Back on track

My last post was on the 10th. The last day I ate well and paid any attention to my points for good behavior was the 13th. I've been binging since then. And not brushing my teeth after lunch, or flossing at all. I've gained back six pounds and feel like I'm at true maximum capacity for flesh on this body.

My plan now is to get really serious and stop messing around and go back to my original "100 days of fitness" plan that I did last winter where I lost 15 pounds.

Regular well balanced 400 calorie breakfast. (Last year it was cereal everyday, but this time I think I'll switch it up with eggs and veggies. I got sick of cereal after the first month.)

Regular well balanced lunch served on top of a large bed of salad greens. Vegetable served raw and usually a few hours later as a snack. Sometimes with a dip made from herbs and garlic mixed in with a little yogurt set aside from breakfast.

Soup for supper. Between 100 and 300 calories of soup. Plus a serving of steamed veggies. Optional added whole grain (if soup is 200 calories or less.) Optional added protein (if soup is 100 calories or less) Soup is assumed to have needed fat calories.

Dessert is one piece of fruit. Last year it was a grapefruit every night, because it takes a while to eat and is so satisfying. But I got sick of that too after a month or so. This time I'm going to alternate with pomegranate.

That's only 1300 calories a day, sometimes less...depending on the supper. But, because of the bulk (salad and soup), and the timing (spaced evenly) I never did feel hungry. I felt "bingey" but not hungry. What does one do about feeling bingey? Just don't give in, I guess.

My real downfall isn't solo splurging...it's social events. I eat too much and not the right things at get-togethers, and then later at home...after I feel I've ruined my plan, I freak out on cookies and ice-cream.

There are exactly 70 days left between today and the first of the year...counting those two days.

Sticking to this plan for two months...which feels do-able if I refuse food oriented invitations...how much of my extra weight could I lose? 22 would make me happy. Back to 154 is like the holy grail of weight loss to me...it's the size I'd be able to fit back into my suits at.

70/22=3.18

I'd have to lose a pound every 3.18 days. That's a little less than 2 a week. I think I could do it.

The trick is to boycott all social food things. Or, if I go to them, just don't eat at them. Have sparkling water, and lemon, and herbal tea instead. If absolutely necessary, have my own food that I bring: celery and other raw veggies, soup, etc.

2 months. For myself.

I also need to run 3 miles every day. Well, I can take a break once in a while. Once or twice a week, I guess. I should do an hour yoga class for every 3 mile run I miss. I think that would work out.

Book plan, meal plan

Yesterday I'm sure I would have felt really depressed, except that it was the weekend and Sweetie was home with me all day. I was so lethargic. If it had been a weekday I would have forced myself to try and be productive, and been miserable. Or, I would have gone to bed for the day at 10 am, and felt guilty. Or who knows, maybe I would have felt great and had a wonderful day.

We went out to a Teriaki restaurant for supper. I had a big bowl of clear broth with steamed mixed veggies, chicken and clear rice noodles. It was delicious, and I figured it was probably just about what my food plan called for. I also had a glass of white wine, which didn't seem like too much of a splurge. I calculated it at 100 calories, and counted it as a carb. So, I felt like I was on track.

But this morning, I'm back up to 171...from 169.5 that I weighed after my jog yesterday. I know to expect some fluctuations up and down, but it's disheartening. I hope it goes back down today. Though, I guess I'm still moving forward according to my original plan. I'm not supposed to hit 169 for another week. I was losing weight faster than my program predicted. I guess it's all averaging out.

When I hit 164 I lose 100 calories from my daily allotment. I wonder if I will notice that much?

I've been thinking about what I've been writing. Most of it, if not all of it, is just a bunch of self-indulgent pap.

What would I need to focus on writing about if this was really going to be a book worth reading?

Well, I probably would want to talk some about the emotional journey, and for that the random musings will come in handy.

But, more topically, I would want to address each of the "compliance" points I give myself.

Why eat food.
Why eat not too much.
Why eat mostly plants, and a certain balance of calories.
Why put on exercise clothes?
Why run or cardio?
Why yoga?
Why herbal tea?
Why water with lemon?
Why plain water?
Why get up early?
Why go to bed early?
Why get enough sleep?
Why floss teeth?
Why brush after every meal?
Why wear sunblock and wash it off?

I think each of those topics could make a good short chapter, if I found a good story to put into it, and explained my thinking about why it is good for a person's health and might make a person happier.

But first, I would need to discuss the whole problem of happiness:

Desire is not the sign post which leads to the path of happiness.

Dali Lama says expand capacity.

Constitution protects our right to pursue it.

And then, the problem of health.

What constitutes good health?

Are there degrees of health, or only degrees of distance from it?

What is the point of being healthy? (healthier?)

Explaining the idea and process behind this experiment.

Also, explaining the reasoning and formula behind the happiness scores.

And finally, some sample meals.

Oh, and some discussion of will-power vs. other ways of getting things to happen.

Here's what I've been eating the last few days:

Breakfast:

Low fat cottage cheese served with cantaloupe.
Cheddar cheese sliced atop rice cakes

Lunch:
Sausage in tomato sauce with millet served over salad greens
Raw sliced jicama and red peppers

Supper:
Blended cauliflower soup with chunky potatoes seasoned with olive oil and spices, topped with crumbled bacon.

Snack:
more soup.

Breakfast:
Fat-free plain yogurt topped with almonds.
Smashed banana spread on rice cakes, sprinkled with cinnamon, ginger and cayenne

Lunch:
Saucy meatballs made with ground turkey, egg, oats and spices in a broth of tomato paste, olive oil and garlic.
Salad greens with mixed raw veggies, lemon and salt.

Supper:
Tomato sauces from a jar, mixed with fake ground meat onions and frozen spinach, served over whole wheat linguini, sprinkled with nutritional yeast.
Steamed broccoli

Snack:
Grapefruit

Breakfast:
2 fried eggs cooked in a pat of butter
small bowl of oatmeal with dollop of yogurt, cinnamon and ginger
fresh grapes

Lunch:
Butternut nut squash soup with canned tuna and barley, salt and pepper.
Green salad with raspberry dressing

Supper:
Sliced smoked turkey and fat free feta cheese sauteed with zuchini, tomatoes and onions, served over a bed of brown rice.

Snack:
Cantaloupe

Bead and buttons and bracelets

Yesterday was my twenty-fifth day of this project. I got a good score: 14. I haven't done yoga in a few days. It feels like to much. Housework feels like to much. Cooking feels like to much. Paperwork feels like too much. Everything feels like too much. Everything but getting up in the morning and writing in this journal. That feels like not enough...like nothing at all.

I was real happy yesterday (8) because there are a dozen pharmaceutical sales jobs advertised for this area. Working as a drug rep is the only real job I've ever had. The only one that really paid well, the only one that required me to dress up and go to nice places, the only one that contributed to a 401 K or provided me with real training. There were lots of things about those jobs that I just hated, but there were some things that I loved. Even beyond the paycheck and the clothes and the car...there were things I really liked about selling drugs. The main thing, I guess, was learning all about the medicine, and their corresponding diseases.

When I first moved here TWO years ago, I tried to get a pharma job. But there just weren't any. Or, there weren't many. Maybe one or two a month popped up, during good months. I applied for them but only heard back once. I only had one interview for that job. That was it. I drove down there...actually Sweetie took the day off and drove me...in a horrible snow storm. The guy scheduled to go after me actually had a car accident on the way and couldn't make his appointment. I over heard the phone conversation. So, I thought my chances were pretty good...but I never heard back from them.

But all of a sudden there are like a dozen or more adds from hiring companies. Real companies too, that I am familiar with...not just contract organizations and recruiters. It's really exciting to think that I might actually be able to get a job, even if it is the same thing I was doing before. I wasn't too unhappy back when I was doing this. And when I was, it was probably more about the challenging things in my life, not so much about my job.

If I did it for a year, we could get out of the non-asset related debt we have right now...the few thousand on the credit card AND my student loan.

If I did it for two years, we could save up funds for me to use for going to school or for supporting a real book project.

