Eat . . . Pray . . . Eat . . . Love . . . Eat

I've had a problem this week . . . I've been insatiable.

It's a feeling that hits me about once a month, and when it does, I am overwhelmed by my desire for food. Over the past few years, I've become one of those people who gets full pretty quickly (even though I was never like that when I was younger), but when a bout of what I call "The Insatiables" hits, I can never seem to feel satisfied, not to mention full.

The result is that it feels like I eat all day long and simply cannot stop eating.

Don't get me wrong—I'm not a binge eater. I don't sit down and eat a whole pint of ice cream or a bag of chips. Or both. But during these monthly bouts of insatiability, I can slowly make my way through all of the food groups in one day. More than once.

This last round of insatiability started early on Monday and lasted through Tuesday night (thank God it's finally over), and I spent the first half of the week trying to figure out why I could no longer control my eating.

Was I upset about something? Was I falling back on the old feeding-my-emotions trick?

Those questions didn't lead me to an answer, but something else did . . . over the weekend (a time when I usually indulge), I had tried to make healthier choices. We ate light on Friday because we were going to the movies that night and didn't want to miss any of the film for bathroom breaks, and when we went out to dinner on Saturday, I intentionally ordered the lowest calorie item on the menu.

I think that's where things went off the rails because even after we finished dinner I still felt unsatisfied. Yes, I was full, but I wasn't sated.

The next day we went out for drinks with friends, and the beer made me too bloated to eat a real meal that night. Translation: I still didn't feel like I'd had much to eat that weekend.

Monday was when the sh*t hit the fan.

We were both struggling with our writing projects and, in order to cope, decided to indulge in some much needed comfort food: Skyline chili.

If you don't know, Skyline chili is served over pasta. Yes, pasta. With cheese. A single entree doesn't get much more decadent than that. Well, unless you add sour cream, which I have seen people do when they make it at home.

For some reason, every time I eat Skyline chili, I lose control of myself. It is so good that I feel I must go back for seconds and can't wait until I go to sleep that night so I can eat the leftovers the next day.

So this is how Monday and Tuesday went—eat some Skyline, have some more Skyline, and have even more Skyline on top of that.

It was like I was in a chili-eating contest.

And I was winning.

As cliched as it sounds, it was an unmitigated disaster, facilitated by the fact that Dave and I usually make enough food for four people, so we can eat it for two days (and thus avoid cooking two days in a row).

Thank God we ran out of Skyline on Tuesday night because, I swear on my mother-in-law's life, if there was Skyline in the house right now, I might not be able to stop myself from eating it.

So part of the problem was the Skyline.

But I believe the bigger problem was my meal on Saturday.

Dave and I try to eat out only once a week, and when we did that last weekend, I picked something that was healthy rather than indulgent, which is where I think I went wrong.

I always talk about how one of the reasons dieting doesn't work is because whenever we are denied something we want, we end up wanting it even more. (Remember how appealing beer was before you were twenty-one?) But sometimes I forget that even small changes in your diet can leave you craving the things you're trying to avoid.

That's what I believe happened to me this week—instead of having a greasy pizza or a nice fat juicy cheeseburger during my one meal out on Saturday night, I had vegetables and shrimp in a curry sauce.

Sure, it was delicious, but it was also light.

I've known for years that we NEED to indulge ourselves sometimes, so it's kind of embarrassing to admit that even I still make the mistake of denying myself that indulgence. I guess it makes me human if I have to remind myself not to take the healthy living thing too far sometimes.

The funny thing is that I know for sure that if I'd ordered the same meal last Saturday because I wanted it (rather than because it was healthy), I would have never had the problem I did after it was all over. I would have never had a raging case of The Insatiables.

As it turns out, my need to feel satisfied was simply psychological.

And now that I've figured that out, I just need to figure out what I can do the next time the psychological desire to eat chili for two days straight takes over every cell of my being.

Pooping perfect

A week ago I wrote a post called "Everybody poops . . . but not on the same schedule" about how much trouble I have pooping—and how it sometimes seems like the people I know who don't have trouble pooping also don't have trouble with their weight. As I said then, it makes me wonder if I would be supermodel thin if I could kick the constipation habit.

After I wrote this, my friend Kara Thurmond, creator of the Neo-19th century cooking blog, An Hour in the Kitchen, sent me the list below about ways to make it easier to poop. I would be derelict in my duties if I didn't share those tips with all of you.

1. Chew and chew some more. I would say the first thing to do to improve your pooping is to chew your food well. I mean really well, more than you think is necessary. Chew it until there isn't anything left to chew.

2. Eat yogurt (full-fat, plain, sweetened by you lightly with honey, fruit or maple syrup) and lacto fermented food like pickles (Bubbies is one brand, check the label). I would find a local, organic yogurt instead of going with Activia.

3. Tame your stress. This is a big one. You can't control the amount of stressful events in your life, but you can control how you react to them. To start, when you feel overwhelmed, just take a deep breath and say something like "everything will get done." It sounds silly, but it redirects your brain. I believe that dealing with stress in a positive way is the key to many health problems.

