Making friends with Hunger

Well, I'm doing it. I'm getting hungry. It's been months since I've really been hungry. Oh, I've been hungry when I've walked into a grocery store, but I'm not counting that. That's hunger triggered by a situation. False hunger, if you will. I'm talking about whoa-mama-I-have-to-eat hunger. The kind that goes away if you ignore it for 20 minutes, only to return with a vengeance a half hour later. The kind of hunger that means you're burning calories. That's the kind of hunger I hadn't been speaking to directly for a looooong time.

So, yesterday's plan of letting Perfect Sue pick my food really worked! Especially now that I'm making friends with hunger. I ate very well: nitrate-free ham and whole grain bread sandwich, packed into baggies so that I can have one for a snack and the other for lunch. And two bags of pretzels, and two bags of carrots. Two bottles of water, one with a little juice added. It was fabulous! I had a little snack of spinach salad just before I left, but I was still hungry. During the day, as I drove to my client's home in Northern Illinois, I had to make a couple emergency calls to avoid my usual trick of stopping at a gas station to buy crappy food to alleviate my hunger. Karen didn't answer, but my Auntie did. She very halpfully reminded me that I REALLY NEED TO LOSE WEIGHT. Hello? I have a blog about it, so I think I know. Just kidding. I know her heart's in the right place.

Anyway, I was slightly hungry pretty much all night. I didn't have popcorn, and when my other Sue friend, Svelte Sue, came to the movie we were all at with a ginormous KitKat bar, I still held off. I let Perfect Sue order (it was actually a collaboration). I got a salad with veggies and balsamic vinegar and a plate of steamed mussels. It was perfect, but I was still hungry. Then when Karen ordered fries and sat them right behind me, I did great at not ordering them. So proud.

Today was a little tougher. I did have a muffin at the store. It's weird, but I have been hungry all day, even after I eat. I think I'm in some kind of weird transition. I've been eating -- I had half a ham and cheese sandwich that Tim made for me, and a little something for breakfast, but no matter what I put in my mouth, I'm still staving. I'm ok right now, but I just keep drinking water. It's all good, though. I'm really proud of the progress. I'm weighing my foods, I'm letting myself get hungry, I'm really thinking about how I'm making food.

Tonight I made lasagna with venison, organic cottage cheese and fat free tomato sauce. I only put the mozzarella (part skim) cheese on the top layer instead of all three like I usually do. And you can actually see sauce beneath the cheese, a new one for me. Usually it's so thick! I can have one piece of this lasagna, which also has spinach, onions and mushrooms in it.

Breakthrough?

I have just had the greatest idea when it comes to eating out. Let someone else order for you!

Last night I went to the Overture Center to hear Elizabeth Gilbert, the writer of "Eat, Pray, Love," a book that seriously saved me when I was going through The Horror three years ago (to the day this week). I went with my friends Doug and Samara, both ridiculously thin. Samara writes food articles for the local paper and so she always knows where to go and we let her pick a dinner location. She chose a Mexican restaurant with a name I can't remember on Main St. I decided I would get whatever she or Doug got, depending on which sounded better. There I was looking at all the fabulous entrees, including lamb, which I love, and they both ordered appetizers. OK. So I ordered the Mexican platter like Doug did (Samara ordered a large dish of melted cheese with toritllas, and I didn't think that would be good). It was perfect. One chicken flauta, one bean and cheese empanada, one small tostadda with shredded pork and that was it. Yum and I wasn't too full. I did have a couple margaritas as well.  Lesson, I did great on the food, but should have just stuck to one margarita. I was a little drunk after the second.

Tonight, I'm going out with my girlfriends again, including Perfect Sue who never lets a fattening bite pass her lips, and if it should, she punishes herself on this decrepit old exercise bike. I rode once and thought it was broken, it's so hard to pedal. So I guess I'll let her order for me. My worry is that I'll feel deprived, which is a little trick I set up for myself to make sure I have a relapse and end up eating a whole pizza, which I don't even particularly like. Seriously, when I fall off the wagon, I usually end up pigging oiut on something I don't even like that much like chips or pizza. So, not only am I going to let Sue order for me, but I'm going to get it in my head that I really like whatever she orders. I will also try to eat it slowly. I'm going to email her now and warn her to pick something, but not too spartan like plain lettuce with lemon, steamed veggies and ice water. Perhaps splitting an relatively healthy entree and one glass of wine. And, since we're going to "It's Complicated" before dinner, I'll have her steer me away from the popcorn.

