Is this time different?

When I read about those of you who have been dieting for more than a year and have lost so much weight, I deeply admire you. To me what you have done is unbelievable, unattainable.

I had not been able to control my eating in this way since what? Ten, twelve years ago? Having been on plan for two weeks sounds like heaven. I had lunch at a restaurant today and I ordered steak and a tomato salad, no dessert. Last year I would have ordered ravioli and icecream… In the evening I will go to the cinema, and I have already announced I don’t want any popcorn. In the past I bought some because I thought people insisted on my eating, but no, they don’t! When I said I am not going to buy pop corn they just went “OK, I will.” No preassure to eat pasta, no preassure to eat pop corn… It is easier than I thought!

I keep eating low carbs and not eating when not hungry, but this afternoon I started to miss cakes and stuff. As soon as I understoon I was “in danger” I started asking myself what feeling I was bottling up, and I concluded it was about frustration and feelings of inadequacy again. I know my limitations, and as I hold a very high position at my job with resposibilities which are difficult to meet –so far, I have had no problems, but the stress is there–, and my home depends on me too, so though I never complain much, all the preassure must somehow blow up, right?
But… I did not eat anything that is out of the list of “allowed food”, and now face a calm evening. That does make me proud, but is also a sign of warning: when my holidays are over and resposibilities start to stress me out, will I be strong enough not to resort to food as I used to do? Keep with me till next month and you’ll know!

I lost another kilo in this past week, and my boat is heading in the right direction!

I am starting to think I will get to that beach, after all, and that this time it is different.

Thanks sunnydayz for dropping by and being always so supportive. Now that my supervisors are reading my thesis and I cannot work on it, I fell much better. I am starting to think that writing it and working full time was really stressful, and partly responsible for my emotional eating. I have been working on research since 1999, and need a break!

Today I ate salads and lean ham; one of those salads was one of my favourites: arugula and pear. I love that combination. Tomorrow is scale day, and I think will be able to discount two pounds! Wonderful!  And on Sunday it will be two weeks without eating sugar or bingeing (for New Year I ate sweets). I had not been able to do that since last century. The few times I lost weight in the past it was because I was under emotional stress and could not swallow. Now that I am doing it because I can control my eating, I feel really empowered, and all of you people who read this and comment –or not– are part of this success, so thanks a lot for that!

On Suday, as a reward for my first two weeks, I will be wearing new undies I got for Christmas and have not started wearing yet. For the second fifteen days, I have a new nightgown to start wearing –late birthday present from a friend–, and for the third, the matching robe –this I bought myself when I saw it in a shop window and noticed the perfect match. I am keeping those items as rewards… Isn’t that a good idea?

Tomorrow I will tell you what the scale says!

Hi everyone! Thanks for your supporting messages… I am feeling much better now, and that was because I decided to think that this phase in the writing of my thesis is somehow the first “serious” phase, because now we start to debate ideas and method, and not the writing, or the sample, etc. Those who have gone through this, know what I mean. In my country many of us do our PhD’s without a scholarship, which means we do our graduate courses and the writing of the thesis WHILE WORKING FULL TIME. Imagine what these years have been like! But well, this is the last year, so by Feb 2013 you will have to call Doc!

What is good about this is that I did not leave the diet at all: Lots of vegetables, lean meats, skim yoghurt… In spite of this setback, I did not resort to food, but confronted the feelings of frustration, anger, weariness… I was never this “connected” to myself like these days, and I have to attribute this to the fact that I am not muffling my feelings with carbs. I miss carbs for sure, since I am not that stupid to think that chewing carrots is as nice as chewing chocolate, but I am starting to notice changes in my body –I am less bloated, sleep soundly, my face looks better– , so I prefer to be thin on carrots than fat on chocolate.

Today my thesis supervisor told me that probably it would take me another year to get my graduate degree. I have worked on my thesis for several years, but she is not sure the text is ready yet. In the field of the Humanities it takes ages to write a thesis, and in my country supervisors are especially tough. I thoght I would graduate this year, so imagine my frustration when she suggested I had to go on working on a text I wrote so, so many times!

I tried not to dispair. I took a shower –far more than 100°F today–, I watched my favorite show, and very slowly frustration started to fade. It is a hard blow, but not the first nor the last I will get, right? Now I am feeling better, but still, I find it hard to accept and feel terribly inadequate. But you know what? I am not thinking about food. Or, rather, I think about it as a possibility, but at the same time discard it because I know it will make me feel worse and not better. Hope this mood continues and I don’t binge!

