Round

Yesterday I saw somewhere a weight-loss quote that I found so profound I have not stopped thinking about it.   I didn’t write down the source for it, so apologies if it’s anyone’s personal effort here going unattributed.

Being Fat is Hard.  Maintenance is Hard.  Dieting is Hard.  Pick your Hard.

This hit me in the gut.  I’m choosing Dieting - the Being Fat part was way too awful this time.  And I’ve done Maintenance before — it’s hard, but not nearly as hard as Being Fat or Dieting.  Can’t wait for that to be my Hard.

Well, my daily planning sheets pulled a success story today. I knew tonight could be challenging as I’d invited a few of my employees over to coach them on a huge presentation they have next week (they are very junior, it’s their first presentation of this kind, to my boss’s boss). They were so grateful I offered them my evening that they insisted on bringing dinner - pizza. When planning my day I realized that I had better get in a decent-sized healthy snack, because a hungry girl around pizza is not usually a diet success.

I wasn’t even that hungry for a snack but had a bunch of cherry tomatoes while working on something and then ate the yogurt anyway to be stronger for later.

What I didn’t expect was to eat McDonald’s in France. I have not eaten at McDonald’s in 4 years - well, even more, because I didn’t even eat at McDonalds when I lived in the US. It’s probably been 7 or 8 years since I’ve eaten under the golden arches.

I was with a different employee today and we were looking for a place we could work in peace and quiet (we usually pick hotels or sometimes restaurants) and he said “oh, we should go to McDonald’s”. …okay. He was right - free wifi, plugs for the computers, lots of space, very few people in the morning. We worked really well there, but of course the lunch rush started and we were getting hungry but still had another 2 hours of work to do… what were we going to do, go somewhere else for lunch? No, we ate McDonald’s. He of course “supersized” it and knew the menu pretty well (he’s 25 and has no weight issues, no problem). I however took 15 minutes to decide finally choosing a burger that looked like it was a “high quality” one on a good bun etc. No sauce on the thing (although one slice of cheese) and I added some ketchup. No fries, I had the salad, and Perrier. I just looked up on the website and I was duped - the burger I chose was one of the highest calorie ones on the menu even though it looked really plain (although I wonder if the calorie count is w the sauce that I didn’t have?). I did leave 3/4 of one of the buns, and overall the calories are fine (especially since I’m not officially counting them!) but still… McDonald’s is not the best diet choice. I would have been better off w 6 pieces of McNuggets if I could have stomached the processed-particle taste. Back in my McDonald’s days I did like those things.

All in all, I did well at McDonald’s and also saw no reason to go back.

And the pizza? No problem there either - I put out a HUGE platter of raw veggies (since we were all girls) and some chips that I don’t like. I ate more than my share of the veggies but restrained myself on the pizza, having 2 plain cheese slices. I was smart enough to put the remaining pizza directly in the outside trash bin, because half an hour after they left I found myself opening cupboards and the fridge looking around. I just brushed my teeth and went to bed, but if that leftover pizza had been lurking I might not have resisted.

So, two challenging situations handled with flying colors!

I try to think of my weight loss efforts a week at a time.

And I try to focus on changing my behavior in ways that will make me healthier and ways that should eventually pay off at the scale. Unfortunately, our bodies don’t always cooperate by losing in a straight line, and sometimes a few bad days won’t register any change on the scale… My approach is about putting the scale in perspective — as only a piece of the information I use to assess how I’m doing.

So each week before I weigh in (and usually the night before), I review my week. What I ate, how I exercised, did I keep up my motivation, etc. The progress made on goals if I had any. I congratulate myself with ies when I did well, and I look for how I could have done something different when I made poor choices - especially in situations that could repeat themselves.

That assessment of how I did becomes the REAL valuable information for the week. I then know, with certainty, how well I’ve done and what I need to work on. The scale becomes only a small, secondary piece of info. If I lose and I know my week was full of errors, I don’t get too excited, and if my week was great but the scale doesn’t move I know the scale will catch up w my good behavior down the road and I don’t take it too seriously. I cannot overstate the importance this has had for me, as I’m usually a slow loser with many plateaus, and if I were to just go by the scale I might just give up in frustration. Focusing on what I am doing - not what the scale is saying - keeps ME in control, and the motivation high.

At the same time I also think through the week ahead - what days or meals will be challenging, how will I deal with them, etc. What things can I work on to stay motivated, eating well or exercising regularly? What days and when can I plan to exercise? I try to keep my goals for improvement to no more than 5, and I generally keep the goals in place until I’m pretty sure they’ve become habit and I can keep that going easily and add something else in.

