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Update

amy May 2nd, 2007

It’s been quite awhile since I’ve updated. I did this blog hardcore for about a month, then realized I didn’t want to do it any more because it was turning into too much of a chore and made me too focused on food and my eating issues. I believe I have an eating disorder, and spending a great deal of my time reading, thinking, and writing about weight loss and food issues hasn’t been a healthy thing for me.

This blog has still been helpful, though, because it’s helped me realized that I want to live life fully now instead of feeling like I have to lose weight first to deserve it. I’m mostly working on having fun and feeling good instead of losing weight, and I can say that I’ve been genuinely happy for the first time in a long while. I’ve started a new dance class, Jason and I just bought bikes and a trailer for James so we can go on weekend rides, I’ve been playing a lot of DDR recently because I want to, not because I feel like I have to, and I bought my first gun for target shooting a couple of days ago. This is the first time in awhile that I’ve thought about something other than food or dieting most of the time.

I’m still working on my food issues but I’ve given up dieting. I’m currently reading Breaking Free From Emotional Eating by Geneen Roth. It is about feeling good about yourself, trusting your body and learning to listen to its natural hunger and satiety signals, and being conscious about and truly enjoying the experience of eating. A lot of her suggestions are ones I have come across before but never actually tried, because they seemed like too big of a step outside of my comfort zone. She has a way of explaining the emotions and psychology behind emotional eating so that, when she explains why you should sit down at a table and eat slowly without distractions like the TV, it really makes sense and motivates me to try her suggestions. So much of her book directly applies to my own experiences, I almost feel like she has written it just for me.

I may update this site again at some point, but for now I am focusing my energy on other things. For those who have read my blog, thank you very much for all of your support!

Stress and Binging

amy April 11th, 2007

Yesterday was rough. I picked my son up from daycare and took him to the doctor’s office late in the morning because of a cough. He has a sinus infection, so I had to stay home with him for the rest of the day while the antibiotics kicked in. Between trying to work from home and dealing with a very fussy toddler, who did not seem to be happy with anything I tried, I was very stressed out. I had also forgotten to take my Lexapro for the last few days (I have postpartum depression), which certainly did not help either.

Unfortunately my gut reaction to stress is to binge, so I gorged myself on Easter chocolate, some leftover chicken and stuffing, a large McDonald’s fries when I took James for a drive to calm him down, and finished it off with Taco Bell for dinner. I am pretty certain (and I have suspected for a long time) that I have binge eating disorder, but like many things in my life I have ignored it instead of getting help (more about this later). I finished the day by crashing on the couch at 7:30 and falling asleep.

Fortunately I’m well rested today and feel like I am back in control. I don’t feel guilty about binging. I know that it’s my natural response to stress and strong emotions, and that I’ve been conditioned to binge instead of respond in a more productive way. In the past I would be beating myself up and eating badly today as well, so I guess that’s an improvement. I just need to work on establishing alternative outputs for my frustration. Going for a walk helps, but there are situations when I can’t do that (yesterday I left my tennis shoes at work).

Book Review: Mindless Eating by Brian Wansink, Part I

amy April 9th, 2007

The average person makes over 200 choices about food every day: when to eat, what to eat, how much to eat, where to eat, who to eat with. Most of these decisions are mindless and are made based on habit, environmental cues, visual cues, marketing, package size, and food proximity, just to name a few factors, not necessarily because of hunger or even the taste of food.

Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think, written by food psychologist Brian Wansink, sheds light on the hidden cues that determine how much and why people eat. Wansink is the director of the Cornell University Food and Brand Lab which, unlike many food and brand labs, is not funded by food companies and relies on grants and gifts instead. Because of this separation, the lab has had the freedom to conduct some very interesting studies without a specific agenda.

