Dec. 24: Holiday Guilt Edition

This year, what I want for Christmas is for women to let go of the holiday guilt.  Everywhere I turn, another great woman is running around like a maniac, stressing herself out to make cookies, buy presents, clean the house, prep dinner for 20 people, including 3 with different food allergies, all while holding down a full-time job.

Here is my little holiday list of things NOT to feel guilty about this year:

1.) Don't feel guilty about eating during the holidays.  It's a holiday.  You aren't going to eat hors dourves and a huge meal and dessert every day.  Let go and enjoy it.  You truly cannot eat enough during that one day to undo more than a week of progress - and that is a stretch.

2.) Don't worry about having a perfectly spotless house.  In the aftermath of the present-unwrapping frenzy, any vacuuming and carpet-deep-cleaning you have done will all be for naught anyway.  Try to content yourself with sanitary and generally tidy.

3.) Don't freak out about buying the "perfect" gift for everyone.  My kids, even at 10 and 15, are just happy to have stuff under the tree to unwrap.  If there is something they truly, desperately want, I try to make it happen.  If their wishes are general, they seem to be happy with just about anything.  The same goes for extended family as well.  Unless you have a snobby, ungrateful jerk in your family, they will be touched by the effort that you made.  And if you do have a snobby, ungrateful jerk in your family, don't worry about their opinion - it's tainted.

4.)  Every bite from your kitchen doesn't have to be "from scratch".  Gasp.  The heresy!!!  Well, here it is - I have frozen green beans for tomorrows meal and bought premade cheesecake for dessert.  Take that, Martha Stewart!  To top things off, my appetizers for Christmas Eve came straight from the freezer section of Costco.  Everyone loved the food and I only had to stick it in the oven and take it out on time.

And since this is a weight loss blog, I want to reiterate one point: let's talk food.

Christmas and Christmas Eve come but once a year.  If you have established healthy eating habits throughout the rest of the year, you won't be able to gorge yourself to the same extent as usual.  Furthermore, your taste buds will have changed and you may find the foods you crave are different than the ones you craved before.  But if every year, you eat Aunt Mae's homemade pierogies with bacon and sour cream, don't deprive yourself.  Eat what you want tomorrow and enjoy it.  The day after Christmas is soon enough to get back on plan.

Treat yourself kindly at Christmas.  You've worked hard and you deserve it.

Thank you for reading my blog - it rambles, it rants, and it sometimes whines but this outlet has helped me in so many ways over the past year.

My prayer for you all this Christmas is that you may find peace and contentment.  Have a wonderful holiday with those you care about.

Dec. 14: Not-So-Terrible Tuesday

It's really sad.  It seems that as the holiday gets closer, people get meaner.  I work in a service department at a car dealership and as Christmas approaches, many people seem to be less patient, angrier, and more apt to just plain old lose it.  What ever happened to "the joy of the holidays"?

Because of our finances, we have been forced to cut way back this year.  At work, our department adopted a family instead of doing Secret Santas.  At home, I told the kids our budget per person was only $100 this year.  But my kids, in a rare angelic moment, donated HALF of their personal Christmas budgets to this family full of kids that might otherwise not be getting anything.  I can't tell you how proud I am of them. 

So, because of that, we have cut back further still. I have goodies for stockings and a couple of nice gifts per child, as well as new PJs for everyone.  And that is it.  I have warned the girls that its going to be nothing like our usual Christmas, with so many gifts surrounding the tree that it takes us an hour to unwrap them all.  They tell me they are fine with that (we'll confirm that on Christmas morning!)

And, as I've reduced all the frantic gift-buying and wish lists, it seems that my stress level has dropped right along with it.  I have had a few days that were not really on-plan but with all the goodies floating around the workplace, I'm amazed at my resistance.  I don't have the angry-gotta-get-5-hours-of-shopping-done-in-2-hours feeling.  I'm feeling pretty ....calm.  And isn't peace a symbol of the season?  How far society has strayed from that.

Today was not as terrible as yesterday, as far as eats are concerned.  In fact, I'm very pleased to past my count for the day.

Calories:  1464
Carbs:  201
Fat:  29
Protein: 114

Yay, me!

Here is one of our favorite family recipes - super quick and easy!