In other news, I made my own lunch the other day when I knew I'd be on the road over lunch. The bad news is that I started eating it as I drove out of the driveway at 9:30. The good news is that it was healthy. The bad news is that I was starving at noon and only had $2 and some change in my car as I had forgotten my wallet at home and I stopped to get 2 corndogs at the gas station. I don't even like corndogs that much. Why was I eating them? I did great at dinner having a big romaine lettuce salad, with sliced bok choy and radicchio, roasted root vegetables (turnips, parsnips, carrots of multiple colors and sweet potatoes), and roasted chicken. I'm back on board that problem now. I'm packing my lunch and putting it on the back seat so I can't reach it. Then I'm also packing a snack and some water, which will keep my occupied during my terrible time.

I'm also still struggling with the grocery shopping. So now I'm going to stop grocery shopping and just make what's in the refrigerator, and then when I shop I'm going to take a child with me since I never eat in a store when they are with me.

Man, I'm finding out I have a lot of bad habits to break.

Here's my mantra for today, and I'm going to tell myself this all day: It's easy to lose weight, I eat like I'm Ann or Sue all the time and I love to exercise.

Day Two with the kids back. Kids 2, Lisa 0.

OK, I think I've figured out what the source of the problem is. The kids sap so much of my time that I'm eating on the run a lot. Here it is almost 10 p.m. and I have to sit and wonder what I ate today because I did not take the time to write it all down. Hmmmm.

OK. For breakfast I had two oranges and a banana. For lunch, I had a plain ham sandwich (2 oz. ham) and bread. Also some chips leftover from the kids (bad, I know). This afternoon I was again at the grocery store in the afternoon, on the fly to pick up some chicken for dinner and I did grab some chicken at the deli to eat. Oh my God. I could hear all of you shouting: Nooooo! Don't go there. Walk away. Walk away you fat b*tch. But I didn't care. The bad Lisa was in control.

I straightened out on the ride home. Tim and Izzy went to a movie for Daddy-daughter time. I told myself I had maxed out my points for the day without even getting near any vegetables, so I had some vegetable soup at dinner and just fixed Eden and Colin leftovers from the night before (make your own Taco salad) but put them in a tortilla. We went upstairs to get me out of the kitchen and watched Harry Potter. We had low-fat pudding for dessert.

The bad news: I went 10 points over my daily allowance. The good news: I am still well within my spare 32 points for the week. I have another 20.5 points to burn over the next week. The key to that working is that I have to be good and get my exercise in this week. Today was tough as I was super busy with work and kids and snow, so I didn't cram it in. Tim was gone tonight, so I couldn't go to the gym. I did get outside a bit and hiked around with the horses some. But not enough. I hate feeling out of breath when I climb the stairs.

I think to remotivate myself, I want to focus on how I WANT to feel, instead of just focusing on what I don't want. Here goes: I want to feel my stomach in the same place when I roll over.  I want to feel excited to shop for clothes. I want to feel great in a pair of jeans. I want to wear a swimming suit and feel comfortable. I want to run and play with the kids and feel great while I'm doing it. I want to think about travel, books and writing rather than how fat I feel, what should I eat and why don't I feel good.

How about you guys?

The kids are back, so it's time to prepare!

It's Monday, switching day. That's the day the children switch from one parent's house to the other. We're on a week on, week off schedule, which we like.

This week, I'm determined to plan meals that take into consideration both the kids as well as me. I'm going to find foods that fit in with what I want to eat plus make them happy as well. I think that for the past two years (or really 1 and 1/2 years since I've been actively involved in their lives) I've been trying to cook so that they'll like the food (and me probably). Through this brilliant method, I've managed to gain 30-40 pounds. Now, I am trying to shift to cooking foods that Tim and I like and asking the kids to join in. As Dr. Phil says, "kids should join your life, you don't join theirs."

I've really struggled with this. We've had pigs in a blanket (hotdogs baked in Pillsbury croissant dough) too many times to count. And hamburgers and fries, and macaroni and cheese and spaghetti and meatballs as well. Now it's time for a little more diversity.

Tonight, we're going to have Taco Salads. This still isn't exactly a Lisa meal, but it's a good transitional meal on switch night. I don't want them to come back and have them thinking, "All this weird food! Let's go back to Mom's." I'm making the meat sauce with all natural herbs and spices and venison that Tim hunted and ground himself. I'll also  include home made salsa, organic sour cream, I'll grate the cheese myself (did you know that if you buy pre-grated cheese, it includes some weird chemicals to keep it from clumping? That's why it often doesn't melt right), and some black olives, sauteed peppers, mushrooms and onions (for me) and even some steamed frozen sugar snaps. I'll also have some drained tomatoes. Colin and Eden are going to struggle with figuring out how to have vegetables other than lettuce, so I'll have to include some of my spring spinach in the greens as well as probably sneaking some pureed cauliflower in the meat mix. They'll still have to have a few bites of vegetables. Isabel loves tomatoes, so she'll be no problem. As usual, we won't have much veggie-hating discussion because we think it's BORING to talk about what you don't like when it comes to food. But compliments to the chef are always welcome. 

