Angel Food (lowfat)

Last weekend was my brother’s wedding. With all the excitement of this blessed event, I forgot to post my weigh in results. My last Thursday weigh-in was a gem - 159.8. It’s been a couple months since I’ve dipped below 160, so I was thrilled to be back in the land of the 150s!

One’s brother only gets married once (one hopes!), so I didn’t worry about dieting over the weekend. I weighed myself Monday (why do I still torture myself like this?). The results weren’t good - too much wedding cake, I suppose. I avoided the buttercream, but the raspberry mousse filling was absolutely dreamy! On the plus side, I worked out last night for the first time in weeks, doing a new weight routine for arms and revisiting an old ab workout. I feel good and strong today and plan on doing some cardio this evening. Since I’m back into my healthy routine, I’ll cut myself some slack tomorrow if my weigh-in isn’t ideal. But, I’ll be sure to weigh-in to keep myself focused and on track.

At the urging of a friend of mine, I’m changing my weigh in day from Mondays to Thursdays. Thursday was my original WW weigh in day, and I usually was quite happy to step on the scale then. Thursday seemed to be the perfect amount of time to allow me to get back on track and readjust after any weekend excesses. Thursday is also close enough to the weekend to help me remember my weight loss progress and inspire me to eat a little more virtuously come Saturday. In a perfect world, there would be no weekend excesses. But, who am I kidding? I’m just not perfect. So, in an effort to revisit the strategies that made me successful in weight loss to start with - there is no weigh in result today. Oh darn.

Bonus: If you’re looking for a killer lower calorie chicken parm recipe. Check out this Light Chicken Parmesan from Everyday Food. I substitued Panko (I have a monster sized bag of it) for the whole wheat bread crumbs. The dish is simple but terrific for dinner and makes great leftovers for lunch. Your coworkers will be jealous!   

I gave up last week. I threw up my hands in dismay. I was exhausted from failing. My weight loss has been stalled out for nearly two years! I’ve been somewhere between 153 and 162 since the fall of 2006 - nowhere near the 210 I was at my highest, but still a few sizes away from my beloved size 8 jeans. (I own one pair of size sixes, but I’m not crazy about them…) Somewhere on Thursday, I stopped my food journaling and decided that exercising was just not happening. I needed to reevaluate. Clearly, my half-hearted attempts at weight loss had become more trying than the times when I worked hard to lose weight.

On Sunday, my weekly Monday morning weigh in looming, I found myself with a choice to make. Do I, for the umpteenth time this year, stop my food diary, stop counting points, and stop working out? Or, do I do what it really takes to lose weight? New marriage looming, I realized that I must choose the second option. I don’t want to become a new wife weighed down by feelings of failure and disappointment. I want to start my new life feeling strong and healthy. I’m marrying a pilot who’s six years my junior, for goodness’ sakes, I need to be able to keep up with him!

After that little epiphany (yes, one can skip church and still be given epiphanies), I immediately set about finding my old WW points logs from 2005. Thank God that I saved them. I wanted to see what I did that made me so successful in weight loss a few years ago. How dedicated was I really? See, I have been telling myself lately that I can count points ever so loosely and still succeed. My journals tell a different story. I was shocked to read how faithful I was at points counting. I seriously stuck to the plan? Oh yes. On weeks that I went over my points allowance, I usually didn’t lose anything or gained a little bit. Another thing I noticed is that I regularly ate all of my recommended fruits and vegetables. I was the fiber queen!

Sitting in my kitchen on Sunday, with all these old WW journals in front of me,  I felt a strange combination of annoyance and relief. Annoyance  - that I’ve not been wanting to admit that someone else’s plan worked so well for me. (I am too gosh darn defiant and independent at times.) Relief - that there was something out there that worked for me. So, today, I am proudly giving up my own stubborn ways and am back on my the WW points plan (22 base, 35 flex a week). I’ve been fibering up and feel much less hungry than if I’d just been subsisting on cheese and crackers (re: last week’s breakfasts).  I’ll check in here again during the week to report on whether or not I’m ready to cannibalize myself from hunger (likely, I’ll be ok). I hope to report my weigh in results regularly on Mondays from now on (nothing like some accountability to start the week). For someone like me who likes to feel so in control, it actually feels kind of good to tell my little points log that it is to be my guide.

