushed with a sunlight yellow and they give slightly to the “Whipple Charmin squeeze” they are ripe and sweet.

I grew another red and a yellow and an orange cherry variety…can’t remember the name off hand. But these were sweet and all of them add to making such a colorful confetti of a ‘mater salad. That is if I can keep my mom from eating the tiny ones long enough to get them made into a salad!

I don’t have pictures of the ‘mater salad I made for supper last night, it went way to fast and we were way to hungry to wait to snap pics. I will try to get a picture when I make it again.

As with most of my salad recipes the ingredient amounts are flexible and I don’t really measure. The more colors of tomatoes you can use the prettier it will be. And we all know I love pretty colorful food!

'Mater Salad

2-3 medium sized slicing tomatoes
handful or two of cherry, grape or smaller tomatoes
Onion, (to taste) chopped – can be red, yellow, scallions (or garden onions as we call them here in the Midwest) or heck even shallots will work
Garlic clove minced…or not
Cucumber-peeled, seeded, and cubed
Fresh Basil cut in chiffinade (can use dried)
Some good olive oil
A few splashed of balsamic vinegar
Salt
Pepper
Oregano (dried or fresh)

Mix all together and serve. If you want to let marinate don’t put in the ice box. Never put tomatoes in the ice box! They never taste the same after any time in the ice box. If you have leftovers I do put it in the icebox, of course, but the salad really changes in taste and texture. I try (notice I said try) to only make enough for one meal. But it is kinda like soup, hard to make only enough for one meal!

This salad can also be transformed by adding good black Italian olives, feta, mozzarella or shaved Parmesan cheese, or even marinated artichoke hearts. I have even added leftover steamed zucchinis, yellow squash or asparagus to it too. And of course by adding day old pan toasted Italian bread cubes, yellow, green and red peppers you have the yummy Italian bread and tomato salad Panzanella.

As you can see this salad recipe can be changed, added to and subtracted from to match your own tastes and what you have on hand. The only ingredient that you must have is great tasting fresh summer tomatoes. Please don’t try to make this with winter hothouse tomatoes. I have tried when my tomato cravings got the best of me, and um—well lets just say that it wasn’t pretty.

FRIDAY FOOD FINDS

On Fridays I plan to talk about food finds. This is a broad category that can cover whatever catches my whimsy. I may talk about favorite foods, include a new recipe, a new cookbook, a new food I tried, someone else’s blog post about a food or cooking technique, whatever catches my eye. I hope you like it and find it useful.

Today I want to talk about one of my favorite herbs. Basil. I can’t say enough about fresh basil. And this summer my pot of basil outdid itself, I have enough to make tons of pesto to freeze for the winter. Which is good because the Japanese Beetles helped themselves to my basil this year gorging themselves. The little buggers!

Pesto, my most favorite thing to make out of basil is quick and easy to make and freezes well. I make big batches every summer and freeze them in the little snack sized ziplock baggies in about 1/3 cup portions. This is enough for a sauce for 2 servings of pasta or veggies.

Pesto is great as a sauce over pasta, veggies, boiled potatoes, and as a dollop in most soups. I even add it to my favorite jarred pasta sauce to freshen it up a bit. It is also great on crostini: oven toast slices of a good italian bread, rub with a clove of raw garlic while still hot, add a drizzle of olive oil, add a slice of tomato and top with a dollop of pesto.

Here is my favorite recipe, inspired by Ilva over at Lucullian Delights.

My recipe is very loose and depends on my mood. I do it by handfuls, don’t be afraid of this method, you just can’t screw up making pesto.

BASIL PESTO

In a food processor add:

A few generous handfuls of basil leaves
A couple cloves of garlic (depending on how strong the garlic is and how much you love garlic, you can use more or less)
A smallish handful of toasted pine nuts. (you can also use walnuts)
A generous handful of grated (or not, smallish chunks work too) parmesan cheese (you can also use pecorino or asagio)

Start the food processor and through the feeding tube add:

Olive Oil In a slow stream until it loosens up to your liking.

Add some Salt and pulse a few times to mix.

Done!!

Sometimes I like to add a fresh ripe tomato before I add the oil. You will use less oil and I love the flavor. Besides basil and tomatoes are a match made in heaven!

I have also been known to throw in a few pieces of roasted red pepper too.

Make sure you toast the pine nuts (in the oven or in a dry fry pan), it increases the flavor. Play with the ingredient ratios until you find the taste you love. Use good, no great olive oil for this recipe.
Yummm Pesto. Now I am off to harvest my crop and make some pesto. Maybe I can get one more growth in before winter. A girl can’t have enough pesto on hand.

Nightly Check In

Today went pretty ok. Every night or so I will post my journal entry to keep myself honest.

I also added a new feature on the side bar, a photo of what I ate for one of my meals. I will also probably add recipes for anything interesting I may concoct too.

THANKFUL THURSDAY

Affirmation: Thank you for the journey and the lessons learned along the way

Thankful Thursday. For years I have kept a thankful journal. Yes long before Oprah made them popular I have kept this journal. For me it was a secret place where I told God all the things I was grateful for in my life. Some days it was only one, some days it was a longer list. But it always helped me to focus the gratefulness to God, who after all is the source of everything good in my life.

