A Love of Food

Current Weight: 226.8 lbs.   Weight Lost: 12.2 lbs.       Weight left to lose: 86.8 lbs.

I love cooking and baking. I love cooking for people. I love restaurants.  I love FOOD.   I once thought that permanent weight-loss and this love of food were incompatible.  But the food isn't the enemy.  Doughnuts are not inherently evil.  My lack of control is what I have to vanquish.  I am certainly an emotional eater.  My exercise regimen has helped keep me in check when I have gone off the rails. 

I hate the word "foodie" but for lack of a better term I guess that is what I would be called.  Being a foodie who can lose almost 100 pounds and not be miserable the whole time will be a major coup.  Learning to cook basic but wholesome meals will always help with weight related issues because we become less reliant on processed convenience foods, fast-food, and take-out.   And that has other benefits because home-cooked whole food meals are more nutritious and if done right, much cheaper. 

Now, how can I maintain this love of food, keep cooking good meals and curb my emotional eating at the same time?  That will be the true long-term challenge.  That task will require a lot of introspection.

I hope you had a good holiday dear readers.  Happy and healthy eating to all of you.  

Other Benefits

Current Weight: 233 lbs.   Weight Lost: 6 lbs.       Weight left to lose: 93 lbs.

I have been exercising almost everyday.  I have been doing a combination of weight training, cardio, in the form of walking or the elliptical machine, and yoga once a week.  The scale is moving slowly but I have been seeing progress in other ways.  My energy has increased, my mood is better, and I am physically stronger.  I live in a very hilly neighborhood and hills that once vexed me, are now easier to climb. 

I didn't start out exercising almost every day.  It was incremental.  A few days a week; shorter walks; light work with hand and ankle weights.  I was able to increase my time and intensity as I felt myself getting stronger. This feeds my motivation to keep going.  Even if the scale doesn't show it, I know things are moving the right way. 

Small Victories

Weight Lost: 3 lbs.     Current Weight:  235 lbs.      Weight Left to Lose:  95 lbs

I lost 3 pounds this week.  I even had BBQ on Saturday night.  Wanna know the secret?  I made myself get some exercise everyday.  

Go me!

The Things

A dear friend once said that she can "resist the sugar things but has a hard time resisting the cheese things."  I am the opposite. I love cheese but I rarely go Homer Simpson on some Brie.  Sweets are my control issue.  What are your hard to resist foods?

The Weeks Ahead

Current Weight:  238 lbs.  Weight left to lose:  98 lbs.

Today was week 2 of a 12 week session of Weight-Watchers.  In general I am vehemently anti-diet plan, anti-fad diet but I do like Weight-Watchers. (even though I think they do too much promotion of their processed food products.)  It is realistic and focuses on education  about the basics:  eating a healthy diet, paying attention to to your bodies needs (e.g. stopping eating when you have had enough rather than putting on fat pants and forging ahead), getting enough exercise and viewing unhealthy foods as treats rather than a way of life.  Yeah, I can live with that.

The scale wasn't as kind as I had hoped today but every little bit helps.  I have many more weeks of hard work ahead.  Thank you for sticking with me thus far, readers.

Sing it Michael

A few of my favorite quotes from food guru Michael Pollan:


“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”
 In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto



“He showed the words “chocolate cake” to a group of Americans and recorded their word associations. “Guilt” was the top response. If that strikes you as unexceptional, consider the response of French eaters to the same prompt: “celebration.”



“Very simply, we subsidize high-fructose corn syrup in this country, but not carrots. While the surgeon general is raising alarms over the epidemic of obesity, the president is signing farm bills designed to keep the river of cheap corn flowing, guaranteeing that the cheapest calories in the supermarket will continue to be the unhealthiest.” 
 The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

"The Perfect Body"

I just got this junk email adverting a free work-out DVD with a magazine subscription. 
"Get your perfect body with this FREE workout DVD from Women's Health‏!"

The media does so much to contribute to the culture of shame.  I find this particularly poignant because having parents who largely resemble/ed  hobbits, my efforts to obtain a "perfect" body would involve copious amounts of plastic surgery or other unhealthy behaviors. And my legs would still be too short to hold up to that standard.  My genetics will not allow the "perfect body" that our society promotes. But you know what?

I  DO NOT CARE!   I want to be healthy. I want to be strong.  I want to feel good.  And I can do this and still have a nice ba-donk-a-donk.

Why don't we strive for what our nature dictates rather than something artificially constructed by society?  Is it because we are social animals and therefore always looking for outside validation?  Are we just "sheeple?"    I know and admire many beautiful naturally skinny and beautiful naturally zaftig women.
The key word here is "naturally." 

Natural and healthy.