4. Go gluten-free. Plus I really, really think you need to give up gluten for a week or two just to see if you feel differently. It's not something you'll have to give up forever, but your "gut" may been a little "repairing".

Here's more about my try at gluten free:
http://www.registerstar.com/articles/2011/04/14/columnists/an_hour_in_the_kitchen/doc4d9dbab6035b8396032443.txt

How to repair your gut:
http://blog.gaiam.com/blog/how-to-fix-your-gut-7-steps-to-intestinal-health/

Let me know if you try any of these!

Don't even think about Lunchables by guest blogger Emily Threlkeld

Guest blogger Emily Threlkeld continues telling us about the challenge she has given herself: cooking every single thing she eats for the entire month of February. This week she explains how she handles homemade lunches at work. (Also included are photos of Emily's actual lunches for a week!)

So before we get to the hardest part about this month—dinner, in case you were wondering, although breakfast comes in at a close second—let's do the fun part: lunch.

There is no place more depressing to have lunch than in the employee break room of a retail store. You're surrounded by lockers, cleaning supplies, vending machines, and, in the middle of winter, other people's coats hung over all the chairs. It's not pretty, and yet lunch is my favorite part of the day. Not just because it's half an hour of quiet away from the needs of all the couples I try to pick out housewares with, but because I have become an expert lunch packer. So much so that my co-workers, who usually bring a Lean Cuisine or the remains of last night's pizza, always want to know what I'm having.

When I first started working, I invested $25 in a lunchbox. It felt like an unreasonable sum to me at the time, but it was really just the equivalent of two or three lunches out. I wanted to pack my lunch mostly to save money. Also, because we have such a short lunch break, I didn't want to spend my lunch break running out to my car, ordering something, shoving it in my face, and rushing back to work.

The problem is that I work in a shopping center. In less than one mile there is a great crepes place, a Chick-fil-a, Jason's Deli, a noodle place, and a fantastic Greek restaurant. There are probably even more awesome eateries that I don't know about. So if I was going to pack myself a lunch, it had to be good enough for me to resist temptation that surrounded me.

Here's the good news about making a lunch for yourself: No matter what memories you have of brown bagging it as a kid, you're a grown-up now. You know what you like.

I usually try to think of my main dish first. Some recent favorites include egg fried rice, curry chicken salad, stir fry, half a baked potato covered in cheese and bacon, and, because sometimes I'm in a hurry and don't feel like reinventing the wheel, a turkey sandwich.

Then I try to fill my lunchbox with fruits and vegetables, preferably fresh ones. Not only is this healthy, but it makes your lunch pretty to look at. Sometimes I even make myself a side salad.

Finally, make it nice. Pack a napkin, real cutlery. I usually throw in a piece of candy as a small treat. When I can, I throw something in the tiniest container in my lunch box. Sour cream, fruit dip. Partially because it's fun to interact with my food and partly because I love hearing, "Oh my God, she brought parmesan cheese to sprinkle on her pasta."

EMILY THRELKELD is a newlywed living in Raleigh, North Carolina. She's also a writer and a photographer who supports herself being a bridal consultant at Bed, Bath, & Beyond.

The February Challenge by guest blogger Emily Threlkeld

A good friend of mine—Emily Threlkeld—has decided to challenge herself to do something INSANE this month, and she will be blogging about it every week on I WILL NOT DIET. Read Emily's first post below to find out what that insane thing is.

As I type this post, there is a roasting pan full of a potato (thinly sliced) topped with an organic lemon (also thinly sliced), sea salt, pepper that I ground myself, and fresh dill sitting in my kitchen. In ten minutes I'll toss this all together, wait another ten minutes and then add two tilapia filets that I drove to Whole Foods to buy because the grocery store right by my house only had Chinese exports. I have nothing against China, I was just really hoping for fish that was in the same time zone as me.

(I realize how obnoxious that sounds, but I'm just doing my part to make the world a better place.)

But, on the other hand, last night I put off making dinner for so long that I didn't have any energy to deal with it anymore and just ended up eating grapes. I ate so many grapes that I gave myself a stomach ache. Later, around midnight when all the fructose wore off, I polished off the bottom of a bag of BBQ chips.

Yikes.

I'm not going to lie to you. Last night's "dinner" is a more accurate reflection of how I usually eat. It's just so easy to go out and get a burger or pizza or lo mein, or to stay in and snack on whatever will stave off my hunger until I can go to sleep.

But in the last six months, I've been trying to lose weight. My diet and exercise routines were so out of whack before then that just by walking a few times a week and trying to eat like something resembling a grown up, I’ve lost twenty pounds.

What’s interesting is that the more time I spent in the kitchen, the more weight I lost, and the better I felt. Not only that, but I started realizing just how expensive eating out was and just how little I could afford to do it.

So I decided to make a challenge to myself for February: I will eat no meal that isn't made in my own kitchen.*

Convenience food is okay, cooking from scratch is better, but absolutely no take-out, fast food, or even barista-made coffee.

