30 January 2010

Scattered

Definitions of scattered on the Web:

  • occurring or distributed over widely spaced and irregular intervals in time or space; "scattered showers"; "scattered villages"

  • confused: lacking orderly continuity; "a confused set of instructions"; "a confused dream about the end of the world"; "disconnected fragments of a story"; "scattered thoughts"

That would be me..... I have a tendency to get distracted by different things and not follow through on others.  I always joke that I have adult ADD, but I'm beginning to think I'm not joking as much as I thought.  I've been like this most of my life,  I have years of unfinished projects in the studio to attest to that.  But I have also learned how to deal with it over the years.  If it's something I want badly enough I will stay focused and follow through. But, no matter how badly I may want it, if it's  long term project it's hard for me......very hard..... So one of the tricks I've developed over the years is to break it into little pieces.  Not look at the whole picture, just focus on one section.  The house we're buying is a perfect example.  We have run into so many problems and roadblocks along the way and every time I thought about all the issues I got depressed and sad and just wanted to give up.  But if I took it one piece at a time not only did we get through it but there is only one more item to work out and hopefully that is in the process of being worked out.  So that's one of my tricks, focus on one piece of the puzzle at a time. 

It dawned on me yesterday that this is the missing piece of my journey towards health and fitness.  I backslid some and for some reason started looking at the big picture.  I have to get my eating in line, I have to exercise, I need to workout at least an hour a day and eat below XXXX calories and not eat sweets and stay away from lots of bread....and....and....and......   Can you see why nothing got done and I just wanted to crawl into a box of cookies and eat myself into oblivion??  Then I stumbled across this blog.  Which led me to this blog.  And that led to this blog.  Then I stumbled to this blog.  And even found this blog.  What I found on most of these blogs is some fabulous food ideas.  I saw some recipes and meals that had my mouth watering.  And they were healthy and mostly easy to make.  This got me to thinking.

What if instead of trying to eat healthy and cut calories and exercise intensely and teach and go to graduate school and do the things for the house and (eventually) move and try to control everything and anything.... What if I took it one step at a time?  What if I focused more on my eating and let the other stuff fall where it may for now?  What if I put some intense energy into getting my food back on track and not worrying about the exercise?  What if??

Those thoughts were immediately followed by "but hubby does the cooking so I don't really have any control over the food."   Hmmm.....he cooks dinner since that's the only meal we have together.  For breakfast, lunch, and snacks I eat what I want.  So what if I took control of those three things.  Hubby knows that I prefer to eat meat and veggies at dinner.  He knows I don't like fried or really greasy.  And I can tell him again.  But for the rest of the day I can eat what I want and I want to make that healthy.  So I got some meal ideas off those blogs and made a shopping list for later today.  Then I thought,"you know, I do this.  I'll go shopping, buy all this stuff, then forget what I was going to make with it and it will either sit there or go bad."  So that started me to thinking how can I not let that happened again and I came up with one of my most favorite tools.  A Plan!!!


I sat this morning and created this meal planner in Excel. This allows me to plan my breakfasts, lunches, and snacks for the entire work week.  There is even a grocery list at the bottom so I know what to buy.  This way I won't buy this stuff then forgot what it's for.  I will have my meal plan and every evening I will get the next days meals ready.  No thinking or trying to figure out what I'm going to have for breakfast or lunch.  No ending up buying some crap that I really don't want. I am so proud of myself.  I know that once I can get one part of the puzzle under control the other pieces will start to fall into place too.  So this is a great way to start.  For the next week my meals are planned. Now, all I have to do is go shopping.

29 January 2010

Food and eating

I've really been rethinking my whole idea of food and eating. This is a process that actually began a few years ago when I began shifting my thinking to food only as fuel. Part of that process involved losing the idea that food can make me feel happy, or wanted, or anything at all. That has been fairly successful in that when I am turning to food to hide feelings I know it now. I am well aware of why I am eating crap. It doesn't always stop me but admitting and acknowledging the problem is definitely half the battle. During that journey I began to focus my eating on mostly unprocessed foods. My general rule was if it didn't come from the ground or have parents I didn't eat it. No I was not perfect but I figured if I did that 80-90% of the time I was way ahead of most people.