So I was thinking, instead of concentrating on all the changes I need to make in this journey to health, I was wondering if there were things I could refocus and see as a positive, something to be thankful about. I truly believe that everything we go through in our lives is a chance to learn and allow God to change us. It occurred to me that most of the time in this journey to health I have focused on the negative….the things that need changing, the difficulties, the things I miss, the frustrations. But one thing I have learned with the challenges of the back illness is that especially in the tough times God can change you and that in the end the kind of good that can come from it will change you in ways that good times never can. So today is Thursday and this is what I am grateful for today.

Thank you God for

• Having enough food to eat.
• Having enough money to buy groceries.
• How I am learning that I am more than a number on a scale.
• How little you are concerned with outward appearances.
• How much you care about refining my character.

Another aspect of this Thankful Thursdays is to be thankful for what I have learned so far in this journey.

What I have learned so far

• That diets don’t work.
• That I have to deal with the root causes of why I eat.
• That I have to give myself grace and not judgment.

Today I am also starting a challenge for myself. This summer I have fallen into the habit of choosing easy rather than always healthful in creating meals. Since it is summer, this has not all been bad, many of the easy have also been healthful. But one of the changes I want to make a part of my life is to make conscious healthy choices a habit. So to that end I am going to use my food journal for 28 days to help keep me honest and see where I need some “tuning up” in the menu and food selection department.

Anyone else want to join me in this? If you don’t have a food journal of your own check mine out. There is a link on the journal image that will take you to my Etsy shop where you can purchase it.

Happy Thursday…What are you thankful for?

Jackie

Hello Stranger! I am baaaack

Affirmation: Life is good!

I have been away from blogging for I can’t believe how long. I am sure that no one is even reading my blog anymore! I have been consumed for the past almost 2 years with recovering from 3 ruptured discs. I spent most of the end of 2006 and the beginning of ’07 in bed, unable to walk. After months and months of therapy, lots of rest and exercising at home and being off work since October 2007 I am now able to sit at the computer long enough to write some short entries.

So much about my life has changed. I wish that I could say that this illness has caused me to loose weight, but it hasn’t. Quite the opposite. While I have not had much of an appetite, and eat far less than I did before I got sick, without exercising I have gained about 35 pounds.

What has this taught me? Well something that I have known and not wanted to deal with for a long time. One must exercise to be healthy. I am finally coming to terms with the fact that, at least for me, I must exercise to loose this weight and to be healthy. After being so in active for so long, I also do not like how I feel. I am so out of shape physically. But I also have learned patients with myself. This was not an illness that was going to heal fast, and I still seem to have a ways to go. The past few weeks have been relatively good, but since the weekend the pain has come back and today I had trouble walking. I had started to try to walk outside. Thursday and Friday I walked to the end of the driveway and back…not very far, but a small victory for me.

On other fronts, other things have been happening in my life. I have begun to indulge in a lifelong passion of mine, making jewelry. I started over a year ago to help me keep my mind off the pain. It soon became clear to me that I had to do something with them as I couldn’t ever wear all the stuff I was creating. I began to show them to friends and family and got a lot of positive encouragement. Thus began Twin Angels Designs. Last month I began to sell on Etsy. Go check out my shop.

Another excitement in my life is that the food journal I wrote a while back has been steadily selling. I now have them available through my Etsy shop. Click on the image and it will take you to the shop. This is not your typical food journal. I created it because I didn’t want or need another journal that focuses on how many calories, carbs, or fats. That focuses on a diet – we all know that they don’t work. I needed something that helped me become aware of patterns, triggers, how food tied to my emotions, and portion sizes. I had had an inkling that I was eating a lot more frequently than I was aware of, and most of the time not out of true hunger, but out of being triggered by emotions, activities, or just plain boredom. This journal has been a huge tool for myself and many others. I have to say that it hasn’t necessarily made me loose weight, but it has made me more aware of when, why, how much, and what my triggers are. With that knowledge it has helped me to make different choices than food. It has helped me find the courage to say no. It has also helped me to see how much of my eating is habit. Finally it has helped me to realize how little physical activity I have in my life. With the knowledge I gain from this journal I feel that I am beginning to have the tools to find balance and peace in my life around food.

If you think you might like to try the journal and you have questions, just email me or go to Etsy and convo me.
Well It has been a hard day, it is time for a pain pill and beddy. Tomorrow is another day.

Controlled Binge

Affirmation: Creating new habits do work

hey ya all,
I was sitting here at my desk journaling about yesterday and thought maybe I would share with you all too. After my doc's apt I had to go grocery shopping. Now I consistently in the past year have made sure that I didn't go with out a list on paper or hungry. Neither of which happened yesterday. I thought I was just going to pick up some bags of salad on the way home from the doc to have for lunches.

