Filed under: Nutrition, Thoughts and Observations | Tags: binge, eating, much, my, sabotaging, success, too, way
I’ll admit it. I’ve never had it.
I’ll be playing racquetball and I’ll get to where I’m ahead 12-4 and I’ll just coast. I’ve lost more games where I was ahead 12-4 because all of a sudden my opponent gets mad, competitive, whatever, and comes roaring back – I’ve lost my momentum and by the time I’ve got it back he’s doing a little victory dance.
I had that killer instinct for a while as a freelance artist – but one day I realized I was causing stress and pain in my life and my families lives by stressing over details my clients didn’t even realize were there. I was so focused on “perfection” that I was adding stuff to my work that made no difference to my clients. So I went to this mode of “work-feedback-work-feedback” and when the client says they love it, I do three or four more things (that the client knows about) to make it even better, and call it good.
As I’ve aged I’ve become more comfortable with who I am. If my lawn isn’t offensive, that’s good enough. I no longer need to feel like I’m working to have the best lawn on the block…
So I find that I’m completely off the wagon for weight loss. I was at IFA (Intermountain Farmers Association) last night pricing chickens and buying seed for the garden. As I’m checking out I see Boston Baked Beans and Circus Peanuts – large bags of them – next to the check out. I’m overcome with a wave of nostalgia and buy them to share with the boys after we’ve finished our garden planting for the night.
The Boston Baked Beans never made it to my house. When I finished the bag I looked and realized I’d just eaten 1400 calories as I drove home.
Yesterday after lunch I HAD to have a cookie. So I got one of those Grandma B Sugar Cookies – like 520 calories per cookie.
See, I’m completely out of control.
On my way to work this morning I realized that it all started when I realized I had lost weight at the doctor – the very next day I was eating more, exercising less…
Just like racquetball – once I get ahead I start to coast?
It occurred to me that I’m sabotaging my success. Something in my still doesn’t want to be in shape, healthy. As I type this I think it might be true. What is it I’m afraid of?
It’s a disturbing thought. Wonder how I proceed…
P.S. I have to give myself props for at least being aware of the calories, of being aware of what I’m doing.
Filed under: Humor, Nutrition, Thoughts and Observations | Tags: binging, eating, like, no, so sick I can't even sleep from being such a pig, there's, tomorrow
There’s a place out by the Great Salt Lake, it’s east of Saltair, and I know it as the “Temple of the Birds”.
It’s a concrete structure that has been there forever, and it’s covered in all kinds of graffiti, and is a favorite among many photographers in the Salt Lake area. It’s a great location. When you get tired of the building, you can shoot in the burned out remains of an old trolley car that sits right next to it.
I agreed to meet a couple of my friends out there on Saturday morning to do a shoot – they wanted to learn more about lighting on location, so that’s where we decided to do it.
Britanny, Alec (my daughter and our model for the shoot) and I pulled up and found the gate to be shut and locked. No problem, we’ll just climb it. I got out of the car and walked across the road to access what we were up against, and I walked into what felt like a puff of powdered sugar. It was almost imperceptible except for the burning sensation around my hairline and my ears.
I had walked into a cloud of “no-see-ums”. I don’t know what they really are – but I do know they are vicious. They are some kind of gnat that is roughly the size of a pinhead, and made entirely of teeth. Iv’e run into them before, I got a dozen of them in my helmet once when I was riding my motorcycle in this same area – it was painful then – it was worse now…
Soon they had worked their way through my hair and my entire scalp was being eaten. The girls were under attack too, so we ran for the car.
They were in the car too – well to be fair, they probably rode in on my head! I’m smashing my head with my hands trying to get the little buggers to stop eating me. How could such tiny things cause so much pain?
Finally I just decided that I’d let them eat their fill, and then fly away. I took about 20 minutes for the little guys to fill up. We moved down the shoreline to another location for our shoot – my mind was soon preoccupied with lighting and technical issues – but later I realized, when I washed my hair, just how painful this was going to be. Here I am on Monday and the tops of my ears and most of my head is so tender to the touch I just can’t believe it.