I'm hoping this challenge will push me over to the good side of things. I'm hoping the extra pressure will motivate me to figure out a better way to do things, so I don't just cave every time I feel too tired to cook. I'm also hoping that I'll end the month a tiny bit thinner, a tiny bit richer, and a tiny bit healthier.

*Well, February minus one week when I'll be in Costa Rica. I have no idea what the food situation will be there.

EMILY THRELKELD is a newlywed living in Raleigh, North Carolina. She's also a writer and a photographer who supports herself being a bridal consultant at Bed, Bath, & Beyond.

Eat, eat, eat, and then eat some more

196 pounds

As much as I hate to admit it, classes started yesterday here at WKU, and that means I have to go back to a much more challenging schedule . . . getting up earlier than I want, showering every single day (can you imagine?!), squeezing in exercise whenever I can, and—most importantly—eating on the go.

To be honest, it's a recipe for disaster.

And, because of all the stress, I can't help but find myself longing for the quick fixes—fast food, hi-cal carryout, frozen pizza and other meals that come in a box.

But if I start eating like that, we all know what will happen—my body will retaliate, and the scale will go up, up, up, and up some more

No, I can't give into those very strong desires, and there are two ways I'm avoiding doing that.

The first way I'm overcoming my stress-fueled desire for junk food is a trick you can read all about in my "Nothing beats a home-cooked meal" post. Suffice it to say that when school is in session, Dave and I try to cook all of our meals for the work week over the weekend. We have to be at school Monday through Thursday this semester, so we each cook one meal on Sunday and make enough that those two meals will last us four days.

The second way I avoid junk food when I'm this is busy is by making sure that I eat healthy snacks all day long--a snack between breakfast and lunch, another between lunch and dinner, and then sometimes a little one later in the evening.

These snacks don't have to take much preparation either—anyone can put a piece of cheese and and an apple in a bag or grab a container of yogurt—but I love making gourmet snacks so they are even more appealing. Last night I spent ten minutes making homemade salsa (tomatoes, red pepper, jalapeno pepper, onion, lime, and red vinegar), and I ate a half-cup of that this afternoon with a few tortilla chips this afternoon. (The homemade salsa makes store-bought salsa taste about as appealing as motor oil.)

I've also been known to repeatedly make cottage cheese dip to eat with raw vegetables like red pepper, cucumber, and carrots. (If you're interested, the cottage cheese dip—modified from Moosewood—is made by simply blending cottage cheese, feta, dill, and green onion.)

The result of eating little snacks like these all day—about every two hours—is that you'll never really feel hungry and, therefore, find it much easier to avoid unhealthy temptations. I put this theory into practice today, and by the time I left school, I didn't have any desire to pig out, which is usually the case with me after a long day at work.

By no means am I the first person to advocate this technique—we've all heard of it before—but it really does work. And it's especially effective when you're dealing with an unusual amount of on-the-job stress and fatigue.

Step #1: Like yourself a.k.a. what makes me different from everybody else

196 pounds

I realized the other day that there are some basic things I have yet to say on this blog, so I'm going to try to say them over the next few weeks.

When I started this blog, I began by slowly outlining my belief system and the ways which we can all lose weight without dieting. But I only got through five of those steps (which are are still included below right—scroll WAY down—under the title, "How to Lose Weight without Dieting"), but I need to get back to those steps and finish them.

Tonight I want to start filling in those gaps by addressing a question that has been posed to me lately: how is this blog—and my approach—different than any other program that proposes a change in lifestyle?

1) First of all, I want to say that in many ways my approach is NOT drastically different than any weight loss program that advocates lifestyle change. The way to lose weight and keep it off is by making a lifelong commitment to being healthy—yes, that includes exercising and eating healthy foods, but it also means doing those things in moderation AND giving into indulgence from time to time.

2) But, more importantly, the number one thing I advocate on this blog is accepting ourselves the way we are. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I believe we have to like the way we look before we can even begin to be healthy and/or lose weight. And that's what makes this blog and my approach different from everyone else out there.

Because I believe that most "healthy living" programs are predicated on the belief that if people find themselves unattractive, they will want to change their lives, they will want to diet.

And I just don't buy it.

(On top of that, I think it's an ugly kind of fear-mongering.)

I believe, instead, that only people who truly like themselves can make that change.

So if you haven't yet figured out what you like about the way you look, it's time for you to do us all a favor: put on your favorite outfit, go look in the mirror, and find something to like.

I know that if you look hard enough, you can do it.

You are what you eat

196 pounds

There is only one official month of summer left, and as a result, I'm noticing that there is less and less food in my CSA basket each week.

If you don't know, CSA stands for "community shared agriculture," and members of a CSA "invest" in a local organic farm every spring and then get "shares" of the farm's produce every week during the season—for us, that means from May to November. The cost for our CSA is $400 for six months if you pay all of it up front, which works out to be a little more than $15 a week. Not a bad deal for a good-sized basket of organic produce.