MEXICAN PIZZA

1 Greek Pita

Mexican-seasoned Ground Turkey

Salsa

Refried Beans

Shredded Cheese

Preheat your oven to 400.  Spread refried beans (I use PC low-fat) on the pita - about 1/3 cup.  Top this with a tablespoon of salsa.  On top of the salsa, layer cooked ground turkey (I usually make a big batch on the weekends ) about 4 ounces.  Sprinkle shredded cheese (I use light cheddar) to top and bake in the oven until warm all the way through.  Let it stand for a couple of minutes before slicing and enjoying.  You can drizzle some plain non-fat yogurt on the top in lieu of sour cream.

This is a great recipe because it's very flexible.  If you don't have ground turkey, you can use leftover sliced chicken or roast beef.  The amount of cheese I top with varies based on my current dietary goals. 

All the typing has me hungry!  Off to make Mexican Pizzas!

Mar. 28th: What's in YOUR Easter basket?

We're beginning the week of Easter, so it's time for a pep talk, my friends.

Holidays are difficult times for dieters.  We either feel like social outcasts because we brought our own chicken breast and brown rice to the family dinner, or we feel like failures  because we say "To heck with it!" and dig in with a fork in each hand.

There IS a happy medium.  It's called a healthy attitude about food.

Food is a social glue that holds families together.  What would a family event be without Grandma's famous pie, and Mom's secret-recipe hot rolls?  You don't have to give everything up - you just have to be reasonable.

First of all, ditch the guilt.  no one, except perhaps, you yourself, expects you to be perfect 100% of the time.  One off-plan meal is not going to cause a 5 pound weight gain.  It could make you fluctuate and retain some water, but in the grand scheme of things, it isn't going to make that much of a difference if you've had a healthy week up until that point.

Unfortunately a lot of people see Easter ( or any other holiday) as a week-long extravaganza of "to-heck-with-its."  That is the attitude that will get you into trouble.  An entire week of eating with reckless abandon WILL be reflected in your weight loss efforts.

So what's a chocolate bunny loving girl to do?

Plan ahead.  What traditions are important to you?  If you had to choose, would it be the family dinner at Grandma's or the brunch at your house?  What is your very favorite Easter candy treat?  Is it the marshmallow chicks or the solid chocolate bunny?  Make some decisions, my friend, and stick to them.

For me, it's a little easier.  My family is in the states and my kids go to the big Easter dinner at their Grandma's on their Dad's side.  We do any of our shin-digs here, which means I am in control of the food.

For my Easter candy, I chose a little bag of dark chocolate Eggies, which I have already thoroughly enjoyed, with no guilt (okay, not much guilt.)  We'll be having brunch at our house right after church, so I'm going to make a ham steak and split it between us, some breakfast potatoes, some eggs, a fruit salad, and cinnamon rolls.  I'm going to indulge in a bit of everything and love every bite of it.  But I won't have tons of leftovers calling my name later on in the day, when the kids have gone to their grandma's.  I can keep things tight for the rest of the day.  As well, the day before I plan on working out hard and keeping my diet tight.  No harm done with my splurge.

If, despite all your good intentions, you go overboard, the worst thing you can do is beat yourself up about it.  I think we often fail in our efforts because we demand nothing less than perfection from ourselves.  We seem to think, "Well, I already messed up, so who cares what I do for the rest of the day !!!(weekend, week, month).

The very next meal is your opportunity to get things right - don't pass it up because you made a mistake earlier in the day.  Your victory is not in never failing, but in starting again immediately!

What Easter treats will you be indulging in this year?

Dec. 23 - STRESS

Because I have been so aware of my foods and I have been writing in this journal every day, I am really seeing the link between food and stress for me. This is something I have to conquer if I am ever to have a true healthy way of life, for the rest of my life. The New Year is going to be dedicated to resolving this issue.

Here are my current stressors:
1.) MONEY
2.) The loss of my Dad
3.) Rocky relationship with my Mom
4.) I have a teenager (need I say more?)
5.) My ex lets the kids down

Rationally, I am aware eating crap because of these things does no make me feel better anymore, even for a moment. Because I am aware of what I am doing even while I am doing it, I am not getting one second of respite from the stress by stuffing my face.