If I did it for three years, we could plan a fabulous tour of Europe, and even invite my mom along for part of it.

There are probably other things that it would be smarter to spend extra money on that a tour of Europe...but that's the one that excites me. Hell, maybe we'd even go to India too. And Japan. And Brazil. It could be a world tour! I can hardly think of anything more exciting than that.

I wonder how much it would take to buy a really nice sail boat, maintain it, hire a crew to work it while we learned how, pay for docking and mooring fees, and have enough money to live on? Wouldn't that be an incredible goal to work towards. There's no reason I couldn't. And there's no reason why...once we were doing that, I couldn't really focus on writing.

Is it okay to wait that long before I get serious about writing? I don't know.

I should use my time this morning to edit my "how i learned to sail" story down to 2k words so I can submit it to the sailing magazines. I wonder if it is a realizable goal to get an article printed before the end of the year. It's still the beginning of October, that gives me almost three months. I'm going to try.

It's been about 4 days since I got serious about losing weight. And, I've lost at least two pounds. I can't remember what I started out at...174? 173? Even if I started at 172, I'm on track with the half a pound every other day goal. I weigh 171 this morning. It's such a delight to feel that extra bulge shrinking away. And, to have those solid numbers right there reassuring me that my efforts are paying off, hinting at the soon to be realized delights of beautiful clothes and a graceful sillouette.

I don't know why, but I'm finding it much easier to stick to my food guidelines not that they are stricter. I guess it's because there's a real reason now...a tangible something to give up if I go nuts and eat a box of cookies. Back when loosing weight was my only motivation...it was hard to stick to the plan in the face of binge urges. Recently when gaining points and being happy was at stake, I stuck to the plan to the tune of 1.84 out of a possible 3 points. That is only slightly better than half. And, my guess is that much of what is better than half about that number comes from the last 3 or 4 days of perfect behavior being averaged in. I'm hoping that the triple temptation of gaining points, being happy and watching my number shrink in the scale window will be enough to keep me focused and motivated.

It should be enough just to think back to last february, when I had lost 15 pounds and felt so good in my body. I looked so good in my clothes. It might also help to go through my wardrobe now and pull out all the things that don't quite fit: my red and black lace print skirt, my red courdory skirt with the military buttons up the front, my black suit pants, my tan skirt with the triangle panels. Then, once that stuff fits, I can pull out the real prizes: my grace kelly dress, the black turtle neck dress, my blue navy suit, my grey suit with the scalloped edge, my cream and brown striped suit. And once those things fit, I can pull out the real prize...the pink suit that has never quite fit me because I bought it when I weighed 154 and thought I was going to lose another 5 pounds. I never did. Instead, I was diagnosed with cancer and had to have surgery and stopped working out regularly and ate cookies and ice cream for most meals and moved here to the mountains and got married and struggled with depression.

But, thanks to my focus for the last few days, I am now 17 pounds heavier than that, instead of 20. I just need to do that 6 more times, right? (17-3=14,1! 14-3+11,2! 11-3=8,3! 8-3=5,4! 5-3=2,5! and 2-3=-1,6!) So yeah, 6 more times, and I'll be down to the weight I was when I felt so good. That sounds so easy. Just do what I've done over the last few days, which was easy...6 more times. There's probably something wrong with that theory. I probably didn't quite weigh 174...but the more I think about it, the more I think I actually did.

Now, the best thing would be if after 6 more times, I had found a job and was getting a paycheck and had the money to go shopping. Then, I would go to my favorite stores, and all the thrift stores too, and buy a bunch of new clothes...for work and for salsa dancing, that either fit perfectly or are a smidge too tight. Maybe that will help me stay focused and committed until the final number...139. Or until someone I care about tells me I'm too thin. Or until I look in the mirror and decide I don't want to loose anymore weight. From 154 to 139 is only 15 pounds. I can loose that by doing what I just did 5 times. That sounds easy too...doesn't it.

Sweetie and I have a dinner party to go to this weekend. I'd be dreading it, and considering canceling it, but we love the dinner parties these friends have. We're both looking forward to it.

I know I won't be able to stick to any kind of minimalist sampling of the food, it is too good, and too gracious, and too organized. They would know if I wasn't really eating. So instead, my plan is to eat well in the morning the day before, but then start an afternoon fast. And to spend the following morning in quiet activity and contemplation...continuing the fast until a right before we leave. I'll eat something very light...just 100 calories...to introduce my system back into the habit of digesting food. Then, at the party, I'll have a budget of exactly 2000 calories to enjoy.

That seems like plenty for really enjoying a party. I need to think of some way to keep track without anyone noticing. The bracelet trick is nice. I'd have to go out and buy some. I could have something small that I moved from my right pocket to my left, buttons or beads or such. I could only do that when I ducked into the bathroom. But that might be okay. I can keep a running tally for long enough to do that.

Okay. It's time to edit that story. It's not going to edit itself!

blah blah

I gave my self all sixes yesterday for my happiness rating. In the beginning of this project, my scores were all over the place, wildly swinging up and down. At that time, I thought a certain steadiness would be just as desirable as a lift in overall points. But after yesterday, I know I'd much rather have a day with a couple of 5's and a couple of 7's in it. The highs really make it worth having the lows.

I dreamed that Sweetie didn't love me any more. And the worse part was, I couldn't find our marriage license, so it was like we'd never even been together. There was no proof and no one believed me. People were very polite to me, like maybe they thought I was too mentally disturbed to contradict. It was nice to wake up in our dark bedroom and hear that steady breathing beside me...to know instantly that everything is all right.

I told Mom about this project when we talked on Monday. She asked me to send her the score sheet, so she could keep track of her points too. I wonder if she'll do it. I think the "bedtime" points: washing one's face, turning the light out early, were the big draw for her. She had terrible "sleep hygiene" as she calls it. I know she just falls asleep on the sofa, and then wanders to bed in her clothes in the middle of the night.

It's fun to "get points" for doing the normal things that can seem so tedious.

It's only been two days on my new lose-weight plan and I've lost half a pound. Of course, that is the plan...half a pound every other day. It's so satisfying to see that it's working.

I worry that once I get a job I won't have time to take care of myself. Other than go to the library, and pick up medicine at the vet's office, I can't think of anything useful that I did that wasn't part of getting ready for all the kids and mom's to come over and eat supper...like we do every Tuesday evening. Well, I also balanced and reconciled the checkbook...but really...it took a whole day just to do those few things? And, I was ExHaUsTeD at the end of it. Actually, I was exhausted in the middle of it!

Today's a fresh day, I'm going to try and get lots done. Especially job applications!

100 days of fitness

When I started this, loosing weight wasn't a goal. I figured I would just naturally drop a few pounds because I'd be exercising regularly at eating at least a little better than otherwise. But, instead, I feel like I'm gaining!

I'm not actually gaining, I'm fluctuating between 172 and 175...but 175 is so seriously on the wrong side of what feels like a comfortable weight for me that on those days I feel despairing. And nothing fits. It's hard to feel good when you know you don't look good.

Last year, right around Christmas...I was the same weight, and feeling the same way. So I devised a plan called "100 days of fitness" which caused me to lose 15 pounds. I felt GREAT at 160. But then I started binge eating again, and low and behold I am back at 175.

What's funny is...I still think I look good naked! When I walk down the hallway from the bathroom to my office, fresh from the shower and ready to get dressed, I can't help but admire my creamy skin, long limbs and swaying hips in the big mirror at the end of the hall. It's not until I try to squeeze myself into jeans that I feel like a stuffed sausage.

It's important to me to look beautiful. It's important for me to feel artistic and stylish. I've decided it's time to get serious again and lose...for good!...the extra fat I've been carrying around.

In my experience, it's easy to lose one pound every four days. That means if I start now...or yesterday, which I did...I could get rid of 35 pounds in 140 days. I don't think I've ever weighed that little, at least not at a time when I had access to a scale. That might be too thin for me, but I don't care...I'm making it a goal anyway. It's still well within the healthy BMI number for my height. If I get too skinny, then I will stop. Sweetie will tell me if I'm too thin, and since I'm NOT anorexic, I expect I'll be able to tell.