Here are some of the lab’s more interesting studies and findings:

Diners at an upscale restaurant were given a complimentary glass of wine, Charles Shaw Cabernet Sauvignon, which sells for $2 a bottle. The bottles were relabeled. Half of the diners were told it was a new wine from North Dakota, and half that it was from California. Those who thought they were drinking California wine ate 11 percent more of their food and lingered for 10 minutes longer at their table on average than those who drank the “North Dakota.” The “North Dakota” wine drinkers rated the wine as bad and the food as less tasty. Wansink explains this as the halo effect; those who were poured the “California” wine expected their dining experience to be good based on their preconception of California wines, and therefore it was. They no longer thought about whether the food was actually good or not.

35 MBA students attended a Super Bowl party, where they were treated to a free hot wing buffet. Each table had a bowl in the center to collect the bones. The waitresses were instructed (unbeknownst to the subjects) to buss the bones from only half of the tables; at the rest of the tables, the bowls full of bones remained in sight for the entire game. The researchers carefully weighed and counted all of the leftover chicken bones eaten by each of the tables. They found that the students who did not have the visual reminder ate 7 wings on average, 2 more than those at the bone-pile tables (that’s 28% more). Wansink concludes that our stomachs can’t count and our brain’s don’t remember how much we eat. Without visual cues, it is easy to overeat.

60 people were treated to a free lunch of tomato soup, four at a time. At each table, two of the diners had regular bowls, and two had bowls with an undetectable hole at the bottom, through which a tube connected the bowls to larger pots of hot soup. As the diners ate from the modified bowls, they would gradually refill with more soup. Those with the bottomless bowls ate 73 percent more than those with the regular bowls, but estimated they had eaten approximately the same amount of soup and rated themselves at the same level of fullness. Some of the participants ate more than a quart of the soup! The study suggests that people tend to gauge their eating on visual cues instead of hunger cues.

A separate smoking room in a Hardee’s restaurant was made over with tablecloths, candles, and soft music. Patrons who ate in the converted dining room were served by a waiter. They stayed for an average of 11 minutes longer, ate and drank less of their food and beverages, ordered more desserts, and rated their food as better tasting than those who ate in the regular dining room. Restaurant atmospheres are carefully designed with specific purposes in mind; to get you in and out quickly in the case of fast food restaurants, or to encourage you to linger and order additional items in the case of upscale restaurants.

Many more interesting studies are contained in Mindless Eating. You can purchase it here

Coming up in Part II: how can you take advantage of these findings to reduce the mindless margin and cut out calories without noticing?

How Much Does It Cost To Lose 30 lbs?

amy April 9th, 2007

Bankrate has an article (original can be found here) comparing the costs of different weight loss programs. The article seems to assume that dieters will lose 2 pounds a week, which is really a best case scenario as this is the maximum that experts say you should try to lose per week and it is often not a sustainable rate when you have less to lose. While these aren’t necessarily accurate numbers for how much it will actually cost to lose 30 pounds on a particular program, it is still interesting to see how the programs compare to one another. The costs of the diet range from reasonable to extreme. There are no real surprises here, though, except maybe the zone diet. $39.99 a day for food delivered daily?

The extravagant cost (and the fact that research shows that you are likely to gain all of that weight back in a few years) is yet another reason to avoid diets and lose weight your own way: by eating healthier foods, smaller portions, and exercising. If you set your own nutritional and exercise goals based on your personal preferences and triggers, and learn to eat like a naturally thin person instead of eating boxed foods or counting calories, hopefully the changes you make and the weight loss you achieve will be for like.

Why do you want to be thin?

amy April 9th, 2007

Laura at Starling Fitness has some good questions for thought about what losing weight can do for you, and what it can’t.

Here are my own responses:

Why do you want to be thin?

I’d like to think that my main goal now isn’t to be thin, but to be healthy and feel good about myself. Losing weight will help that, but if I reach those goals and I am still considered overweight, I hope that I will be ok with that.

What do you think will be better for you when you are thin?

I’ll be able to fit into my skinny clothes and have more of a selection when shopping. I’ll be more comfortable in movie theater and airplane seats. I’ll be able to participate in more physical activities because I will be in good shape.

What problems do you think being thin will solve?

Being thin won’t solve my problems. I’ve been thin in the past and still felt unhappy about my body.

What if you get skinny and you still have all those problems?