In May the basket which holds our share is pretty light—filled about halfway—but by June its overflowing with the best vegetables and fruit I've ever eaten in my life. At that point, there is usually too much to fit in one basket, and we have to carry watermelons under our arms like footballs from the pick-up spot. We get everything from beets to blueberries, and we love it all.

But now we're in a slow period. Most of the summer produce has been harvested, and as we wait for the fall harvest to come in, our baskets are again only half-full. And when our share arrived tonight, I thought about the fact that even half-full, the CSA is still an amazing deal.

And this makes me wonder—if it's such a good deal, why is it so hard to get other people to join? We've told all of our friends about it, but we only know five people who are doing the CSA with us this year.

Some people complain about the fact that we don't know what we'll get every week, but for us, that's half the fun. The first time we got beets last year, we had no idea what to do with them. By now we know that there is nothing better than tangy beet risotto or warm roasted beets on top of a bed of mixed greens and goat cheese.

Still, most people we know don't seem interested, which makes me marvel at our inability to adapt.

We all know that organic food is the best thing we can eat—the only problem is that it's expensive, a problem easily solved by joining a CSA. As I said in my last post, scientists have now proven that chemicals and pesticides make us gain weight, so I'm not sure why anyone would pass up the opportunity to get pesticide-free produce for such a cut rate.

And I've witnessed a similar problem with locally grown, grass-fed beef.

A friend of ours—who is also in the CSA—decided to raise his own steer a few years back. We would go over to his house for dinner parties and cookouts and see the handsome animal in his backyard, feasting on acres of gorgeous Kentucky grass and flirting with the neighbor's cattle. After a few years, it was time for the steer to deliver on his promise of providing our friend—and many others (since it was too much for one person to eat)—with a winter's worth of beef. Our friend invited a group of us over for one of the first meals, and I was surprised to see that another friend of ours—a meat-eater, in fact—turned his nose up at the offering.

"I don't eat anything I've met," he said, but I didn't get it.

This was a person I knew had eaten frozen dinners for lunch—meals with mystery meat and dehydrated vegetables—but he was unwilling to eat locally raised, grass-fed beef?

Was I missing something?

The problem is that we don't like to think about where our food comes from. We just like it to appear on our plates—in edible form—like magic. (That might be why eating out is so appealing.) But the truth is that juicy hamburger you cooked on the grill last 4th of July came from a cow. And, unfortunately, it probably didn't come from a local cow or a cow who eats grass and it almost certainly didn't have as long and happy a life as our friend's cow.

The same could be said about our CSA produce. Yes, sometimes the corn shows up with a few worms, and more often than not, the carrots are always dirty. That's because corn grows in a field, and carrots come out of the ground. And once we realize that, maybe we won't be so obsessed with our food looking so neat and clean. Because, in the end, that neat, clean package of ground beef and that beautiful winter tomato probably come with chemicals and fillers that will make you feel pretty dirty in the long run.

The way we're meant to be

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In the August issue of Glamour magazine, there's a wonderful article by Dr. Julie Holland called "The Cave-Woman's Guide to Good Health."

One of the article's main tenets is that we all need to "eat real food."

As Holland explains, "Women aren't meant to be bone thin, as many of my patients strive to be. So don't kill yourself trying to get there. Plus, guys are drawn to your body at its most natural. Some brain scans suggest that men go gaga over curves, which, after all, signify fertility."

I couldn't have said it better myself.

The glass has to be half full

195 pounds

At the end of my post called “Are you still with me?”, I mentioned some advice my friend Al gave me, and I think his comments bear repeating.

As I explained before, Al is a psychologist, and I know him from St. Andrews College in North Carolina, where we were both members of the faculty before Dave and I moved to Kentucky.

One day Al came by my office and listened to me venting about the fact that I had eaten way too much the night before. I was basically going off on my bad behavior, and Al told me that beating myself up for a mistake I’d already made and couldn’t undo was causing me twice as much harm. He said that, instead, it would be healthier to own up to my bad behavior and move on, focusing on what I could do right in the present rather than what I'd done wrong in the past.

Of course, Al was right, so right that his words have stayed with me since that day nearly four years ago. Not only that, but his advice has helped shape my new and much healthier attitude about the way I see myself and the way I approach weight loss.

Unfortunately, there are still so many people who don’t see it that way.

I was talking with my friend Laura recently about her weight. Laura is really unhappy about her body and completely down about the fact that she hasn’t been able to drop any pounds even though she has wanted to do so for a while now. At one point during our conversation, she told me that she knows that her problem is that she eats too much.

I hate it when Laura is hard on herself, and on top of that, I know she was wrong so I immediately took issue with what she’d said. Since her weight gain occurred before I met her—and I’ve known her for over a year—I know she really doesn’t eat too much anymore. It’s possible that she ate too much in the past—when she picked up the pounds she’s now trying to lose—but I know her well enough to be sure that she is no longer eating more than anyone else. Besides, if she really were overeating, she would be gaining weight rather than maintaining. So the fact that the number on Laura's scale hasn't gone up recently tells me she’s actually doing something right.