I got up early and went to Walmart to finish up shopping. Mission accomplished!!!! Hooray! While the kids are at Dad's tonight I will finish wrapping. I am also going to prep our Christmas day food.

Today's eats:

M1: Skim milk latte, ww toast w/ nat pb (eaten while shopping at Walmart this morning)
M2: 1 % yogurt, blackberries, Kashi crunch cereal
M3: Grilled chicken w/ a skim of not clean BBQ sauce (contains sugar), 1/2 ww bun, carrots
M4: Banana, nuts
M5: Turkey tostada, guacamole

I'm feeling good about today and business is booming with pre-Christmas sales.

Have a great day everyone!

Dec. 20 - Indulgence

Good morning! I wanted to say hello before today's crazy whirl of activity began.

Last night at the party things went pretty well. I have been doing a lot of thinking, reading on a forum, and just pondering why we do what we do and what brings us to have the weight and food issues that many of us struggle with.

I think we will all agree, the holidays can be a very challenging time of year for clean eaters. A lot of people tend to binge on unhealthy food. I stopped for a few minutes the other day to think about why I binge. Generally it is because I am feeling emotional and/or deprived. If you over do it at a party, then you feel emotional, which leads to eating more. This is the time of year that maybe you could step back, be a little kinder to yourself, enjoy a nibble here and there of something you wouldn't normally have, content in the knowledge that at the very next meal you will be going back to your clean eating lifestyle. Enjoying something out of the norm is not a big deal, but saying, well, I am off this eating plan until after the New Year IS a big deal.

I figure if there is a treat I really, really want, I'm going to have a nibble because most of the time, the food I eat is healthy and nutritious. By giving myself that permission, I don't feel guilty and then I don't sabotage myself by pigging out.

Here is what I had at the party last night (along with some observations)

2 tortilla chips
tiny scoop of salsa (the salsa tasted very very sweet, not at all tomato-ey and savory like hm)
1 triangle of white pita
tiny scoop of hummus (tasted like comfort food to me)
2 bites of Polish sausage in a BBQ sauce ( delicious but very rich)
1 teeny nibble of fudge (so insanely sweet but really good - no way I could eat a lot of that anymore)
2 bites of an iced sugar cookie (these used to be my very favorite but I could not have eaten more than the two bites because they were so sweet my eyes crossed)
2 potato chips (yup, chips still taste good!)

So I discovered I still really like salty and savory, but sweet just makes me feel icky. A bite is pleasant, more than that is too much of a good thing. I avoided the punch, the cheesies, the cheese and crackers, and the bacon wrapped chestnuts. I took little samples of the things that interested me and left the rest alone. I felt decadent, not deprived, but know I didn't eat enough that I felt guilty later. Coming back to my clean food feels like a comfort.

My advice to all this season is to treat yourselves kindly, because you deserve no less than that. Give yourself the gift of realizing that you are not perfect, eating clean is not 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Planning an indulgence and keeping it under control may help you to stay on track the rest of the time. See an indulgence as something unique, like dinner at a very expensive restaurant. Enjoy every second, realizing this isn't in the budget for a regular occurrence, and then enjoy going back to the comfort of nurturing yourself through good food.

Happy holidays!

Dec. 18th - Tis the season to be crazy, falalalalaaaa

Wow! The store was incredibly busy yesterday. I hope and pray I can keep it up til the end of the year. Every time I start to worry, if I can just reign myself in, things turn around. It's like my diet. I know I am doing things right. Despite a lack of results, sometimes you just have to carry on with what you know is right.

Finally a breakthrough! I weighed this morning and I am down to 201! I am getting super close to my goal of being under 200 pounds by Christmas. I am so glad that it happened today. I have two parties this weekend and this will give me the momentum to get through them eating clean!!! Sometimes you just need that little boost, and this morning I got it. I am feeling much better today too - the cold/sinus-y thing is gone. That was miserable.

I learned from it though, that now after nearly 3 weeks of no chemicals in my system, I am extremely sensitive to things like cold medicine. I can only take half a dose without being in a coma for the day. Every day it seems I discover that I am wildly sensitive to one thing or another. Sometimes I shudder at the toxins I have been pouring into my body with great abandon.