I guess I didn't really realise how upset and frustrating it was for me to have to say yes to the cortisone shots. Anyway I went into the store and got the lettuce, added some bananas then some watermelon.. .so far so good. Then on the way to the check out counter I passed the deli....didn't want to make salad for lunch, got some of their (logli's) ham salad and potato salad - "mom likes this...ya and so do I...ah the lies we can convince ourselves of! Then that was it...I got potato chips and dip to have with the sandwich.

That in itself is not so bad, I very occasionally will have a small bag of chips - the individual serving bag size and a small carton of dip (and throw away what is left over after the bag of chips is gone. and only if I am particularly craving it and know it is not "comfort food" or "celebration food".

But yesterday it was comfort food...and I knew it and bought it anyway. And I bought the BIG carton and the BIG bag.

But here is the interesting thing that happened.

Without consciously thinking about it I ate only until I was full, but the stuff away and didn't get it out again until I was hungry again. I did this several times throughout the day. And late in the eventing I went to the kitchen to snack before bed and wandered around the kitchen and said to myself...I am not hungry now I will just go to bed...it will be there tomorrow if I still want it.

Now I didn't realise the importance of what happened until I started to journal, I was in a fog yesterday... .I was frustrated and I gave into the pain too and just allowed myself to live with sinking into the pain rather than trying to distract my mind and body from it (which has been really helpful in pain management for me). So this morning I decided to journal first thing rather than eat. the exciting thing is that the whole body awareness; the full/hungry thing happened unconsciously, almost I guess by habit. So I called it in my journal a "controlled binge". I realised that the past two or three years of practicing "eating when hungry/stopping when full" dialogueing with my self and asking myself and my body if I am hungry/full has finally turned into a habit...something that seems to be happening on a deeper level than before.

When I started it all felt so fake and contrived, but thanks to all your encouragement to keep going I can finally say that it works!

O and by the way, because of it I don't feel "hung over" from overeating or guilty. I found myself taking it for what it was...a moment of having a pity party for myself...and now it is today and I am OK, I have journaled and worked through the emotions and have refocused.
Sorry it was so long...has anyone else experienced anything like this?

Affirmation: Eat consciously

I have been using SparkPeople for two weeks now. Tracking calories/fat/carbs/protein I thought it would really send me spiraling into that diet mentality that has only meant failure for me. But it hasn’t. It has opened my eyes to some realities. While my portion sizes have become very normal in size, my food choices have still been amazing high caloric/high fat/high carb. I knew that I tended to be on the high carb side. I love my pasta and bread and eat more grains than animal proteins. It is ok with me – I choose whole grains and moderate both the portion and frequency during the course of a week. But I was blown away by the amount of calories I was consuming and fat was out of the ballpark, not to mention the silent things like sodium. I also have become aware at how much I don’t know about food nutritional values. Dedicated label reader that I am aside, I didn’t realize how much some foods had of some things and how low other counts were. I am amazed that I am way low on protein intake.

I think that I had suspended belief that if portion sizes were in a reasonable range so would the calories and everything else. Now I am not unaware that certain foods are really high in calories/fat/carbs…but I chose to believe that anything in moderation is ok. AND IT IS. But not everything is good as a steady diet. Breakfasts at McDonalds for instance…just a large English toffee cappuccino and an egg and cheese English muffin…ya right! It was easy, but I was horrified at the food counts in this breakfast…and they didn’t even list the cappuccino in their nutrition facts (wonder why?) No wonder I haven’t lost anything. Now I knew that these were high food count choices and low on the health-o-meter choice, but knowing HOW bad makes it easier to say no now. Ahhh ignorance is bliss isn’t it!

My eating habits, my emotional connection to food, and all the underlying emotional triggers, reasons, uses for food have really been looked at, acknowledged, and I think, healed, and are being brought into a more normal range. I am more aware of when, why, and how much I am eating. I am aware of physical hunger vs. emotional hunger and the difference between the two. I am learning ways to feed/deal/soothe the emotional hunger other than using food. And I am becoming consistent in recognizing and using these options rather than food…although I still slip into old habits more than I would like. I am doing better every day at eating only when hungry/stopping just before full. And yet I haven’t lost any weight. After almost two years of working through all this. No, I don’t think that the past two years were in vain. On the contrary, I think that it was essential to work on all this to come to the point of being able to look at counting food counts without spiraling into the black hole of “diet mentality”. I think that what has changed for me is that I am seeing this counting as just another tool to use to help along the way; to bring truth and accountability to the process. Just like mindful eating, eating when hungry/stopping just before full, food journaling (tracking when/where/why/portion size/what I eat), journaling, group, portion sizing, all the self talk/affirmations, facing the underlying issues, becoming aware have been tools too.

But I am realizing that there is still that aspect of physics: Energy in must be less than energy out if one wants to loose actually pounds. In the past, all the diets I have been on focused only on that equation. And they didn’t work…they actually made me fatter.

My group facilitator recently went to a conference on eating disorders and for the first time there were workshops on overeating/binge/compulsive eating. It is a new arena and as with all things new a vast differences of opinion on how to deal with this (because in reality, I think, no one really knows how to deal with it!). This comes as no surprise to me…I have known for most of my adult overweight life that the medical community, the counseling/psychiatric community/the religious community/society in general had no idea what to do with us, how to help us, or even what to say to us. For some loosing weight is truly just an issue of engaging your will and deciding to loose weight merely through self-control and self-discipline. But for those of us who are morbidly obese, compulsive, or binge eaters it is not just about making up your mind to loose weight and counting on discipline or self-control to work.

