Emotional Eating... Part Two

I've been giving the whole "emotional eating" thing quite a bit of thought.  So far on my journey, I've lost 13.8 pounds.  I even got another star this week - which is still damn exciting.  I've also had a pretty stressful few days, so if I was ever going to emotionally overeat, this would be the time.

So what happened when the stress hit?  What I expected - my first reaction was to start ignoring my hunger signals and stop eating.  I think if I hadn't done my weight check on Thursday, I probably would have allowed things to spiral and actually begun skipping meals again.  Instead, that 4.2lb loss this week helped remind me that I'm doing something good for me, doing something right for me, and doing it well - and that I don't want to lose the progress I've made.

I made myself eat.  I stayed on plan.  I even went out for dinner with my hubby Friday night and made sure that had the points to splurge even after eating a filling breakfast and lunch.  I even dipped a little bit into my weekly points to do it - which strangely enough is a bit of a victory for me.

I still have not managed to understand my adversarial relationship with food.  I don't know where it comes from, I don't know what started it, I don't understand the reasons behind it.  I believe it is one of those things I will eventually need to figure out if I am to keep the weight off once I reach goal.

Emotional Eating...

This is something I posted in response to a thread on my (totally awesome) 100+ board on the Weight Watcher's site.  I'm copying it here because it's something I need to think on, explore... and putting it on my blog makes me accountable... it will force me to look at it, to think about it.

I find this really interesting.  A few days ago I read a post about "emotional eating," and I thought to myself, "I don't do that."  

And I don't - not in the way I was thinking about it.  I don't go grab the ice cream or chips or whatever because I'm sad or depressed.  I don't "binge" eat.  I won't polish off a package of Oreos in one sitting because I had a bad day at work.

But reading your post... that has me thinking.  I am VERY picky about my food.  It has to be right, or I won't eat it.  I think my emotions control HOW I eat - as in, I will ignore my hunger signals all day, eat once (and not well), and then get wrapped up in something so I can ignore the hunger signals again.  

I don't have a healthy relationship with food - but for me, instead of it being a comfort or a pleasure, it's something I am almost "angry" about.  Angry that I "MUST" put food in my mouth to survive.  Angry that I "MUST" eat or my blood sugar drops (I'm hypoglycemic, so yeah, not eating is REALLY not good).  Angry that I "MUST" acknowledge signals from my body.  

So I try to ignore it, until it is right in my face, and then to prove I don't care, I eat whatever is at hand... whatever is easy.

Hubby and I have always loved cooking together, but we stopped - the more my back hurt, the less I wanted to do, and so I would eat only when he got home from work, and usually it was take-out. We loved cooking together, but I would often pick at whatever we'd cooked.  Almost resenting the "now it's time to eat it" part.

We're back to cooking together, enjoying that together, and I am STARTING to enjoy eating what I cook.  Bit by bit.  

But I think part of me still resents the need to eat, and I need to figure out why.

Thank you for helping me look at this.

The Meal I Have Trouble With...

My hubby and I really enjoy cooking together, and I love the process of finding recipes, planning the meal, shopping for the ingredients and then making it all come together into something tasty for us to share.  I'm a pretty good cook, as is Zeb, so we really do end up making some fabulous dinners together.

Breakfast is pretty simple, too.  I'm good with a couple of whole grain blueberry waffles, an orange, some apple juice, a yogurt or some cottage cheese, a bowl of cereal with fruit in it, a nice english muffin or some scrambled egg whites with a bit of spinach and feta.  Any combination of some of these things is going to make me pretty happy at breakfast time.  On weekends, we'll sometimes plan something a little more elaborate... and if there's a restaurant meal we're likely to save our WPs for, it'd be a hearty breakfast out at our favorite diner.  Breakfast is easy.

Lunch... lunch is the bane of my existence.  Let me explain a few things about my general eating issues... and let me say up front that "get over it" is a great deal more involved than it might seem on the surface.