If I get an average of 3 jogging miles in everyday, or the cardio equivalent, then I need to eat a decreasing amount of calories as I loose weight. I think that's where a lot of people get stuck on diets. What works at 150 doesn't work the same at 130...because just carrying around that extra 20 pounds all day does some of the calorie burning work for you.

Here's what my daily caloric intake should be at 174 lbs, in order to loose one pound every 4 days: 1562

169:1497
164:1432
159:1367
154:1302
149:1237
144:1172
139...I'm thinking this is the absolute minimum weight for my height. It's not at the bottom of the healthy range on BMI charts...but it's as skinny as I can picture myself still looking good, and feeling vibrant. At this weight, if I want too stay there, and I am still running 3 miles a day, I should be eating 2107 calories a day. That is, according to the 13 calories pr. pound theory...which seems to be pretty reasonable. Of course, to actually stick to that long term, I should aim for 1700 calories most days, which would give me the option of splurging on up to 3,124 calories two days a week. That sounds like so much, but geez it's easy to eat that much.

Again according to the 13 calories pr. pound theory, if I ate that much every day, I would weigh 240. Lots of people DO weigh that much. I'm sure some of them have glandular disorders or malfunctioning metabolisms, but lot's of them simply eat that much! I look forward to eating that much on the weekends!

So, I didn't have any trouble sticking to the new plan yesterday. In fact, I had to be creative about eating some extra so I wouldn't be under nourished.

The key to the "100 days of fitness" plan is: trading in all the usually calorically dense and nutritionally weak foods for their opposite, nutritionally dense and calorically weak.

Volume is also important. Since I almost never feel unsatisfied by breakfast, I am just sticking to my usual porridge or egg based morning meal. I think this is an improvement over last time, when I just ate porridge...and got pretty sick of it.

For lunch, I eat my fat, protein and grain servings all poured over a large bowl of mixed raw salad greens. I don't think the greens have even enough calories to count, but they are full of nutrition. More importantly, they make me feel like I'm eating a great big meal! In truth, it's only 300 calories.

Later in the afternoon I have a snack of raw vegetables. Often, if I have yogurt for breakfast, I'll set some aside and mix in dried garlic and herbs. This makes a delicious dip on those days that plain raw vegetables seem too boring.

For supper, the key is soup. Ideally, I eat a 300 calorie bowl of soup that is well balanced between fat, protein and grain. Then, I add a large helping of plain cooked vegetables. There are some delicious combinations I've found. And the hot, steaming, filling soup really makes me feel satisfied.

This is the meal I get to play around with according to my cravings during that day, and according to my changing calorie goals. I don't have to worry too much about proper distribution. As long as the foods I'm eating are pretty healthy, and the calorie count is right, I figure it's okay. Last time, I even let myself eat things like Italian Wedding Soup from a can, which has suspicious little meatballs and noodles made from white flour. But it was greasy and tasty in a way that kept me from feeling deprived of things like pizza and lasagna. And, I figure, I am eating two other meals each day that are really solidly healthy. My body can handle a little bit of less-than-perfect sustenance once in a while.

Last night I had a cup of portabella mushroom soup poured over a cup of milled and topped with a serving of broccoli. I sprinkled the whole thing with garlic flakes and nutritional yeast. It was delicious...so savory!

If I can keep it up with the good eating plan and the regular exercise plan, I will reach 139 pounds by the 3rd week of February...just in time for my birthday. So, at 38, I will be more fit and trim that I was at any period in my 30's. It will be like being a teenager again, able to wear anything. The only difference will be, this time I'll KNOW I'm beautiful.

Time for Art

I like these words: embolden and redeemable.

I was pretty sure I was going to flop yesterday and not get many points on my compliance chart. I had two bowls of cornflakes for breakfast. That's 300 calories of whole grain, and 100 of protein. Not the right balance of food at all. And while cold cereals like corn flakes and cheerios are technically whole grains, they are not really on my food list. One, they are two processed. Two, I tend to act all binge-y with them.

But I ate well the rest of the day. Not quite the right balance, but all acceptable "foods," and not over 2000 calories. If I want to use this program to loose weight, I'm going to have to get serious like I did last winter, and knock it down to 1200 or 1300 calories a day. But I don't feel the need to be that serious right now. I think I'll just continue along like this for a while and see if I can get in a strong enough habit that I don't swing up and down on the compliance side of the chart any more.

I was able to calculate the correlation rate of my compliance scores in relations to my happiness scores yesterday. It was pretty low: four point something. At least, I think that's low. I really don't remember much from my statistics courses in college. But, I'm pretty sure a number below 5 means that the numbers aren't strongly correlated to each other. Maybe that's true. Maybe each days health score really can't predict at all the happiness score of that day. That's probably right. But I think there are other ways to measure compliance.

One. It's possible that every time my compliance moves in a down direction, my happiness score also moves in a down direction, either on that day, or the day after.

Two. It's possible that the longer I engage in this experiment, and the more point I accumulate in total, the higher my average happiness score. While my compliance scores jump up and down each day, it is true that I get more of them each week than I ever did before I started the program. It is also true that my average happiness score is moving up and up.

Three. It's possible that just engaging in this project has a subtly encouraging effect on my moods, no matter what my actual points are. I'm definitely happier more often that I was before I started doing this.


I think it's worth considering some of the other factors that may be contributing to my happiness.

One, something certainly related to this project, although not really part of it, is the fact that I am taking time each day to sit and write. I think that may be very significant.

Two, I don't think this is related to the project, though I can't be sure. Sweetie and I are reading a lot lately. I've been really committed to making sure we both have a fat selection of good library books for enjoying anytime. We tend to pass the books on to each other afterward, which means we can talk about what we've just read, or what we're currently reading, together. It's fun and it's intellectual, and it's enriching, and it's shared and it cuts down on the amount of TV and movies we watch.

Three, the weather has been really nice. Fall is here, but still lingers warmly in the air and in the sky and in the trees. There's just a soft hint of crispness. It's not a "ping!" kind of crispness. It's more like the sticky crust of an apple cobbler crispness, warm and fragrant and tasty. Sweet and rich.

I love fall.

And, I love getting up early, which IS part of the experiment. I'm really beginning to cherish these early morning hours. It's so nice to have the dark house to myself, and the sense that there is nothing else I should be doing but this.

My cousin and I took a tour of local artists' studios yesterday. Most of the art was blah blah blah. Some of the artists themselves were stunning, in their self-enchantment and lack of modesty. But we had a good day.

I was struck by the sense of entitlement some of these people have. I don't mean that as a slight, like I do most of the time when I use that word to describe people who live in this town. I wish I had it too. I can't imagine feeling like I had a right to rent a studio for myself, or devote hours and hours every day to creating art that might or might not be any good. I can't imagine buying the expensive tools and supplies it takes to make good art. I just can't imagine thinking of myself...and art that I could make...as worthy of the investment, no matter how much money I had at my disposal. But even more precious is the time. How could I ever feel like making art...even though I love art and need it in my life and support others to do it...how could I ever feel like MY art was a worthy enough pursuit to spend my days doing it.

I can't even allow myself the time to sit down and write...unless I do it now, in the dim pre-dawn, at hours so early I feel like no one else and nothing else can possibly have a right to claim them from me?

What is that about? And no wonder I struggle with depression. If it's that important for me to feel like my time is spent in worthwhile pursuits, what am I doing with my time? These past two years feel like wasting my life.

I'm sure there is a valuable lesson in this. I wish I could just learn it and move on.

I learned how to save my beautiful Excel chart alone on a page as a pdf, but I still can't figure out how to upload it here. I guess it needs to be a jpg. I guess I need to ask Sweetie for help.

I'm going to go to church today. Maybe that will add to my happiness.

Boycotts and Binges

I was so tired on the way home last night that I slept sitting up in the passenger seat for the 45 minutes it took to get home. I planned to sleep in this morning, since I we didn't get home until quarter to eleven. But, if I count the sleep I got in the car, then I really did go to "bed" at ten. No wonder I woke up automatically at 5:45 this morning, ready to start my day.