Today’s weigh in: 160.6 

I had the most lovely lunch today. A coworker emailed a last minute invite to our staff to join her for lunch in the dining hall. It’s “Fried Chicken Day” at the college where we work, which always puts people in a celebratory mood . Diet be darned. You don’t say no to Eddie’s Fried Chicken.

This Georgia girl enjoyed her chicken, collard greens, and black-eyed peas immensely. Even more special, however, was the camaraderie around the table. We were a diverse group of personalities but had a fine time talking about our families, tv, zodiac signs, church, etc. What we talked about honestly didn’t matter. I was struck but how we all were engaged getting to know each other better. There was no competition, no gossip, just pure enjoyment of the moment.

This is what “good food” should be about, right? Not the grams of fiber, the number of calories, or even gourmet ingredients. Good food helps to bring people together. Nutrition has its place and must not be totally ignored, but the best food is the kind that makes you comfortable and happy enough simply to relax, enjoy the moment, and feel the love.

Perhaps this entry’s title is a little over the top. I didn’t win anything, and nobody’s giving me a medal or putting a laurel wreath on my head. I’m celebrating, anyway, though! I survived my near exercise-less week with weight loss plans intact. I knew that my week would be nuts and exercise would be difficult to squeeze in, so I didn’t beat myself up about it. I did what I could, which turned out just to be one intensive cardio day and one yoga class. But, just doing that little amount of exercise reminded me of the commitment I have made to myself to get in better shape.

However, my biggest success last week may have been in my dieting - making realistic choices in what I eat, and staying focused on the end goal, even on days when a little too much food made its way down my gullet. Last week, I decided I was tired of failing at hitting my points targets, so I made some small adjustments to my daily points values. Usually, when I’m counting points (I do Weight Watchers flex points, with a current base of 22pts) I get desperate when my points start to run low for the day. I tend to freak out, thinking there is no way I’ll be able to deal with the hunger that is necessary for losing weight. Then, I’ll just sabotage myself - might as well just go all out at dinner since I won’t hit my points target anyway, right?

Well, last week I decided that just wasn’t good enough. I don’t mind telling you that I didn’t hit my points targets at all. Instead, I gave myself three extra points a day. In real nutrition speak, I think that’s about 150 extra calories a day. It was enough to take the edge off, fit in an additional snack or larger meal, and still lose weight. To be perfectly honest, I still went over my points, even given the extra 3 a day. No matter, though. I wound up losing 2.2 lbs, which is light years ahead of where I’ve been in my weight loss lately.

I think at the heart of this success is simply that I didn’t give up and I took it easy on myself without losing sight of my goal. It’s been ages since I’ve been this excited about making real changes in my lifestyle. I look forward to working out now. I’m trying new foods (papaya lime salad today - yum), and I’m not worrying about what the scale says every morning. Weight Watchers folks talk about “non-scale victories” - well, I had a scale victory this week, but the non-scale victories of being kinder to myself and changing my approaches to food and exercise feel even better.

Wow, this old blog sure is dusty. My weight loss has more than stalled, it has reversed. I put on 5 lbs nearly overnight in September. I’ve only sort of halfway been counting points, only mostly faithful with my food diary, and only occasionally hitting the gym. Honestly, my heart hasn’t been in my weight loss lately. Honestly, my heart hasn’t been into anything much lately.

Three weeks ago I helped my fiance move halfway across the U.S., and I’ve been trying not to think about how much I’m missing him. We’ve been doing the long distance thing for a long time, longer than we actually dated in the same city. But, when he was down in Florida, he was a fun five hour drive away. I’d hop in the car, find some baseball game to listen to on my XM, and then settle in for the jaunt through the backwoods of the South. Now, he is a whopping sixteen hours drive away from me. I won’t be seeing him again until Thanksgiving. And, I’m totally oscillating between (1) feeling like this is a wonderful opportunity for me to take advantage of this time to work on me and plan our wedding AND (2) feeling overwhelmed by the planning, the loneliness, the fear of all the changes that are taking place in my life. I’ve been having restless dreams that can only be defined as loopy. I’m trying to put on a very brave phone voice when I talk to my fiance who has his own problems out in Oklahoma.