1. I do not eat leftovers of 99% of the foods out there.  There are some (rare) exceptions, things that really do taste good (or better) the second or third day... my turkey chili, Zeb's honey mustard ham, the spinach/turkey/ricotta lasagna I made the other night, SOME stews and soups - and that's about it.
   
2. "Lunch time" is usually when I am most immersed in whatever I am doing - working on programming something, a cleaning project, a craft project, a conference call, repairing a database, whatever.
   
3. I've mentioned I have a circadian rhythm sleep disorder - two of them, actually.  Not only does my sleep schedule move around the clock, putting me in bed about 2 hours later each day than I went the day before... but I also have delayed sleep phase syndrome.  I am at my peak in the middle of the night.  My core temperature drops during the day.  This is the opposite of most people.  But because of the first sleep disorder, I am sometimes sleeping through my peak, and awake when my internal clock says it should be sleeping (but can't).  So when I am awake during the day, I have a VERY hard time working up enough energy to get up and fix something to eat... I will often put it off for hours and then find that Zeb is walking in the door looking for dinner.

There are things I really like for lunch... tuna or chicken salad, for example.  Even a nice spinach salad, maybe with some grilled chicken on it.  Sometimes a sandwich.  The problem is, if I make these things ahead of time, I will generally talk myself out of eating them when lunch rolls around.  I convince myself that the food has "gone bad," and I just don't feel like making something else.  It is "too much work."

Tonight, (it is currently 5:11am - middle of MY day) I made a really delicious BLT wrap.  Toasted up a La Tortilla Low-Carb/High-Fiber tortilla, threw a few pieces of bacon in the oven, sliced up some tomato, washed a few pieces of spinach.  Spread Hellmann's light mayo on the tortilla, laid out the other stuff, wrapped it all up and had a really yummy meal.  7.5 points - I only had regular bacon in the house and I used  4 slices since I could "afford" the points today.  It was quite tasty and filling, and I got in a serving of veggies AND whole grain.  

Unfortunately, it's something I am unlikely to eat on a day-awake day - because I won't want to do the prep work.

So yeah, I really struggle with lunch.  I have not (yet) found a solution to my dilemma... but I will eventually. 

Lose For Good!

I realize I don't exactly have an impressive audience yet (though "I" am impressed with them LOL), but today is a really important day in the Weight Watchers world... it's Lose-a-Palooza day, and that means it is time to Lose For Good!

Weight Watchers is donating up to $60,000 for every mention of "Lose For Good" made today on Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare or blogs... and I want to make sure to support that effort!  Weight Watchers is doing so much to help me change my life, I want to do what I can to help change the life of another.  The money will be donated to Share Our Strength and Action Against Hunger.

It's so easy to help... won't you please join in the effort to fight hunger?

"Isn't the Food Supposed to Suck?"

That was my husband's comment tonight, in reference to our dinner.  It was followed a few minutes later by, "I think there was something wrong with this lasagna... it evaporated off of my plate... you better check the pan."  Yup, that's my Zeb... funny guy.

Tonight, we had the Spinach Lasagna Rolls I found on Gina's SkinnyTaste WW's Recipe website.  Admittedly, I doctored them a bit... I added ground turkey I'd browned with some chopped onion and Herbes De Provence seasoning.  I used low fat ricotta, and then only half the container.  I used only about 2/3rds of the spinach the recipe called for, and I used (*gasp*) jarred spaghetti sauce (Classico Four Cheese).  There was enough filling to make 12 rolls, and with the changes I made, it left each roll at 4 points each.

I am NOT a big eater, despite being a fat ass, so one roll was plenty.  We also made garlic crescent rolls (Pillsbury Reduced Fat) which are great - get the regular (reduced fat) crescent rolls, lay them out, give 'em a spritz with your butter spray (we use I Can't Believe It's Not Butter) and sift a little garlic powder on them.  Roll them up, spritz the outside, add a little more powder, and bake.

Fantastic, filling, and 6 points per serving total.  I admit it, I did have two crescent rolls, so mine was 8 points. Zeb had two of the lasagna rolls AND two crescent rolls... 12 points.  He can afford it - he's a guy, he gets more points, he's more active.

