Let's Talk About Food

Several of you have asked me to explain a little more about my diet. 

I have hesitated to share, because I think dieting is a very personal choice.  And I am a firm believer in one size does not fit all, especially when it comes to dieting and jeggings. 

But on your prompting, I’ll lay out the details. 

As I mentioned in a previous post, I cultivated my diet slowly.  First I gave up sugar, then bread. 

Then I heard from an old college friend who had been reading my blog.  She turned me on to another blog, about a woman who did lose a hundred pounds. (Although I am not sure of the time frame).   My college friend also mentioned how she and several members of her family have adopted this way of eating and have seen great results.

The woman in the blog told a very similar tale to mine. She'd been  heavy most her life, and she couldn't see significant or lasting weight loss, no matter how dedicated she was to an eating plan or an exercise regimen. 

Then one day,  she picked up a book called, Why We Get Fat And What To Do About It by Gary Taubes.  He basically says that it’s carbohydrates that make you fat.  

Through her reading of this book and a few others, she changed her diet to exclude all grains and to include fat, protein, fruits, and vegetables that are not high in starch or sugar.  She has lists of what she eats and you are welcome to take a look at her blog for yourself.

http://askmehowithappened.com/2013/05/30/the-first-step/ **

http://askmehowithappened.com/2013/05/30/what-do-you-eat/ **

http://askmehowithappened.com/2013/05/31/what-do-you-eat-part-2/ **

**Disclaimer: her blog talks about a lot of things.  I’m not saying that I support or agree with everything she says in her blog.  I am only stating that I read her first few entrees, where she laid out her eating plan, thought it made sense to me, and am trying it on for size.

The short form is: no to grain, yes to fat. This means no low-fat anything.  Instead I enjoy whole milk, full fat yogurt, and yes, my friends, butter.  She also has small exceptions for treats that involve full fat items with good sugars, such as maple syrup whipped cream. 

You have to understand that when I read about this diet plan, I had already given up sugar and bread.  So I had no trouble turning and burning on a bowl of brown rice for the siren call of whipped cream.

So I thought I’d give it a try.  The real upside of this diet, which she mentions, is that I’m not hungry.  I’m full after I eat.  

So what exactly do I eat?  To be honest, a lot of soup and salad.  But good soups.  Creamy, garlic soups with grass fed beef and cauliflower.  Or a crisp green salad with veggies, meat, raw nuts, and creamy dressing.   

Or if I am done with salad and soup, I’ve made steak with fresh green beans and roasted sweet potatoes.  

Or this dish, with curry spice chicken over carrots and cauliflower in a ginger coconut milk sauce.  (Recipe to come next week)

There is also room in this diet for bacon, wings, and bacon.  (It was worth repeating.) 

And surprisingly, I find I don’t miss the grains and white potatoes as much as I thought I would.  Actually you find them to be bland.  I know this doesn’t make any sense, but when you are eating the really flavorful stuff like, the vegetables, meats, cheeses, dairy, and nutritious berries.  Everything else feels like what it is: filler. 

It’s working for me.  Now, at the moment I’ve plateaued, but, if I’m honest, I’ve been slipping in small ways, and I’m just starting to exercise.  So I’m going to hunker down with the diet and keep up the exercise and see what happens.

But I like the way I feel in general.  My stomach has gone way down.  My waist has thinned out.  And I don’t feel shaky and hungry as I have on diets before.  

It takes a little planning and forethought, but I think every diet does in some way.

So there it is.  Once again this is a plan that is working for me, for now.  I know several people who manage their weight in different ways.  And, in the future, I might need to adjust my diet for other reasons.  But so far, so good.

I will end this post by doing something dangerous: I will attempt to give two pieces of dieting advice.

1.      1. If there is something you consume in your life that is not necessarily good for you, and you feel you cannot go a day without it, maybe ask the Lord if you should let it go.

For me it was sugar.  I didn’t feel in control, not just around sugar, but around all foods.   Now, I could abstain from most things for a short amount of time.  But sugar was the real crutch.

It seemed impossible to go a day without it.  This didn’t feel right to me.  I have explained this in greater detail in an earlier post.  But somehow it became a spiritual matter for me.  I needed to do something I thought was impossible.  I needed to see what could be done in the strength of the Lord.  I needed that for spiritual reasons as well as health reasons.

So I gave up sugar one day at a time.  And the boon of overcoming that hurdle (and overcoming that hurdle through most of the holiday season) gave me the encouragement to think I could attempt what I am attempting to do in this year: the goal, the blog, and so on. 

2.   2. Don't lose the forest for the trees.

When I take on a diet, I tend to obsess.  Let it consume my thoughts and conversation for a while.  Until I eventually burn out.  But the verse I keep coming back to is Romans 1:25.

“For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.”

I know that verse might seem a little heavy handed for a diet post.  But every time I diet, I tend to diet obsessively.  When I think constantly about what I’m eating or what I am going to eat, or how I look or how I am going to look; I am essentially worshiping the creature over the creator. 