I used to do this in a spiral notebook back in the day when I lost from 250 to 167 — I did it for about 2 years almost never missing a week. I’ve come back to it at some point on almost every serious weight loss attempt I’ve made since then, and seeing it come back these past couple of weeks has been really encouraging, as for me it’s a sign that I’m serious about this and that I’ve accepted to be in this routine for the long haul.

By popular demand, I am posting my recipe for Cherry Clafoutis.

A clafoutis is a French fruit dessert over which a flan-like preparation is poured, then the whole thing is baked. I’ve seen clafoutis described as mid-way between a crepe and a custard. The classic version is cherry (which is what I made) but nowadays they are made with almost any fruit. I am actually excited to try some others (apricot, raspberry, apple), but I will try not to go on a clafoutis binge at the same time I’m dieting… so other flavors will have to wait.

I will not call this dieter’s food, but it is actually not-so-bad calorie-wise for a dessert, and if you just have veggies and soup for dinner the egg can stand in for protein and you’ll have the calories to allocate… (hmmm - do I sound like I’m justifying my eating for the past 2 nights?)

I calculated the whole recipe the way I made it as 1110 calories using an online recipe-calculating site. Note that this is with my modifications - I did not add more sugar on top of the berries (saving 1/3 cup sugar, but mainly because I often find fruit desserts too sugared), and I also cut out the powdered sugar on top and the butter for the pan (I used silicone). Obviously if you use all the sugar called for and the butter you’ll up the counts.

The recipe is marked at 6-8 servings and from the way I cut the first piece I was closer to 6, but I had extra stuff and actually made a small clafoutis on the side which is what I counted as number 7. So for my 7 servings it comes out to 160 cals per serving. Not bad at all! Totally do-able on most diet plans, although for me it still needs to be planned in.

For the real foodies out there, there are plenty of recipes out there that use melted butter, or cream instead of milk, more eggs, lots more sugar, etc. But most of the French recipes I found are very close to this one, and I figured I was safe trying Julia Child’s technique for my first go. One thing — it’s VERY easy to make.

I found this recipe online, by the way, on a foodie blog :

Julia Child’s Clafouti
serves 6-8 for

1 1/4 cups milk
1/3 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 Tablespoon vanilla
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup flour
3 cups cherries, pitted (the French recipe books all said to leave the pits in, so that’s what I did)

1/3 cup sugar
powdered sugar

1. Preheat oven to 350 F or 180 C.
2. In a blender blend the milk, sugar, eggs, vanilla, salt and flour.
3. Pour a 1/4 inch layer of the batter in a buttered 7 or 8 cup lightly buttered fireproof baking dish. Place in the oven until a film of batter sets in the pan.
4. Remove from the heat and spread the cherries over the batter. Sprinkle on the 1/3 cup of sugar. (THIS SUGAR I OMITTED)
5. Pour on the rest of the batter until the tops of the cherries are just poking through (With the remaining batter you can throw away or make another small clafoutis).
6. Bake at 350 degrees for about for about 45 minutes to an hour. The clafouti is done when puffed and brown and and a knife plunged in the center comes out clean.
7. Sprinkle with powdered sugar (DIDN’T DO), serve warm.

How about sharing a dessert recipe that you can eat when you’re dieting?

I reviewed last week and it was really good.

I did great at my 2 day meeting, which was NOT an easy task. I went on to have a good week, preparing lots of healthy stuff, and not letting a stomach bug be an excuse to overeat when I felt better. I managed to stay on track this weekend, which I think is the first time I’ve done well on a weekend since I started back.

These are the goals I set for myself for the week, along with how I did :

1. Create daily intentions and keep it in mind all day : took me a few days to get to this, but I did it on Thursday and have used it since
2. Consistently make good food choices : yes!
3. Keep daily track of the number of fruit & veggie servings : I did - my average was 10 servings a day!
4. Be careful with cheese : I was. Had cheese 2x, but both times is was AS the protein at dinner, not in addition to…
5. A four-day challenge : use my daily diet planning sheets TWICE a day to see what that double-dose adds : this has been hard, I did better than the previous week, but still have a ways to go.

Still to be addressed is exercise - I’m going to start thinking about my resistance to it, because it is multi-factorial and I need to understand the whys to get to the solutions. I had every opportunity to go walk on both Sat or Sunday yet I didn’t.

The scale rewarded me with a nice 3-pound loss (which includes the PMS bloat that drove me +1 the previous week). All in all, I’m down 8 pounds in 5 weeks, and while I still have a long ways to go, the number of pounds lost is starting to feel meaningful. I’m still in the Fat Clothes and will be until I’m at least 10 pounds lighter than right now, but at least I’m not busting out of the Fat Clothes anymore.