Bastard.  *laughing hard*

I also took my very first foodie blog picture!  Yay me!  Too bad I didn't think of taking it BEFORE we'd already snagged our lasagna rolls, but oh well!

Not nearly as "pretty" as Gina's picture on her blog... but O.M.G.-so-tasty!!!  Zeb and I can heat these up for lunch.  Supposedly they'll even freeze well, but I have a feeling they aren't going to last long enough to be frozen.


Tomorrow I'll heat one of these up for lunch, make a small spinach salad to go with it.

Losing weight is supposed to be painful.  You're supposed to be left feeling deprived constantly.  You're not supposed to be eating well AND eating tasty.

Isn't that the prevailing myth?

Isn't that what everyone says?

I'll tell you a secret:  "Everyone" lies.

These... were... fabulous!

Look! A Star!!

See my new pretty?  That's my reward for having lost my first 5lbs on Weight Watchers!  Actually, I lost 7.4lbs this past week, which means I'm only 2.6lbs away from getting a 10lb star.  I am a little pathetically happy about this deal. *grins*

My eleventh day on Weight Watchers is coming to a close and I've got to say, I am truly and genuinely ENJOYING this. So is the hubby, strangely enough.  We'd gotten into a lot of bad habits when it came to food, and in the process, we'd stopped doing something we love - cooking together.

We're a really good team.  Zebby and I fit together like puzzle pieces.  We have a rhythm to our life together, like two instruments in an orchestra that harmonize perfectly.  One of the many activities we've enjoyed sharing in the last nearly 11 years has been cooking.  There's something really kind of beautiful about the way we flow together in a kitchen.

Unfortunately, two things have been taking away from that... the first, is that I put on nearly 50 additional pounds in about 14 months.  That played into the second - my fibromyalgia getting really out of control.  When you spend the majority of your time in pain, the last thing you want to do is get up and "do" something.  Because of this, I was in the kitchen less.  I was also sending him to the store to do most of the grocery shopping.  End result:  we'd stopped cooking together.  We were eating out or getting take out more often than not.  And since I would rarely eat unless he was here to prepare something for me, I would make really BAD food choices when I did finally eat.  That's how you put on a huge amount of weight in a very short time.

I said when I started this blog that I did not want to reveal how much I weigh.  I'm realizing how silly that is.  I weigh what I weigh... and while I am "lucky" to be tall (5'10"), and "lucky" to have a TRULY large bone structure (elbow breadth is 3 1/2", wrist is 8"), which means my poundage doesn't look "as bad" on me as it would on someone with a smaller frame... I'm kidding myself if I think people don't realize how damn fat I really am.  Of course they do... whether I "look" like I weigh less than I "actually" weigh or not, I STILL LOOK FAT!!!

I am also really PROUD of what I am doing right now - so why shouldn't I share that?

So - here's my stats... and I'm going to put them somewhere more obvious so that if someone DOES end up here looking for some inspiration or something, they've got all the facts:

Age: 39 years, 4 months
Height: 5'10"
Starting Weight: 350lbs @ start of WW on September 2nd 2010
Measurements as of September 2nd 2010:

• Elbow breadth:  3 1/2"
• Wrist:  8"
• Neck:  19 1/2"
• Bust:  56 3/4"
• Waist:  58 1/2"
• Hips:  58"
• Right Arm:  19"
• Left Arm:  18"
• Right Thigh:  33"
• Left Thigh:  34"
• Blouse Size:  30/32 or 5xl - a bit baggy, but mentally, I need that
• Pants Size:  28 or 3xl/4xl - ends up fitting the waist but loose in the legs  (a note on my clothing sizes:  Probably NOT a good idea to use them for comparison... I have no fashion sense, no "quality clothing concepts" - if the pants zip and the top is over-sized, I'll wear it.  Beyond that, I have ZERO knowledge about sizing or style.)

Current Weight:  342.6lbs on September 9th, 2010

I plan on only doing measurements once a month, rather than weekly, because I just don't expect to see those numbers changing much from week to week.

