Fit Together

So, Food, Inc.

Here are a few reviews that sum it up way better than I could.

I spent a few portions of the movie with my hands over my eyes … and I left feeling like I might never be able to eat again … but it was fabulous. I highly, highly recommend it.

One unintended consequence – it brought the internal struggle I have re: meat/animal products to the surface. I eat meat now and I like it … mostly. I don’t eat meat off of bones (and just recently even relinquished and started being ok with meat on bones, in general) and I don’t eat anything that looks like its source.

I essentially need to be able to pretend that what I’m eating wasn’t once a living/breathing creature. If I can do that – I can handle it.

I’m not really proud of that. In fact, it sort of disgusts me. I think about it quite a bit … especially when I’m confronted with the realities of meat production/processing … but I don’t know what to do about it. I know I’m choosing to stick my head in the sand just so my needs are met. I’m not ok with that … but I do nothing.

We go way out of our way to buy meat that is grass-fed/natural/organic and all that jazz – which is good, I guess – but again … it’s mostly about my needs. When I think about it on a very basic level, everything I look for – grass-fed, organic, free range, local farms, etc. – it all has to do with my nutritional needs and/or guilt. I mean, really … inhumane treatment is not ok, but killing the animal and eating it is?

Guilt.

I’m (probably) not going to stop eating meat – these feelings have been around for a while – I’m just very conflicted and haven’t reconciled a lot of things yet. I don’t even know how to adequately describe what it is that bothers me (obviously) … I just know I feel as if I’m doing something wrong when I eat meat – I know better (?) and I choose to ignore that.

(What’s the deal with so many grocery stores/markets calling meat ‘protein’ these days? One place I saw actually had a list of their ‘protein options’ listed along with ‘dairy options’ etc. I guess I’m not the only person who recognizes/desires some disconnecting … )

Uhhh … anyway …

Breakfast was the same as always:

Lunch was VERY quick. I mixed tuna with 2T buttermilk dill dressing and the rest of a red onion and plopped all of that on top of lettuce. I threw in a babybel cheese and some pistachios, too.

It occurred to me today that I never photograph what I drink – for good reason, I guess – it’s boring. I drink 2 things: water and black coffee. I will occasionally get (unsweetened) tea at a restaurant … and I sometimes feel rebellious enough to drink a coke … but not often at all – can’t even remember the last time.

We skipped pilates and stayed home to work on yard stuff, so we had another quick dinner. Jon picked up a chicken from a nearby restaurant (not a rotisserie chicken, but similar – a whole smoked chicken).

My version:

His version – and a perfect example of what I CAN’T eat:

My snack tonight = a few of these pecans. I love them so much I just barely rolled my eyes at the ‘evaporated cane juice.’

Our first harvest!

I’m at 1,841 calories, 113g fat, 97g carbs, 123g fat – and I’m done for the day.

I am VERY happy to be home.

Jon had been working in the Detroit area throughout last week, so we decided – kinda spontaneously – that it would be fun for me to meet him up there and hang out for the weekend. It was fun, for sure, but I think I let it go a little too far with the food. I don’t really care that I didn’t practice much moderation – it was ONE weekend – but I am definitely glad to be back at home, back to my “normal” food and back to my “normal” schedule. I love sugar/carbs/junk, but I hate the stuffed, bloated, sleepy feeling that comes from eating too much of it. It really has little to do with weight loss – I know I’ll eventually lose – and has everything to do with how it all makes me (physically) feel.

I’m traveling again this week – leave Wednesday. My goal? Expected blips only. I will eat a Cuban sandwich and I will eat key lime pie (Key West – it’s the law). Maybe 2 Cuban sandwiches. Hopefully not a whole pie. Otherwise … it’s just not worth it to deviate too much from my normal routine.

It has been suggested by a few people that maybe what I ate (and what I will likely eat later this week) does not = “junk.” They’re right, of course. I ate (and will eat) highish quality stuff – local/fun food – and not a ton of it at any given time. I am a black/white thinker re: some things, though. My regular/normal food = good. Anything else? Junk. Yeah. Need to work on that.

I had a session with the trainer early this morning, so I didn’t eat until around 10:30 or 11. I guess this could be considered both breakfast and lunch.

I actually cooked dinner today instead of waiting for Jon to get home to do it. We are going to see Food, Inc. later tonight, so we needed to eat fairly early to prevent the need to eat popcorn.

(Cod sprinkled w/lemon pepper stuff, steamed asparagus and a salad w/rosemary lemon dressing – took maybe 15 minutes – I might be willing to do this again.)

