I guess I run now

Okay, so back in my early days teaching writing, I’d have students use a reader that included this pretty awesome advertising analysis by Susan Bordo, “Hunger as Ideology.”

Bordo looks at Victorian mores about women “indulging” their “appetites,” and basically points out that women who deny themselves food are seen as chaste, pure, virginal, good. While women who indulge their appetites are over-sexed, lack self-control, CHEAT, SIN. & this oppressive Victorian ideology plays itself out in contemporary advertising & in the beliefs most Western women have about eating (it’s a SIN!).

& Bordo does this nice comparison of women nibbling (and all those nibble-sized foods we’re supposed to love) and men just full-on consuming (manwhiches, hungry-man dinners, those big soups that you have to eat with a fork). All perfectly good and right. All insanely connected to virtue: for a woman, a small appetite is a virtue (read: appetite for sex); for a man, a BIG appetite is to be expected and makes him a manly man.

Blah, Blah, Blah.

Okay, so I get it & I see it in advertisements all over the place now (small Hagen-Daaz ice creams, little Ben & Jerry’s, tiny brownie bakes, all those ads that show women serving men food and denying themselves the same food…”you’re a sweet talker, Betty Crocker.”). Bordo says, “Men eat, women prepare.” UGH! But does it make me feel less guilty when I CHEAT? Nope. I still feel like a failure. When my husband says things like, “I shouldn’t have eaten the whole pizza by myself,” does he feel guilt? No!

I get it. It’s been drilled into me (no pun intended) that a dalliance with food is akin to sin. But I somehow can’t use that knowledge that this food guilt is culturally-induced and sexist to its very core to get over the guilt I feel for having 2 beers with dinner, several of the appetizer chips, and three bites of hubby’s enormous desert.

Guilt, regret, self-loathing…holy crap! It was only dinner! I didn’t cheat on my husband, I cheated on my diet. & it wasn’t a cheat. If this diet of mine is a life-long journey, then what I did was indulge for one meal, out with my inlaws, during an otherwise uneventful & unexciting spring break.

Also, I opted against the Fish & Chips at an Irish pub, on a Friday night, during Lent & chose to have a house salad topped with grilled salmon. Why? Because I wanted the beer, so I bargained with myself…beer=salad, no beer=fish & chips. In the long run, this cheat was a blip.

So…why am I still writing about this? I think cause there’s part of me that remains REALLY PISSED that I can’t enjoy a nice meal without feeling some guilt for indulging my appetite, for not denying myself pleasure, for cheating.

ARGH!

Okay, I’m also still writing because it’s been a long time since I had two pints of beer in a row, so I’m feeling no pain…just guilt.

Okay, as soon as this working spring break is over, I’m back at it…food logging & blogging & all.

Have a great weekend Chicks!

This happen to anyone else? The scale this morning said, “no change!” But the pants I tried on two weeks ago at roughly the same weight (give/take a pound) fit now.

I have three simple categories for fit:

1. Ugh…these don’t fit at all!
2. Okay…these fit, but I can’t wear them in public! and
3. Hey…these fit!

With one pair I moved from  1. “don’t fit!” to 2. “fit, but still quite obscene!”,  with another I moved from 2. “fit, but ick!” to 3.”fit”, and with a third pair I’m wondering why I didn’t start wearing them weeks ago.

& I’m not exercising (bad bigprof!), so it can’t be that I’ve turned fat to muscle…right? I’m not complaining, obviously this is quite good news. But I’m confused since the scale has me in a pretty serious plateau (mostly due to my bad carb decisions), but everything seems to be fitting better.

Anyway, we’ve been in midterms this week, getting ready for our winter break, so I’ve been focused on course prep, responding to student work, and some writing of my own in a mad attempt to get ahead enough that I won’t be behind when hubby & I head out to Chicago to see his folks next week. He’s going to help his dad refinish the basement while I do some research. I’ll be a better blogger during break, especially since a trip to the inlaws is, essentially, a trip to carb central.

Food recently has been good…I can remember only yesterday, but I will say that I LOVE having my 2 protein shakes a day. They still taste like something that wasn’t designed to be consumed by humans (at least, not humans with taste buds), but they also fill me up for no carbs, so it’s worth it.

Food yesterday:

Lunch: salad with hubby’s leftover steak on top…was a brown bag lunch at work, so there were brownies & cookies & cakes…really brutal, but I said “no thank you” to it all & left feeling pretty proud of my self-control.
Snack: nuts
Dinner: steak, eggs, tomatoes
Snack: jello, more nuts

Today
Lunch: oh dear…this is a mystery at the moment. I have hb eggs, so maybe I’ll do egg salad over salad
Dinner: either eggs & chicken (breakfast) sausages or corned beef & cabbage, I think.

