Food and Loving to Eat and Discipline
I love to eat.
And if food could bring me closer to God, I would be well on my way! (But I Corinthians 8:8 says Food does not bring us near to God...rats!)
I just love to eat. So sometimes it becomes a HUGE problem for me. And let me tell you, something nasty happens to your body after the age of 45. When Howie asked me a couple of years ago what I wanted for Christmas, I said twenty pounds gone between my navel and my knees. Guess what? I was disappointed. There was no magic bullet under the Tree.
It really is simple math; not new math, just simple math. Calories in must be fewer than Calories out to see the scale head in the direction that the body parts have already gone.
So that's where the discipline part comes in. It's pretty easy to keep putting off healthy habits, good choices and exercise till tomorrow. And tomorrow is always a Monday and by Tuesday it's blown and over with, so there goes another week, and before you know it size 8 turns into size 14 or more...So after piddling around with this for a while I am getting serious. OK, there you all know now, so please hold me accountable!
I went back to Dorie at Shapes to Come, a local nutrition support/weight loss program, and Dorie is great. She was so happy to see me again (this has been going on on and off for a year now). I am determined to be successful this time and I don't have a ton of weight to shed, but my goal is 16 pounds. My clothes would fit, all of them and I wouldn't have to wear elastic waist pants and loose tops anymore. I can always find someone who has a couple more pounds to lose than me, but who can't? So even though I don't have that far to go, and too many people say I look fine the way I am, the point is I don't feel fine and half my clothes don't fit, and I want to adopt a healthier lifestyle, get away from the binging (I have struggled with Bulimia in the past) and not succumb to emotional or late night eating, which is huge for me.
So here are my successes which would fall into the discipline category:
And if food could bring me closer to God, I would be well on my way! (But I Corinthians 8:8 says Food does not bring us near to God...rats!)
I just love to eat. So sometimes it becomes a HUGE problem for me. And let me tell you, something nasty happens to your body after the age of 45. When Howie asked me a couple of years ago what I wanted for Christmas, I said twenty pounds gone between my navel and my knees. Guess what? I was disappointed. There was no magic bullet under the Tree.
It really is simple math; not new math, just simple math. Calories in must be fewer than Calories out to see the scale head in the direction that the body parts have already gone.
So that's where the discipline part comes in. It's pretty easy to keep putting off healthy habits, good choices and exercise till tomorrow. And tomorrow is always a Monday and by Tuesday it's blown and over with, so there goes another week, and before you know it size 8 turns into size 14 or more...So after piddling around with this for a while I am getting serious. OK, there you all know now, so please hold me accountable!
I went back to Dorie at Shapes to Come, a local nutrition support/weight loss program, and Dorie is great. She was so happy to see me again (this has been going on on and off for a year now). I am determined to be successful this time and I don't have a ton of weight to shed, but my goal is 16 pounds. My clothes would fit, all of them and I wouldn't have to wear elastic waist pants and loose tops anymore. I can always find someone who has a couple more pounds to lose than me, but who can't? So even though I don't have that far to go, and too many people say I look fine the way I am, the point is I don't feel fine and half my clothes don't fit, and I want to adopt a healthier lifestyle, get away from the binging (I have struggled with Bulimia in the past) and not succumb to emotional or late night eating, which is huge for me.
So here are my successes which would fall into the discipline category:
- I didn't have a bit of any food at the football game last night, no fries or yummy looking Cinnamon things that my friends had.
- I bought lots of fresh produce today at the Surplus Outlet and made a sweet potato and pork loin Mexican stew for dinner. Yummy.
- I have foregone the Drive Thru at Dunkin Donuts so no one gets tempted with Donuts (Nicole) or leftovers (me). Not to mention the $2 I save by not buying the coffee. Not a big deal, I agree, but if I am listing books on Amazon.com now for all of a buck and change in profit, I will think twice about $2 on a cup of coffee...
- I am snacking on almonds.
- I walked 5 1/2 miles today while Nicole and her friend were roller skating (another bid for mother of the year I suppose...) My mom dutifully sat as the adult in charge and read Time Magazine.
Now I just need to go to bed without detouring past the kitchen. It is the evenings that are the toughest for me...
Oh, and a picnic tomorrow. I am going to make peach cobbler with some of those yummy peaches, but will try to steer clear. I want to make a double batch and a single as one full stick of butter. Yikes! No wonder it's so good.