She indicated that there were two polar schools of thought: All acceptance all the time at any weight and the energy in/energy out equation control methods. It seemed that it was either or. I have been thinking about this a lot since hearing her talk about this. To try to decide which is right or which comes first is a lot like asking: “which comes first, the chicken or the egg”. I think both are true but not at the same time in recovery. I think that after years of warring with your body and mind, years of hearing those you love telling you, in what ever ways, that you would be “better” if you lost weight, years of you telling yourself that, years of hating how you look and finally coming to believe that how you looked reflected in some negative way on who you are at the most basic level you FIRST have to stop the war inside your brain and soul. You have to forgive yourself for getting to this place, learn to love yourself as you are at this point, to accept that you may always be this weight. You have to do all the hard work of understanding what is behind it all. And yes at the same time you begin to become conscious again about eating: portion sizes, tracking food – the what, when, where, why and how much- and learn to do it without judgment.

But the hard core of food counts, calories burned through exercise, planning and creating exercise programs, even changing and molding your life around workouts…those cannot come in the early phases of recovery, I believe. Why? Well I think you have to deal with root causes and issues first or it becomes about how I look, sticking to a diet, etc. Recover is about a lifestyle change…on all levels - emotional, physical, social, spiritual, nutritional, relational, and self-relational. And most important I think you need to come to the point of forgiveness and surrender. Forgiving yourself for getting to where you are, those forces/people in your life that conspired to help, even your genetic makeup that pre-disposed the possibility of becoming obese. You must also learn how to use forgiveness in a day-to-day way. Forgiving those who undermine you, including yourself. Forgiving yourself for each day’s failings. Forgiving the past, present, and future. Forgiving anything that gives you reason to remain in the state you are in. Surrender…your past, your present, and your future. Surrendering the idea that perfection is within reach. Surrendering that you will do this perfectly, or that you even have the right to judge whether you have done it perfectly. Surrendering those things that give you reason to remain in the state you are in. Oh and one more thing…acceptance. I think that before you can really go forward you have to come to terms with the limitations you have in your life…acknowledge them, accept them…even accept the possibility that recovery may not be that 125 or even the 150 weight goal. I don’t think you can really change until you acknowledge and accept the fact that these things are in and a part of your life.

Recovery is about health… the same emotional, physical, social, spiritual, nutritional, relational, and self-relational health that goes into lifestyle changes. I think that before you can move into using the traditional tools of tracking food counts, calories burned, etc you have to be more on the side of healthy on this continuum than not. That may be a different point for everyone…probably is. I also believe that knowing that point will be a very personal and individual decision fraught with trial and error / success and failure. Experimentation may be the key word…trying to use these tools while keeping close watch on the emotional reactions you will have for it. Having the courage, knowledge and probably also the accountability of a trusted group who will call you on it when you slip into that diet mentality that is so destructive to recovery. Leaning to know when to step away from focusing on these tools and going back to working with other tools because imbalance has been achieved.

This is hard for most people who prefer a nicely wrapped package to present to those seeking answers. But my experiences over the past 2 years in this journey…heck my whole lifetime really…has taught me that there are no easy answers wrapped up in pretty packages. If there were morbid obesity would not be a problem in our society today. Recovery is messy, fraught with successes and failures, wrong turns and going back over already learned lessons to relearn them. Covering new ground and capturing it only to find that you have somehow lost that ground and need to go back to the basics and cover that ground again and regain it. It is a bloody lonely battle that can only be won one bite at a time with the ammunition of forgiveness for failures, grace for the day, surrendering unhealthy thoughts, choices, and ideas. It is a life of trial and error. But I also think that it is a life of hope and health. Eventually you come to the point that making healthy choices are easier than making unhealthy choices. You want health more than anything else…ultimately you begin to choose life, but it doesn’t come in a nice pretty easily explained or obtained package.

Now…what have I learned in the past two weeks of tracking food counts at SparkPeople?

I have noticed that I am hungrier in the mornings than after lunch. I mean really hungry. In the past eating breakfast, even the thought of it, made my tummy queasy. Now that I am in the habit of eating in the mornings it seems that I am hungry all morning long. When I didn’t eat in the mornings it seemed I could go all day without eating.

Well anyway, what I am realizing is that I need to adjust my meal loads to accommodate this. I need to eat more substantial breakfasts heavier morning snack and smaller lunches and lighter dinners and a smaller more higher protein afternoon snack.

Normally I just eat a peanut butter and banana sandwich or some oatmeal or some yogurt and fruit for breakfast. I am very hungry an hour later, sometimes two hours. My morning snacks have just been a piece of fruit or some cheese and whole grain crackers.