Ya’ll have a great day!

Yesterday I had the day planned out with only a carb indulgence of a small glass of wine & roasted onions with the lamb I was planning for dinner.

Then our friends from Ohio called, wanted to get together, how’d spending Valentine’s evening at a Chuck-E-Cheese’s in Toledo sound? Actually, it sounded okay to us, so change of dinner plans. This meant we needed to eat long before Toledo (cause…again, we’re talking Chuck-E-Cheese food here). So we hit our favorite Thai restaurant for a special buffet at 3:00 (only meal up to this point aside from a protein shake). & boy was it special. I haven’t had Thai in about 4 months, so I splurged & ate the carb stuff too. Didn’t over do, but I did have carbs.

So…long story now too late to make short: no weigh in for this girl today. I knew it would be disappointing, so I’m skipping it. May weigh in tomorrow if I get back into fat-burning mode tonight, but I may also wait til next week.

Still doing the protein shake thing, but found one that’s 24 grams protein & no carbs…much better.

Food today (shake in morning & afternoon):
Lunch: leftover chicken soup
Dinner: lamb, roasted fennel, two small roasted onions
Snacks: small handful of nuts before dinner, have an Atkins cheesecake thawing for a treat later.

results inconclusive, try again later.

Did an unofficial weigh in this morning to see how the extra protein thing’s going & I didn’t gain, lost an insignificant amount (nothing that couldn’t be explained away as time-of-day weight loss), so I figured I’d stick with it til Monday or possibly beyond that. Time will tell.

Breakfast: shake
Lunch: leftover chicken stew & two Dove chocolate hearts (argh! I could kill the secretary for bringing these things in…about 4 carbs each! But where was my willpower today since I’ve said no all week long?)
Dinner: hubby’s pot roast, asparagus & spinach
Snack: another shake & possibly some jello

Better eating today!

I have a doctor’s appointment a week from Monday. It’s been 6 months since I saw him, so I’m hoping the scale shows how hard I’ve been working to lose. Be nice to be down an even 20 pounds by then.

Because I know not moderation…I had 4 protein shakes today. They aren’t tasty at all (just 6 oz of cold water & powder), but they’re filling…so I also didn’t eat well for most of the day.

Lunch: 2 deviled eggs
Dinner: made a yummy chicken stew with tons of veggies (probably over the carb count on those)
Snack: pepperoni, cheese, nuts, jello

I have a real veggie weakness, always have. It seems like I just can’t ever get enough of them. So Atkins sortof sucks in that regard. Oh well, when I’m off induction & stepping down to maintenance, I’ll get more veggie servings a day, but for now that’s one thing I really miss.

Doing an unofficial weigh in tomorrow to see if the protein thing’s working or if I’m sabotaging my minimal weekly progress with these shakes.

in protein.

I was talking to my little brother the other night & he’s back on his high protein diet to drop some holiday & vacation weight…he’s got a mere 20 pds to lose. Gee, I wish I had that problem.

Anywho, after we got off the phone, I checked online to see about how much protein I should be getting to lose & turns out, I need more than I’m getting by about 40 grams.

So I took out my protein shake & mixed up 2 yesterday, 2 today so far (one more for a snack before bed tonight probably).

They’re 3 grams carb, 100 calories, but 18 grams of protein each.

So that’s this week’s experiment: getting 68-70 grams of protein a day. Maybe this will lead to increased losses on the scale, maybe not, but I feel healthier, even if it’s just a placebo effect Anyway, I figure I’ll do a fake weigh-in day Friday to see how it’s going.

Food yesterday:

Lunch: salad with hubby’s Parmesan chicken
Dinner: hubby’s beef rouladen with edamame
Snack: jello

Exercise: situps, the hundreds, little yoga during commercials for BL

Food today:
Breakfast: bacon & deviled eggs (2)
Lunch: not hungry, so another shake
Dinner: dreamfield’s pasta with spinach
Snack: jello or possibly nothing but the shake.

Exercise: shoveled the neighbor’s driveway (long & wide)…he’s had two heart attacks & the snow was thick & heavy.

& I’m happy, but also thinking about the “down only .1″ last week, which makes for a crappy 2-week average.

Oh, to hell with stupid math. It’s another loss, progress, motivation.

& this week it’s actually worth it to adjust my clicker, which is about all I have time to do tonight.