I’ve had just 858 calories, 51g fat, 60g carbs and 48g protein today. Not sure what I’m going to do about the low calories/protein, but likely … nothing.

So … didn’t quite make it back to “normal eating” (whatever that is).

We woke up around 6:30 this morning and planned to walk to a farmers market in Ann Arbor, but it started pouring and the local weather was predicting hail … so we checked out, got the car and found somewhere to eat that we could park and walk almost directly inside of. I had an omelet with spinach, ham, artichoke hearts and swiss cheese. Jon had an omelet with a bunch of stuff … predominantly andouille sausage. We both passed up the potato and bread options that came with the omelets.

It stopped raining while we ate, so we were able to walk to the farmers market and check out some shops, etc. before leaving Ann Arbor for Cleveland.

We stopped at one place before leaving Ann Arbor – a small bakery. I mostly wanted more coffee, but there was an $8 debit/credit card limit … so …

Mine was raspberry & sour cream (ate just the top).

Jon’s was pumpkin.

We ate lunch once we arrived in Cleveland at Aladdin’s Eatery.

We split some chicken lentil soup:

I had the Almond Salad (Per the menu – Mixed greens tossed with Almond Nut dressing topped with roasted almonds, parmesan cheese, cucumber, mushrooms, scallions, and alfalfa sprouts.)

Jon had the Falafel Salad (Per the menu – Four Falaffel patties on a bed of mixed greens with cucumbers, scallions, and sliced tomato. Your choice of cheddar or feta cheese. Tahini Yogurt dressing on the side.)

Dinner at Flannery’s Pub put me over the edge.

The appetizer = some sort of rolled up things that were essentially reubens in a tortilla … fried.

I had Bangers and Mash.

Jon had a hamburger and fries.

We split a ridiculously huge brownie/chocolate ice cream/chocolate syrup/whipped cream dessert (we left an entire brownie and 2 scoops of ice cream – this thing was seriously huge).

Yes, we ordered an appetizer AND each ordered our own entree AND ordered dessert AND I’m pretty sure Jon had 3 beers. There was live music, so this was spread throughout several hours, but still.

I feel like I might puke right now.

We’re on the 5th floor tonight, so we’ve gotten a little exercise hiking it up all the flights of stairs. It was relatively easy coming up when we first got here.

After dinner? Took a minute.

Most of the pictures are pretty horrible, I know … taken with my phone, with the flash off. I’m too chicken to whip out the camera or have the flash go off, so bad pictures. Maybe I’ll get over it one of these days.

We’re having a really good time … and I feel no guilt re: eating more calories in one meal than I probably eat in a typical day. It’s just food … It’s just a couple of days. Tomorrow – FOR REAL – back to normal, though.

I have absolutely had one of the best days so far this summer.

# 1 – I flew to Detroit this morning to spend the weekend here with Jon. Jon is my best friend and favorite person ever, so I’ve had a really good time hanging out with him. We spent the afternoon walking every inch of Ann Arbor … and eating, of course.

# 2 – I weighed and have lost just over 2 pounds since last week. Just in time to eat a ton of shit, but hey … whatever.

I had a normal breakfast since I was home. I ate it in the car on the way to the airport … I’m nothing if not consistent with my morning rushing.

I was starving by the time I arrived, so we headed almost straight to lunch at Arbor Brewing Company. They say their food is natural, local, made from scratch and organic, but I’m not going to lie and say I cared about any of that too much at the time. Jon wanted a beer and I wanted bar food/junk, so I would’ve eaten it had none of it been organic or local.

We split two appetizers: nachos w/chicken and beans and pierogies.

We stopped for ice cream sometime after lunch and got a double scoop (one scoop of fudgie brownie and one scoop of chocolate caramel cashew) because there was a $5 limit for debit/credit card use but didn’t really want to get two cones. We split it, of course.

We were thirsty sometime late afternoon/dinnertimeish, so we stopped at a Jamaican place near our hotel … and ended up eating again. We split some jerk chicken with red beans and rice and vegetables (cabbage, carrots, zucchini, etc). I wasn’t really hungry, so I ate less than 1/3 of it. The woman running the place was extremely friendly and told us she had homemade (by her mother) rum cake, so I had to get it (to go). We both ate a few bites.

Now? I’m tired. We seriously walked ALL OVER town. Jon just picked up a pizza (that’s supposed to be the best pizza one of his business associates has ever had) and brought it back to the room. I am not hungry AT ALL, but I’m eating a piece. It’s good. Not the best I’ve ever had, but I like that it has sesame seeds on the crust.