Funny, should I tag this Achievement or Failure? haha!

I don’t know whether to tag this as Achievement or as Discoveries, because it’s both!

As I was getting ready to grill by dinner steak, I caught a glimpse of the bag of buns I had bought for my son a couple of days ago.  I had bought ten, as usual, and there were seven in the bag. So I asked him if there was anything wrong with them, because when I buy them they don’t see the following day… And he said there was nothing wrong: he had eaten his usual three buns, and he didn’t know why there were still seven in the bag.

I know: I would have eaten the other seven, which this time I did not. So, I froze the buns and now, when he wants his sandwiches, he will have to defrost them. But… Seven buns!

Today was a strange day: I ate little because I had not bought what I needed to eat well.  I started to feel my legs lighter!

Not going to the market these days made it easier for me to stick to healthy food, since that is what I had at home. But guess what! I ran out of healthy food but for steak, and as it is Sunday and on Sunday I am lazier than other days, I did not grill steak for lunch but just had a banana and some olives.  Too little, of course.  The consequence is that I am two hours from dinner, quite hungry, and don’t want to eat steak when others are having tea. I deserve the scolding and the hunger. Should have cooked lunch and now I would not be hungry! But well, another lesson learned: don’t wait till your fridge looks like the Antarctic plains to refill it with low-carb low-fat food.

Anyway, I am sticking to the plan, not going for other food the is sitting there and that I shouldn’t eat. I have a scrap of will power left which I may still resort to! But I wonder: How much weight have I put on just because I am lazy at the kitchen or at the moment of going to the gym?

When I was little I was always told to eat everything on my plate, because food was expensive and there were children who had nothing to eat. My grandparents had been immigrants and had a hard time when they arrived in the country, so my parents were brought up to value everything we had. And I ate everything, and even asked for a second serving –such a good girl!
Later in life I learnt a little etiquette: it is better to leave a morsel untouched, just that one morsel, to show that you had not devoured your dish but just eaten it. I thought that leaving one morsel would need self-control and it did, but it was not difficult for me to do it.
In neither of the two cases did I ever think of stopping when I was not hungry any more. The limit to my eating was set by others and not by an internal ENOUGH button that would go red in my brain and signal the moment when I had to put down the knife and the fork till I got hungry again.
What I have noticed these days is that the button is there, and that it turns red at a certain point; I had never looked that way, or if I had, I had not acknowledged its importance.
Yesterday and today I left food on my plate, and quite a lot. I knew it was enough, and I knew nothing would happen to me if I stopped eating. So I did, and I am still alive and nobody told me off for not eating the whole thing.
I never thought I could do that.
So that is today’s discovery and today’s achievement: I ordered a vegetable dish at a restaurant, and I ate a little more than half and left the rest. Not hungry anymore, thanks.
I know I would not have been able to say that to carbs, though. Maybe the ENOUGH CARBS button in my head does not work. In any case, I have no intention to find out!

Though the scale was not so flattering today, other things were: after a week of not trying any refined carbs or sugar, not only did I say no to ice-cream, but also to the buns I bought for my son (my sun), which I get at a wonderful bakery and make great sandwiches. He ate the sandwitches, and I just ate ham, cheese, olives and almonds. To compensate, for supper I plan to have only vegetables. It was nice to share a meal with him and eat that which I know won’t make me go back to my old (?) me. Is it already an old me? I know that if I eat carbs at this stage, I may change into Supercarbeater and start to do “wonders” again: I would start to think of food all the time, to graze, to binge, to lie about what or when I ate, and to put on weight again. Eating as I am eating now I feel a normal person.
At lunch I discovered I had completely forgotten how delicious olives can be. My tastebuds are definitely starting to like other flavours… I noticed it at that bakery store, where the display of cookies and cakes and flavoured buns was amazing –I just bought the buns and left, not missing anything. In my country bakery stuff is very good –we have great wheat and dairy products– but I just felt those foods were part of my past.
I walked around 10 miles this morning, so I am a little tired, but feel a sense of achievment for a whole week of regular exercise. Got many comments on the blog, so thanks to all! I will be visiting yours soon!