Labels: discipline, healthy eating, peach cobbler, shapes to come
posted by www.kathypride.com at
10:41 PM
9 Comments:
i have a suggestion....if you are serious....about losing the 20 pounds between the waist and knees...I did that! (Now I just hv to lose it between the ears and hips!!)
In January 2004, I decided to walk a marathon. I signed up with a local group training for the Portland Marathon in October. It cost me about $150, but in shoe discounts over the years I have saved that much (she has a deal with local shoe stores that if you mention her name, you get 10% off..which adds up over the years). Anyway, made friends, lost more than 20# --mostly between the waist and knees, walked the marathon, and grew in my self-confidence, self-esttem, and best of all got healthier!! Been walking (and running) ever since.
OK, tell me more...Funny y ou should mention training for a marathon. It has been a goal of mine to complete one. Notice I didn't say run...and my friend Katy (who also posts here from time to time) wants to do an Avon walk in support of breast cancer research next May. It is a 26 mile walk the first day, then camp out, then 13 miles the next day. I am just waiting to make sure it doesn't conflict with a triathlon in VA. We participated in that for the first time this year.
I was a swimmer in HS and college, and then did Masters Swimming for awhile, got my black belt in Tae Kwon Do, and have always made excercise a priority until the last few years, until last spring when my husband and I did two tri's. Now he is doind one in a couple of weeks at the Olympic distance...the two we did earlier were both sprint distances, but I have always wanted to do a marathon. As a matter of fact, had started to train for one with a friend a few years back, got bronchitis, and coughed so hard I broke a rib. And that ended that.
Tell me about your training, and subsequent successes, you mentioned in another post you have lost 60 pounds. And have you done more?
Good for you, Kudos!
I haven't done more marathons--YET. I will. I have let life get in the way.
There is a lady in Eugene (THE city about 10 miles from here,calls itsel the track capital fo the world--home of the olympic track and field trials, "Track Town USA", etc.) named Kay Porter (I expect you could google her). She does a marathon training program every year. She says that everyone who has made it to the starting line has made it to the finish line. (I think getting to the starting line is the hardest part, and if you can get that far, you will finish).
Basically, a group starts out walking and adds a mile per week to the route. (It's a little more complicated toward the end, as there is a train-down period near the end, so you aren't wiped on marathon day.) When I did it, we walked our weekly distances alone, and then walked the long distance with the group on the weekends. Some of the Eugenians probably walked together during the week, but there wasn't anyone from my town in it. The great part about the group is that you keep your pace up and all the chatter makes those miles really fly by...and you make some great friends. I imagine you could probably find a similar training program near you.
She also did monthly meetings where we learned about walking technique, nutrition, stretching, all kinds of things.
As for the weight loss....My story is that in my early 20s, after my daughter was born, I never lost the weight I gained when I was pregnant with her, and then I gained 10 pounds a year. When she was six, we had to move and I had to quit my dairy job (2 solid hours of walking per day) and then I really gained weight! When we moved back a year later, I weighed 300 pounds. So I started walking. At first, I could only walk 15 minutes at a time, but I did it every day, and pretty soon I was up to an hour, and then I started running. When my daughter was in ballet, in hilly south Eugene, I would walk the hills, or run on some of the bark trails. I started doing some local fun runs, doing a combination of running and walking. I got down below 240# and then got pregnant with my son. My daughter and I had also started paper routes and worked up to about 2 hours of walking every morning, and had been doing that for about 5 years. But I had to start laying off the paper route walking toward the middle and even more toward the end of my pregnancy. After my son was born, my body rebelled again and I again got up to 300#. So I started wallking again, worked in a little running, but discovered Volkswalks, which are typically about 6 miles, and started traveling all over my state to do them...seeing my beautiful state and walking new territory. That is really a blast, if you need a change in venue. I got down to about 275#, and then started the marathon group. I lost another 30# that year. I was already regularly walking 6 miles on the weekends and 2 to 3 miles on the weekdays when I started the group. Some people started from zero and made it!!
One thing that could have sidelined me was that when our distances got up in the teens, I started getting a tightness behind my left knee after about 12 miles and that was very hard to deal with. I had been carrying some wooden fence boards through our garden with my son and didn't see a big old hole, because he was in front and stepped over it, and I stepped in it, tearing my meniscus. But it didn't hurt too much, and only was a problem after long distances. I didn't get it diagnosed until the following year. The other hard thing was that my daughter got married that year and our longest training walk, 20 miles, was the morning after her wedding!! So I was zonked. But I didn't dare attempt 20 miles alone!!