So, I give up. I’m gonna stop trying to be so brave and hiding how I feel, which is morphing into added stress, which morphs into added foodstuffs finding their way on my plate (or napkin, or just straight from bag to mouth). Instead, here I am again, back writing in all my strange glory.

And, as an added dose of irony, I’m off to a wedding cake tasting with about 10 points left in my day. Here’s to cake for dinner…

I’ve been keeping my food diary very faithfully now for a few weeks, and that is the only way I can remember what I’ve been eating. I’m in a bit of a funk, and my sustenance has been of either the feast or the famine sort. Case in point: two nights ago, I chowed down on macaroni and cheese (at least I worked out that afternoon); last night, I just didn’t eat. The hunger in my stomach feels somehow more appropriate to my mood, and I’ve no desire to feel full. I know skipping meals is unhealthy, so I basically forced myself to have breakfast and lunch today. I’m supposed to bring dinner to my grandmother this evening, yet absolutely nothing sounds good to me. I usually love food - eating it, cooking it, talking about it, reading about it - so I’m disturbed by this total lack of desire to eat.

It’s very rare for me to go through an experience like this. The last time I can remember feeling the way I feel now was when I was trying to get over a heartbreak. I’m not heartbroken now; I have a very lovely man who pledges always to be in my life. Yet, we are in a period of transition as he prepares to move across the country and we prepare to get married. Can someone experience grief over ending a chapter in her life? That’s what I feel I’m going through now.  I’m closing the chapter on an old, deeply rooted set of hopes and dreams, yet the new chapter hasn’t quite started. I’m foundering in this uncertainty but recognize that I can’t continue with the emotional achy-ness that I’ve become immersed in for the past few days.

There are a lot of things I don’t have control over in my life these days, but I refuse to lose control of my own happiness. Ignoring my friends, eating boxed meals, and climbing into bed at 8:30pm certainly aren’t good remedies for staying happy, are they? I need better remedies. I need to be with friends right now. I need to rest. I need to cook. I need to eat. No one else is going to take care of me, as much as I’d like them to, so I need to be sure that I’m taking care of myself as I close one chapter and start working on another.

Things are changing with me, and I’m so exhausted. My emotions have been so jumbled, so bittersweet lately. Not only am I getting married soon, but so is my brother. My nephew will be graduating from high school at the end of this school year. I’ll be changing jobs and moving halfway across the country in a few months. Perhaps things wouldn’t be so difficult if my family were as disconnected as we once were. But, in the past 5 years or so, we’ve worked really hard to tighten the threads of the family quilt, to be stronger and more closely knit. With all the changes taking place in the coming year, I can feel the threads unraveling again. I’ve been feeling nearly overwhelmed with sadness during what are, by all accounts, happy, happy times for my family. I’m watching my mom become more and more disapproving and rigid in her attitude with my brother, catching me in the middle of their disputes. My sister is withdrawing at a frightening pace. I’m torn between wanting to get the heck out of dodge to be with Andy, and never wanting to leave so I won’t disrupt the family further.

My heart is overfull, and I want to eat any number of good things and replace all the difficult emotions with pasta, ice cream, and cashews. Nearly every day for the past three weeks has been a struggle for me to keep my emotions in check, my eating in check. Thank God I’ve identified that I’m an emotional eater, so I can limit myself to just a third of a pint of Haagen Dazs at a time. Still, I miss those days when life was more boring and green beans and other healthy things could fill the hollow spot in my gut.

My fiance won’t be in Pensacola too much longer. Soon he’ll be heading to Oklahoma to live out his fighter pilot dreams. So, visiting him a couple weeks ago, I had to take advantage of what may the freshest seafood available to us for quite some while. There’s this great fresh seafood market in Pensacola, FL called Joe Patti’s Seafood. It sits right on the water, and boats dock alongside it to deliver their catch. Doesn’t get much fresher than that!

The market has all sorts of really cool (re: intimidating) whole fish, crab legs, claws, lobsters, clams, etc. Wanting to make a quick and tasty dinner, rather than exercise my culinary muscles, I chose some very approachable 21/25 jumbo shrimp.