My goals for this week will be :

So, what are my goals for this week? Mainly I’m staying the same, switching out one, since my challenge w cheese is mainly when my DH is around (and he’s gone this week!)

1. Create daily intentions and keep it in mind all day
2. Consistently make good food choices
3. Keep daily track of the number of fruit & veggie servings
4. Investigate your resistance to exercise. Make yourself a deadline to try the public pool and a date by which you will either be in a new plan or re-join the gym.
5. A four-day challenge : use my daily diet planning sheets TWICE a day to see what that double-dose adds

I have very good intentions for this week - I have a ton of work to get done, and I have the house to myself. My DH is traveling for a week, so I figured this is a good opportunity to have a really focused week. (Both for work and for food).

I went a bit nuts at the market - hope I don’t let too much spoil.

I cleaned and prepped the radishes (two bunches!) and a big thing of celery.

I made a killer vegetable soup with eggplant, tomatoes, celery, carrots, red cabbage, onions, zucchini and a bit of red pepper.

I have a huge bag of spinach, which I plan to sautee very simply with spring onions.

I have 3 turkey breast filets to cook up tonight to serve as my protein for the week.

My plan is basically to eat soup and turkey all week, rounded out w some extra veggies (still have leftover roasted broccoli, carrots and green beans). And we have a massive - MASSIVE - pile of cherry tomatoes.

Writing it down I’m not sure it’s humanly possible to eat all this in the 6 nights ahead of me - but it’ll be good for me to try! Unfortunately I don’t have any days for lunch at home, that could help make a dent in all this…

It helps being able to fill the fridge to the gills with food that’s all for me. And not needing to worry about making things everyone will like or with enough meat is another help in healthy eating.

I did make a cherry clafoutis that was supposed to be to share w my DH before he left, but the time got away from me and I didn’t get it done in time for him to have it - so it’s all for me. No worries though, I just calculated the total calories in the recipe and the WHOLE THING only has 1100 cals - so spread out over several meals it’s quite reasonable. Was a breeze to whip up and looks really good too!

I had a weird day yesterday - got a stomach bug or ate something that was off (don’t know which) and got sick after 4 bites of lunch (in the restaurant bathroom) and ate very little for the rest of the day (had bread and butter at dinner, and some apple).

Today I’m feeling better but no strong appetite either - I am almost never sick to my stomach and hate throwing up, so I’m quite keen to avoid going back to that…

Since I don’t have a clever idea for a post today, I thought I’d just list what I ate :

Breakfast : at home

• Special K red berries cereal w milk
• 1/2 cup of kiwi smoothie (wasn’t good, I threw it out…)
• Tea w milk (x2)

Lunch : restaurant w colleagues

• Salad w open-faced curry chicken sandwich. Salad was mainly lettuce, a few slices of tomatoes, a bit of dressing (not much), a tablespoon or two of corn. Sandwich was on pain de campagne drizzled w olive oil, chicken curry stuff was made w mayo or cream - but there wasn’t much of it (3 oz max).

Snack : home - raided the fridge veggie leftovers…

• roasted curried cauliflower - about 2 cups of it
• roasted beets - less than 1 cup

Dinner : at home - instead of a “real” dinner we raided the fridge of leftovers and cheese…

• Piece of French bread w goat cheese
• 2/3 cup of leftover veal paprikash
• loads of raw veggies - cherry tomatoes, radish, celery
• yogurt curry dip
• 2/3 of a strawberry tart. My DH came home w three desserts from a local bakery and wanted to share them all (this is a frequent pattern). I asked if I could have the strawberry one. This was a bit of a stress point for him, but I gave him 1/3 that way he got to taste it too, and I didn’t eat nearly as much as I would have otherwise (a dessert and a half…).

Total fruit and veg count for the day : 11

I am liking my life right now. I am liking that I feel like I’m back in control, that I can make good choices, that I feel healthier and that I will eventually lose weight again.

I’ve just spent about 2 hours in the kitchen cooking. I have work to do tonight but knew I also had some time I could spend doing a number of different things… I could have gone for a walk, but I didn’t. I bought a ton of vegetables at the market this weekend, and was pretty anxious to make some veggie dishes that I can eat for snacks or with meals. I was feeling like listening to some podcasts and doing something somewhat creative and so I attacked the kitchen.

I really enjoyed the process of thinking of ideas for the beets, the cauliflower and the veal my DH had brought home yesterday from the butcher. Veal? Why? Well, his answer was that “chicken breast or turkey breast are just too sad”. Was it for him? No. He was responding to the request I made for him to pick up some chicken so I could have some good protein tonight (since he’s working late). He finds chicken breasts a diet choice on par with plain iceberg lettuce leaves, but I actually love chicken (and don’t eat it nearly as often since we’ve been together!).