But rather than give herself credit for not gaining weight, Laura is only able to see that she’s not as thin as she once was. Because she has to look in the mirror every day and see the extra pounds she’s still carrying with her, she truly believes that she’s still eating too much.

In this way, Laura is equating the size of her body with her current eating habits . . . even though that’s not an accurate equation. In a sense, she is beating herself up every day for something she did years ago, and I wish there was something I could say or do to get her to understand what Al told me back in North Carolina, but my words don't seem to help.

What worries me is that I don’t think Laura is alone. I think many people who are unhappy with their bodies do the same thing. They look in the mirror and see something they don’t like and think, “God, I’m such a pig!” Or “Why do I always have to eat so much?!” even though the reflection they see in the mirror may have nothing to do with their eating habits for a long, long time.

I know that other people do this because I do it too. Yes, I’ve learned to control how hard I am on myself most of the time, but every once in a while I still slip up, go back to my old ways, and see myself through that really harmful lens.

The problem with continuing to beat yourself up for things you did months—sometimes even years—ago is that doing so doesn’t allow you to give yourself credit for what you’re doing in the present. Because if, like Laura, you’re not gaining weight, that means you really deserve praise, not criticism. Unfortunately, it’s one of life’s cruel realties that it usually takes a long time for our hard work to pay off. If life were really fair, we'd all look like Heidi Klum the morning after we spent a whole day sweating it out at Boot Camp and crunching our way through bags full of celery and carrot sticks. Or we’d resemble the Bride of Frankenstein after a long night of downing plate after plate of nachos and spinach dip over half a dozen whipped cream-topped strawberry daquiris and two packs of Kools. Unfortunately, it takes much more time to see the results of our hard work (or the consequences of our mistakes), which is why we have to look for the positive rather than wait for it to be pointed out to us in the mirror.

I’ve been working hard at trying to lose weight for almost five months now, and I’ve really only lost a handful of pounds in all that time. And I’m also not sure that my body looks any better than it did back in March when this whole thing started. It would be really easy for me to get down on myself about this, but what good would it do me? If I had spent the past five months thinking about how little I’ve accomplished, I think it would be very difficult—if not impossible—for me to stay motivated and keep working on being healthy. And that’s the reason it’s crucial that we all take Al’s advice and focus on what we’re doing right in the present rather than what we did wrong in the past.

It's a revolution! Why Lizzi Miller could change everything

196 pounds

Holy stomach roll, Batman!!!

I just found out (thanks to my cousin Jill) that a “plus-size” model is featured in Glamour this month (the September issue). Not only is it impressive that a magazine like Glamour featured a regular-sized women in its pages, it’s revolutionary!

Lizzi Miller appears naked in a Glamour article about self-esteem looking both confident and real (see the pic on the right), and the web is buzzing about it. Apparently, readers are falling all over themselves to say how much they love Miller’s very real stomach and legs, a sign that we are all ready to see women who actually look like us rather than woman who look almost as unreal as Barbie dolls.

And this isn’t even the first time Miller has graced the pages of Glamour. She also appeared in their April issue wearing nothing but a flesh-colored bikini bottom. (See the pic on the left.)

So who is this beautiful but normal-sized woman?

Lizzi Miller is an absolutely gorgeous 5’11”, 180-pound, 20-year-old “plus-size” model, and I think she is going to have to be my new hero and the patron saint of I will not diet. Miller says she wears clothing that ranges from size twelve to fourteen, and she’s been modeling for seven years. How she managed to not give into the pressure for models to be rail thin, I’ll never understand, but I admire the hell out of her for it, especially since she’s only twenty! Let me repeat—she's only twenty! And yet she is stronger than women I know who are twice her age. It would be a huge victory if a middle-aged woman with a real body was featured in a women's magazine, but a twenty-year-old with a real body? That’s like winning the lottery.

(By the way, I’m putting the words “plus-size” in quotation marks because I don’t understand how she can be a plus size model if she wears between a size twelve and fourteen, which, as well all know, are not plus sizes.)

Just think how models like Miller could change the way young women feel about their bodies! My ten- and fourteen-year-old nieces already claim to be watching their weight even though they are mere skin and bones, and I love thinking about them accepting themselves for the beautiful young women they are if models like Miller were to become the norm.

The best part about Miller is that she is exactly what I’ve been saying we need: a happy medium, a woman who is not a size zero and not a size twenty. Not only is she an average size—because the average woman in America wears a size twelve to fourteen—but she’s also gorgeous, happy, and comfortable in her own skin. This is exactly the kind and size of women we need to see more of in the media: she’s not only someone we can admire, she’s also someone we can aspire to look like.