I didn't do well on my points sheet yesterday. I was doing fine until about three pm. I was at the grocery store, spending two hundred dollars on things that aren't even really food: kitten kibble, puppy chow, dryer sheets, sunblock, tums, tooth floss, scotch tape, tupper-ware, etc. While walking through the back area where the bathrooms are located, I smelled what I thought was fresh donuts. I had eaten perfectly all day, and the day before too! And suddenly this smell of fresh donuts was driving me crazy...I had to have some!

I finished my shopping, debating it in my head the whole time...would I or wouldn't I give in and buy half a dozen fresh glazed donuts. Finally, I would! But when I got to the bakery...a section of the store I ignore except on binge days, there were no donuts to be found. I wandered around for longer than I should have, considering and re-considering the few withered looking specimens left on the dozen mostly-empty donut trays in the display case. I peered through the plastic windows of the bags that held the factory made, pre-packages donuts and donut-holes. I even strolled past the cheesecake case a few times, wondering whether a large piece of plain cake with grahm cracker crust and sweet cherry topping would satisfy my craving for sweet and fat to sink my teeth into.

In the end, I decided that nothing but fresh donuts would do...so I pushed my heavy cart with the stubborn, sticking wheel, all the way to the one open lane. I felt almost triumphant that I had withstood that moment of temptation, and was emerging from the store with nothing but the healthy and necessary things I'd come in for.

But there was a display of cookies on the table next to the register, and I stupidly put one of the boxes in my cart. They weren't donuts. They weren't what I wanted. They weren't even very good. I don't understand why I bought them. I felt sick after eating half a dozen of them.

I know I wouldn't have broken down like that, except we had these supper plans where I knew I would end up eating stuff that wasn't on my food plan. And, I knew I would eat too much of it, and in the wrong combinations. So I guess at some level I figured this was the day to blow it.

I hate eating as a social activity. I really do. I know it's not very correct to feel this way. I know a shared meal is an important community building activity. I know eating alone is supposed to be sad and pitiful. I know not wanting to eat with people is odd and selfish. I don't care. I just don't like it.

It's not that I don't like people. I love to just sit and talk with friends. I'm happy to share a glass of wine. I'm more than happy to go and ride roller coasters together, or take turns helping each other clean out closets or garages or gutters. But geez, I hate having to eat with people.

I can never stick to my plan for what I'm going to eat.

Actually, that's not true. There is one time I enjoy eating with others, and that's at work for lunch. We each bring our own food, and no one expects to share with anyone else. We just eat what we brought, and enjoy each other's company while we eat. Sometimes we admire and inquire over someone else's meal. "How'd you make that? Is that from the Italian place where we had the fund raiser? What made you think to put strawberries and bananas on top of a leafy green salad? Is that bsalmic vinegar, or tamari?" But we don't mess with people.

I want to start boycotting suppers with other people. That's sad, because those are fun. It's wonderful to feel like someone else likes you so much they prepared a whole meal just to share with you. But mostly, ugh, I would so much rather just eat at home alone...or maybe with Sweetie...and have the luxury of understanding exactly what I'm eating, and how much of it and whether or not I've had enough.

I wonder if it's possible to cut down on the number of food-oriented events we do with people?

Parties should be okay. There's so much going on that it's usually manageable to just hold on to a glass of wine for the time you're there. No one pays attention whether or not someone else is eating. That's what makes those events so dangerous once you do start eating...there's no one to notice that you are pigging out and shame you into stopping.

Okay, so no eating at parties...and just one glass of red wine will have to last for the entire time we are at the party.

And it ought to be okay to invite people over here for supper. Then I have control over everything. For some reason, I still end up pigging out when people come over to eat with us. I wonder why that is? I guess I either need to figure that out, or stop having people over for supper.

It's so hard, going up against this huge cultural expectation that friends will invite each other over for supper, or go out to restaurants together. There are so many other things I'd rather do.

Mini golf. Canoeing. Air hockey. Movies. Plays. Hikes. Art projects. Landscaping. Shopping. Rollercoasters.

I need to put together a list of things that we can invite other people to do, for when we turn them down on their offers to eat together.

Today I am going on a tour of local art studios with my cousin. There will be crackers and cookies and chocolate and cheese on platters at the studios, but I'm going to bring along an iced herbal tea or lemon water, and just stick to that.

Tomorrow, Sweetie and I are meeting friends in a nearby town for a play. Actually, we're getting together an hour and a half before the play so we can spend some time together without staying up late on a Sunday night. Happily, it's a weird time to eat: 4:30. I think I can get away with just ordering a glass of wine and announcing my plan to eat a real supper later.


If I do that, then this could be a perfect point day...since I got up early already. And tomorrow could be a perfect point day too. And I can't think of any reason Monday couldn't be perfect too.

Tuesday will be hard because I'll have all the kids and their moms over here for supper again. But I'll try. Maybe I could make something I don't like. A casserole baked with quinoa! I wonder if the kids would eat that? Or something with bacon in it! Taline and I could share a vegetarian version. I wish there were more things I didn't like. Maybe I'm just not thinking hard enough. Papaya! If only it were possible to make a one dish dinner that featured papaya! There's no way I'd pig out on that.

Topics

Hey! I got a perfect compliance score yesterday! I ate right, I exercised, I drank plenty of water, got plenty of sleep, brushed four times, flossed, wore sunblock and washed my face before bed. It was a perfect healthy behavior day! And I was pretty happy all too. Maybe there is something to this theory after all. I probably won't be able to have another perfect score day today, because we are going to have supper at a friends house. But I will try.

I really thought I'd write about more interesting things than this. When I started this project I had a whole list of topics to cover. I thought I could actually make a book out of my journal entries. Maybe I still can, but not if they are all like this one. So far, I mostly write what I would call "blah, blah, blah."

Here are all the things I thought I might write about at the beginning:

Micheal Pollens rules on how to eat.
Methods of calculating daily caloric needs
Why vegetarianism is a good choice
Using meat as an "accent" food
Growing up vegetarian
Why it's okay to eat fish
Meat brownies
Visiting friends who promised not to tell
White flour is not a food
Kingsolver's book
Desire does not lead to happiness
Ani Difranco says happiness is a goal
We're fat because we're hungry
We can't rely on food advertizers to guide our food choices
We can't rely on gov. to guide our food choices
What is a serving
Food Pyramind vs bowl vs my pie
Ani D's aisles of future trash and why to avoid processed food
my hpyno therapy session
exercise
what are the reasons for losing weight
what are the reasons for eating right and exercising
The Blaise Pascal god proof related to the eat right or dont proof
telling strangers in the grocery store I'm not buying chocolate (and writing this blog)
the skinny girl's cookbook
The food chart
decision making: planning ahead, trial and error, gut instinct by Max Plank inst. guy
Binge eating and the craving brain
staying with Gma and Gpa getting skinny w/out losing weight
binge eating to escape, like throwing bricks into a well, but there's a roof on the well
yoga
dairy free diet and sinus clearing. "greek" yogurt
I can say whatever I want on this blog, name the best yogurt, say I don't like pork.
The steps of transfering a typical U.S. diet to a thinking woman's diet.
First add fruits, beggies, whole grains, lean meats, fat free dairy, vegetarian proteins.
Then reduce white flours, sugar, fried things, processed foods, fatty meats and fatty dairy.
Replacing food treats with non-food treats
Ice cream sunday: new make up
french fries: salt and oil body scrub
chocolate: pedicure
wine: massage
donuts: aromatherapy
candy: shopping
soda pop: music