Tomorrow night will be fish night and we'll have salmon and tuna that we'll steam and broil, respectively. I'll add a couple beets from the freezer and some green beans and a small salad with shredded carrot and raisins, Eden's favorite. My salad will have artichoke hearts and Asian mushrooms.

Wednesday night is basketball practice, so that's tricky. It has to be fast. I think we'll do turkey brats with sweet potato fries and a multi-colored slaw with nuts.

Thursday will be chicken in a pot night. Isabel hates chicken on the bone, but I'm trying to teach her that chicken on the bone is the best way to make it, for flavor. I'll include turnips, parsnips, carrots and sweet potatoes in the pot. I'll add a little red wine and herbs so it's almost coq au vin.

Friday night I'll be gone, so I'm going to suggest pizza. I'm heading out with the ladies and we're eating at Bonfyre, which has a ton of good salads.

Saturday night, we'll have company, so we'll have pork tenderloin, twice baked potatoes (I add smashed cauliflower to the mix to reduce calories and lighten the flavor) and perhaps roasted carrots with a touch of salt and brown sugar (cook at 425 and they're delicious!). I think we'll also have some of our frozen Brussels sprouts, which Tim and I love, from our garden.

Sunday, I think I'll let the child who has done the best job at doing chores without complaining pick the menu. I'll give them the Weight Watchers cookbook and let 'em go. They never know if it's good or bad.

So I'm getting tons of diversity, cleaning out my freezer which is way too full and shifting toward meals that everyone likes, while still stretching the kids' taste buds a bit. Wish me luck!

P.S. Did great at the Superbowl party at my sister's house yesterday. I did not eat one chip, nor one bit of cheese. I did have a roasted chicken sandwich on whole wheat bread with a hunk of romaine and  brown mustard. I had two bites of the cakes, which smelled tremendous, and a small spoonful of the brown beans I cooked, which also tasted super. Not bad. I really didn't eat anything other than the eggs, etc. yesterday, and I rode Titan in a lesson, which was exhausting.

My Crazy Path to Weight Loss

Thanks to my friend Ann's wake-up post, I'm going to do a better job of saying exactly how I'm proposing to lose weight. Here they are:

1. I write down everything I eat. I joined Weight Watchers online because it's the easiest way to track how much I should eat and how much I am eating. I love it!

2. I exercise in some way daily -- whether it's a 20-minute walk or riding my horse or going to the gym, I do it.

3. I try to eat whole foods as close to their original source as possible so I'm reducing the amount of hormones, preservatives and other objects. That means shopping at farmer's markets, coops, through farmers and at the Paoli Local Foods. I also buy some foods at typical supermarkets such as grass-fed meats, dried beans, frozen vegetables, etc.

4. That means absolutely no stopping at fast food. I ate a hamburger in late January as a farewell to eating those foods and to really slowly chew it and see if I even really liked it. I didn't. No real taste other than salt and fat at all.

Now, due to my wake up post from Ann, and remembering the advice of other good friends, I'm adding a few more things to my list to jump start my weight loss.

1. I'm actually measuring and weighing my foods. My scale sits on the countertop as of this morning. I actually weighed 1 ounce of venison for this morning's breakfast, measured the parmesan cheese and even the honey butter. Here's my breakfast today:

2 free-range brown eggs scrambled with 1/4 cup of leftover broccoli (from our freezer garden stash).
1 piece of Natural Ovens wheat bread with 1/2 tsp. of honey butter (even that little bit of butter is yummy and filling).
1 ounce of venison leftover from a previous meal.
Black coffee

2. Calculating by brand name or nutrition information the actual points for food. Good lesson this morning. I usually count all bread as 2 points unless it's a bigger peice and then I count it as 3 or 4 depending on size (some French boule's come in really long pieces). But this morning I calculated the Natural Ovens bread on the points calculator online and found it was only 1 point. Yay! That's important because I am trying to get the exact number of points each day and not use my weekly bonus points for anything except emergencies. But if I'm calculating wrong, then I can get a little too hungry and might go wild like I did in the grocery store yesterday.

3. Hunger monitoring. I'm going to do a better job of waiting until my hunger gets to a 3 on a scale of 1 to 5 (5 being ravenous). I often eat because it's time to eat. If I'm truly trying to get in touch with food and my body's use of food, I've got to really pay attention to how hungry I am and then eat a little bit right then.