Here’s the connection. On the weekends (well the last two at least) I eat all food that is not good for me like those no-see-ums ate my scalp. Ferociously attacking anything thing that is sweet, salty, or fried. I lay in bed at night and can’t sleep as my stomach struggles to finish digesting what I’ve done to it that morning/afternoon/evening/night and I think of those no-see-ums, seeing me as a giant food source and attacking and feeding on all they can. Gorging themselves on the available food while it’s available.
On the weekends I’ve been just like them. All teeth, no brain.
I hope they had a hard time sleeping that night too.
Filed under: General Whining, Nutrition | Tags: ate way too much, not very proud of myself
Boy it’s always something – ya know?
Pulled my back muscle, feet swollen with arthritis, ankles tender, knees hurting… all from being a little too active over the weekend (well, and at the gym a few days ago).
I was glad to get back to work today where I could get some rest. Haha.
Weekends are crazy now that the warm weather is here – I’m always moving, doing, working, but not really planning my nutrition…
Then it hits me – BAM – and I am wiped out because I have no fuel in me. Suddenly I want to tear people’s heads off for simply telling me they are out of Diet Mountain Dew. So in panic I reach for whatever is there – and if you are in a place where there is Diet Mountain Dew, you are in a place where the nutritional choices are not good. That’s right – the C-store/gas station!
Well I found myself there twice in that condition as I mixed fuel for yard implements and filled up two cars going here and there on Saturday. No I didn’t have the web with me to count calories. No I don’t even remember all that I ate – and I’m almost certain that I don’t want to.
So no record, no gym this morning. Feels like I’m starting over again.
When I can focus – really focus on what I’m doing it goes really well. But I only seem to be able to do that for a few days at best and life happens again. Dangit!
Filed under: Nutrition | Tags: artery clogging, breakfast, content, fat, great, high, mcdonalds, so very bad for you, tastes
Ok, this calorie tracking is teaching me big things.
Did I mention I hurt myself this morning? (I did) The result of moving slower because I was hurt meant I left the house slower, no time for a breakfast shake.
So I stop by McDonald’s for two sausage burritos. Two can’t hurt can they?
This is going to be really good for me. My fat and cholestorol are shot for the day (the fat will come back into line with a couple of apples and non-fat foods before the day is over) – my but that McDonalds food is bad for you.
And can I just say how nice it is to enter my exercise and have the site recommend how much more I can eat in a day? So. Nice!
I think I’ve been eating way too little – when I get a good workout in I’m burning tons of calories, and when I only eat 1500 calories in a day, and burn 600 in a workout… no wonder I’m grouchy.
It’s been great so far. The first 7 days are free – I think I’m hooked.
Oh, one more thing. The site has improved a ton since I used it a couple of years ago. It’s easy to use, and pretty intuitive. They’ve really streamlined food entry, and improved the graphics. Great stuff.
Here’s the link again if you want to check it out… http://www.myfooddiary.com/
Filed under: Nutrition
Wow – just filled out today’s food consumption – even cheating it’s SO MUCH better than I would have imagined. That’s so good to know!
Filed under: Nutrition, Thoughts and Observations | Tags: biggest loser, calories, counting, diary, food, forming, habits, new
Ok. One more week closer to the end of the Biggest Loser, and I heard it again. In fact, of the whole show I remember them being so inspirational to the participants in the 5k, and this one quote…
“You have to count every calorie that goes into you”.
Bob was talking to a woman that needed to lose five more pounds to get to her goal, but it seems like every time I watch the show, I hear that phrase in one way or another.
Generally I’ve found in life that when one certain thing keeps making itself “heard”, keeps making itself manifest to me, it tends to be an answer to some question I have, or don’t know I have yet…
Did that make sense?
Well my delete key is broken, so I’m not going to edit it. But what I’m saying is I think the fact that I keep hearing “count calories” in my life, and I’m on this quest to find a way to lose this weight… well I’m taking it as a sign.