One of the things I do to keep myself motivated is to hunt up sites of women who have lost similar amounts on  Weight Watchers.  I find them mostly through the WW's discussion forums, and will spend hours paging through "Before" and "After" pictures looking for someone who started out "like me" and who has ended up where I want to be.  I am hoping to eventually be one of those women who has a site other women haunt... and I am hoping to be able to keep up with providing the information I am always looking for when I view the sites others have made.

I'm very lucky... my husband is 100% on board with me doing this.  I think in some ways, he feels that my weight is somehow "his fault."  When Zeb and I first met, I was still on the fire department.  He LOVES big women, and felt I was too skinny. LOL  So in some ways, he has encouraged me to gain weight over the years, or at least not in any way complained or rejected me while it was happening.  He still finds me incredibly sexy - no, I don't see it either - but HE does... and in the past, my comments about wanting to lose weight have met with a bit of whining on his part.  This time, he is totally on board.

I'm also really fortunate to have a BF cheering me on as well.  He has been tolerantly listening to me blather on about my menu plan, my food choices, Weight Watchers in general.  Really, what guy wants to listen to that sort of thing?  But he does... he knows how unhappy I've been as the weight has poured on, and he knows that I've struggled with Zeb's resistance to my plans to lose weight in the past.  He's also watched me make "BIG PLANS!!!" before, and has seen me let them fall by the wayside.  A few days ago I told him in an email that I am really hoping this time will be different, that I actually believe I can stick with this.  He responded by saying, "You’ve stuck with more aggravating things in your life for lots longer  :::  smirk :::"

He means him. LOL

But he's right.  I have stuck with much more aggravating things in my life for much longer... the weight itself being one of them.

I think it also helps that I know that the people who love me genuinely love me, whether I am fat or thin or somewhere in between.  I have a strong support system.  I have people in my life who will be totally honest with me.  People who truly WANT me around for a very long time.  That helps tremendously.  I can't imagine trying to do this without them, without their love.

I may be doing this for me, but it is more enjoyable and do-able because of them.

Those Foods You Don't Want to Give Up...

We all have them... favorite treats, choice noms, the stuff we're just sure we can't live without.  I've got a bunch of them, and I'm carrying them around with me everywhere I go - in my breasts, waist, hips, thighs, etc.

One thing that attracts me to Weight Watchers is the fact that you don't really have to "give up" everything, you just have to exercise some self-control, and you have to recognize that to have that Twix bar now, you're going to end up being hungry later because you've already spent the points.  Is it worth it?  Sometimes...

The funny thing is, I actually like fruits and vegetables.  I love a really well-made salad, I enjoy the heck out of things like oranges and apples.  I love the taste, texture and crunch of a really good bell pepper.  The problem I've had, in part, with my diet choices has been my teeth.  I have a genetic disorder which has plagued every woman in my birth family who has borne children.  We pop out a rug rat or two, and suddenly our teeth become weak and begin to break.  You'd think this would only happen when eating something hard... try a turkey sandwich.  I lost TWO that way.  It didn't help matters that we seemed to be without dental insurance repeatedly, or that just as we'd start on a "plan" for fixing my teeth, hubby would be laid off and we'd have to start again with a new employer, a new dental plan, a new dentist.

Fat foods = soft.  Healthy foods = crunchy.  Not always of course, and certainly there are exceptions - but try building a food plan of healthy foods when eating salad is a major challenge, not just because of the crunch, but because a) pieces get stuck where they shouldn't or b) you're dealing with varying temperatures within a single salad.  Ever try biting a piece of cold tomato with a broken tooth?  PAIN PAIN PAIN PAIN PAIN!!!

Fortunately, I had all the really bad teeth pulled.  Unfortunately, no sooner was that done we lost our insurance... so I don't yet have my "new" teeth.  It is, however, a lot easier to eat healthy (and crunchy) foods when your mouth isn't full of broken pieces, when you're not afraid every bite is going to cause another break, when you're not wincing with every bite because the temperature of the food is causing the nerves in your mouth to scream.