This is a huge victory for those of us who are lobbying for more healthy role models, and I think we should take it as a clear sign that things are changing. This change also means that we must keep insisting that the women staring back at us from our pages and our screens look more like we do. How do we do this? We do it by voting with our dollars—by buying the September issue of Glamour in record numbers (and asking for it if it's sold out) and by paying to see movies that feature real-sized women (see the list on the right side of this blog). We can also Google Lizzi Miller so many times that women's magazines will have no choice but to get the message. Because the truth is, how can we possibly feel good about ourselves if we don’t embrace women like Miller?

This is a good day for average-sized women everywhere, and I honestly couldn’t be happier about the attention all of this is getting. I don't know about you, but I needed this. I say we all celebrate this coup by putting on something sexy this week and feeling good about our gorgeous—and real—bodies in honor of this brave twenty-year-old.

One more thing . . . way to go, Lizzi!!!!!

Addendum: I just found this amazing health and fitness blog by Glamour editor-in-chief Cindi Leive—Vitamin G—which contains more info about Miller (she's a belly dancer!) and other related issues.

Are you still with me???

196 pounds

As I mentioned in my discussion of the recent Time magazine story on exercise, my grandfather had a massive stroke Friday, August 7th and died a few days later on Monday, August 10th. As soon as we heard about the stroke, Dave and I got in the car and headed for Ohio, where we spent Grandpa's last three days, staying until we had to leave in order to get back to Kentucky to teach our last few days of summer school. Hours after we left for Kentucky, Grandpa died, so as soon as we were finished with our classes on Thursday morning, we got back in the car and returned to Ohio for the viewing and funeral, a trip that was extended with side trips we had to make to Indianapolis and Cincinnati on the way home.

When all was said and done, we were on the road for three days, home for the next three, and then on the road again for five more days, meaning we were traveling eight of those eleven days. It was obviously exhausting, and I can't remember the last time I felt so happy to come home.

The day before Grandpa's stroke, I weighed 194 pounds, and the day before that, I'd bottomed out at 193—a full ten pounds less than where I started back in March. Since I hit 193 on a Wednesday, I didn't get to post that number with my blog. I also knew full well that the first time you hit a low number like that, you're bound to go back up the next day and fluctuate numerous more times before that low number becomes a reality. So I didn't make a big deal out of it on the blog—though I was happy to mention it in passing.

But now that I'm back from the trip, I find that my weight is back up to 196 pounds.

Sigh.

I don't spend a lot of time talking or complaining about the numbers on the scale because, as I've said before, one of the goals of this blog is to demystify those numbers, to send the message that the numbers don't matter as much as how we feel about ourselves and how healthy we are.

On the other hand, I also started this blog to document my weight loss. So when I have to admit to the world that I weigh 196 pounds almost five full months after I started trying to lose weight, I feel more than a little bit frustrated. I guess in some ways I feel like I'm letting you all down.

I don't want to send the message that my only goal is to lose weight because it's not. And I definitely don't want anyone to think that I believe that losing weight has to happen on a timetable because I believe that's one of the worst things we can do to ourselves. In fact, for years, I've believed that as long as the numbers on the scale are going down—even if its only by one pound a year—instead of up and the doctor says I'm healthy, then I'm doing well.

At the same time, I have to admit that I first hit 196 pounds back in April, only weeks after I started trying to lose weight, which makes me feel like I haven't accomplished anything in months. And if this is frustrating to me, I imagine it must also be frustrating to the people who tune in merely to see how many pounds I've lost.

(Mom, are you listening?)

Seriously, if you read any of the weight loss columns in women's magazines—or, God forbid, watch shows like The Biggest Loser—you're used to seeing the pounds drop pretty quickly. And if you're disappointed by how long it's taking me to get back to a healthy weight, I apologize.

But at the same time, I don't want you to give up on me. I want you all to believe me when I say I know my plan will work. It's worked in the past, and it will work again. Yes, I've had some setbacks this summer—first with my knee injury, and then with my grandfather. We all have setbacks (that's how I gained 27 pounds in the 18 months before I started this blog), and I don't want to use them as an excuse, but I do want to acknowledge them.

And maybe that's all I—or any of us—can do: acknowledge that sometimes the unexpected happens, and we can't blame ourselves if we are forced to backtrack a little when dealing with the unexpected.

A few years ago, my friend Al, who's a psychologist, listened to me flagellating myself for eating far too much after a long day at work, and he wisely pointed out that if I beat myself up for making a mistake, then I'm only causing myself more misery. Better to let mistakes go than to rehash them, Al said, and it was this advice that eventually led to my belief that we must allow ourselves indulgences from time to time.

Obviously, the important thing is to keep going, keep improving. During those eight days I was on the road, I only exercised twice, and I ate a lot more crap than normal—visits to Skyline Chili, Graeter's Ice Cream, and Frisch's Big Boy come to mind. But I've been home for three full days now, and it took me two of those days to get back to the person I want to be: a person who eats delicious home-cooked meals, a person who gets plenty of rest, and a person who exercises like a kid let loose in the schoolyard. I'll keep doing this until the next setback comes, and maybe, just maybe, in the meantime the numbers will prove that not dieting really can help people lose weight.