 

I am not saying not to think about, or be dedicated to, your diet.  But when my diet starts to cross that line, where I am overwhelmed and making myself crazy, I remind myself that there are more important things. I remind myself to take a deep breath, and not lose the forest for the trees.  I try to remember the goal is not just about my health, but also about my heart, and ask the Lord to keep me from being cuckoo and selfish.

So that’s what I’m eating, and that’s my advice. 

Ask the Lord what you should do, and try not to get lost along the way.

How to Feel Thin and Healthy in One Easy Step

Eat with boys.

I have the privilege of being part of an improv team.  I am the only girl member of Strangers andFools Improv.

The guys on my improv team are awesome.  One of them happens to be my amazing brother.  I’ve been close to them and their wives for years.  The guys are dear friends.  I enjoy laughing with them, performing with them and I especially enjoy eating with them.

For years, after a show, we’d have a team ritual of debriefing at a local Denny’s/Ihop/Village Inn.  (This, of course, was before we all had children.)

I would be sitting in the restaurant and deciding  whether I should eat my second multi-grain pancake, or if I should scrape some of the cheese out of my egg white omelet, all the while watching one of my teammates dip something called a “Frisco Melt”  in a side of ranch.

Now, this utopia of “no health pressure” was usually diluted by the ladies that were present: the wives, girlfriends or dear friends, who were also concerned with the calorie count of the latest Grand Slam.  I was grateful for these girls’ presence.  They provided me someone to talk to when the gentlemen wanted to discuss how that one scene in the movie Taken was one of the best scenes of all time.  But they also hindered me from seeing the true joy of having all-guy dinner companions.

But about a year ago I was traveling with the team for an all-day booking in Orlando.  So this afforded the opportunity to eat with just the team.

We were at a Pei Wei.  I of course ordered the small portion chicken dish with the brown rice.  The boys ordered their respective dishes, and we all sat down.

The server happened to bring my order to the table first and the guys stared at my plate.  This is not what a chubby girl wants.

One of them asked a question, “Is that that the regular portion size?”  I explained that mine was a reduced portion, and they all breathed a sigh of relief. This was my first indication that this meal might be kinda awesome.

Then their meals began to fill up the table, and they all dug in.  In the midst of all the munching there was something missing.

There was no talk of, “Do you know these dishes also come in vegan now?”  No one mentioned how there was too much sauce, and how they really should have ordered their meal with the sauce on the side. No one pushed away their small bowl, and muttered something about how this was still too much food.  No one asked for a box, fifteen bites in.

They ate.  They ate all of it.

They talked about the next superhero movie, old improv stories, silly being-a-dad stories, maybe a little theology, and then, they probably discussed how that one scene from Taken is still one of the best scenes of all times. And I watched in pleasure at how they cleaned their plates, down to every last grain of sticky, white rice.

In their company I was demure, health conscious, the picture of moderation almost to a fault. They weren’t eating anything outrageous, but they were eating.  They were eating happily and heartily, without the sub-context of the approaching bathing suit season in the back of their minds.  It was refreshing and relaxing.

I had a similar experience on the way home.  We stopped at a Wendy’s.  It had been a long day and we hadn’t had much of a dinner.  While I was making the decision on whether or not I should do the sacrilege of ordering a small fry after 10 o’clock at night, I happen to overhear one of my teammates order something called the “Baconator”.

I’m not saying that I should eat what they eat.  They run on different metabolisms than I do.  And I am not saying that none of these guys have ever had an issue with food.  I know many of them mind their health for the sake of their families and a healthy future.  But there was something so stream-lined to the way they thought about food.

They were hungry. They ate.  Something sounded like a good thing to order.  They ordered it.

It seemed absent of neuroses.

I don’t know if I have a general principle to derive from this.  Maybe, that women shouldn’t talk so much about food.  Or, I could make a larger sweeping comment about how society puts undue pressure on women, and how we suffer for it.  Or perhaps, that women put undue pressure on each other. Or, maybe I put undue pressure on myself.

But, for the most part, I’m just saying it was fun.  It was fun to be surrounded by people that could eat without the calorie counter in their heads.  It reminded me to stop analyzing my food, for just one meal, and to enjoy it. 

So if you are feeling a little food neurotic, take a break. And eat with boys.

What it Means to Have Real Weight Loss

This week and half has been hard on me. 

I’m up two pounds and I don’t want to tell anyone about it.  I don’t want to tell anyone because I am afraid of how I’ll be seen.

Because this is not the first set back. If this was the first set back, well, that’s one thing.  That makes me approachable, relatable, likable even.  It humanizes me a little bit, which is good because I know you all have been blown away by my superhero nature. ;) 

But a second set back… another week with a small weight gain, right after I announced the week before that I am losing too slowly to reach my goal in the first place….well ,that is a bridge too far, my friend.  My audience will tire of this “I am up two pounds so I feel like a loser” speech.  They’ll tire of trying to convince me otherwise.  They might start to agree.

How can I ask any group of encouraging people to wade through two failures?  

Why would you still bet on me?

This past week I’ve had these and other dark thoughts, as I am wont to do, but I rallied.  I rallied with the love and encouragement of my family and friends.