I could eat a larger breakfast…but what? I can’t eat for 2 hours after I get up because of my thyroid medication. So I have to take my breakfast with me and eat while I work. It has to be easy and portable. I am not tied into breakfast food per se, so I can think outside the box. While the idea of bulk cooking on Sunday appeals to me on a practical level, in actuality I don’t want or like to spend that much time in the kitchen around food. I think that I may try to make a crock pot full of 7 grain cereal and pre-portion it out for the whole week…adding soy milk and fruit to it each morning and nuking it in the micro. I can also make my low fat healthy quiches in the large muffin tins too. Looking at the Yogurt breakfast I think I could increase it from ½ cup yogurt to a full cup and add more fruit (I usually only use about ¼ cup of berries)

Morning snacks: Need to look at low fat (cheese and crackers add too much fat to use on a daily basis) options. Need to add more protein in my diet all round. I like dips and spreads. Maybe add tofu to some of my favorite dips that adds quite a bit of protein. Also I could add some beans to some of the non-bean dips. Veggies add crunch and fiber. I am on a search for whole grain, low fat, low salt tasty crackers that aren’t extremely expensive. I could make them…they last for ever…the whole reason crackers were invented. I guess that I need to spend some time with my vast collection of cookbooks and see what I can adapt.

Lunches are pretty straightforward. I cook on Sunday and eat the same lunch all week. Usually I don’t mind it…I only have 4 days of lunches. In the winter when I do soups I can vary the soup and freeze some. But for summer I love to do cold salads/pasta salads kind of things for lunch…easy breezy to make and no fuss to pack.

Suppers for summer are usually cold – green salads with some protein. We will also do grilled fish, chicken, vegetables, etc. I have gotten into the habit of putting the animal protein in the salad rather than think about it as a main dish. This helps keep the portion size down and the crunch factor up.

So…this tracking food counts has been a map for me…a tool to look at how to make better choices…how to make food work for me not against me. I do know that a year ago this wouldn’t have worked for me (I tried at another similar site). It threw me into obsessive eating. I have a feeling that this is not something I will or can do for a prolonged period of time. I can see using it periodically as an accountability check…to see if I am actually eating what I think I am. Just like periodically I go back to measuring everything for a couple of days to check that my eyeballing portions are accurate. I don’t have the answer to the question of is this beneficial or not for everyone…not do I have the answer when to bring it into the mix of recovery tools. I think that is an individual question. But I think the question is not should I use this, but what will using this cause in my life? If it causes the mania that goes with “diet mentality” then it is not time. If you can use it as just another tool and leave it at that…then maybe it is a good tool to use. But it is not a tool to measure recovery: THAT I KNOW.

Neither is using the scale. But using the scale again has shown me the direct correlation between what I eat and my body’s reaction to it. Again I probably will not weigh myself as often as they suggest on SparkPeople…once or twice a month at most. But I could see directly that eating more conscious of food counts had a direct effect on weight loss. The secret is to hold that knowledge loosely and concentrate on healthy choices, not just the loss of poundage.

A Matter of Choice

Affirmation: Change is choice; choose change

A matter of choice. Sounds great. We all love choice. But I have been thinking a lot about choice as it relates to my state of health and eating. I give myself too many choices, mainly I think that I frequently give myself both the choice and the permission to fail, to make unhealthy choices, both with food and with lifestyle and exercise.

I was reading a blog by a woman who was talking about her training for a marathon and how she gave herself no choice in training…Not when getting up at 4:30 in the morning was a pain, not when an employee at work quit making her workload heavier requiring her to work more hours, not when her responsibilities as a mom and wife called. She just gave herself no choice but to train. Failure was not an option.

I have begun to realize that perhaps I have flirted with failure too much. Given myself too much choice in the matter. Do I really believe that it is even possible to make healthy eating a permanent part of my life, an unconscious choice every time I eat? Do I really believe that I can loose half my body weight to become healthy and eliminate my high B/P? Do I? Do I really believe that I can begin to choose to exercise every day…every day with out fail? Then I have to ask myself do I even want to? If I do, then why am I not choosing it?

Is it at all possible that I am going around this the wrong way? Honestly at this point in my life there really is no choice, well yes there is…it is a matter of choosing life or death. So why am I choosing death? I think that maybe a paradigm shift is needed here. I need, want to allow no choice but to succeed. I have no choice but to succeed. I have no choice. Failure is not an option. Why is this so hard? I worked off of this premise during Grad school when things got really tough. Failure was just not an option for me, I wanted that degree, I wanted what needed those professors to teach me, whether they wanted to or not. So how do I apprehend that to this part of my life? Well I think that removing the choice to fail is a start. To keep my eye on the prize of health. To live with the end in mind. This statement is something I live by in many other areas in my life…it is time to incorporate it into this area.

What is the end I have in mind?

• To be healthy (1 Cor. 6:18-20)
• To have the energy and strength to do the work God has called me to do.
• To not be ruled by food but by the Holy Spirit (Deut. 8:3; Matt 4:14)
  

This is not about looking good for me, although in the end it will be nice to wear fun comfortable clothes again. The is about living, feeling full of energy, having my life back.