oral hygiene
finding the time to prep and plan
fitness is the REAL luxury
soup and salad tricks for routine and fullness
Nutrient dense, high volume food is satisfying. no hunger even on 1200 cal day.
eating chicken in AFrica
Neurotransmitter balance booster journal
health benefits of wine and my theories re: stress and meditation or yoga
too tight a budget is hard to follwo-time, money, food, all need some slack built in
tony needed to look "hungry" for sales management
corn chips are dead to him. what foods are dead to me?
conversation with Ellen about letting skinny police win and my asking "do you really want to wage that war with your own body?" I wish I'd compared it to writing and math.
Letting skinny police win vs letting food producers and advertizers win
food subsidies and small farmers
trips to the farmer's market (photo essays)
vs. trips to the grocery store (photo essays)
yoga cards
free yoga classes
guilty about the dog and so I don't go out at all
how to handle eating out, potlucks and parties
how to handle dinner at your own house for others (parties and guests)
every day recipes and meals
owning chickens
growing own food
weighing 150 in Mr. Bockle's class soph. year and feeling fat as a teen
body image group
If you're thin and white and blond you'd have everything, if you weren't you'd have nothing.
Variety-beyond wheat corn and rice
focus on what you CAN eat, rther than on what you can't
cheap food vs good food
why our italian restaurants are not like those in italy.
Why the poor are fat
what is real luxury in eating
what can you buy with food stamps?
Treating oneself like a beloved child, or an expensive racehorse or a show dog.
Food and food style substitutes for snacks: ice water, lemon, bubbles, chewing gum, real licorice sticks, celery, mouth wash.
Seasonally appropriate eating
cost!
fasting
foods I missed from Colorado: triangle sopapillas, popovers, chey thuy soup.
Sunblock, seat-belts and cell phones
really indulging
antioxidants, free radicals and vitamins
swisher sweets advertisement

Well. That's a lot. That's just what I came up with in the first few minutes after thinking up this idea. I think there's a big opportunity to write with substance. But I think I'll call that a good enough start today.

Oh, one more thing I want to mention. So far, out of the almost 20 days I've been experimenting, I've spend three afternoons with bad tummy aches. I think it's related to eating large amounts of raw vegetables. That sure would be a shame. But, I'm going to stop doing that for a while and see if the tummy aches go away. Yesterday was really bad.

80/20

The relationship between my moods and my behavior is getting less and less obvious. The reason for doing this experiment, and keeping this journal is getting less and less clear. I had this idea when I started that I would write this really great thing, that would proof the worth-whileness of doing all the thing our momma's told us to do: play out side, go to bed, brush your teeth.

But it turns out all I write is whiney drivel. And it turns out maybe there isn't as strong a correlation as I thought.

But I'm going to keep doing it for a while. Whether or not the day to day ups and downs mirror each other, there is this fact to keep me going. On almost any day of this program...whether I am doing well or not...I am doing and feeling better than I was before I started this program.

So how could I stop?

Yesterday I, once again, planned to get a perfect score. But Sweetie and I decided to have lunch together and we ended up going to an Indian place with an all you can eat lunch buffet. I love Indian food. I won't go back to this place again. It really wasn't very good. Somehow the food tasted "trashy." I can't say what I mean when I say that, but I kept thinking it while I was eating it. Usually, that is the word that comes to mind when I taste papaya.

I can't eat papaya because one time when I was in Africa and fresh food that was safe to eat was scarce, except for papaya. So I ate a lot of it. I didn't know that it is a mild laxative. You wouldn't even notice if you just at a serving or two once in a while. But I was eating big amounts regularly, and my insides just sort of gave up on working properly for awhile.

Now just a hint of papaya taste in a juice or fruit salad kind of makes me cringe. I had that same cringey feeling eating this Indian food. But it wasn't such a cringey feeling that I didn't eat it. I cleaned my plate. But I didn't go back for a second helping of saag, which is my absolute favorite Indian dish. That's unheard of. I always go back for more saag.

I did go back for a second samosa. And I ate some funny little things that I can only describe as deep-fried mashed potatoes. And some chicken, and a dish with mushrooms peppers and cheese, and naan, and curried vegetables. All together I ate way too much and lost all three of my food points before 1:00 pm. So of course, the rest of the day I just ate whatever I felt like eating, since I'd lost my points already.

I feel discouraged this morning because I weighed myself. I'm not supposed to weigh myself as part of this plan, but I can't help doing it once in a while. It seems like if I'm making such efforts to eat well and not eat junk food and eat the right mix of foods and blah blah blah...then I should loose some weight!

But tomorrow is day 20. Twenty days is plenty of time to lose 5 pounds, if a person is focused on it. Of course, I'm not focused on it. But I am making some effort in the eating healthier and eating less direction, so I expect to at least have dropped a pound or two. Actually, I had dropped two pounds at some point, but now I've gained them back. I'm not supposed to care. Being thinner is not the goal here. But I do kind of feel like, "what's the point?"

I am tempted to just eat whatever I want again today. I could still get a pretty good score. I could get 12 if I did everything just right. But the fact is I haven't yet gotten a 15. Not one perfect score in almost 20 days. I have to wonder if I'm really serious about this project, with no perfect scores. It seems like the real test would come when I had a week or more of perfect scores. How would I feel then?

According to my chart, the points I miss most often are the ones for eating only approved foods, and the one for drinking a 3rd bottle of water.

I guess I'll try for a perfect score today. I'll try to eat right and not worry about being fat.

I was talking to Sweetie last night about the 80/20 rule. That's something we learn about in sales training. In any situation, the theory goes, most of your results come from a small amount of the total energy you put getting those results. If you can identify that 20 percent of effort that results in 80 percent of your results, you can let all the other stuff go.

I guess in sales the idea is that instead of all the other stuff, you could just do more of that 20 percent, and increase your results without working yourself to death. But I like the underachiever implication of just finding that 20 percent, and being happy with that.

And I think that's what I'm doing with my body and my fitness level most of the time. On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being my perfect dream body and 1 being as bad a shape as I could possibly be in, I think I'm about an 8. That is, I'm at 80% out of 100%. And out of all the effort I could possibly put into being in shape and fit and trim and thin and beautiful, I probably only put in about 20%.

And maybe I'm just going to be happy with that.

blah blah blah

I learned how to make a really nice chart using Excel. It shows the ups and downs of my daily happiness, next to the ups and downs of my adherence to the healthy behavior plan. It's beautiful and fascinating, I think. But I can't figure out how to add it to one of my posts here. Maybe I should have stuck with the on-line programs.

I rated my mood at a 6 this morning. I feel kind of miserable, but also kind of resigned and content with being miserable. We find out in two weeks if Sweetie got this latest job in California. If she did, we'll be moving soon.

It seems like I'd be so happy out there that even job hunting couldn't get me down. I feel like I'd be content just working at Starbucks or Safeway, if it meant I got to live where I love. I wonder if that's true? I wonder if I'll get out there and have the same problems I have here. I doubt it.

And anyway, I'm not there yet. We don't know who they're going to offer this job to. They're not going to offer it to me, that's for sure. Thank goodness Sweetie has more marketable skills than I do.

This project is starting to seem kind of pointless. I don't have much to write about. The recipes I thought would be interesting turn out to be kind of boring. I don't really stick to the plan, and I don't know why. But I'm going to keep up with it anyway. Just one look at my beautiful chart is very convincing. Do this makes me feel better. Doing it well actually seems to make me happy. I got up at 5:55 this morning, so I still have a chance at a perfect score. I haven't gotten a perfect score these whole two plus weeks. In the beginning I was almost perfect, but I kept forgetting to brush my teeth after lunch and my afternoon snack. I've gotten better at that.

I've lost a pound and a half in seventeen days, which is so little as to feel negligible. Maybe I should just face the fact that my weight is in the low 170's and toss out all the clothes I have that only fit in the low 150's. But I just can't do it. I love those clothes too much. And even a pound in a half in 17 days is still losing weight. It's almost a tenth of a pound a day. At this rate, I will be back down to my ideal weight of 154 in 190 days.

Of course, the whole goal of this program is not to loose weight. I'm not even supposed to be keeping track. And I give myself my food points even if I eat 2000 calories a day, which is pretty much maintenance for me. And, of course, I don't get my food points everyday.

Actually, I just went and fooled around on my excel spreadsheet, and it's easy to see that I loose food points the most often. Food and sleep are the most difficult things to stick to. Exercise and water have identical scores. Hygiene is the easiest one, especially now that I've started to remember to brush my teeth after meals and snacks.