So I find myself w the challenge of making something with veal. It turns out it’s like a veal steak - no visible fat, no visible marbling, pretty much the same thing as a chicken breast. I found a recipe for veal paprikash which sounded good, and cut up an onion, a red pepper and threw in most of a can of tomatoes along w the cubed veal steak. I swirled in a few spoonfuls of ricotta along w two tablespoons of paprika - it was GREAT (I ate it over spaghetti squash)!

I also have roasted maple beets and roasted curried cauliflower in the fridge for the rest of the week, along w the leftover veal paprikash.

Choices at lunch were easier today (a Chinese buffet, where I took no rice or noodles, and had small portions). I had muesli for breakfast and a smoothie as a snack. Coupled with the temptation-laden meetings on Monday and Tuesday, I’ve made really good choices and it hasn’t been hard - this is the first week since I’ve been back on track that the good choices have been natural and easy. Nothing is off limits - last night I had a small piece of bread and butter, and I’ve been nursing a lollipop all week as I read my book to get the sugar / desire to eat thing met without damage or deprivation.

I’m starting to see that exercise will be coming into the picture too, although it’s not currently the case. It took me several weeks (months?) of preparation to get ready to go back to dieting, and it’s worked out well, so I’m trusting myself that exercise will follow a similar low-stress path to find it’s way back into my life.

I am so SO happy to be able to share that I’m at peace and happy being back on track right now.

I heard an interesting comment the other day - when we take a wrong turn, we don’t go in the right direction with just one turn in the good direction - it takes two right turns to get back to where we were.  With one we are facing the correct way, but with two you are back at the same longitude…

I found the thought to be really helpful.  I’ve been on this weight loss road so long that I’ve learned to roll w the punches and not beat myself up too much when I step off the path of the straight and narrow — forgive and move on.   I don’t believe in “punishing” a mis-step either, however to have in mind that I need to be “good” not once, but TWICE  after a misstep makes sense to me…

I’m currently in a meeting in Brussels where the offerings are more challenging than usual, and the meeting hours pretty brutal, so if I follow this advice I guess I’ll be needing to make “right” turns for the rest of the week to get back to the good place - but we’ll just take each day as it comes and do the best we can.

Just to perk myself up a bit, I listed all the temptations of yesterday afternoon that I did NOT eat : potato salad, pasta salad, leftover sandwiches from lunch, plates of cookies, plates of chocoloates, waffles, eclaires and napoleons, Coke, orange juice, apple juice, croissants. 

I practiced feeling hungry and drank glass after glass of water, and made about 6 cups of tea too.  We went from 12:00 lunch  break until ending the meeting at 7:30pm with all that stuff in the room, and other than lunch I ate just a banana…  Dinner at 9:00 pm I couldn’t resist the bread (whole wheat) but did order well and eat reasonably. 

I am going back to using a formula that worked for me for a long time several years ago : writing up a plan for the week with a limited number of goals for the week.  Next week I’ll check in on how I did on these and setting new goals.  The idea is that something stays a goal until it becomes easy, then it can be replaced w something else.  Baby steps meets accomplishments!

So, what are my goals for this week?

1. Create daily intentions and keep it in mind all day
2. Consistently make good food choices
3. Keep daily track of the number of fruit & veggie servings
4. Be careful with cheese
5. A four-day challenge : use my daily diet planning sheets TWICE a day to see what that double-dose adds

I have some ideas for future goals, including starting in on exercise w a 15-min a day goal for 3 days a week, and setting a standard wake-up time of 6:30am so I can find time to do it.  Currently my wake up time changes each day depending on my schedule, but I’m wondering if I’d be helped having more consistency in wake-ups where some days of the week I’d have a few extra minutes, other days I won’t.   For now, it’s just an idea brewing…

This week has one two-day meeting in Brussels, so less control of food for those 2 days, and 3 normal but busy work days.  Our weekend for the moment looks blissfully free of major committments, so I’m hoping to be able to really focus.  The fridge is stocked, the celery and radishes already cut up, a few healthy leftovers are available for a quick dinner, and enough other veggies to challenge my creativity in the kitchen. 

My weigh-in this morning showed the scale +1, which wasn’t a huge surprise nor disappointment, as last week’s -4 seemed surprising.  I’ve also got some major bloating going on (in part due to the carb-fest at yesterday’s brunch) so it was no surprise to be up one pound, and it was in fact a good signal to me.  If I want to lose without exercising I need to be really careful with my diet, not just ‘pretty careful’ as I have been this past week.