Whitters Gettin’ Healthy

I’ve decided to take part in Eileen’s (eileen2blean) March Challenge. Hopefully I can manage to not be my usual forgetful self and actually remember to participate each day. Maybe I’ll make a page just for the challenge and keep track of my stars and stuff (to keep me motivated - Eileen is going to be keeping the “official” stats on everyone).

I think I’ve hit the point where I just feel like I’m spiraling. For so long I just ate what I wanted, and ate when I was hungry. But as we can all see, that’s why I’m at my current weight. Now I can’t eat anything that I want. I have to monitor myself, watch what I eat, plan things out, etc. And it’s driving me bat shit crazy. I am so stressed out over food that it’s not even funny. I can’t go more than an hour without thinking about food at least 4 times.

Being surrounded by people who can eat whatever they want whenever they want doesn’t help either. For example tonight at the cafe: Macaroni Bar. To the boy: a yummy plate of noodles, beef and melted cheese. To me: 2 pounds tomorrow morning. But until I’m skinny enough and healthy enough that my asthma stops trying to kill me every time I walk too fast up the stairs, I can’t go run 7 miles to burn off those that huge fattening dinner I ate. And with my leg continually acting up, just walking is becoming almost impossible.

So there I am forced to eat the same tasteless food night after night - and then he just can’t imagine why I’m so miserable. I don’t have the money to go out and buy 7 Healthy Choice meals so that I have a different dinner every night. And frankly eating JUST those kinds of food all the time isn’t healthy. So its off to the cafe with me where I end up having to get something I really don’t like because its the only damn thing in the whole place that you don’t “build” yourself and thus is the only thing that has accurate nutrition information on it.

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Weight: 252.5

Edit (7:59PM): … I don’t want to talk about it.

So today I kinda caved and ate my first not really safe food - movie theater popcorn (we went to see The Uninvited, it was stupid). At least I managed to only eat half of it (and saved the other half for a later date) and didn’t get butter on it. The woman behind the counter (who knows the boy and I quite well) was shocked. Since normally for me its a large popcorn with extra butter and cherry coke, and today I was getting a small popcorn with NO butter and a bottle of water.

I had some trouble determining quite what the calorie content would be, so I ended up just going with the highest value I found: 600cal for a small. So 1/2 of that is 300. I’m probably over-estimating, but -shrug- it still gives me something I can print out and take into my doctor on the 10th. Plus, we made it a bit better by walking to the theater and back (about 30min each way).

As you can see, I ate more “snack” today than anything. And I still didn’t hit 1200 calories. This next week I’m going to be focusing on 1) Eating breakfast and not sleeping through it, 2) Getting exercise every day, and 3) Making sure I eat enough, but that most of the calories are made up by my MEALS and not snacks.

- - - - -

Breakfast: 0 Calories
Slept through

Lunch: 160 Calories
Healthy Choice Chicken & Rice (90)
Wheat Thins (70)

Dinner: 390 Calories
Honey Glazed Turkey Breast (220)
Twice Baked Potato (120)
Mixed Veggies (50)

Snacks: 610 Calories
1/2 Sm Movie Popcorn (300)
Pretzels & Cheese (310)

Total: 1160

Exercise: 1 hr
Walking to/from theater (1hr)

Tonight was senior dinner at my college. I can’t believe graduation is so close. It’s kinda depressing since I look back at me freshman year and think about all the changes I wanted to make in my life, and all the weight I wanted to lose, and yet I haven’t accomplished any of it…

- - - - -

Weight: 253

Breakfast: 0 Calories
Slept Through

Lunch: 300 Calories
Lean Cuisine Mac & Cheese (290)
Crystal Lite (10)

Dinner: 770 Calories
Italian Salad w/ Breadstick (290)
Top Round Beef (280)
Cheddar Potatoes (160)
Broccoli & Carrots (40)
Water (0)

Snack: 150 Calories
Chips & Salsa (150)

Total: 1220

I got my boat load of blood work done today so that the doctor can recheck all of my hormone levels and determine whether or not it is safe for her to put me back on Glucophage (Metformin). They took 5 vials of blood, and let me tell you, by that 5th vial I was pretty much ready to die. I usually don’t have a problem with getting blood drawn (for tests - I do have problems with donating blood) but today was just crap.