I don't have anything interesting to write today. It's all blah blah blah, poor me, I struggle so to be happy! Ugh. I'm glad no one reads this. I wonder if this is helpful. I should be tracking whether I write about this in the morning as part of the experiment. I suspect I am happier when I take time to write in the morning, even is all I write is drivel.

I'm going to start writing shorter entries here, and maybe tackling more concrete topics than just whatever I feel like writing. And if I can spend less time writing this crap, maybe I can actually find a little time each morning to work on other things that do seem worthwhile to me. Maybe.

I'm pretty sure that would make me happy.

I'd start right now, but it's time for me to go jogging. It's not quite light out right now, dim. I love that. I'd better get out there soon before the sun really gets out of bed.

Nurture

I was so low yesterday. It was morning...which is usually a good time for me. I just felt useless. I felt trapped. I felt like no one is ever going to give me a job that I like, and it's ridiculous to think I could create some kind of career for myself out side of the standard job market.

I gave in and gave up. I stopped trying to do anything useful. I wrapped a blanket around myself and watched every episode of the BBC miniseries version of Sense and Sensibility. Afterward, I felt better. I guess sometimes I just need to nurture myself.

No wonder I'm sad, I'm job hunting. It's just challenging and depressing work. I read over all the want ads, and mostly they are just horrible sounding. Then, once in a great while I find something exciting...something I really think I could do day after day for years. I write a resume and a letter in a cloud of hope. And then that cloud slowly turns to rain as nothing happens over the next couple of weeks. And that's about how long it take to find another something exciting that seems worth applying for, a couple of weeks.

Sweetie says it's not me, it's the economy. I know I write a good resume, and a decent cover letter. It occurred to me this morning that I actually have done the best possible job on my resume. The problem is just that I have a crummy work history and no amount of clever writing is going to cover that up.

It's no wonder I feel low. I'm really not doing a good job of sticking to the health plan I set down for myself two weeks ago. Everyday seems like a new challenge. I had hoped by this time it would just seem like an easy routine, and I would be getting perfect scores every day.

Each day I wake up with the intention of getting a perfect score. Actually today I woke up with the intention of getting a near perfect score, because I'd already let myself sleep in until 7:00 am, losing my "early riser" point.

Yesterday I was going to make a list of qualities that describe my perfect job. I don't know why I didn't do it. I'm going to do it now.

Part time. 20-30 hours a week. Starts between 10am and noon. Ends between two and six. Hours are somewhat flexible and somewhat fixed. Meaning, I can set my hours ahead of time according to my schedule...but that I expected to arrive at the agreed upon time and stay until I said I would each day.

Local. I can ride my bike there in 20 minutes or less. The bus that drives past my house also gets me there. The building I work in is either attractive or interesting. I feel happy being there.

I work to support something I believe in. It could be art, or education, or health, or community. I work with people I like and feel like I can learn from. I do work that I enjoy and either feel like I'm good at doing, or feel like I have a lot to learn and will be very good at it someday.

I get paid regularly. $15/hour would be nice. My work makes a clear and positive difference on our domestic finances. My work also makes a clear and positive difference in either the functioning or the finances of the organization I am working for.

Most importantly, this job is the stepping stone to my future of lucrative, meaningful, enjoyable work. This is the place I make connections with people who can help me build a future of good deeds, personal successes and financial stability.

I'm going to write these things down on paper now.

I feel okay right now.

Basic Breakfast

I think it's funny that we have certain foods associated exclusively with breakfast. Some of my favorite suppers are these kinds of foods: scrambled eggs with potatoes and broccoli, french toast with asparagus. Of course, I would never have cold cereal for supper...but I would have it for dessert!

There is one food that I really save only for the mornings and that's hot porridge. It is the perfect morning meal. Here's the breakdown:

1/3 cup raw oats
200g plain fat free yogurt
20g slivered almonds
200g apple, chopped
cinnamon
powdered ginger

Serves one.

Cook the oats and the apple in 2/3 cup water. Top with yogurt and almonds. Dust lightly with cinnamon and heavily with powdered ginger.

That's the basic recipe. It provides a perfect balance of fat, protein, grain and fruit/veg. And there's a million substitutions that can make it more interesting.

Substitute a cup of cooked grains for the 1/3 cup of oats can be interesting. If you replace the yogurt with almond or hazelnut milk (my favorite) and use it for cooking, the result is a kind of rice pudding (if you used rice), if you simmer it gently for long enough.

Or, if you're lucky enough to live near a health food store, you can find all kinds of other grains including barley, rye, wheat, and triticale, in a rolled and flaked form that can be cooked and eaten like oats.

And of course, you can replace the almonds with any calorically equivalent amount of other nuts or seeds. I've really been into sunflower seeds lately.

But the real place to play around is with the fruit. I usually cook the fruit with the cereal if I am using apples or raisins. But fresh berries are wonderful just piled on top of the yogurt at the end. Peaches, nectarines, plums and bananas are also fabulous. I keep bags of frozen strawberries and cherries in the freezer, for days when I am all out of fresh fruit. You can just dump the frozen stuff in right with the oatmeal at the beginning of cooking. It will turn the cereal pink or purple...but I don't mind that. It's still the perfect way to start the day.

Looking Forward

The weekend was lovely. Relaxed. Beautiful weather. We stayed home. We read. We played with the dog. We watched movies. We ate simple meals.

Weekends are nice because, even though I don't have a job, I feel like it's a break. There's no pressure on me to do anything meaningful or useful all day long. I can pretend to be like normal people, like people with jobs.

Today is Monday. I feel completely ugh. I woke up this morning and I thought, no wonder I feel this way...I don't have anything to look forward to. On top of that, I have a few unpleasant things to face. I have to call the car dealership again and try to squeeze some money out of them because they told me my car had never been in an accident and, according to my recent bill for $700, it had. I have to look for jobs, which is disheartening and demoralizing. Then, if I find one that might be okay, I have to apply for it, which takes a lot of effort and concentration and usually doesn't result in anything. As always, I need to do dishes and laundry and keep the house looking nice in case someone wants to look at it. Actually showing the house might be fun, except that I have given up on hoping that anyone will ever buy it.

I miss California. I miss the fog and the ocean air. I miss the palm trees and the golden poppies. I miss the rolling hills and the ocean views. I miss the dolphins and the otters. I miss my sailboat. I miss absolutely everything about it.

I'm not going to fight that missing feeling anymore. I wont try to assuage it with the hope that we'll move there soon. I've just got to face the fact that we are here, not there, and we may never ever be there again. That is so sad. But, it's certainly not the worst thing that could happen to a person. I just finished reading a book about the holocaust. Before that, I was reading a book a bout slavery. So, it's really clear there's nothing too bad going on in my life. I can bear the sadness of never living where I feel at home again.

So I'm looking this town square in the face, and I've got to find a way to make peace with it and learn to be happy here. I have spent the last two years refusing to be happy here. I guess I felt like if I got happy here, we would never leave. But now I know we may never leave anyway, and even if we do leave, we may not go there. So now I'm going to refuse to be sad here. I've got to learn to be happy.

This healthy behavior experiment seems to be helping. At least, it's interesting. But, of course, it's not enough. I need something to look forward to today.

I'm going to make a dream list for the perfect job. Just making the list should be fun, and maybe it will actually help me find what I want. It's worked before.

Also, I will continue to pursue the folks at the Spanish and English non-profit. I want to make a connection there that might pay off in several ways.

I need things to look forward to. Right now, all I really look forward to is meals. That's kind of sad. It's really true. I can't think of a single other thing I look forward to. Well, I guess I look forward to Sweetie coming home at the end of the work day. And, I look forward to reading, when I have a good book going. While I don't exactly look forward to sleeping, I do enjoy it. Actually, I'm still kind of groggy right now, and even though I've been up for 45 minutes, I am looking forward to the next time I get to lie down and sleep.

I really need something else in my life that I can look forward to. I guess that's what my challenge will be today with the list. I need to be able to describe a job that I would actually look forward to every day. Right now, I'm looking forward to that.