So I am reconnecting with my love affair for salads, fruits, veggies in general - and loving it.

I'm also wanting to make sure that I don't "miss" anything too badly.  One of my weaknesses - fruit dipped in this stuff:

Definitely a fat food!

Let's take a look at the pertinent values (for WW) shall we?
Serving Size:  2 Tablespoons
Calories:  70
Fat Grams: 3g
Fiber:  0g
=  2 Weight Watcher Points

TWO points for TWO Tablespoons.  What's that?  Enough to dip three strawberries into???

Tonight I decided to have one of the yummy Gala apples I picked up today... and I realized I had a Weight Watchers Vanilla yogurt in my fridge.  I like bananas in vanilla yogurt, so I figured I'd try dipping the apples in the WW yogurt... if it didn't mix well, no harm, I'd eat them separately.

NOT a fat food!

A 6oz serving of WW yogurt is 1 point.  One point.  For SIX ounces.  Imagine my surprise when I realized it tastes exactly like the T. Marzetti fruit dip. EXACTLY like it.  And at 6oz, there was plenty enough to dip every thin slice of my apple, with a few tablespoons left over to nom straight off the spoon.




Do you have any idea how AWESOME that was???

Zeb and I both love cheese.  Zeb loves blue cheese.  You can imagine that snacking on cheese is probably something we'd miss deeply... and honestly, if not for soaking up info from Hungry-Girl almost religiously, I'd have pretty much written off cheese and crackers completely, assuming that we either shouldn't eat it, or we'd be stuck with rubbery, dry, tasteless fat free cheese (is that really even ACTUALLY cheese??).  Thanks to H-G however, I learned about this stuff:

Happy cows = happy noms!

And oh my, you have no idea how incredible this stuff is.  One wedge is one point.  When you first open the package and pull out a wedge, you think to yourself, "what is that?  Enough cheese for one cracker?  Pshaw."  Seriously, it's what I thought.

Now remember, I'm also having a love affair with Kashi brand products.  I've yet to taste anything from them that I don't like... had their Southwest Style Chicken entree earlier today, as a matter of fact.  Yummy!  In particular, I am obsessed with their TLC 7-grain crackers right now.

Crackerlicious!

Fifteen of the little buggers, for 2 points.  And two wedges of Laughing Cow garlic & herb light ends up being a very generous slathering of cheese on each cracker.  Four points total.  Throw in an orange for a point, 1/2 c of Horizon low-fat cottage cheese for 2 points, and you've got a really nice little (and filling!) lunch for 7 points.

Suffice it to say, Zeb and I are both thrilled to find that we're able to nom all sorts of tasty alternatives to the really fattening stuff we've usually been drawn to.  I love that we can eat these things without having to stress over how many points it's going to "cost" us towards our total food consumption for the day.

Another thing I love about WW, and about the Tracker I have access to through my Online program - I can adjust portion sizes as needed, and the points recalibrate to reflect the new portion size.  So while 15 crackers and 2 wedges of cheese is what it takes to fill me today, to keep my body from thinking it is starving (and thus force it to hold ONTO fat) and to make sure I'm not craving food constantly... in a few months, when my points allotment has decreased exponentially (you lose one point for every 10 lbs you go down), I can switch to having 7 crackers and 1 wedge - what would be considered 1/2 a serving, and my points debit automatically adjust to reflect that.

As it is, I'm struggling to consume my alloted points.  For as fat as I am, my actual stomach is oddly small.  I fill up quickly.  I'm trying to make sure there isn't a huge disparity between how many points I'm alloted, and how many I actually consume... otherwise my body won't be convinced it is being fed.  But I'll rest easier when my allotment drops a few points and I don't feel quite so much like I'm eating more than I "should."

