I’m forty years old.  Shouldn’t I have a book published by now?  Shouldn’t I have sold more art by now?

For some reason, counting calories makes me count other things in my life as well.  My years.  My failures. My successes.

I am glad I have a roof and food and even some very nice things.  But what about what I am DOING with my life?  Am I making the most of each day?  Am I organized? Am I motivated?

DAY 4

English muffin/egg/sausage/Smart Balance

I use Thomas’ whole grain muffins.  They are tasty and only 120 calories.  They make the perfect little egg sandwich.

Skinny Cow fudge bar

Mango smoothie (vanilla yogurt, frozen mango, soy milk)

La Tolteca for dinner with Will – I love sitting in this little place and eating with my Billy boy.

10 tortilla chips, guacamole, shrimp fajita (ONE flour tortilla – I was being so good!)

Ice tea with 2 packets of sugar

16 Ghirardelli dark choc chips

3 marshmallows

Popcorn

honey nut cheerios with milk

Breyer’s frozen fruit bar - these do have some sugar in them, but also has some fruit puree and vitamin C
TOTAL:

1612

Do yourself a favor and watch the documentary “Paper Clips.” I cried intermittently while watching it with my daughter.

Though I try to remember to be grateful and thankful for what I do have, a movie like that really drives the point home.

I am happy I have the choices of foods that I do.  I am thankful I have a loving family.  It’s really important to keep things in perspective when I get frustrated or feel deprived.

Day 3

English muffin/egg/veggie sausage/SB

cherries

prunes

Skinny Cow fudge bar

WW entree – rice and beans w extra cheese

1 1/4 c  2% milk

sandwich thin with turkey and mayo

“sloppy joe” made with veggie crumbles on a sandwich thin

steamed spinach with olive oil

2 roasted marshmallows

a few sips of Will’s lemonade spritzer (Simply Lemon lemonade mixed with lemon lime Vintage seltzer)

I drink a lot of seltzer water when I’m trying to cut back on calories.  I like orange and lemon-lime the best.  It’s soda without all the crap and sugar.  It has a little flavor, which is refreshing.  It helps me when my mouth wants something but I need to ease off of the portion size or prevent myself from “bored eating” which I do sometimes.

Calorie Total: 1494

Made it through day one!  WOO HOO!

Right now there is thunder rumbling in the distance.  “Men of a Certain Age” is on the television (recorded on my DVR) and Will is loading the truck full of stuff that needs to go to storage.

One of the underlying themes of the show is that Owen is diabetic, but he keeps eating things he shouldn’t eat.  He keeps drinking alcohol.  It’s frustrating the people who love him.

He’s just come home from a party, eating and drinking and now he’s back at home binging on Fiddle Faddle.  His one little boy is very bothered by his behavior.  He just wants his dad to be around.  In the context of the show it’s easy to sit here and be frustrated with Owen – PUT DOWN THAT DONUT OWEN! – and to see so clearly where he goes wrong.  He just needs to stop eating crap.  He disgusts his father.  His workmates make fun of him.  His wife and kids worry about him.  He has had health repercussions because of his eating habits, yet he still can’t put down the bear claw.  This is not so unusual. But why?

MY FOOD JOURNAL FOR YESTERDAY

yogurt and blueberries

Chickfila chargrilled sandwich

unsweetened iced tea

10 prunes

whole wheat naan bread with avocado, tomato, cucumber, vinaigrette, hummus

cherries

popcorn w 2 tsp butter

Total:

1505

Starbucks Vivanno (didn’t quite drink all of it, but almost) – 250
banana- 110
1/2 cup peppermint tea with hint of honey – 10
1 egg with 3 eggwhites and veggies – 140
english muffin with smart balance – 120, 45
Bunny Grahams – 150
Almond butter – 175

I was roasting turkey in the oven and I had to start it late, so by dinner time it wasn’t anywhere near done.  Finally around 9:30pm I was too hungry to wait for food any longer and made myself a turkey and ham sandwich.  It was mostly turkey with two thin slices of ham, mustard and vinigarette and not even a whole slice of thin shaved swiss cheese.  I had a few Trader Joes tortilla chips on the side.

I made a homemade cobbler – this time apple – and had a small serving of that when it was all done.  The cobbler had stevia, corn starch, honey, brown sugar and fresh apples and the crust was oats, a whole grains baking mix, a little bit of Smart Balance a little bit of light soy milk.

Sandwich – 270
tortilla chips – 120
cobbler – 200

TOTAL:  1590

I don’t feel at all bad about going over my calories that I’d set out at the beginning of the week.  I think my mind is still stuck on 1800, so anything under that seems like real success to me.  And at times this past week when I’ve been very Miss. Eating Disorder in moments, I would tell myself that I’m going to screw myself up royally if I start making my body think that it’s going starve.   There have been moments midday where I’ve said to myself, “You aren’t eating ANYTHING ELSE alllll day!”  And I’d pull out my flavored seltzer water and drink it a while.  Then I’d start thinking, “I’m gonna make my body think it’s starving.  It’s going to screw up my whole metabolism.”  Then I’d eat something, even if I didn’t want to.

This past week I had more carbs than I normally would.  In part due to time spent at the fair.  Also in part due to just not being able to keep up with veggies this week.  Veggies are a lot of work and this past week I have simply been short on time.  This week I am going back to my more “Gillan” style eating.  Tomorrow I can go to the farmer’s market and grab veggies and fruits.  I am going to sit down and plan out a week’s worth of meals.  Most of which will be vegetarian, something else I’ve slowly edged away from.  Time to snap back.

I think that my weigh-in today will give us a clue as to how my body responded to more meat and carbs, even when it was working (most of the time) on fewer calories in weeks previous.  By all traditional accounts of “calories in, calories out” I should have lost at least a couple of pounds this week.  My theory however is that due to my cycle being about to start and having had carbs and meat and less veggies, that the scale won’t have budged much.

So, now that we have a fairly obvious “graham cracker” and “sandwich” sort of a week behind me, let’s see what less carbs, less gluten, less meat and more veg does to me this up-coming week, shall we?

Oh, and the other rule I broke this past week that I hadn’t in previous weeks (for the most part) was no eating late at night.  No matter what the state of dinner is and what the state of the hurrying of the day and night are, I need to make sure I’ve eaten everything I’m going to eat by 8pm and no later.  If I am hungry after that I should just have tea.  If I’m VERY hungry after that, I’ll eat because I’m not going to make myself miserable!

As for exercise, I did exercise each day as soon as my back was feeling better.  Yesterday I did hours of house cleaning, which is supposed to burn about 200 calories an hour.  I wish I had gotten more done, but Will always pitches in.  In fact, sometimes he does the housework and I pitch in.

With my “Dialectical Behavioral Therapy” I have learned about distracting myself in moments of extreme emotional upset.  My tendency to lash out, to be mean and act angry sometimes gets in the way of accomplishing what it is I want to accomplish, particularly in regards to communication.  One area that I learned to distract myself is with housecleaning.  It’s physical, which is good for burning off stress, but it is ALWAYS in need of being done.  Something, somewhere in the house needs to be washed, dusted, folded or packed.  Of course art and writing are my primary ways, but I have found some solace in house cleaning as of late that I never thought I would.  Amazing what reading just the right books and focusing on the right therapy techniques can help to change.

I’ll let you know how the weigh-in goes of course.