Sunday's Planning and Cooking

Affirmation: Change is a choice, and planning facillitates change

Another Monday. I learned something again this weekend that seemed very profound the first time it occurred to me and reinforced it and convinced me of it this time around. Funny how you can learn something, and have to learn it all over again on another level later. What did I learn? That sometimes when I think I am hungry, all I am is thirsty. I was busy doing things on Saturday and didn’t get the amount of water in that I usually do and when I got home I was really hungry and thirsty. Or I thought I was hungry, in spite of the fact that I had a good breakfast before leaving the house and a large, healthy salad for lunch. As I looked around for what sounded good to eat, nothing really answered the question “Do I really want this to eat?” so I poured a new water jug of cold fresh water and gulped quite a bit down. Well I didn’t feel hungry anymore. No not in the way you try to convince yourself you aren’t hungry after you drink some water because you feel a fullness in your stomach from the water, but really still are hungry for food. I was just not hungry. So now I have a new question to ask myself when I am rambling around asking myself if I am really hungry….I will ask myself if I am hungry or if I am really thirsty…when was the last time I had water and how much had I had for the day. Try water first.

I decided to plan out breakfast and lunches this week and prepare ahead and pre-pack everything that I could so that I had lunches and breakfast ready each day. No choice means no wondering what I “feel” like eating. That usually leads to unhealthy choices. So this is what I made.

For breakfasts:

I made yogurt parfaits. Using the small ½ cup Glad Bowls I layered Mountain High organic plain no-fat vanilla yogurt with blueberries and raspberries drizzling just a touch of organic honey on the fruit.

Tonight (I ran out of time yesterday) I will make High Protein chocolate chip pumpkin loaf from Molly Katzen’s “Sunlight Café” cookbook. Here is an online version that uses bananas instead of pumpkin.

For lunch:

I adapted a Salad Nicoise from Bob Greene’s book “Get with the Program Guide to Good Eating”.

Salad Nicoise - my version
Basically roast some new potatoes – I cubed them up or you can just halve them. Sparingly sprinkle some EEOV and salt and pepper and paprika on them and put them on a cookie sheet covered with the non-stick aluminum foil (don’t need more oil if you use this). You can also dust with some cayenne pepper if you like heat

Steam some green beans until still crunchy and shock with ice water to stop the cooking.

Let these cool a bit and put in a large bowl and then add some (depends on how big a batch you are making) of Low Fat Italian dressing (I like Paul Newman’) use about half of the total amount you will ultimately use in the recipe. Adding it while the potatoes are still warm makes it all taste better.
Add a few nicoise black olives, pitted and chopped and some capers, rinsed and cherry or grape tomatoes. Use the cherry/grape and don't cut them so that the salad doesn't get soggy...which will happen if you use larger tomatoes and cut them up.

Boil a few eggs (depending on how many servings you make of the salad) (vegetarians leave these out; high cholestrol? just use the whites)

Have on hand either the tuna filets or salmon in the foil pouch that you can now get in the foil packets. Vegetarians could easily substitute a can of well rinsed beans (garbanzos would be terriffic) for the fish protein.

Now…for the week (yes I will be eating the same thing for all 4 days this week…don’t mind doing it this way) I used about 8 new potatoes and about a pound of green beans, 10 olives, a tablespoon or so of capers and 4 eggs…this made about 4 decent sized servings.

To pre-pack for lunches divide up the bean-potato salad mixture and put into a 2 cup glad bowl. Add the boiled egg and put the lid on. Have 4 packets of either the tuna or the salmon steak or both. Put a little of the Italian dressing in a small container to add at lunchtime. Pack this all in your lunch box and you have lunch for 4 days.

To assemble this you just peel your egg and crumble or slice it over your salad, put your tuna/salmon on top and add the rest of the dressing. Yummmm

Salad nicoise is usually what they call a composed salad…each ingredient is artfully arranged on a plate in pie shaped wedges. But this is impractical for brown bagging it. This “tossed” version isn’t as pretty, but tastes just as good.

For Morning snacks:
Small handful of cherries, 1 oz lower fat cheese, and a few whole grain lower fat crackers

For Afternoon snacks:
Raw veggies and a low fat ranch/yogurt dip. (I haven’t found any low fat ranch dressing I like yet so I use the full fat version of the Hidden Valley and thin it a bit with FF plain yogurt…it is ok. I like to dip things so I have a whole arsenal of healthy dip recipes that I use with raw veggies, whole grain toasted pita wedges (I toast them myself), baked whole grain corn chips, etc.

For suppers
I will either do pasta, salads, or roll-ups…or what ever else is on hand. Suppers aren’t as hard for me as I am not usually as hungry at supper as I am at breakfast and lunch. I am trying not to do evening snacks because I want to do yoga and the tape I use says that the last food should be 2 hours before doing the yoga…so that means no snacking in the evening as supper doesn’t happen until around 7.

Oh and a small note on a late (for us Americans) supper. Waiting until 7 or later for supper really has helped with the evening munchies. Think about it. If you don’t get to bed until 10 but you eat supper at 5…that is a loooong time until supper, much less breakfast. So I have pushed lunch until after 1 and supper until 7. This is where the morning and afternoon snacks help a lot.