I’m trying to work on my problems now so that hopefully I can be happy with the way I am at any size.

Is being fat really the issue?

No, the issue is when I use it as an excuse to not take care of myself. I’ve used fat as an excuse to eat poorly, not exercise, and engage in negative self talk.

Is there a way to solve those problems NOW while you work your way to being thin?

I’m setting healthy goals for myself each week that not only encompass healthy eating, but also taking better care of myself all together. I’m trying to live for today instead of an unrealistic future where being skinny will solve all of my problems. I’m eating healthier while still allowing for splurges; I’m taking more interest in my appearance and trying to look at myself in a positive light; and I’m starting to incorporate activity in my daily life in a way that is fun instead of a chore.

Healthy Goal 5: Exercising for Fun, not Perfection! And an update on goal 4.

amy April 8th, 2007

My goal last week was to get out of the fashion funk I’ve been in and take more interest in my appearance so that I not only look better but feel better. At the end of the week I can definitely say I’ve made major improvements. I’ve started wearing more interesting clothes, jewelry, and the occasional lip gloss; I got my eyebrows waxed and my hair cut (and I’ve even starting using mousse and some texture paste!); and I have a consultation appointment with a plastic surgeon at noon tomorrow to see about getting a couple of moles removed. I feel like my self esteem has taken a big step in the right direction and I am actually proud of the way I look for a change.

This week I’m going to focus on exercise. This might seem like it doesn’t necessarily fit my theme this month of Living for Today, but it does. I’ve been wanting to exercise for a long time because it makes me feel good and also gives me motivation to eat healthier, however I’ve been putting it off because it never seemed convenient. I’m going to exercise this week AND have fun doing it so that it is not a chore.

I went and bought a second dance pad for DDR yesterday, and Jason and I are going to start playing in the evenings after James goes to bed (him on easy since he hasn’t played it much, and me on basic with maybe the occasional attempt at difficult). We had some friends over tonight for dinner and to watch the first episode of the new season of the Sopranos (yea, finally!), and we ended up playing DDR afterwards. I probably played for a good half hour and got a pretty decent workout, but it was so much fun that I didn’t really notice the time flying by. It’s a lot more fun to play with someone else.

I’m also going to try to go for a couple of walks during lunch next week. By incorporating activity into my life now and making it something that is fun, I’ll be living for today instead of waiting for some ideal future when I’ll go to the gym 4 times a week and have a perfect schedule of cardio and weights. Maybe perfectionism is one of my problems; I hold myself to a perfect standard (eating and exercising), and when I can’t fulfill that I adopt an all or nothing attitude and do nothing. Well, I’m not perfect, and I’m tired of doing nothing, so going forward I’ll try to do something when I can. Hopefully all of those somethings will start to add up eventually.

Recipe: Falafel with Cucumber Dill Sauce

amy April 7th, 2007

I tried a new recipe tonight that turned out really well: Sean’s Falafel and Cucumber Sauce from All Recipes. My husband and I gave it 4 out of 5 starts, so I will definitely be adding it to my recipe notebook.

I pan fried the falafel patties in about 2 Tablespoons of oil instead of deep frying them to reduce the amount of fat, and used Italian seasoned bread crumbs because that’s what I had on hand. I think the next time I will process the garbanzo beans in the foot processor, as mashing them by hand ended up being quite difficult.

I served these with pita bread, Sabra’s roasted garlic hummus, lettuce, tomato, cucumber, feta, and Near East pine nut couscous. I think I’ll have the leftovers as a salad and use the cucumber dill sauce as dressing.