Another fun part was that we were able to do some local half marathons as part of our training, and I got hooked on the half marathon distance. I broke my ankle in May 2007 on a trail run with my daughter, and this summer is the first year I have not done all those half marathons. (It will take surgery to fix, that I don't have the money for, and so my ankle is a little weak and we were also so sick this year, that I have not run much, and my walking partner started school in January, and that kinda took the wind out of my sails...But I think she is wanting to start back up, and my daugther will walk with me during the winter...And I swam all summer with my son, and plan to continue through the winter...so we are gatting back on track!!).
If you are doing tris, you can do a marathon!! I would encourage you to try again!
Hi Kathy,
ARGH! I just lost two paragraphs. I don't know where they went. Simone is asking me if I did this that and the other thing, but I said never mind. One of the two things I learned and still used from high school is typing (the other, sewing).
So, it's official, I've lost my first ten pounds. Yeah! I wrote it down on my calendar, so I don't back-slide. It inspired me to not only walk my dog, Billy, today, but work out for the second day in a row on my Bowflex. Usually, I try to do the Bowflex every other day, to give my muscles a chance to build and repair. Hope I don't wake up tomorrow sore. I really have to be careful about my left arm (the mastectomy side) so I don't get lymphodema. I was told not to lift more than 15 pounds on that side for the rest of my life, but I have also seen research saying that if one builds up slowly then one can go beyond that. So I now do 40 pounds on each side on the B., which is quite a lot for one who has been through all these surgeries and set-backs in the last year.
One food trick I seem to be experiencing success with is that I take half of what I used to take and then wait 20 minutes to see if I REALLY want the second half. Most of the time, I don't. I used to allow myself to get so hungry that I would wolf down the entire portion w/o letting my body have time for the food to even register.
I have also managed to make that final jump in my coffee consumption from 1% milk to skim. Pretty good for one who used to prefer whole milk. And sugar substite in my coffee as well. I figure that these two measures are cutting back about 100 calories per day. One piece of high-fiber toast in the a.m. instead of two. More fruit, more water.
I don't seem to have your issue with late-night eating. I remember hearing Jane Fonda's philosophy about 15 years ago that simply not eating after 7 p.m. would help you lose weight. Some nights, since we don't eat until after Simone's daily dance classes, it'll be 8 or 9 p.m. before we eat, but I try.
My friend, who is very trim and works out like a fiend, tells me I must also increase my protein intake, so I've been doing that too.
Love,
Katy
I find that if I want to eat late at night, it is either because I am tired, bored, and/or stressed. If I'm stressed, a walk and devotion time do the trick, usually. If I'm bored, finding something producitve to do helps...like something with my hands, so I can't eat. If I'm tired, and this is the really hard one, I try to go to bed!! Usually it's some combination of all 3!!!
But eating doesn't fix any of them.
I've been thinking about the weight thing myself (as per your blog, see I do read it), and I think that it's not so much what we eat, but the amount. I also don't think I savor what I eat. What would happen if before I popped that itty bitty serving of yummy cobbler into my mouth I picked it up and smelled it? Stuck my finger into the Cool Whip and lolled it around on my tongue? Looked at the beautiful golden peaches that make it up. And then SLOWLY experienced each minescule mouthful? Wouldn't I be more satisfied? Just thinking. I've been observing my granddaughter as she eats, and she does each of these things, plus she makes a wonderful, contented moan when she eats something she really enjoys. She has the grand capacity of being able to eat just the amount she wants/needs, and then you can't get another bite into her mouth. Hmm. Definitely something the think about.
Well, just call me techno-klutz, but this is my second try...
Kathy I was thrilled to go to your website for the very first time and find your post and the comments about health and fitness. Would you believe the new proposal I'm working on right now is a Health and Fitness Book for Boomer Women? ;-)
So if--no, WHEN I get a contract, maybe I'll just have to check in with you and your group!
Can't wait to hear about your new book!
Blessings,
Vonda
www.VondaSkelton.com
The three reasons for late night eating, boredom, fatigue and stress are definitely my culprits. I know eating doesn't solve any of them, but do it anyway!
I like the sound of the walking training and am going to google Kay Porter. Too bad we are coasts apart, and Katy is down in MD. We could form our own walking group!
The three reasons for late night eating, boredom, fatigue and stress are definitely my culprits. I know eating doesn't solve any of them, but do it anyway!
I like the sound of the walking training and am going to google Kay Porter. Too bad we are coasts apart, and Katy is down in MD. We could form our own walking group!
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