Low Points, High Score

Yesterday was Saturday. I took a break. I slept in late, I didn't write or run or even look at my yoga mat. I ate healthy well-balanced meals, with movie house popcorn, peanut m&m's, Kaluha and Bailey's Irish Liquor afterwards. I felt bold enough to do this, to risk unhappiness in this way, because Sweetie was home with me, and there was nothing much we had to do. We both spent the whole day lazing around the house, reading books, enjoying the perfect early-fall weather. I just knew that no matter what happened that whole day, I was going to feel pretty happy. So I ate whatever appealed to me and pretended I didn't own work-out shoes.

My compliance score was only 36.66. That's equal to the lowest scores I've gotten since my baseline day. But, my happiness score was 70! That's just a few points short of my all time high.

To do the same today, even though it's Sunday and Sweetie and I have a similar day ahead of us, would be too much like taunting. Whatever devil brings my depression to me, I'd rather not demand his attention.

The line chart I'm making on Excel shows my Happiness points and my Compliance scores right next to each other, day by day. The Happiness points, in blue, make me think of a lazy little brother, chasing his elder sibling down the length of a soccer field. The older boy is energetic. He darts and feints from side to side, running wide to cover as much ground as possible. The other one, on shorter legs, can't keep up, so he cuts the corners and just barely manages to follow in the same general direction.

There are some days, of course, where the compliance score lurches up or down, and the happiness rating continues gently in the same opposing direction it was going the day before. You can still easily see, however, without calculating the official correlation value, that the two variables are somehow connected. I can't help but wonder, if I could find a way to shift the chart over, if the relationship would be even stronger. My guess is that if I matched each day's happiness score with the compliance of, not that actual day...but the day before, that the relationship would show up even stronger.

So I'm a little wary today. I scared that yesterdays disregard for all the things that have shown to be influential on my happiness, will hit me hard to day. I don't want to go through the day in a grey fog of hopelessness. Ugh. If I'm lucky, Sweetie's presence throughout the day, and our free passes to the batting cages and go cart track, will keep me buoyed up.

Hypnotherapy and Happiness

A few years ago, I had a good job that required me to dress up every day. A lot of people would have hated this, most of the people I know, in fact. But, I loved it. I delighted in my little skirt suits and dresses. I treasured my high-heeled shoes and tailored jackets. I felt beautiful and smart every day. I felt sexy and fit.

Of course, it wasn't just the clothes that made me feel good in my body. This was also a time in my life when I was running long distance trail races on the weekends, training all through the week, and eating very well. I weighed 154 lbs., 20 less than I do know. And I'm sure most of it was long lean endurance-style muscle.

I looked so good that perfect strangers would come up to me at parties just to tell me that I was beautiful. That always felt a little weird, but good too. My favorite stranger compliment came not at a party, but at a hotel. And it wasn't even directed to me, but I overheard it too clearly to misunderstand. I was at one of the big chain hotels that I visited often when I was traveling for work. I wasn't even staying there, I was just sitting in the lobby to use the free internet. Some special corporate event was happening a little ways down the hall from me. Outside one of the conference rooms, a white canvas sheet was hanging from the wall. One of those large umbrellas that photographers use to reflect light was standing in front of it. Occasionally, some businessy looking person would emerge from the room with a photographer. They would stand in serious discussion for a minute. The business person would perhaps duck into the bathroom for a moment. Then the photographer would click off a round of shots, while the other person experimented with various poses and expressions under the big umbrella.

I wasn't paying too much attention to this whole scene. I had spreadsheets to interpret, expense reports to compose, and a business plan to write. But there are some things one can't ignore, like one's bladder.

I headed for the bathroom and left my computer and paperwork in my chair. I wasn't going far, wouldn't be gone long, and I felt safe at this hotel. So, when I strolled past the umbrella stand in my red leather shoes which matched my red leather purse, the swing of my skirt wasn't hampered by a heavy computer bag pressing against it. The fold of my tailored collar wasn't crushed by a fat padded strap. Free of that burden for probably the first time that day, I'm sure I was walking even taller and straighter than usual, and enjoying the light click click click of my shoes on the polished floor.

At that moment, the person being photographed was a woman. She was a little older than me, maybe in her forties. And she was dressed a little like me, in a navy business suit and heels. I swept past them just as they were entering the pre-photo huddle. And even though their voices were hushed, I could hear every word.

"How do you want to look?" the photographer asked?
"I want to look like that!" the woman answered with a little laugh and what I'm convinced must have been a glance or gesture toward me. I was the only other person around.

That candid comment lives in my memory hall of fame, under the label "best compliment." (Well, best compliment on my appearance, anyway. My recent best compliment in the skills category is "Damn. This woman knows how to write a resume!" Does it make sense that my favorite compliments were not directed to me, but overheard?)

Does it make sense to care about how other people think you look?

I have a friend who is a massage therapist trying to build up her client base in a new town. She has an add in the paper, like a lot of them do. But, where other people put a picture of themselves, she has a list of her training credentials. She argues that this is much more relevant information. But she suspects that the ads with the photos get more calls. People want to make decisions with their eyes. How we look matters. She understands this, and rebels against it. She thinks it's wrong, and unfair. But, I just don't know.

We are visually oriented animals. How could we not make decisions based on what we see first and foremost? Why would we even pretend not to?

She and I come from different sides of the issue. I'm tall, and even now, kind of thin. I've got blue eyes, symmetrical features and good skin. Importantly, I'm feminine looking. Most importantly, I'm white.

She's white too, and I think she's beautiful. But she doesn't fit the current U.S. standard of beauty as well as I do. She's short, and tomboyish. I would even say butch, except that I know that's not a word she uses to describe herself.

Her refusal to put her picture on her ad seems ridiculous to me. But maybe it wouldn't seem ridiculous if I hadn't spent my teen years being occasionally told that I could be a model.

I guess my point is that I really enjoyed feeling beautiful, and being thought beautiful by others.. I enjoyed having clothes that flattered my figure and helped me to look as stunning and lovely as possible. I really enjoyed living in that trim fit body that made finding clothes so easy. (For the first time in my life, I could a suit where the top was the SAME size as the bottom.)

Then a bunch of unplanned things happened. I lost my job. I got diagnosed with breast cancer. I started eating oatmeal cookies and ice cream for most meals. I had surgery. I recovered from surgery. I moved away from my beautiful California beach home with it's doorstep access to a net work of trails that cut through rolling hills and sand dunes. I moved to this rocky mountain place, where all the trails on the east side are dead flat and boring, and all the trail to the west try to kill you with their sharp rocks, and sharper ascents. I got married and started cooking meals that another person, who wasn't really interested in raw vegetables and ancient grains, might enjoy. I remained unemployed and got depressed. I lived through a cold winter that I really didn't own the proper clothes for.

At the end of a year, I had gained twenty pounds. It's the end of two years now, and I still weigh 174. I've made numerous attempts to lose that weight. The fist serious and successful attempt was almost a year ago. I called it "100 days of fitness." I got down to 158. And let me tell you, I felt great! I looked great too. One day, I was actually able to wear one of the skirt suits I had brought with me from my former life.

But it didn't last. Some kind of internal switch flipped and I started binging on cookies and cakes and chocolate. I stopped exercising and drank wine instead. Before I knew it, I was back at 174. I didn't worry too much. It had seemed pretty easy to lose weight, so I when I had gotten the binging out of my system, I tried again.

It worked again. This time I got down to 164 really quickly. But then the switch went off again. I suddenly didn't care about losing weight as much as I cared about chocolate-covered peanuts. And just as suddenly, I was at 174 again.

This happened so many times that I started to recognize it as a pattern. At 164 I would be seized by an urge to freak out and pig out. Then, as soon as I'd plumped up by 10 pounds, the urge would vanish and I would effortlessly follow my fitness and diet routine until I dropped those 10 pounds. As soon as I hit 164 again, boom, back up the scale.