Well I am off for now. Off to a good start on a good week.

For an excellent view on motivation go read Sara’s post on her blog.

Made it Through!

Affirmation: Change is a Choice

Well I made it through a holiday without going bonkers. Now, mind you I didn't do the party thing, no family picknic's this year, just a quiet 4 days off home puttering with mom. But many times being off work with nothing planned can mean a lot of snacking and munching. But I didn't. I ate pretty healthy even. Tomatoes are starting to trickle in from the south - real tomatoes. So I had my fill of all things tomato...I am sooo glad that they are so good for you!

I thought I would post a recipe that I have tweeked from I don't know where...it no longer looks like the original much and the original is long gone. I think the original had chicken or something in it. But I adapted it to make it a quick throw together rather than make all the stuff from scratch. I don't have a name for it, so I will make one up just for you all.

Poletna with Black Bean and Corn Salsa

For the salsa:

• 1 jar of your favorite fat free, low sodium salsa
• 1 can fat free low soduim black beans, rinsed well
• 1 1/2 - 2 cups frozen corn (to your taste)

Mix above together well. Chill. This is also good over a baked potatoe

For the Polenta

• Your favorite Polenta recipe (or if you really want fast, get the pre-prepared stuff from the market)
• Use soy milk instead of water (makes it creamier)
• some garlic (to your taste)
• cayene ground pepper (to your taste - if you are using a hot salsa you might skip this unless you love it hot!)
• a bay leaf
• Parmesean cheese (I make only 2 servings at a time so I use about 1/4 cup shreaded, less if it is ground)

Toast garlic in about a teaspoon of olive oil. Add the milk, cayene pepper and bay leaf and bring milk to boil. Add the amount of polenta grains called for in your recipe and stir constantly until thickens...about 5 minutes or more. Remove bay leave, take off heat and stir in parm cheese.

Now since this is a lunch bag standby I pour my polent into the little glad bowls (1 cup). Let cool and store in fridge for lunches. In another glad bowl put about a cup of salsa. Store in fridge for lunches. Warm up polenta and top with cold salsa. If you are serving it right away, pour the polenta into shallow bowl or pasta bowls. Top with about a cup of the salsa. MMM and so healthy for you. Easy breasy!

Polenta is quick and easy to make and really good for you. It stores pretty good in the fridge, so you can make up several servings ahead. It is good to lightly toast either in the oven or in a pan with a very small amount of olive oil (it sucks up the oil like a sponge) I also use a grill pan to toast them. When you make the polenta, pour it out on a cookie sheet and after it cools you can cut them into cute little triangles to toast. It makes a great base for putting other things over it. I will post some more recipes later. As you can see, making a pot of polenta is a great cook once morph into several meals food.

Eating and Food Update

Affirmation: To Exercise is to Choose Health and Life

Eating and Food

Last winter I talked about how handling food for me was getting on my nerves and making me want to eat more. Also how I was just sick of all the preparations that seem to go along with healthy eating. In the past 6 months I have experimented with different solutions, some work, some not, some only to varying degrees. It still comes down to discipline. Oh how we hate that word don’t we? But for me to become disciplined it has to become easy. Complication doesn’t work for me. In this eating/exercise/road to health or in any other area of my life it seems.

So what didn’t work:

1. Eating the same thing all the time.
2. Easy and suprisingly as tasty as they are to just eat the TV dinners, they got old after a time.
3. Buying a bunch of fresh produce thinking I would make the time to clean, cut and such.
4. Going to the grocery every week. (Too much time and I tended to over buy and ended throwing out fresh produce that went bad)

What did work:

1. Taking breakfast to work to eat.
2. Using TV dinners for lunches.
3. Making big batches of salad for lunches and suppers and storing it in individual Glad containers for quick salad makings.
4. Spending a bit extra for pre-washed salad, pre shredded veggies, and those fruit and veggie party trays instead of thinking I will clean and chop veggies and melons.
5. Allowing myself the treat of eating lunch out a couple of times a month.
6. But most important was a deep cleansing of my kitchen to make it a “clean healthy” place. I got rid of all white flour and sugar, processed foods, high fat and sodium foods etc. To help it along I donated sealed and canned foods to a food pantry.

Over all, changing how I cook has helped tremendously. The important thing is to have stuff on hand for quick fixing. I have developed a list of regular things I have on hand to make quick meals that are healthy. I will try to post my pantry list later this week.

Update

Affirmation: To Exercise is to choose life and health

Well it has been quite some time since I have posted. This spring has been a whirlwind of activity and changes for me. I have been gently reminded (thanks Kirsten) that there are people who read my blog and have missed me. I find that surprising and am touched that people whom I don’t even know worry when I don’t show up for a while. Thank you so much for your concern and for reading my blog.

First, I am fine. I have been busy finishing up the last of my requirements for becoming a Life Purpose Coach and Life Plan Facilitator through Pathway to Purpose Ministries. I was in Laguna Beach, CA in March for the final leg of training. I love doing this. I am also teaching a small group book study on the book written by the founder of this Ministry. This has kept me busy and focused. I will write more about how this has impacted my journey to health in a later post.