And I am encouraged by another thought: I haven’t quit yet.  I usually would’ve given up by now.  I have passed the point where I usually bail.  I’m in a new territory of dedication.  So that’s something. 

 

Also, this up and down of the scale is starting to teach me to find my joy in the right places.  I can’t be happy when I am two pounds down and sad when I am two pounds up.  I mean, I am. I don’t want to be, but I am.  

But I can’t hinge my world on a scale. I’m not exactly sure how to change that, but I’m asking the Lord to fix that in my heart.

And I think He might, because I have seen another gain besides the two pounds. 

Confidence. 

Something I prayed for in an earlier post.   Something I asked the Lord to write on my heart because I didn’t know how to do it myself.  Lately, I find that less and less do I hate what I see in the mirror.  Less and less do I hate my pictures.  I have started to notice my smile instead of my belly or my eyes instead of my arm flab.

I put on a bathing suit to go swimming the other day.  Mind you, just with my family. I gave myself a once over in the mirror and I saw that there is still a way to go weight-loss wise, but I didn’t give it much thought.  I didn’t care.  I was going swimming, and, for the first time in a while, that didn’t require me to obsess over my thighs. 

This blog is about change, and God is changing something in me.  In small ways, He is working something out.  And although the scale isn’t going down this week, I am a little lighter. 

So don’t bet on me. I am just a silly girl two steps away from a hissy fit or a pity party at any given moment. 

Bet on the fact that the Lord makes all things new, and I might be one of them.

What Disaster Movies Have Taught Me About Weight Loss

I am ill prepared for any sort of apocalypse.

I have come to this conclusion from watching multiple disaster movies over the years. 

In these movies there is some sort of horrible event.  These inciting incidents of the apocalypse vary.  You’ve got your tidal waves, your earthquakes, your ominous giant meteors, your sudden ice age. Then there are the invasion plot lines.  You know, the descent of the aliens, the advancing of the zombies, the uprising of the super computer.  Whatever horrible event they choose, it paralyzes or destroys a large community; and people panic, run, and fight for survival. 

 

In these movies, I see people escaping to safety with feats of athleticism I have not yet mastered.  They are always scaling walls to leave the zombie hoard behind.  Squeezing into tight spaces to wait out the most recent wave of the earthquake. Pulling themselves up onto high walls and out of the way of the tidal wave, or sprinting into a building to dodge the fireball. 

I see these activities and realize, “If this ever really goes down I will be so dead.”  I can’t run, leap, scale, dodge.

I can hustle.  Is it enough to just hustle?  Like when you are crossing a street and a car is coming so you make that subtle shift from a walk to an only slightly faster run.  Is that enough, just to do that slightly faster fake jog? Will that be enough to dodge the aliens?  Beat the ice age? Reach the super computer in time?  I don’t think so.

Alright, so if I am not able to get myself out of harm’s way, maybe there is a chance I could be rescued.  

About a year ago I went to see the second Captain America movie, which includes an epic scene where a building crumbles to the ground with a woman inside it. Captain America soon comes to her aid and heroically pulls back the debris.  Then he lifts the fragile woman out of the rubble and carries her to safety.  I watch this scene and all I can think about is, if this were me, would he be able to lift me?  

You don’t want to be the damsel in distress that requires them to call the Hulk for back up.  You don’t want to be the victim that requires the Iron Man to invent some sort of system of pulleys to raise you to safety.

I have to lose weight just to save my pride when the superheroes show up.

Ok, let’s say I manage to outrun and/or be rescued from the apocalypse.   Then there is life in the aftermath.  Times will be hard.  Who knows what resources we will have, and I don’t fare well without food.

I love food.  I love to think about food.  Cook food. Eat food. I’d miss food if it were gone. On top of missing it, my blood sugar will be low so I will be cranky. 

Now let say things turn dark and resources are gone and people start having cannibalistic thoughts.  Well, let’s face it, I look delicious.  I mean, I will already be hard to deal with. If the group of survivors is trying to make a decision about who will be the forbidden meal, it isn’t going to take them long to pick the hangry girl with a little meat on her bones.

So you see, I have to continue with my health goals. I have to lose the weight so I can be the hero, or the damsel, or at least the one that makes it until the resources arrive.  

If I don’t lose the weight I will end up as some sort of B character in the cannons of time.  Ya know, the one who talks about sentimental things like my front porch or seeing spring flowers one last time, just before they kill me off.  I will be the character who makes you feel a little bad about the disaster but not bad enough to stop watching the movie.  I’ll be that guy.  I don’t want to be that guy. 

I could try to say that, although I am being rather silly here, there is truth somewhere at the heart of this rant.  That this particular “weight loss fear” stems from a fear that I am not equipped for the life I want in this body.  That maybe what I am really getting at is that if I don’t tackle my weight then I won’t be the right person in “my story.”  And, well, there are a lot of insecurities there.

But I think the real truth is I just don’t want Thor to show up to carry me to safety and have to ask someone for a lever and a fulcrum.