I’m also really feeling the effect of not having any caffeine. This is Day 5 of no caffeinated beverages and my head is throbbing. There’s not much I can do about it though except just keep taking Ibuprofen or Tylenol whenever I can to stop the head aches.

It makes me wonder how long it takes before the “you feel so much better when you eat healthier” part kicks in. Because I’ve been eating much healthier than I used to, and yet I feel worse. I know it’s just my body adjusting to this way of eating, but still - it sucks.

I’m posting this now in hopes that I won’t eat anything else. The boy is gone until tomorrow afternoon, and I’m always horribly bored when he’s not around. Boredom is my biggest enemy when trying to eat right, because in the past, when I was bored I ate. I’d just eat junk food and not stop until I found a way to not be bored. But I bought myself a couple movies, and ate an extra snack (I could have chosen better, but my calories are still low today) so hopefully I can avoid the 12am eating.

I know calories are low again, but tonight I’m chalking it up to the fact that I know I’m having a big dinner tomorrow night (my college’s Senior Dinner), so I took it a bit easier today.

- - - - -

Weight: 253

Breakfast: 205 Calories
“Hollywood Snack” (195)
[apples, grapes, honey wheat pretzels, cheddar cheese]
Fuze Tropical Punch Slenderize (10)

Lunch: 290 Calories
Lean Pocket (280)
Crystal Lite (10)

Dinner: 295 Calories
Healthy Choice Turkey Meal (190)
Peanut Butter Oat Ball (95)
Crystal Lite (10)

Snacks: 200 Calories
SmartFood 100 Cal Pack x2 (200)

Total: 990

So my leg hasn’t been hurting all that much today, but we still didn’t do our walking. Just wanted to make sure whatever is wrong is really gone before I get in the middle of down town and realize I can’t walk anymore. If I don’t have any more problems today, we’ll probably do the walk thing tomorrow morning.

Tonight was pretty nice - went out with the boy and his roommate. Boy had to go to Macy’s and pick up the suit he was having altered and his roommate just rode along with us. We ended up stopping at Uno Chicago Bar for dinner. I was a bit depressed since there are SO many things on that menu that looked good and I really would have liked to get (I’m a sucker for appetizers). But in the end I’m proud to say I had water instead of soda, and got a Chicken Caesar Salad which I ate all of (but didn’t eat the breadstick.. Go me!). I just hate going out to eat because:

1. No immediate nutrition values for deciding what to eat (thankfully Uno had theirs online)
2. I hate looking at the menus and seeing all the stuff that I used to enjoy eating and that I know I really shouldn’t be eating now. Makes me sad.

But I made it through dinner, actually got something I LIKE to eat, and I’m proud of myself.

- - - - -

Weight: 255

Breakfast: 270Calories
Special K w/ Milk (180)
Special K Cereal Bar (90)

Lunch: 380 Calories
Lean Pocket (280)
Banana (90)
Crystal Lite (10)

Dinner: 580 Calories
Chicken Caesar Salad from Uno (580)
Water (0)

Snacks: 100 Calories
SmartFood White Cheddar 100 Cal Pack (100)

Total: 1330

Today has just been utter crap. My feeling sick finally caught up with me and I ended up barely waking up in time for my first class today (which isn’t until NOON). Thus, I didn’t get breakfast, and seeing now that my daily calories didn’t even reach 700, that’s NOT good. I know I need to eat more than that, but I just can’t bring myself to do it because I feel like shit.

I almost ate even less since tonight the boy and I got into an argument during dinner over my eating habits. We were at the cafeteria, and I almost ended up having a panic attack. I don’t know - it was all the people, and all the food, and his not understanding why I have such a problem with food, and just everything. I ended up leaving without eating anything, but I did eventually eat back in my room.

