Shrinkvivor Challenge - Day 1

Kick ass.  Time to start the Shrinkvivor challenge that was created by the fab team over at The Sisterhood of the Shrinking Jeans.  You can follow the progress of the Tribes here.

I had my first weigh-in this morning and the challenge will continue through November 3rd.  That gives me 7  weigh-ins to find myself DEEP into onederland (never to look back at this weight I'm currently at!).  Yee haw, here goes.  I'm definitely going to hit my 10% loss milestone and hopefully even my 25 lbs milestone!  If I push really hard, I might even make it halfway to goal. 

I'm excited to see the fitness challenges posed to us by the Shrinkvivor peeps.  I need to shake things up a bit in terms of exercise and motivation.

My plan is to keep following WeightWatchers for tracking food.  I'm also going to up my exercise by and I'm contemplating signing up for a 5K on Thanksgiving.  I am going to give myself a week to decide.  I like having a goal around the holidays that's positive and not focused around family stress or food!
 
Goal One  - Be the Ultimate Shrinkvivor!  There's some fantastic prizes to sweeten the pot.
Goal Two - Have a blast trying.

Lose-a-palooza - WeightWatchers Lose for Good Campaign

Join in with WeightWatchers for their one day giving fest to encourage participation in the Lose for Good campaign.

For ever mention of Lose for Good made today, WeightWatchers will donate $1 (up to $60,000) to Share our Strength and Action Against Hunger.

To learn more, visit WeightWatchers.com/LoseForGood. or Lose-a-Palooza

What a lucky girl

One of the reasons I love my boyfriend so much - he always makes me laugh.  Here's an exchange we had on gchat earlier today:

Me: I'm bored of all my music.

Him:  you should listen to Lamb of God radio on Pandora

Me:  Eww, nope. I'm not that bored.

Him:  But you cold bang your head for all to see

Me: I'm not good at headbanging. Or the devil horns thing

Him:  don't be so hard on yourself

Me:  You're always so supportive.

Apparently he can support me with my weight loss efforts, my crazy days AND my attempts to rock out to metal.

Oh, what a guy.

(Seventies party - March 2010.  Y had lost the wig and I'd lost my sunglasses by this point!)

Body Image Warrior - When You Revert Back to Your Mean Self

Cakie Belle posted a fantastically thoughtful and honest letter to her size 12 body today over on her blog. It really struck me intensely as I'm having one of those days where I ate a little too much over the weekend (OK, a lot too much) and am expecting only a .2 lb loss tomorrow at weigh in. I'm feeling like my motivation and resolve is a little lessened and that I'm headed for another "failure".

I noticed this morning that my brown corduroy pants didn't fit me (there was no reason they should), how my arms are flabbier in the tricep area than they used to be, and that my stomach is a little larger than I wish it were. Just last week, actually just 2 days ago I was noticing that my stomach seemed a little flatter, that I had more energy than I've had in weeks, that I'm so proud of how well I've been doing and how good I feel.

Why does one bad day, and one slow week of weight loss, send me backwards into a forfetful haze where I revert back to beating myself up instead of dusting myself off and moving on? Why do I become mean and hateful and disparaging?

Cakie Bell has it right that instead of looking down and seeing the negative, I need to remind myself that this body I have is amazing. It's MINE and it's gotten me here, in spite of the abuse I've slung at it and the junk I've fed it for days on end at times. This is a day I should be grateful. Grateful that even though my head's not in it, my body's not going to quit me. Not today!

Recipe Box: Kale Chips

Since we’ve been seeing kale chips in the stores and reading about them everywhere (like on Kath Eats Real Food), I decided to try this healthy snack craze for ourselves. Y is someone who would give up all food for chips if given the choice, so he was seriously craving something salty and crunchy about halfway through the 10 Day Real Food Pledge. When we saw a bunch of kale at the local farm stand, we decided it was time.

We just did a basic version with olive oil and salt, but next time I might add some variety with something like parmesan chips, tamari or crushed red pepper. Because, yes, I will DEFINITELY be making these again! They are crispy, salty and a fun snack. Of course they're not just like potato chips, but they're interesting and healthy and definitely satisfy cravings for salty and crunchy munchies.

My one complaint about these is that they did leave a strong aftertaste. Not bad, just very kale-y. You've been warned! I guess it's the trade-off for the snackfest I had.

Basic Kale Chips

1 bunch kale
2 tsp olive oil
1 tsp salt (I used sea salt)

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350˚ F

Wash the kale, remove thick stems and tear into bite sized pieces and then dry completely in a salad spinner.

Prepare a cookie sheet with parchment paper and spread the kale on paper. Sprinkle with olive oil and salt. Bake until the kale is crispy and the edges are just browned, about 10-15 minutes.

Serves 4
Points per serving: 2

Sober Eating

Since I've cut out refined grains and refined sugars for the last 10 days, I've been feeling pretty amazing physically. I haven't had any strong cravings, no physical urges to binge and have been getting more an more sensitive to the subtle tastes of food -sweetness of carrots has increased, the complexity of flavors seems more obvious to me. Eating this way has been a pleasure, an adventure and mostly, as cheesy as it sounds, a gift to myself and my health.

I was talking to my crazy lady about how good it feels to eat well, how easy it seems this time around. I also mentioned how I've been more moody than normal. She thought maybe this is a direct reaction to not having binges and binge trigger foods to mask some of the emotions I would normally need to feel and deal with directly. She also thought that it might seem easy because I've drawn a line in the sand with the refined foods. That for me, this might be my version of "sober eating". That I might need to continue to do this to allow my body to adjust to feeling good and using food for fuel and nourishment as opposed to using it mostly as a drug.