Been a fun junk food day – definitely need them every now and then – but I’m feeling bloated and stuffed and gross. I’m actually kind of shocked at how little I’m able to eat. I know for a fact I could’ve eaten my own nachos AND pierogies, my own ice cream, my own everything in the past – would’ve felt stuffed and bloated, but nothing like now. I just can’t overeat anymore. It makes me unhappy and uncomfortable because I hate the physical feeling. Also? I seem to be 100% fine leaving food – stopping. That used to be unheard of.

I’m still trying to figure out when all these changes happened/became concrete … and I’m still pretty shocked at how fucked up my eating was.

Back to normal eating tomorrow.

I’ve known … forever … that allowing myself to weigh 272 pounds had more to do with some jacked up thinking than simply eating too much junk and not exercising. Life’s just not that simple. It took a while, though, for me to realize that what I’ve done over the past year is somewhat retrain myself – my way of thinking.

I knew when I left work today that I didn’t have anything decent to eat at home – I knew I was tired – I knew I didn’t feel like dealing with cooking and cleaning and all that. I briefly thought about stopping at Panera for a salad, but felt that might be a cop out. I drove down the restaurant row near my house and smelled really good stuff, but had zero desire to stop. I made it to the grocery store and walked past the (conveniently placed) bakery stuff … feeling kind of fine about passing it all up. THEN, I stood in that store feeling hungry, tired and cranky and read all the damn labels on the yogurt and cheese I bought. THEN, I came home and cooked and was happy about it.

It dawned on me as I was eating that I had some pretty healthy thoughts throughout the whole process. NEVER did I think: “I’m tired, I deserve (whatever).” or “I’m too hungry to cook.” or “Wendy’s is cheaper.” or “GOD, it’s ONE meal.” or “I’m sick of this.” or “I’ll just drink a lot of water tomorrow/eat fewer calories/etc.”

I think I went and trained myself and didn’t even realize it.

I just did a very small amount of research on cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) use re: weight loss and found that I’m not the first genius to think it could be applicable. There are whole weight loss books and programs and institutes to go to that utilize CBT … apparently I’m WAY behind. Story of my life.

Had to work today and had zero time this morning for eggs, so I grabbed some natural PB to get at least a little protein. Not sure why I’m gravitating toward PB so much lately, but I’ve been eating it straight from the spoon.

Lunch was sort of plain again. Salad w/salsa, cheese and watermelon. Brought the apple sauce back home with me.

Dinner was going to be chicken, but ended up being a salad w/about 8 ounces of ground turkey (cooked with a red onion, green & red peppers and cayenne pepper), 1/2 of a fabulous avocado, tomatoes, sour cream (because I’m out of Jon’s yogurt) and some pepperjack cheese. This is definitely comfort-type food for me – SO good.

Calories = 1,670, Fat = 96g, Carbs = 131g, Protein = 93g. Still not an optimal day, but not too bad. The carbs are going to be high until the watermelon is gone (and I cry).

I’m sore and tired tonight and can’t believe I’m up at almost 11PM. Going to be cranky tomorrow.

I woke up this morning feeling generally pathetic, but headed almost straight to a session with the trainer. Looks like I just needed an exercise boost – have felt wonderful since. I’m not sure when I’m going to fully realize that pushing through ALWAYS = feeling better. I’d probably be talking about how I still feel run down if I hadn’t made the commitment to be at that session this morning. I was shaky and dizzy through some of it, but I kind of expected that since it’s been a week since I’ve exercised AT ALL. I needed that boost this morning.

I didn’t eat anything prior to going to the session because I knew it would be hard – didn’t need anything extra to make me puke. I was busy and distracted afterward, so I think my first meal ended up happening around 11:30 – watermelon and maybe 2 T of natural PB.

I didn’t eat again until close to 4 – a salad w/just lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers w/a few T of salsa thrown on top, a peach and an attempt at some chicken sausages. I didn’t put the chicken directly on the salad because I didn’t want to commit to it – it smelled REALLY gross when I opened the package. The exp/freeze date said 07/10/09, but it’s been open (though sealed) in my refrigerator for a while. Not sure how to even describe the smell. Nasty wet dog? I am a F.R.E.A.K. about food safety/handling/poisoning, so I almost just immediately threw them away without cooking them … but I thought maybe the issue was ME and not rotten sausages. They didn’t smell much better after cooking – and I FULLY REALIZE there was probably nothing wrong with them – but I can’t get over a smell. Didn’t eat them. Got a new fork. Washed my hands. Ate another couple T of PB instead. (Yeah, there’s a reason Jon does all the cooking.)