Today's eating plan:

M1: 2 thin slices of ciabbatta toast, 1 tbs nat pb, banana
M2: Leftover turkey, cauliflower roast from last night, a few cashews (there was not a full serving of turkey so this is how I topped off the protein)
M3: Veggie beef soup
M4: Cantaloupe, NZ cheddar, kashi crackers
M5: Ground turkey tostadas w/ spinach, guacamole and salsa

I am expecting the workmen for the basement any second so I did a work out I know - 30 day Shred - again this morning. It has a lot of strength so I did it without the weights today since I did it with weights yesterday. I'm not sure if this was correct but I know you aren't supposed to do strength 2 days in a row. I'm happy though, because last month I would have just said did not have time to work out and I would have skipped it. DD9 watched and giggled, sharing her observations at my lack of grace. (Thanks honey). All in all, my day is looking charmed so far. Food is in the cooler and when the dudes get here I am off to run errands and make money!

Hope you all have a wonderful day. I will try to pop on later. I am figuring out my strategies today for the parties this coming weekend. I'll post as soon as I decide how to handle them.

Dec.16 - the Chaos of the Holidays.

I've made my plans to help with the chaos this time of year brings:

1.) Sleeping in my workout clothes and doing my DVD the second I get the kids out the door in the morning.
2.) Froze some single servings of clean food - soups, chicken breasts, etc
3.) Prepacked steamer bags full of veggies
4.) Making cookies I hate (coconut haystacks and mint chocolate truffles) There's no way I will be desperate enough for sweets to nibble on those!
5.) Planning outfits for the next week for DD9 and myself - that way special occasion items are pressed and ready and we don't have to scramble around looking for matching tights
6.) Bartered some stuff from my store for house-cleaning services

I figure minimizing the stress will minimize my urges to eat unClean foods. The more stuff I have done ahead of time, the more I can just relax and enjoy the season. I know if I let myself down on the eating plan I will feel awful, which will just lead to eating more of the stuff I shouldn't be.

I seem to be really slowing down on the weight loss. Why does PMS have to be a week long extravaganza? Why can't I just get it and get it over with? I am sure I'm retaining water cause I am fluffy looking today (more than usual). A lot of places had tightened up a bit that are now looking lumpy and bumpy again. I know the food has been okay, so I'm going to hang in there and stay off the scale until next Monday.

I keep reading Tosca's books for encouragement. If I am eating the right things the weight will come off. I must NOT let it get to me that I seem to be stuck this week. It is hard to get out of the mindset that I need to be really hungry to be losing weight. When the scale is stuck I just want to drink water for a week. According to the Eat-Clean principles, that's what got me in this situation in the first place, so I'm going to just follow the plan.

Sometimes I recall looking at people in the fitness industry that seemed to be constantly downing protein shakes and egg whites, thinking to myself that they were just out of control, they were really weird and taking things way too far. I've re-thought that perception.

Take Tosca Reno, for example. She truly knows what it means to be overweight and to make an enormous change through dedication and perseverance. In the past I got a clean-eating magazine and I thought, "That woman is going overboard - there is just no fun in the way she eats." But now I consider these things.

First of all, Tosca practices what she preaches. It is a lifestyle that takes effort but just a different kind of effort. Look at the results she has achieved. I would have loved to look at 20 the way she does at 50. It's very obvious by looking at Tosca, her plan WORKS.


Secondly, all the people whose physiques I admire have the same focus/obsession with nutrition and fitness. Clearly, this is what it takes to look like that! People have been telling us for years, we just don't want to make those changes that take us out of our comfort zones of fast food and channel surfing. No one tried to keep it a secret from the rest of us, we just didn't want to hear it.

Finally, as far as fun goes, what could be more fun than to be vibrant, healthy and energetic for the rest of your life?

I have a couple of parties to go to this weekend and I am just going to do my best to keep working the plan. I'll eat before I go, take a clean treat to share and realize that unhealthy food and fun are NOT the same thing.

I have a bit of a sinus infection. The medicine is killing my appetite. I'm trying to be balanced but I'm choking the food down today.

Today's eats:
m1: hm iced latte made with skim milk
M2: clean toast w/ natural pb, small apple
M3: hm trail mix w/ kashi crunch, raisins and nuts, banana
M4: the rest of the above meal
M5: hm veggie beef soup

Tonight is the Christmas concert. Can't wait to watch my little sweetie sing!