Food Journals

For many people, food journals are a very helpful tool in losing weight or eating in a more healthy manner. Almost all diet programs suggest you start with a food journal. I've heard (or read) many people say that just the act of keeping a journal will help them lose weight.

Journals help you realize just how much you are eating: "Wow, cleaning up the kids' mac & cheese really adds up."

They can encourage you to make healthy choices: "Do I want to eat that enough to write it in my journal?"

They can help you realize your eating habits, like the bag of cookies you eat when you talk to your mother on the phone.

I, however, am not most people. I am perverse. As I have mentioned, just saying the "D" word can make me gain 5 lbs. I set my intention to eating a healthy variety of fruits, veggies, and lean protein --- food I actually LIKE, and suddenly I cannot resist the Hardee's Omelet Biscuit with large fried potato things. What's that about?

I was just looking at a food journal I kept for about a week this summer. I had been eating the angel way for about a week, I guess, and decided to keep track. KABOOM! Day one: cottage cheese with lots of pretty fruit (which I LOVE); turkey on wheat with spinach & tomatoes; tacos with lots of veggies. Day two: Whopper with large fries. Day three: Hardee's biscuit. Still ate a lot of fruit and veggies, but I'm thinking the Whopper/biscuit/Quarter pounder with cheese was NOT what the angels had in mind.

Unlike most people, I am not intimidated by the food journal. One: I will lie to my journal. Why not? Two: Even if I write the truth, and even if I publish that on-line or at weight watchers or whatever, I don't care what other people think. No one has scolded me about what I eat in many years, but the early training made me immune to scolding. Kathy, do you need that? Kathy, is that on your diet? Kathy, do you have to eat the whole carton of Breyers Ice Cream in one sitting? Yup, yup, yup. Thanks for asking.

I still start up food journals all the time. I love journals. I love food. Perfect match. Maybe some day I'll find a way to journal that helps me with my food fetishes. Hope springs eternal.. and there is always a journal sale at Barnes & Noble...

Friday

I am thinking yogurt and pineapple. See the yellow food thing happening? This is what happens when an introvert is forced into a customer service job for 9 hours a day. I am really drained.

No walking to speak of, unless you call pacing around the office like a chicken with my head cut off, searching for the pen/piece of paper/check I just had and put some place but where? exercise. I think it counts. I'll call it the severly distracted exercise plan. 10 thousand steps to no where.

Not complaining. It's Friday. Although I work tomorrow, I am feeling less stressed than I have been. I think it's the yellow food.

A journey of a thousand miles ...

... begins with a single step. Or in my case, 5647 steps. That's what I ended up with last night. I took a few more before and after the pedometer, but that's close enough.

Part of that came from a quick walk around the yard at work. The yard is about an acre. The day was pleasant, the birds were singing, the snakes were still sleeping. I stomped around, aerating the yard with my red high heel boots. It was nice.

Last night we ate sour cream chicken enchiladas from a recipe I found on Cinnamon & Spice and everything nice. It was a big hit and has made it to the "have again" list. This dispels any rumors that I am on a DIET. I only use real sour cream. I do try to eat a moderate amount of the food though, and this was filling. With a nice salad on the side --- I had planned to serve a rainbow three bean + salad (canned yellow wax beans, canned green beans, canned dark red kidney beans, grape tomatoes, chopped canned beets over romaine & radicchio) but didn't. We were in the middle of a RISK game (with a real board and real people) and I forgot about it.

I also made Rainbo Gumbo.

• I started with the Cajun trinity --- chopped celery, chopped green bell peppers, chopped (purple) onion sauteed in olive oil.
• I added red pepper (cayenne), garlic, and chili powder.
• I added chopped chicken and chicken sausage. Andouille is usually used, but I was keeping the meat to chicken and shrimp.
• More pepper-type spice.
• Next, I added chopped tomatoes (I used canned) and okra. To make it a Rainbo, I added shredded carrots and yellow squash.
• Stir, smell, taste and... more pepper spices.
• I needed chicken broth to make the gumbo the right texture --- somewhere between soup and stew. The last thing was the peeled shrimp.

Note: When we put the food up, there was a good bit of broth. My darling husband put it in a glass & drank it. He said that it was like V-8 with spice and chicken broth, and that was what V-8 had been missing. I'm not recommending that necessarily, but....

Shredded carrots are a real go-to food if you are trying to sneak in veggies. They can be added to chili, gumbo, casseroles, salads, even pancakes (although that might be weird). Just mix 'em in. Carrots are a sweet vegetable, so most kids like them if they don't think too hard.

Today's walking goal: let's break 6000! I am sooo close.

Foot steps

On the first day of wearing my new pedometer, I logged about 1500 footsteps. On the second day, I logged 2500, but I put it on earlier. So I'm thinking I need to walk about four or five times MORE than I am walking.

Yesterday was a good day for me, in that I took the day off from one job and completed all of the work I needed to do in the other. I am ready to face today, back to the first job. Yesterday was not great in the eat right department. Oh well. Today is a new day. I think it is a yellow and orange day. Maybe red. I can't forget the red.

If you miss the train I'm on...

you will know I have NOT gone 500 miles, or even 10,000 footsteps. I forgot my pedometer, and my mileage was back and forth from the copier. Today, I wear the pedometer. I haven't put it on yet, so give me a few footsteps around the house... pathetically few.

Since I'm feeling really pissy today, I may walk 10,000 footsteps AWAY from my job and not turn back. But I doubt it. I'd just have to send someone for my minivan.

Renorming

The thought that has come in to my head recently, through my own comments to other, through magazine articles, through drifting considerations, is that I need to "re norm" my body again.

A month of mindful eating helps me get focused on my habits. Just by paying attention, I lost 10 lbs. But, the little thoughts say, that's really not enough. Oh, yeah, it's great to be merely "overweight" and not "obese," but if I want to dance at Brendon's wedding (and we're talking about a 6 month old here), I need to do more.

And I know what I need to do, too. Move. Not away from SC. Just move. Get up and dance. Get up and walk around the yard. Run up and down the stairs. I need to get moving to move the weight.

(Notice, I am avoiding the "E" word as well as the "D" word.)

So I think I'll pull out my cheap (free) pedometer and aim for 10,000 steps. I'll keep in mind that with this pedometer, going to the bathroom (pulling my pants down and up) counts as about 6 steps. But what's six steps (or 36) when you're talking 10,000 steps.

Here we go: Tomorrow is week one, day one of the 10,000 step challenge.

On the rainbow front: I've got all sorts of rainbow things happening. Mark pointed out that I don't have to eat an entire rainbow in each dish, and I suppose he's right. I'm just a casserole queen.

I'm also concentrating on yellow and orange, because that's what I want and because I have to deal with people all of the damn time these days.

Week four, day five

My three weeks of eating the angel way ended last Wednesday, but I'm still doing it. As Annie said, just try to get the rainbow in, if it's a bad day. And I've had a couple of bad days. And I responded by eating a Hardee's omelet biscuit. Amazingly enough, it didn't do it for me. So I ate some cottage cheese & pineapple. That was good.

Confiserie by John Duffy


I have been eating banana chips at work. I have never gone for them, since they are pretty high in calories, made with added sugar (why, I ask) and oil. But now I'm addicted. And as I was eating one the other day, I thought, "This would be really good with mayonnaise." Go figure.

I guess the yellow food makes sense. I am an introvert who is compelled to interact with people five and a half days a week. I need the yellow food to help me cope. I'm doing OK. I will not complain (too much) about the choice I made. I just need a snow day. And some more yellow food.