Oh yeah, one more nommy deliciousness... I found a recipe in my H-G cookbook for an Outside-In Cheeseburger.  I'm not comfortable posting the recipe... but suffice it to say it is a burger, with the cheese on the INSIDE.  In my case, that's Laughing Cow garlic and herb light.  In Zeb's, it's their light blue cheese.  Oh...my...!!!!  We skipped the buns and condiments, just served the burgers up with a small fresh spinach side salad with Paul Newman's Light Raspberry & Walnut dressing. HEAVEN!!!!  Absolute HEAVEN!!!  We made them using lean (90/10) ground beef from Trader Joe's.  We're going to try them again in a few days using ground turkey instead, just to see how they turn out.

I can't wait.  And I LOVE being excited about food again, without having to feel guilty!

How I Nom...

I'm a "meat and potatoes" kind of gal.  I was born and raised in the Midwest.  My "comfort foods" lean towards thick, hearty, hot and fattening... so I have a hard time conceptualizing making - let alone eating - so many of the Points-friendly dishes I find in cookbooks or online.  I also have a major aversion to fish... and to be honest, I'm just a very picky eater in general.  All of this has made me think that going on Weight Watchers, let alone any other "diet" plan, was going to be a massive struggle of epic proportions.

Zeb... aka the hubby... and I have been gradually introducing ourselves to Weight Watchers for the last month.  By gradually I mean it's gone something like this... tentatively walking into the room, glancing around, spotting our intended target and then circling it... watching its habits, eying it suspiciously, sniffing the air, checking out its shoes... asking a few other people, "hey, do you know WW?  Are they ok?  Trustworthy?  Plotting to take over the universe?"  It has been a process... but this week, we officially walked up, shook hands and introduced ourselves.

And you know what?  WW is much less scary than we'd thought. LOL

I'm a total geek, so anything that feeds into that is a good thing.  WW is definitely geeky, at least in their Online program.  Plugging in my Points, looking up foods, adjusting portion sizes, all in a friendly little GUI with happy little smiley faces that appear when you've eaten your whole grains for the day?  Yup, almost gives me mini-geekgasms.  I've got this whole weird synergy going on with my Tracker... it's a rush when I get to tell it what I've eaten.  I spend way more time intimately connected to that Tracker than is probably healthy, but for right now, it's stirring up excitement and keeping me interested... and more importantly, on track.

I'm also finding that I can eat all sorts of things I assumed I'd have to do without... things I like... things that fit in with "how" I eat and what I'm comfortable with.  I like "snacking" as opposed to sitting down to three set meals a day... and if I'm honest with myself, while the HABIT has been to eat those big meat & potato type meals, it isn't how I LIKE to eat.  It's just how I was raised to think of food and of mealtimes.  Unfortunately, that thought process has led me to where I am today... and that hasn't been working for me so well.

Weight Watchers, by tracking Points, is actually encouraging me to eat the way I actually, physically want to.  It's ok to not plan some big involved meal.  It's ok to nom my way through the day.  It's ok to fill myself up comfortably every two hours instead of stuffing myself every six.  For someone as big as I am, I have a relatively small stomach.  Trying to eat an entire steak and a baked potato?  It's an effort.  I always did it anyway.  I ended up feeling bloated and uncomfortable at the end.  I didn't eat until I was full, I ate until I was done. 

It doesn't have to be that way.  Instead, I'm doing things like waking up and having a bowl of Kashi Strawberry Fields cereal with a banana cut up into it.  Nomming an orange an hour later, with a couple of Spaan meringue cookies (14 of the little suckers is only 2 points - and you don't have to eat them all at once!).  Grabbing a string cheese and some low-fat cottage cheese a few hours after that.  A small salad.  Kashi 7-grain crackers with two wedges of Laughing Cow garlic & herb lite cheese.  A Kashi entree for dinner (yes, I'm having a love affair with Kashi), or a Trader Joe's chicken burrito, or some Trader Joe's mandarin chicken and some brown rice.  I'm eating when I am hungry and only eating enough to keep me from feeling hungry for about 2 hours.

In so doing, I'm staying on plan.  I'm able to stick within my Points.  And most importantly, I'm not feeling as if I am "dieting" at all.

This is working for me - and that's what counts!