The concept of sober eating was new to me, but as soon as she used that term, I completely understood what she meant. It seemed such a fitting term for how I should aim to eat and what I need to do as part of my recovery from this eating disorder. I had never thought of myself as seeking out sobriety. I don't have an issue with drugs or alcohol, which I usually equate with the concept of sobriety. But I do have an addictive issue with food and bingeing, and have been using something similar to addiction counseling to deal with my food issues. So this idea of sobriety and sober eating really put a new frame of thinking for me.

And how amazing that I've been not only free from binges for two weeks now, but free from even the URGE to binge?? When I've been eating clean (i.e., "sober"), it hasn't been a struggle at all and I haven't had to make any decisions about bingeing or not...it just hasn't come up. Yes, I've been a bit moody, a bit sensitive, a bit sad. But I haven't been any of those things enough to drive me into a binge. Or to pull down my strength enough to make me consider a binge. I've just felt like I'm getting stronger, getting closer to the way I want to live my life. The way I WILL live my life. I'm doing it now. I would have never been able to do this even a year ago.... After 3 days max eating like this, I would have turned it into a control issue and binged privately and grandly.

I don't think I will continue on forever without another urge to binge. Life gets tough, I have my fallbacks and my coping mechanisms that aren't always the best. But for now, since I've found something that seems to be working, I'm going to give it a try for the long haul.

My goal is to do an 85-15 eating plan. What I mean by this is that 85% of the food I eat will be sober foods - no refined grains, no refined sweeteners, as few unprocessed foods as possible. Just real food. There's no reason I can't do this when I'm shopping and cooking for myself. The 15% comes in when visiting friends and family, out to dinner, away from home.

I'm going to think more about this idea of sober eating and clean living as it relates to the bingeing and the way my body feels. So far, I think I might be onto something.

Shake it off

I'm not really sure what's going on with me this past week but I'm moody and a little down. Everything's fine - I'm losing weight, eating healthy, being active, enjoying my class, feeling productive on the Board, excited for some upcoming plans....everything's really fine. So why am I feeling kind of sad and slow?

I need to shake this off or figure it out before I derail myself and get off track. I'm trying to feel good about the fact that I'm aware of it and trying to change it...but the hint of instability is starting to concern me.

Maybe I'm just feeling overwhelmed by everything I have going on? Good stress is stress too and I've never been good at being able to distinguish the two types.

Maybe I'm just nervous about everything going well and I'm looking for ways to doubt my successes or to self-sabotage?

I have to remind myself that this state of success is OK. It's natural and I deserve it. I deserve to be successful.

I deserve it. I'm working hard for it. And it's all mine. No one can take it away from me.

Looks like I've just tapped into the root of it. I'm scared. Scared of feeling good and having things go well. Scared of believing that I'm worth it. That I'm good enough. That I'm more than just OK.

This week I'll keep reminding myself that the only person that can ruin this is me. My doubt and my fears can either motivate me to work harder, or they can derail me completely.

I think I'll choose the former.

I CAN DO THIS!

Motivate Monday

Happy labor day. Love having the day off, sleeping in and getting caught up on everything.

I sneaked a peak at the scale this morning, even though my official weigh-in day is on Tuesday. I'm down 3.4 pounds from last week! It could be that I'm a little dehydrated, but mostly it's that I've been really focused and working my b-u-t-t- off this week! Thanks in no small part either to the 10 Days of Real Food Pledge that Y and I have been doing since September 1st. Our bodies are liking it...very, very much!

Quick Real Foods Pledge Update:

I have been really committed to this and haven't "cheated" once - no refined grains, no refined sweeteners, nothing processed, nothing fake. I don't feel like we're eating hugely differently than how we did before...it's been much easier than it might be for some. But I do realize how much we're both very aware of what we're reaching for. As someone who's struggled with binge eating disorder for years, I'm actually happy to be rid of the binge foods entirely. My binge foods (and I'm guessing most other bingers agree) are all the refined grains and sweeteners - the ones that spike your blood sugar quickly, leaving you numb and floaty and "high" until later when you crash and just feel worse.

Y doesn't struggle with weight issues or food issues and it can be refreshing to live with someone who's got such a neutral normal take on food. But, he has been appreciating the real foods we've been eating. He's actually been loving this and talking about committing to it for good. I'm thinking we'll be able to do a 90% goal - accounting for when we're visiting friends or family, when there are no other options, etc. But for what we buy and what we make at home, there's no reason to be bringing in processed foods. He likes knowing that he's doing something really good for his health and for his heart.

New week, new goals:

Exercise:
Monday – bike ride
Wednesday - ballet class
Saturday - bike ride or walk

Eating:
Track everything I eat this week – even on the weekend
Think about what I’m eating, whether I’m hungry, what will fuel me
Continue doing the 10-Day Real Food Pledge!

Weekend (friends coming to stay):
Don’t use the weekend away as an excuse to eat and drink anything and everything thinking I can make up for it next week!

Thoughts on last week:
Was moody and argumentative with Y which is very unlike our normal state together. Felt like a jerk because I was taking things out on him. Great news is that I haven't binged in weeks. Bad news is I still have to get through my emotions in a positive way, not by taking it out on him.
Looking forward to another great loss this week.
So excited to start up ballet again - I haven't been in 8 years!

Question:
What are your favorite things about the upcoming season?