I think I’ll go back to http://www.myfooddiary.com/ and pay the $9 a month. I don’t love it, but I hate everything else I’ve tried. In the past it’s helped to regulate my food intake when I’m keeping track of everything going into me. At least I can go back and see my history and where I need to do better.
I know what you’re thinking – c’mon Doug, can you really count calories for the rest of your life?
I hear you. The way I see it is I need to really slow down, take a look at what I’m doing, and start to form some new habits. Once the new habits are formed, I’ll take off the training wheels and try to live like a big boy again.
Until then, I start logging what I eat.
Now what would really be interesting is if I could take a Facebook approach to this. That is publish my food diary for the world to see. I wonder if I’d think twice about those pop tarts when I knew that all four of you that read this would see it –
I suppose I could just add it to the blog, but that would be a pretty intensely boring blog I must say…
Off to log my calories for the day…
Off of Diet Coke again.
10:38 and I sure could use the kick that it provides. Thinking of that sparkly, effervescent friend no longer a part of my life leaves me a little sad.
And water is just so boring compared to it’s party-in-my-mouth carbonation…
Sigh.
12:48 – Bring on the headache – oh yeah!
http://www.hulu.com/watch/139790/jamie-olivers-food-revolution-episode-3
Great show, I’d recommend starting with the first episode.
Filed under: Inspiration, Nutrition | Tags: biggest loser, candy, drug, rules of eating, sugar, too sweet
In the life I’m trying to leave behind, there are a couple of rules that I’ve lived by:
1- Availability of food is reason enough to eat. Hunger has nothing to do with it.
2-There’s no such thing as “too sweet”
3-Any package of cookies on the isle of the grocery store is a single serving.
Wednesday night I watched the latest Biggest Loser. This is the episode where they all got to go home, and there was a giant crate waiting for them. Inside the crate was a stationary bike, and a box of cupcakes. The challenge was they had to ride 26.2 miles on the bike, and they could eat a cupcake to add 5 minutes of time to any other player.
100 calories a cupcake, 5 minutes added to the other players time. $10,000 to the winner. Sounds fun.
Many of the players opted out of eating any cupcakes. But several ate 6 or more to add time to other people’s scores…
Here’s what I thought was interesting. They all had a hard time eating a cupcake, let alone 5 or 6. They all took a their first bite of the cupcake and grimaced, kind of gagging the thing down. They all complained about how sweet it was, how it was too much, how they weren’t enjoying having to do this.
Given my rule two, I thought that was interesting. As far fetched as that sounded (based on my rule 2) I believed them, and I wondered if that kind of thing could ever happen to me…
Yesterday my boss came out of her office. One of our vendors had sent a selection of toffees. She borrowed my scissors, opened it, ate a piece, and left them on the desk next to me.
Ok, so according to rule 1, food is available so I eat. I can do that.
There were three kinds of toffee open, so I had a piece of each – I was quite proud of myself for only eating one each. But that third one was delicious, so I had two more.
It’s not that I even love toffee, it’s just that it was there. You know? I didn’t pound all of this down in 15 seconds, it took me an hour or so, but they were in me.
The first thing I noticed is my mouth was almost burning – hmmm, that’s not really how to describe it. The sweet taste in my mouth was so strong it was almost more than I could bear. I started drinking water to try to dilute it, to make it bearable.
Then came the head rush. I joked with my boss that I thought there was cocaine in the candy, she agreed since she was having the same symptoms. I got really light-headed, then it started turning into a headache. Not pleasant.
Then the crash. I was SO tired. I could barely keep my eyes open. I thought about eating another piece just to get me to dinner – but my mouth couldn’t bear the thought (yes my mouth thinks, doesn’t yours?) of that taste again…
I was sitting through a meeting (conference call) and all I could hear was “platform” and “leveraging”. I know they were saying other things, but those were the only two words that stuck out to me. I’m telling you, it was like being on a drug, and it was a bad trip.
I’m at work now, the toffee is on the desk next to me. All I can feel when I think about it is that headache. I swear, just thinking about it gives me a headache. How’s that for motivation to stay away from it?
Doug Losing Weight 