I’m really afraid that this calorie counting is leading me back into my bad food habits. Years ago, I spent an entire summer freaking out if I went over 500 calories a day (again, not good, I know), and now that I’m counting them again, I feel myself leaning more and more back towards that. But the end result of that was I couldn’t eat hardly anything since I was so paranoid about gaining weight. I’m already starting to experience those mini freak-outs (see above paragraph) and I am honestly scared. But I know I have to push through it, since my weight IS and issue, and I need to lose it the healthy way.

Generally I only eat snacks at night, but today before dinner I half of a Buttered Popcorn Quaker Mini Delights package (the whole package is only 90 cal) and they were pretty good. I also finally tried the 100 Calorie Pack of Smart Food popcorn (white cheddar) and it is soooo good. It’s the only 100 Calorie Pack that I’ve had so far which tastes EXACTLY like the original kind. But I assume that its because it’s easier to scale the portion of popcorn than say Doritos.

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Weight: 255

Breakfast: 0 Calories
Slept Through

Lunch: 190 Calories
Hamburger Helper Single (180)
Crystal Lite Lemonade (10)

Dinner: 350 Calories
Healthy Choice Cheesy Chicken & Rice Meal (220)
Lemon-Lime Gatorade (130)

Snacks: 145 Calories
Quaker Mini Delights (45)
Smartfood 100 Cal Pack (100)

Total: 685 Calories

Counting calories is hard when you live at a college and 90% of your meals are eaten in a cafeteria / quick food sort of place. Our main cafeteria DOES post the nutritional values of the food they’re serving at the lines, but it’s in tiny print and standing there until you can read it all is practically unheard of (unless its a line where each plate is cooked individually). So I’ve been kinda stressing out over it because I’m afraid I’m underestimating or overestimating calories.

But today the boyfriend took pity on me and forced me to go to the grocery store with him. He bought me a lot of food that I can cook here (Healthy Choice meals, soups, etc) and have the nutrition info right at my fingertips. I have to pay him back for it all of course, but it’s nice to finally have some food here that I don’t have to hunt for a half hour to estimate how bad it is for you. I also got some of that “Hunger Satisfaction” Crystal Lite. It’s the mix you put in water, but it has fiber and (I think) protein in it to help you battle hunger cravings. We’ll see how that works.

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Weight: 257

Breakfast: 90 Calories
Special K (60)
Milk (30)

Lunch: 280 Calories
Granola Bars (180)
Yogurt (100)
Water (0)

Dinner: 774 Calories
6″ Turkey & Cheese Sub (514)
Chips (260)
Flavored Water (0)

Snack: 130 Calories
Chips & Salsa (130)
Water (0)

Exercise
Walking (1hr)

Total: 1274 Calories

Today started out spectacularly bad when I woke up a full hour before I needed to and then couldn’t get back to sleep. That, coupled with the hour long walk in the body-numbing cold and wind, and I’m really not a happy Whitters today. But hopefully the bad start won’t cause me to mess up for the rest of the day. It’d really suck if I failed on Day #1. I’m posting this now in an effort to not let myself eat anything else. I may have drinks, but they’ll just be water.

Weight: Didn’t weigh-in this morning because I forgot, but the last time I was on a scale it said 258 [die]

Breakfast: 508 Calories

• Scrambled Eggs w/ Ketchup (130)
• Tots (140)
• Sausage (60)
• Apple (55)
• Milk (123)

Lunch: 280 Calories

• Granola Bars (180)
• Yogurt (100)
• Water (0)

Dinner: 620 Calories

• Hot Dog (150)
• Popcorn Chicken Salad w/ Ranch (470)
• Flavored Water (0)

Snacks:  210 Calories

• Peanut Butter Oat Ball (95)
• Red Cat [wine] (105)
• Crystal Lite Lemonade (10)

Total: 1523 Calories

Exercise:

• Walking (1hr)