Food:
Lunch: salad with leftover parm-coated buffalo strips & bleu cheese dressing

Dinner: hubby’s beef rouladen (I even told him to make real gravy, flour & all for a total 23 carbs in 2 cups of gravy, so I’ll use it sparingly); leftover snap peas; leftover spaghetti squash alfredo; maybe 2 oz of wine (we’ll see)

Snack: sugar-free jello.

I’m in a good place at the moment: my work wardrobe fits again. But I don’t want to become complacent, so I’m gradually bringing smaller-sized favorites up from the basement, & I purchased two smaller-sized skirts (thank you ebay!) that are this week’s and next week’s goal clothes. Some of the basement clothes are months away from fitting, but they’re good inspiration anyway.

I’m having fun with my clothes now. That’s something I really missed before.

I also bought two blazers at the Talbots outlet on Saturday. I’ve been meaning to get there since we moved here & now I really wish I hadn’t waited 3.5 years to do so. The blazers are well-made, petites (so the arms aren’t 6 inches too long), and they go with about 8 skirts/pants in my closet. I love Talbots, but the outlet…HEAVEN! My two blazers cost me $31.55 (together! for both!).

Okay, so my belted jacket (in the title) is something I picked up on a sale in September. It was one of those “oh, this will cover my butt” purchases that was just a skoch too small because I REFUSED to look at it in a bigger size. Long, tweed, four buttons down the front, belt at the waist. Unfortunately, I couldn’t come even close to buttoning it.

I was fine letting it hang, unbuttoned, giving the illusion that it could be buttoned if I wanted (ha, ha). But the presence of the belt made the whole “I just don’t feel like buttoning today” illusion obvious. So I removed the belt & draped it over the closet rod where it sat until now. That’s fine. I told myself that I’m just not crazy about belted jackets anyway.

blah, blah, blah.

Did you ever read such a long story about a jacket before?

Anywho, one of the jackets I bought on Saturday is buttoned and belted & I LOVE it. So I took out my too-small-to-button, butt-hiding jacket & tried it on for the first time since early December. All four buttons button up comfortably & the belt just makes it look so much cuter than before.

There are enough cute work clothes down at the don’t-fit end of my closet to keep me working on this (slowly as it’s going), but I can’t even tell you how nice it is to have something other than 2 pairs of jeans (same style) and one pair of black pants to wear to work every day.

Weigh-in day tomorrow. I’m not holding out hope for anything big. I ate mostly on plan (nuts & bites of natural peanut butter cheats only), but I didn’t record any food here all week & it’s TOM on top of that.

This week I’ll be more disciplined with recording food. Last week I decided that, what the hell, I’d love to be down to 135 by July when we vacation with about 5 other couples from grad school, but I’m not going to beat myself up if I’m not losing enough every week to meet that goal. The important point is that I AM losing, slowly but surely and steadily. That’s enough of a blessing.

Happy (as happy as possible) Monday chicks!

I survived the weekend thanks to some home improvement projects, DVDs, and decidedly one-sided conversations with the dog. The hallway got primed & two coats of paint. In the bedroom I flipped the fan blades around to the less-hideous side, but then hubby said he’d bring a fan home from the rental place, so I called off my plans to replace the hideous light fixture with something less hideous. Of course, he forgot the fan.

I also swapped out the old toilet seat, which was oak and brass & altogether too much in our much-too-much oak and brass bathroom. I managed to find a toilet seat brand that has just one giant covered hinge to hold it to the toilet, which means no more trying to clean around the two stupid bolts. I’m calling it my “designed by someone who has actually had to clean a toilet at least once in his life” toilet seat.

I also cleaned & organized the pantry (which was chaos on the verge of collapse) & the linen closet (ditto), hung some pictures, and did a couple of other odd jobs around the house.

It wasn’t a fun or relaxing weekend, but I kept busy, which kept my mind off the fact that it wasn’t a fun or relaxing weekend.

Cheated some…a Red Lobster biscuit with my dinner Friday night, popcorn Saturday night, & aside from countless trips up/down stairs & up/down ladders, no exercise to speak of.

So I’m not down a staggering amount this week. I’m down .1 pounds…lucky for my the scale records tenths of a pound or I’d have nothing to show for this week.

Okay, perfect week do-over.

Food yesterday:

Lunch: chili with sour cream & guacamole
Snack: nuts (bad!)
Dinner: 2 sea scallops in little lemon & butter, snap peas
Snack: atkins cheese cake

Food today:
Lunch: salad & 2 sea scallops