I believe. Do you?

Get some sleep!

196 pounds

I always talk about how we’re too obsessed with the numbers on the scale and the numbers on the BMI chart, but one of the numbers we obsess about that I have yet to mention is the amount of hours we sleep each night.

I have always been a night owl—something you might have guessed by the time of day I write my blog posts—and I like to stay up until all hours and get out of bed later than most people. I try my best to get nine hours of sleep each night when it’s possible, and in an ideal world, I would stay up until midnight and sleep until nine. But there are some nights when I find myself still awake past one, forcing me to sleep even later if I want to feel rested.

But when I tell people that I like to get nine hours of beauty rest and sleep until nine or—gasp!—ten in the morning, they act horrified and say things like, “I wish I could do that!” which seems to be a passive aggressive way of saying that they think I am a bit lazy at best and a slothful loser at worst.

This raises the question, why do people think sleep is bad? Why are those of us who like to sleep late so maligned???

All of the research clearly indicates that not getting enough sleep is DIRECTLY related to weight gain, health problems, and longevity. In fact, a 2006 study by the American Thoracic Society “showed that women who slept 5 hours per night were 32% more likely to experience major weight gain (an increase of 33 pounds or more) and 15% more likely to become obese over the course of the 16-year study, compared to those who slept 7 hours a night.”1

Why does this happen? For two simple reasons:

1) When we’re tired, we look for ways to help get through the day and one of the coping mechanisms we rely on is food and drink—often high-calorie junk food and sugar-filled, caffeine-laden beverages. I like nothing better than a cold soda and a bag of chips after a late night, and I’m sure all of you could easily name the poison you use to get through a nasty sleep hangover.

2) But I bet you didn’t know that not getting enough sleep also affects “the body's ability to metabolize carbohydrates and causes high blood levels of glucose, which leads to a greater body-fat storage.”1 Once you understand that, getting nine hours of sleep doesn’t seem so crazy after all, does it?

Nevertheless, most people seem to believe the old maxin that “the early bird gets the worm” and far too often translate that to mean people who sleep more than six hours a night are also not getting the worm or are lazy, which is a dangerous message to send given how directly sleep affects our health.

It’s also not true that older folks need less sleep, a myth that I often hear repeated by my dad, who likes to get up as early or five or six in the morning and then wonders why he’s tired and cranky before noon. The truth is that “the need for sleep doesn't decline with age” though it may be harder to stay asleep longer without waking up.2

If you do have trouble sleeping, you might try some of these techniques the American Psychological Association recommends for better and longer sleep:

• Keep a regular sleep/wake schedule

• Don’t consume caffeine four to six hours before bed and minimize daytime use

• Don’t smoke, especially near bedtime or if you wake up at night

• Avoid alcohol and heavy meals before sleep

• Get regular exercise

• Minimize noise, light, and excessive hot and cold temperatures where you sleep

• Develop a regular bed time and go to bed at the same time each night

• Try and wake up without an alarm clock

• Attempt to go to bed earlier every night for certain period; this will ensure that you’re getting enough sleep2

I've also heard that it's not a good idea to read for long periods of time in the bedroom. Reading to fall asleep is okay, but if you spend significant time doing more than the two things that beds were designed for, you are basically training your body to stay awake while in bed.

So the next time someone scoffs over your desire to sleep late or catch an afternoon nap, take a step back and ask yourself if the person wagging a finger at you looks like he or she could use a better night’s sleep too.

1 http://ezinearticles.com/?Free-Fat-Loss-Tips---Get-More-Sleep-to-Avoid-Obesity-and-Other-Health-Problems&id=2057121

2 http://www.apa.org/topics/whysleep.html

Nothing beats a home-cooked meal

195 pounds

So now that we can all agree that processed foods are the devil’s handiwork, what can we do about it?

1) Shop on the outside of the grocery store and stay away from anything boxed, canned, or frozen.

2) Buy more locally raised produce, eggs, and meat.

3) Cook at home more and eat out less.

Numbers one and two are not that hard to do if you set your mind to it, but number three is obviously more difficult for many of us, especially if both you and your partner work.

But I learned a wonderful trick this past year that makes it much easier to cook and eat at home.

Unlike most English professors, Karen, the chair of my department, has to go to campus five days a week and work long, tiring days. Her husband Kevin also has a job that requires him to be away from home all day long every day of the week. In that way, they are like most Americans. (Trust me, I know how lucky I am to be able to work at home two or three days a week.) And they are also like most Americans in that by the time they get home, they have little or no energy left for cooking. (A problem that is, of course, exacerbated if you also have children on top of a full-time job.)

But Karen and Kevin are foodies—they love food but they want their food to be fresh, natural, healthy, and usually homemade. In order to stay healthy and eat well, Karen and Kevin cook all of their food on Sundays. They each make one big meal on Sunday, and then stretch that one meal out for three days. So if Karen makes moussaka and Kevin makes steak, they’ll eat the steak for the first three nights of the week and the moussaka for the next three nights.