This is the detriment of fresh/no preservatives/whatever. Everything smells. I’m used to meat/fish smelling like nothing – I’m ok with that.

I went to pilates tonight, so my last meal happened after that – maybe 8? I was feeling lazy, so it was very quick – scrambled eggs, about an ounce and a half of pepperjack cheese and more watermelon.

Not a good day food-wise: 1,563 calories, 88g fat, 132g carbs, 70g protein. I’m just not very hungry.

The ridiculously neglected garden seems to be doing ok. I haven’t weeded it in ages – have officially reached the ‘F it’ portion of the summer … so I doubt any weeding will happen. Looks like we’ll have tomatoes, though.

And there’s a baby squash!

Everything seems to be doing ok.

Caught the dog in there – peeing on stuff, I’m sure. Not sure how he figured out how to open the gate part, but he did. Good thing he’s so cute.

I woke up this morning and found blood coming out of my (infected) ear.

Had an appointment at 10AM – on the other side of town, that I needed to be early for. Started to leave at 9AM and found that my keys were locked inside my car. The spare was with Jon – at work, about 25 miles away.

That appointment (that I was only 2 minutes late for)? Annual gyn exam.

The day really had no choice but to get better, right?

Breakfast (Eating Jon’s homemade yogurt now – he added just a T of honey to a largish container for me, so I’m thinking I’ll be eating it plain soon. I LOVE the texture.):

Lunch (rushing and had zero time to do anything but quickly grab something):

Dinner:

Second half of dinner:

1,851 calories, 109g fat, 121g carbs, 114g protein. The carbs were under control until the watermelon. It was SO worth it, though.

I haven’t exercised in days now and I feel it. We were planning to go to the gym tonight, but I still feel a little run down and didn’t feel like going. I’m meeting with the trainer tomorrow, though … and I’ll probably go to pilates tomorrow night, too. I’d like to fit some cardio in, but I doubt that would be a good idea. I’m getting antsy – must be getting better.

I’ve been thinking more about the junk food thing and about the family I saw at the gas station. I don’t think they’re unusual – I think I’m starting to see things very differently for the first time. The world isn’t going to end because a little junk food is consumed, for sure – I’m absolutely starting to recognize just how common the junk is, though.

Maybe I’m noticing the choices people make because I’m so freakishly aware of everything I put into my own mouth? Maybe I’m noticing because I’m hyper aware of how much work it has taken to undo years and years of bad choices? Maybe I’m noticing because – for the first time – I’m stepping away and really examining food choice(s)? I’m not sure.

I don’t think junk is necessarily evil – volume and consistency seem to be the problem. The problem with that problem? We (probably unfairly generalizing) accept and embrace the large volumes of junk thrown at us and we are willing to eat it all with great consistency. We seemingly just accept that it’s ok to eat cinnamon rolls for breakfast, chips with lunch and coke at each meal.

The junk is just common.

We went to a baseball game on Friday night where we were handed some cards as we walked in. Here’s what we won:

And here’s the gift we had on each ticket:

I sat and watched the child sitting in the seat in front of me eat a small slice of pizza, nachos, ice cream, a huge coke and dippin’ dots – throughout maybe a 3 hour game.

Maybe this was a special occasion. Maybe she gets this kind of junk once a week. Maybe I’m unfairly judging the fact that she had 2 ice cream treats back to back. Or maybe it’s just common. I’m starting to wonder if I would’ve even noticed it a year ago.

Just so nobody thinks I’m a food snob/purist, here’s my lunch:

I can and do eat junk and love it (and kind of wonder if I’m supposed to think that cookie is significantly better for me because it’s “real” – because uhh … I am capable of looking up nutrition info). I think I’m just starting to realize that it has a time and place in my life – a small place and very little time. I don’t want it to be common. I don’t think it should be common – for me, of course.

I don’t know. I certainly don’t know everything. I just feel like my eyes are open – for the first time – to the pure shit that’s marketed/forced on us from all different directions … and it’s starting to bother me.

It’s fucking hard work to undo years of junk eating and unhealthy decisions and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

Breakfast:

And dinner:

I really did eat just a cookie for lunch. I thought I was close to being done with the ear infection mess, but apparently not. The RX is making my stomach hurt, so I really don’t feel like eating much of the time. I mostly just want to sleep.

My fitday info for today: