I wish...

I wish I could have a healthy relationship with food.  It's better now than it's ever been before, but I still obsess about my hunger level and the food I'm going to eat.  I wish I could view food as a delicious nutrient, not something to satiate me during times of boredom and stress.

I wish I could leave food on my plate without a lot of thinking and indecision.  I wish I could not obsess about taste.  I wish it wasn't all about food. But it's always all about food for me.  My birthday was celebrated with deliciousness, holidays are thought-out weeks in advance, and I adore cheese in huge amounts.  I wish I innately understood portion control.

I wish I didn't gain 3 pounds this week. 

Routine on pause

I create organized systems for every part of my life. I like routines, I like consistency, and I like numbers. Which is why I have a very consistent Monday through Friday routine. I work out in the morning, run five minutes late to work, and then pretend to go home at five. (Generally, I have a planned work/activist/social activity. I rarely am actually home.) I make my lunch the night before, pack my clothes for the next day, and go to bed.

This morning I slept through my alarm, and woke up about the time I should have been half-way through my workout at the gym. I'm trying to decide what that means for the rest of my day. Do I exercise after work? Tonight is the only night this week I don't have plans, and I was looking forward to going home, relaxing and doing laundry. On the other hand, I know that the next week will be difficult for me weight-wise due to the vacation. I SHOULD work out after work, but I think I'm just going go home, do laundry, walk around a bit in the park, and go home and enjoy my new room.

I am very good about my exercise routine (normally). It's just a habit - get up and go to the gym. But I am terrible with food. As I think I've mentioned before, I'm a food addict. An alcoholic once said, "I don't want just one drink. I want ten." The same with me and food. I don't want one of anything. I want AT LEAST ten.

I've tried to handle this in a variety of ways.

1. I'll buy food I can have a lot of, like baby carrots or broccoli.
   
2. I'll pre-portion everything. When I make soup, I immediately put it into portion-size containers. I will eat whatever's in front of me, so I need to have the food in a portion size I should consume.
   
3. With the help of portion control and calorie counting, I am slowly training my body to know what is a portion. I have been on this training path for over six months now, and it's still going slowly.

I no longer can eat an entire cake, but I can still eat half of one. This probably doesn't sound like a huge improvement, but it really is. Unlearning a lifetime of habits is slow-going, and every small sign of progress is a huge success, even if it takes months and years to get it right.

Talking the talk

A little irony for you: the week I start blogging about weight-loss is the week that I gain two pounds. It was foreseeable (even expected). Every time I go home I gain some weight due to the delicious cooking and eating out. Yet, I've often gone home and gained four pounds in two days, and this week was quite the reverse: only two pounds in four days!

I am definitely improving my eating habits, despite the weight gain. I am both dreading and looking forward to my vacation next week in San Diego. It is a test of my willpower. There will be no portion-controlled Lean Cuisine waiting in the freezer for me when I'm hungry. I will need to navigate the "real world" of food, and manage my own food addiction. I hope I can be somewhat successful. While I would love to say success would be to continue to lose weight while on vacation, I don't think that's possible for me at this time. If I do not gain weight the week I am gone, I will consider that a very big success.