Over the last year or so I slacked on this rule. I began eating more and more processed food and justifying it by "well, I'm only eating this" until eventually I was eating a lot of processed food in a day. My typical diet would look like this:

Cereal - processed
Milk
Fruit

Bread - processed
Lunchmeat - processed
Condiments - processed
Soup - definitely processed

Chips - processed


Meat of some sort
Veggies - usually steamed or in a salad
Rice/Potatoes

Dessert - ice cream/cake - processed

Most of the foods I am eating during the day are processed. That is really not good.

Also, from all these "experts" you hear that you need to eat every 3-4 hours to keep you metabolism up and keep your blood sugar stable, blah, blah, blah...... You know what? I don't believe them. I don't!!! I also don't believe that you need to eat 1200, 1400, 1600, whatever, calories a day in order to lose or maintain your muscle. I believe that the human body is much better at handling nutrition then our brains are.

If you look at our history as animals I think you will learn more then reading any book. When humans evolved we had to hunt down our food. There were no super markets to go to. Also, animals were not kept in small areas and bred just to feed humans. They lived, knew their parents, searched for their food, mated, etc. They lived like we did and as a result they were much healthier and we were much healthier. Also, when we had to go out and actually hunt for our own food we had to do it all the time. We did not have refrigerators where we could store our kill and eat it next week. Which means, in my mind, there were times when we ate a lot and times when we didn't eat at all. That would explain why our bodies are such good fat storage machines. So let's recap, humans used to eat much healthier animals and there were times of feast and famine. Hmmmmm.....doesn't sound anything like today does it???

I am 50 years old and I remember from my childhood there were not a lot of packaged products. There were some and there were canned things, but they were not the norm. My mom made everything from scratch. She used full fat and we were all a reasonable weight. I did not go out to eat until I was 10 years old. There was no such thing as school lunch, we went home for lunch or brought a sandwich from home. Candy was usually something my Dad got as gifts for her that we got to share in. What this means is that in less then 50 years we have gone from eating primarily home cooked, whole food to eating primarily processed food. There is no way our body can keep up with that rapid change. No. Way.

What does this mean? This means I am going back to viewing food only as fuel. Back to only eating something if it came from the ground or had a mother. Back to mostly meatless meals and no processed food. This time I'm going to be more serious about the whole thing. Breakfast will be either Greek yogurt and fruit or a quiche type dish and fruit. Lunch will be salad with things like beans and hummus. Dinner will be no more then 3 oz of meat and lots of veggies. No sweets, snacks and sweets will be only dried fruit or nuts. When I ate this way before I felt better then I ever felt in my life, so it's back to it only now it's for good.

27 January 2010

Stress is not my friend

With this whole house situation I am incredibly stressed. I finally decided on Monday that I just had to let it go....If it works, it works. If it doesn't, it doesn't....My losing sleep, not working out, and eating everything in sight is not going to change things one way or the other. So I am working on getting to a zen place where I don't let these things bother me. I'm tired of needing lots of hand cream because my eczema is acting up from the stress, or larger pants from eating too much, or acne cream because stress causes pimples in a 50 year old!!! Who knew!!!!

I have not worked out since Monday. That will help me deal with the stress but I just don't have it in me. I've decided to give myself a break for a couple of days. Maybe this weekend.....

25 January 2010

Burnt out

This whole house thing is really wearing me down. Every time I turn around there is something new. I don't think I can take anymore. It's a health issue now. I'm so completely stressed out and that is not good for me. I'm trying to keep up minimal workouts because it definitely helps handle the stress but it's tough. Hopefully things will settle down one way or the other in the next few days. I don't know how much more of this I can take. I think maybe I should move to the mainland and get into motorhome towing, it can't be as stressful as this......

Conversation with Hubby

 So yesterday morning I presented my idea of working out at home to the Hubby. Once I presented it to him, he said he was in. I told him I h...