Once I learned about Karen and Kevin’s routine, I was so impressed that I decided that Dave and I should give it a try.

Because we can sometimes work at home a few days a week, we don’t have to make everything on Sunday the way Karen and Kevin do. Instead we take turns cooking and follow Karen and Kevin’s model of making meals that will last us more than one night a week—one of us cooks on Sunday, we eat that meal Sunday and Monday, and then the other one of us cooks on Tuesday, making a meal that lasts the next two days. On Thursday, the person who cooked on Sunday cooks again, and we eat that meal Thursday and Friday. (And we usually eat out on Saturday.)

Sometimes we stretch the meals out longer, but even if we only have to cook every other night, we always notice how much of a relief it is when half of the time we don’t have to exert any effort for a delicious home-cooked meal. And since we take turns, that means each of us only cooks one or two days a week, which seems doable even for the busiest couples. If we plan it right, we almost never have to cook on an especially long and exhausting day. This is, of course, important since we are all more likely to eat out or eat unhealthy food when we are tired.

Another benefit of this system is that we eat less. If we know that a meal has to last two—or three—nights, we’re much less likely to get a big plate of seconds, a huge benefit for two people who really like their food.

This may seem like an obvious solution to the problem of not having time to cook, and in many ways it is, but until we heard about Karen and Kevin’s routine, it had never occurred to us to do make such a simple change.

It seems fitting that today to end with a recent quote from Michael Pollan, author of In Defense of Food and The Omnivore's Dilemma: “You want Americans to eat less? I have the diet for you. It’s short, and it’s simple. Here’s my diet plan: Cook it yourself. That’s it. Eat anything you want—just as long as you’re willing to cook it yourself.”

Running for the border

I'll face the scale again next week!
I just finished visiting my family in the Chicago suburbs, and as I prepared to leave this morning, there was one thought that kept coming back to me—how important it is to let loose and have fun.

I've written before about the importance of allowing ourselves indulgences in our our diet from time to time—in other words, giving in to those cheeseburger and brownie cravings when they come rather than trying to pretend they don't exist (which only makes us want them even more). But I realized today that having a sound mind in a sound body also means that we have to do the same with our behavior—indulge ourselves by sometimes giving in to the crazy things we want to do in life and not just the crazy things we want to eat.

I was thinking about this today because it feels like no one ever lets loose or does anything wild or out of the ordinary in my family. Clearly, this is partially the result of the fact that my sister has two little girls. Whenever the girls are around, it feels as if everyone is walking on eggshells—instructing them on how to behave, carefully answering their never-ending questions, and gingerly guiding them through their daily routine. In this way, their lives seem totally prescriptive: there is a certain way to eat, a certain way to sit, a certain way to be . . . there is a time to practice piano, a time to work on penmanship, a time for swimming lessons, a time to eat meals, a time for bed, a time for everything. And everyone—my sister, her husband, and my parents—follows this world order as if deviating from it might lead to the loss of life or limb.

The effect this has on me is the opposite one it's supposed to have on the girls: rather than being reassured by this carefully crafted routine, I am honestly driven to the brink of insanity by it. In fact, my response to the lessons and the practices and the organic food is to want to blow off the entire schedule, pack the girls into the backseat of my car, roll all the windows down, crank the Abba, and drive them all the way to Mexico—stopping only for candy and purple hair dye before we get to the border but saving enough money for tequila and tattoos after we arrive in Tijuana.

Of course, I don't do that. But that's not the point. The point is that I want to do it.

And when I left my sister's house this morning—windows down, an old Pink Floyd anthem screaming from the stereo—it hit me that my response to the girls' claustrophobic schedule is the same response I have to dieting.

To put it simply, I did not want any part of it. And just the thought of it, just being around other people living under such a tight regimen, makes me want to give into my very worst cravings.

Hand in hand with my response to being exposed to the girls' overstructured lives was my second viewing of The Hangover, which, believe it or not, I saw last night with my mother and my husband. Even though I find the idea of strip clubs wholly objectionable, I found myself agreeing with one of the characters when he defended an out-of-control trip to Vegas with his buddies to his incredibly uptight fiancee.

And when I thought about these two experiences side by side, I understood very clearly that it's just as important for us to give into our cravings for adventure and a life without rules as it is for us to give into our food cravings. When push comes to shove, we all need our trips to Vegas or Mexico . . . or even just a wild night of drinking and dancing now and again. Because if we don't give into these desires, we're not really living, are we?

At the end of Stephen King's novella, "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption," the character of Red is released from prison and, on his way to Mexico, thinks about what he is about to do. (If you've seen the movie adaptation of this novella, you'll remember that Morgan Freeman played Red, and his thoughts were included as a voice over while he rode a bus south to Mexico.) It is Red's words I will leave you with today since I think they best epitomize why being free to do what we want is so incredibly important.

I find I'm so excited I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it's the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain.

I hope I can make it across the border.

I hope to see my friend, and shake his hand.

I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams.

I hope.