Sean’s Falafel and Cucumber Sauce

INGREDIENTS

1 (15 ounce) can chickpeas (garbanzo beans), drained
1 onion, chopped
1/2 cup fresh parsley
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 egg
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon salt
1 dash pepper
1 pinch cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup dry bread crumbs
oil for frying
1 (6 ounce) container plain yogurt
1/2 cucumber - peeled, seeded, and finely chopped
1 teaspoon dried dill weed
salt and pepper to taste
1 tablespoon mayonnaise

DIRECTIONS

1. In a large bowl mash chickpeas until thick and pasty; don’t use a blender, as the consistency will be too thin. In a blender, process onion, parsley and garlic until smooth. Stir into mashed chickpeas.
2. In a small bowl combine egg, cumin, coriander, salt, pepper, cayenne, lemon juice and baking powder. Stir into chickpea mixture along with olive oil. Slowly add bread crumbs until mixture is not sticky but will hold together; add more or less bread crumbs, as needed. Form 8 balls and then flatten into patties.
3. Heat 1 inch of oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Fry patties in hot oil until brown on both sides.
4. In a small bowl combine yogurt, cucumber, dill, salt, pepper and mayonnaise. Chill for at least 30 minutes.

Healthy Diet Quiz

amy April 7th, 2007

About.com has a Healthy Diet Quiz that asks questions about what you ate in a particular day and then gives you a score.

I got a B for today, mostly because of all of the carrot cake I ended up eating (I made it for Easter.) Otherwise I ate a good variety of fruits and veggies, dairy, and tried not to overeat.

My Exercise Dilemma

amy April 6th, 2007

I haven’t been exercising recently for a lot of reasons: our schedule has been really hectic recently, with being sick, traveling, etc.; it’s too hard to find time between work, picking James up from daycare, cooking and eating dinner, putting James to bed, and trying to keep the house in some sort of reasonable order; I’m too tired to get up early or work out at night; yadda yadda yadda.

Probably the biggest excuse, however, is not knowing what to do. In the past I’ve forced myself to go to the gym a few times a week and work out on the elliptical, exercise bike, track, or lift weights, but that is boring. I want to incorporate activity into my lifestyle and make it something that is fun, not a chore, so that I will keep it up.

I have a number of different ideas for how to do that, but my dilemma is that I also want to do something that will get Jason involved. He wouldn’t be caught dead in a NIA or Jazzercize class. We’ve thought about buying bikes and a baby trailer for James, but that would require a large investment. I’m interested in team sport like volleyball or softball, but since neither of us in good shape right now and we would basically be starting out as complete beginners, I’m not sure how we’d go about joining an adult sports team without feeling like total idiots. I like the idea of tennis because it wouldn’t be too much of an investment, (since you can get decent tennis rackets for $30 or less and there are lots of free courts in the parks around town) and Jason and I could start out by playing with each other.

The other big issue is what to do with James while we exercise. It seems like we are locked in to either going to a gym where they have daycare or somehow rearranging our work day so that we can finish our workout in time to pick James up by 6:30. Maybe we could leave work early a couple of days a week and go and hit tennis balls at the park before we get him? We’ve talked about walking together during the week at lunch (we work together so this is easy), but we keep coming up with excuses and haven’t actually gone yet. If we could walk two days and hit balls two days each week I think that would be a good start.

For those who are reading this, have you found a way to make exercise fun? What do you do to stay active while keeping things interesting?

Mental Benefits of Exercise

amy April 6th, 2007

Exercise is obviously key for weight loss and good for your body, but did you know that it has many mental benefits as well?

It can improve your memory. It targets the dentate gyrus, a region of the brain which plays a role in age-related memory decline that begins for adults starting in their 30s.
It can lower stress, tension or anger.
It makes you feel good. Exercising causes the release of endorphins, the body’s natural painkiller, which increases feelings of happiness.
It helps you sleep better and gives you more energy.
It can help relieve depression and prevent dementia or Alzheimer’s.
It can make you feel better about your body.

For more information about the mental benefits that exercise has to offer, check out:

Simple Steps To Better Mental Fitness

Mental Health Benefits of Exercise

Blogging Light

Diet is a four letter word

Update

Stress and Binging

Book Review: Mindless Eating by Brian Wansink, Part I

How Much Does It Cost To Lose 30 lbs?

Why do you want to be thin?

Healthy Goal 5: Exercising for Fun, not Perfection! And an update on goal 4.

Recipe: Falafel with Cucumber Dill Sauce

Healthy Diet Quiz

My Exercise Dilemma

Mental Benefits of Exercise

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