Second I have had problems with back and knee problems. I was in quite a bit of pain most of March through May, unable to really walk or stand for any amount of time, even sitting at work all day proved to be a challenge to my stamina and patients. But thanks to a really great Chiropractor and many prayers I am almost back to normal.

I have learned a lot from this little experience of incapacitation. First I don’t make a good patient! Second I hate having to depend on others! Third I am a lot more self-conscious about my weight when I am unable to be as active and self-sufficient as usual. The last surprised me a lot (the first two I already pretty much knew or suspected about myself). I am not all that self-conscious about my weight. It is what it is and if someone doesn’t like it then that is their problem. I don’t like it, not as much because of the way I look, but because of the way I feel and the limitations it puts on living my life in the way that I need and want to.

I think that the most important lesson I have learned is the importance of exercise. I am fully convinced that much of this was brought on by inactivity and letting go of what exercise I did do. From about Thanksgiving on I quit exercising – no excuses, I just didn’t do it. The trainer I had been going to dropped his Saturday clients in early summer, I quit my membership at the Y (financial reasons), and purchased a great recumbent bike on sale. I thought that I had enough momentum going from working with a trainer and the training I had done for the ½ marathon I had planned to enter in the spring, but alas winter hit and I quit. I wish I had a more glamorous excuse, but no….just laziness and a dislike of exercising.

Everyone says that if you do it long enough you will love it and crave it. Well after a year of training, not loosing much weight, I still didn’t crave it. I dreaded every day going to the Y or the trainer. I will admit to liking, no loving how I felt while I was exercising…no not during the actual exercise, but in the day-to-day way that I felt overall. I do miss that and am craving that feeling. I liked how my body moved easily, how I felt less heavy (in a way not associated to actual poundage) and how much energy I had. You would think that would be incentive enough eh? Wrong!!

So now with summer here, I am still struggling with exercise. I have been trying to incorporate yoga into my day. I am using a great set of tapes from living arts: Yoga AM and Yoga PM. Both are about 15-20 minutes. I am also trying to get back into the routine of using the bike. Walking any constructive amount of time is still out of the question because of my back and knees. I know that will improve as I loose more weight.

Well I need to go get ready for work. More later…I promise.

Weekend Successes

Affirmation: I love my body and trust its wisdom

The weekend went pretty good for a change. Weekends can be my downfall. This is when I find myself eating out of boredom or stress, depending on mom's needs and moods. I know that I shouldn't allow someone else's moods and needs dictate my stress level, but I am still learning how to cope with the reversing of roles as my mother becomes progressively inactive and frustrated with her health.

This weekend I was gentle with myself and took many naps...I was tired. I love naps on cold wintery days. I also spent time in the studio. Creating helps to forget about food. I came up for air when I was aware that I was so hungry that I was shaking! I rarely forget about food and eating to get to that point. It was such a relief to come upstairs and choose quick/easy fix foods and not have to spend time cooking. It allowed me to just feed my true body hunger and get back to the studio and go on with my day. For the inquiring minds this is what I ate on Saturday:

Breakfast

LF cheese omelet

hash browns

2 slices whole grain toast

Lunch

Frozen Chinese stir fry

rice

Dinner

pizza

(it was mom's birthday, she wanted pizza)

Sunday

Breakfast

Slice of toast w/peanut butter

Lunch

Ummm I forgot, TV dinner I think

Dinner

cheese

pear

crusty sourdough bagette (indiv. serv. size)

dilly beans

ff veg. cream cheese

Snack

popcorn

This is so much different than how I usually snack my way through the weekend...even though the snacking is mostly healthy choices, I still eat out of boredom. It took less than 5 minutes to prepare the meals this weekend and it was such a joy to not have to have time eaten up (no pun intended) around the food prep/eat/thinking/etc. Somehow I feel such a liberation in this. Easy eating, calm eating, eating out of hunger and need for nourishment rather than an emotional response. For the most part the past 2 weeks have been like this. Last weekend I was so busy running around and not at home I didn't think it would be a good test of whether my paradigm shift would survive weekends. This weekend was a quiet weekend at home, and it did. Now, I did find myself thinking and wanting to munch in the evenings, but it was much easier to choose not to. Could it be that this truly is the breakthrough I have been struggling for, praying for, working for, almost have given up on? It is quite early to really say so, but in small and big ways I am finding that change in thought and actions are taking place.

I am finding it much easier to say no to the beginnings of hunger and wait until it gets to a true hunger, not just those little nudges from the hunger monster, you know the kind, hey...you haven't eaten for oh say 5 minutes!! whaddya trying to do...starve!!! To wait until I am well and truly hungry. I am getting more consistent in asking myself the questions too...am I really hungry or has something just triggered my old desire to use food for what ever reason. What is really going on here? And to talk myself through to a conscious answer - even if it is to eat, at least I am doing it consciously and with full knowledge of why.

I am also full of plans for the immediate future, my training and certification as a life purpose coach, creating art, looking for opportunities to sell it and designing and making jewelry...and thinking about selling it too.

Now...time to tackle the exercise demon!