4. Continue to really push to reverse my eating ladder. I want to eat like the French. A good breakfast, significant lunch and then just a bit for dinner with small snacks in between. And by small snacks, I mean a cup of veggies and dip or 1/2 cup of veggies and an ounce of cheese. No more than 2-3 points eaach, but enough to satisfy me so the graze doesn't continue. My nutritionist Tracie has always recommended a glass or orange juice with a bit of gelatin, and that works especially when the time between meals might be extended (evenings out, rides in cars, etc.)

Tomorrow I'll post a sample of my day based on what happens today. Now I've got to pry my husband away from the television to take our dog for a walk. Darn that Superbowl pregame coverage!

I'm All Butter!

I'm sitting here right now with a beautiful slice of Madison Sourdough bread that's spread with butter. That I made. Yes, that's right, I made my own butter today. And you might be surprised to know that I don't even have a churn.

Here's the method: Put a pint container of organic whipping cream or heavy cream and put it in your stand mixer (I used my Kitchenaid). Turn on the blender. Let 'er whip for 7-10 minutes. That's pretty much it.  First, it will turn into whipped cream, just like usual. Then it looks almost like cottage cheese. Then the buttermilk separates pretty significantly from the butter. It's done when the liquid is in the bottom of the mixer and the butter is all caught up in the blade. Strain the milk into a jar and save it for pancakes or another recipe. Get the butter back into the bowl and into a clump (this should be pretty easy). Make a glass of ice water. Pour about 1/4 to 1/2 cup over the butter and using a big wooden spoon, smash the butter into the water, kind of reforming your mound. The water will be cloudy. Pour it off and do the same three more times. When the water is clear, you are done (you do this step so your butter will keep). I got about 1/2 pound of butter and 1 cup of buttermilk. Yay! I split about 1/4 of my butter away and mixed it with a little honey for some honey butter. I did not salt it at all. Isn't that fun?

Why butter, you might ask? Well, according to my new eating plan of sticking to whole foods that are made by real people's hands, I don't eat fake butters or oils that can't be ground with a stone. That leaves butter, olive oil, coconut oil and one other that I can't really remember right now. 

Today I ate pretty well. I had 2 oranges, a slice of Parisian boule bread with honey and black coffee for breakfast. For lunch, I had a slice of bread with peanut butter and an apple. But then I ran up against my old nemesis: the supermarket. I ran over to Target to get some of that Bare Chicken (or whatever it's called), and some dried beans to make my famous baked beans for a party tomorrow and there's the deli. Of course, I had to run over and grab some baked french fries and munch on them as I shopped. It's really something I'd like to give up, but once I'm in the store, I always seem to be hungry, and carrots don't seem at all appealing when I get that supermarket starve going. The problem with the above plan is that there's not a ton of variety, which I am trying to instill and I'm a little low on the vegetable side.

Well, at least those fries were baked. Tonight Tim and I might go get sushi at Edo Garden, which I love and he's been craving. But, we'll see. We're trying to eat out less, so perhaps I'll make something. But sushi is just too much work. Wait. That's an excuse. I want to find a class on making sushi, then I might do it at home. Any ideas?

Savoring my Food

I need to slow down my eating! And I'm not the only one who notices. Practically all of my friends have told me that I need to slow down, my kids remind me to eat more slowly and so does my husband. But, for the most part their pleas have fallen upon deaf ears. Until now!

Today I dragged my dieter-accomplice friend Nancy to lunch. We went to La Baguette, which I love, because the food is simple, straightforward and good. We split a melted brie and ham sandwich on a pretty thin baguette and each had a cup of tomatoe soup. The soup was really more of a bisque becaue it was thinner than a traditional tomato soup. So, before we even took our first bite, I reminded both of us to chew slowly so that we could actually taste what was in the food. I usually just bite and start chomping, but this time I actually chewed slowly and it was interesting. I tasted all the nuances of the brie, and then the ham and its smoky saltiness kicked in. The bread's somewhat sour earthiness really impacted me because I think for so long, I just ate bread without really thinking about how it tasted. I could taste the difference between the browned bread on the crust and the softer interior  . . . and it was good. I did the same for the soup. Yummmm. I could taste how fresh the tomatoes were when they were canned (canned tomatoes in winter are better than fresh, I find). I could taste the chicken base in the soup and the fresh basil in the soup. It was really a much better experience. Both Nancy and I found that we were fuller when we were finished, and more satisfied.

Then I ruined my feelings of superiority by forgetting to eat late in the afternoon and, in a ravenous craze, ate a quarter of the boule I bought while driving and thinking of other things.

Darn it! But at least I'm on the right track. Now off to brown up some grass fed pork chops and a little sauerkraut.