I love spicy food in the summer (it goes so well with a crisp pale beer), so I decided to make Shrimp Fra Diavolo for dinner - a tasty saute of shrimp served with a spicy tomato sauce over whole wheat pasta. I’ll have to make the Fra Diavolo sauce again to be able to give an actual recipe. Essentially, I used San Marzano tomatoes, a little garlic, fresh basil leaves, cayenne pepper, and a splash of balsamic vinegar. It was too sweet. Then, my fiance got home and decided to dump some cajun seasoning in it, against my protests. Turns out he’s got a pretty good palate after all. The sauce was suddenly nicely spicy and not too sweet. The shrimp, however, were more controlled affair. So, here’s my homespun recipe for Spicy Lemony Sauteed Shrimp (or Shrimp Fra Diavolo when served with the spicy tomato sauce).

If you have fresh herbs on hand (especially basil, parsley, or oregano) mince the herbs and toss with shrimp at the end of cooking.

1 tbsp olive oil

1 medium shallot, minced

2 large cloves garlic, minced

1 lb shrimp, peeled and cleaned

generous pinch Cayenne pepper

generous pinch of salt

1 lemon, halved

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add minced shallot to pan and sauté until shallot softens and is translucent. Add garlic to pan with shallot and sauté until garlic just begins to color (do not let garlic turn brown). Carefully add shrimp to pan so oil does not splatter. Stir and sauté shrimp until it is barley cooked, just opaque on each side. Remove pan from heat. Sprinkle cayenne and salt over shrimp to taste. Squeeze juice from lemon over the shrimp. Add herbs, if using. Toss shrimp until well coated with spices and aromatics. Serve immediately.

Serves 4, est. time 30 min (incl. prep), est. 4 WW points 

I had a strange little weekend in Florida these past few days. My pilot, his dad, and I had planned to go to the beach (my double-digit sized tankini be darned), but the mean Navy scheduler decided that my fiancé couldn’t have the day off after all. So, my darling pilot-in-training cursed and went flying with an embittered instructor pilot (who, no lie, started the flight by saying, “I’d rather be with my kids right now than flying with you”) while my future father-in-law and I spent the day together at the beach.

I love my FFIL, but he can be an annoyingly randy old man. He’s not creepy toward me (well, there was that one time he drunk dialed me), but he’s the kind of man who admits to watching Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade simply because “she’s stacked.” Yeah. One of those men. I still haven’t quite figured out how he spawned my lovely husband to be.

Before hitting the beach, FFIL and I lunched at one of those tourist trap restaurants that dot the Gulf Coast. Our waitress blessedly steered us away from all of the fried seafood, suggesting that we try a grilled Amberjack sandwich for lunch. It was truly the best piece of grilled fish I’ve ever had and totally worth sitting through a day with the FFIL checking out women half his age. After lunch, I did my best to enjoy my time with said FFIL and not drown in the red flag surf. We got absolutely pounded by the waves. I’m usually an ocean gal, but it was stressful constantly bracing ourselves against the whitecaps breaking over our heads. Somehow, even with all the beautiful women on the beach, I managed to avoid freaking out about being in a bathing suit. Until, that is, my FFIL decided to take some photos of me jumping over the waves. I saw myself in a picture and thought, “dear Lord, where is my muscle tone?”

It was such a frustration to look at pictures of myself and still feel so dissatisfied with my image. Immediately, my thoughts turned to scrambling for my cover up, never eating again, or just eating everything because darn-it I have made no progress dieting in the past year and a half. But, I realized that I couldn’t let my frustration morph into desperation. You know the desperation I’m referring to? The one that means eating an itty bitty dinner because it’s low in calories, only to see your diet melt into a hungry puddle of butter later in the evening?

So, despite being unhappy with the state of my flabby midsection and arms, I didn’t eat a grilled chicken salad for dinner.  No, I ate quite lovely grilled steak and shrimp kebabs. I also ate a little bread (just a little), a little rice, and most of my grilled veggies. I even drank a non-light beer. I felt satisfied and not over full. I repeated the same dining process on Saturday and Sunday, refusing to think about dieting, instead thinking about enjoying my meals. I ate what I wanted, and not too much of it, and I lost 1.5 lbs this weekend. Perhaps this is how thin people eat?