I couldn't figure it out. When I hit the low end, there was no way I could imagine having the interest or will power to keep from eating every gooey sweet fatty desert that crossed my path. When I hit the high end, crunchy vegetables and whole grain dishes were so satisfying that I couldn't imagine ever being led to disaster by my sweet tooth. My consciousness changed with the scale.

Right around the time I was noticing this trend, a friend of mine offered to trade me some work. She could pay me with her skills, which included card-readings and hypnotherapy.

Hypnotherapy! Isn't that what people used to stop smoking, stop drinking, and stop binge eating? I didn't know if it would work. But, I was ready to try.

The session was interesting. We talked for a while about my issues around fitness and fat. I did suddenly make the connection that maybe being thin and weighing 154 might bring up a deep subconscious fear for me. That's how much I weighed when my life fell apart, when I lost my job and got cancer...did I mention my pink slip and my diagnosis came on the same day, less than 30 minutes from each other? Did I mention my company car was the only one I had and that they took it from me that very day? Did I mention that I suddenly couldn't afford the beautiful beach home I loved so much, and had to move in with friends who lived in a different town?

Maybe that's why I resist getting within 10 lbs of my goal weight. Or maybe not. But I felt like I wasn't even going to have to figure it out. My friend was going to fix me with her hoo-doo voo-doo.

I got comfortable on the sofa and she pulled up a chair. She led me through a guided meditation that I don't really remember. Then she left and I took a nap. When I woke up, I didn't really feel any different. But, over the next few days, I did begin to notice something. Something was gone, and it wasn't my extra pounds.

Ever since I'd started gaining weight, I had felt fat and unattractive. I had lamented my thickening waistline and criticized my self for my widening thighs. I felt sad that I wasn't sexy any more and wassure I would never really be happy again until I weighed 154 and could fit into all my beautiful business clothes again.

But suddenly, after the hypnotherapy session, those feelings were gone. The lament, the sadness, the criticism...all gone! I wasn't 154 again, as I had hoped I soon would be. Instead, within a matter of days, I started to feel like I used to feel when I weighed 154.

I felt tall and leggy. I felt sexy and smart. I didn't feel skinny exactly, but who really wants to feel "skinny?" I felt luscious and desirable and perfectly proportioned. I felt at ease in my skin and proud of my body. I felt beautiful. I felt right.

It's been months now, and that feeling has stayed with me. Before I started the current happiness experiment, I ate absolutely whatever I felt like eating, and I never did weigh any more than 174. Maybe this is just my natural weight. Maybe I will never weigh 154 again. Unbelievably, after so many months of struggling, I'm okay with that. Because that's what my hypnotherapy session seemed to teach me, that just exactly they way I am right now, I'm okay.

Ups and Downs

It's been two days since I've written anything here. Whether or not I find the time in the morning...or anytime during the day or night...to write is not something I've been tracking on my health and happiness log. But it does seem highly correlated with my happiness. It also seems correlated with my compliance to the healthy behavior plan. Tuesday was bad and Wednesday was worse. Last night I could barely bring myself to care whether or not I washed my face. I finally did, but it just as easily could have gone the other way.

The real question is: did I feel so lousy the last two days because I didn't adher to the plan, or did I just feel too lousy to care about sticking too it? I don't know that it really matters. I don't know that one causes the other any more than the left side of a rail road track causes the right side.

But they do seem to be inextricably related. And since there is only one of them I can control, I might as well think of that one as "causing" the changes in the other one.

Of course, that control is not perfect. If it was, I'd have a score of %100 every day, never a paltry 36, like yesterday.

I practically leaped out of bed this morning when the alarm clock rang at 5:30. I would have liked to sleep longer. I still feel sleepy, and wish I could put my head back on the pillow for another two hours. But I feel like the connection between getting up early and starting on the routine are so critical to my mood for the rest of the day, that I'd just as soon go stick my foot in the hornets' nest down the street as stay in bed another minute. Who in their right mind would take a couple hours of sleep over a whole day's happiness?

Another thing the last two days have in common is our social supper activities. Tuesday night we had supper at a neighbors house. Last night we had supper here, with neighbors from the other side. We adore all these people. We miss them when we don't see them and look forward to spending time with them. But, when it comes down to it, I think I just really don't like eating as a social activity. I'd rather go on a hike together, or help someone clean out their garage. I need to craft a social life that does not revolve around sit-down suppers.

Thank goodness we don't have any plans tonight, or tomorrow night. I think maybe we don't have any plans all weekend, but that seems to good to be true.

If it is true I'm going to look for some kind of interesting art event, and invite my cousin to go with me. And I'm going to work on the Excel spreadsheet tutorial I've been studying so I can learn how to keep track of my data from this experiment, and even produce my own line graphs. (The charts and graphs available on those websites have too many restrictions and glitches.)

Another thing that's been messing up my schedule, my compliance, and my happiness the last few days, ironically, is rowing. I used to love to go out to the local reservoir early in the morning and get a work-out on an 8 person sweep boat. I still love it, but I can't figure out how to fit it into my schedule. It takes up the whole morning. I don't get home until 7:45, usually. And then I don't find time to write, do yoga, or to take the dog for a walk...and I feel guilty about that all day.

But I do love rowing. I want to keep it. Maybe I will try and keep it up two days a week. I could do Saturdays, since Sweetie sleeps in. I might still be able to get my writing for the day done while the house is still quiet. We could still do yoga together, we'd just do it a little bit later. And we could both take the dog for a hike later in the day.

I think they are starting Sunday rowing too. This seems like a good solution, weekend rows. But somehow, it doesn't feel right. It doesn't feel like the right solution. Maybe Sunday just needs to be a day off. That's how it feels...like I do need just one day when it is okay to sleep in and not write and let Sweetie worry about the dog altogether. I think it would be better to pick a weekday...maybe Wednesday...for going out in a sculling single. Maybe I could go later, like around 7:00, which would still give me time to do my writing. That feels better.

Well, blah blah blah. That's all I have to write about for now. I'm really feeling hopeful about having a good day today. Sorry I didn't have anything more interesting to write about. Maybe tomorrow I'll start with recipes.

Raw Enough

I just finished a really excellent book called Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human, by Richard Wrangham.

In it, he makes an extremely convincing case for the idea that learning to control fire and using it to cook meat and plant foods, was the defining event that turned us into humans. By humans, he doesn't mean our current species, Homo Sapiens. He is instead referring to the change that birthed our genus, Homo. We don't think of it very often, but there have actually been three species of so-called humans. The first was Homo Erectus, which evolved from our ape-like ancestors, the habilines, almost 2 million years ago. (The second was Homo Heidelbergensis and its no wonder most of us are not familiar with this name. I can hardly figure out how to pronounce it, much less remember it.)

I'm not going to report all his theories here. But, if you are interested, I strongly suggest this book. It's extremely well organized and his points are well-argued.

Reading it has me thinking a lot about raw food, and it's proper place in a healthy modern diet. According to Wrangham and his excellent sources, the main advantage of eating cooked food is faster, easier access to a significantly greater amount of energy. For our initially foraging, and later hunting and gathering predecessors, this was an obvious advantage. More fuel to grow and move with meant greater odds of survival for oneself and one's offspring.

But in the context of our safe sedentary lifestyles, most of us are facing an upside-down challenge, evolutionarily speaking. Now we do better when we manage to expend more effort, not less. And if we suffer from any scarcity, it is of vitamins and micro-nutrients, not calories. No wonder raw foodists claim to feel healthier when they give up cooked meals. Their method might be all wrong according to our biology, but it is the perfect antidote to the poisonous effects of our current food culture.

I'm not considering switching to an all raw diet. It's too much work, for one. I would miss cooked food too much, for another. But mostly, I just don't feel like I need such a dramatic shift in my habits. But I am going to make some small changes.

For this phase of my experiment I'm eating four meals a day. (Or three meals and a fourth meal's worth of snacks spaced throughout.) Each of these meals has four components: one serving of healthy fat-based food, one of lean protein, one of whole grain or other plant based starch, and one of fruit or vegetables. That's sixteen servings in all, each providing roughly 100 calories.

Other than an occasional splurge at my favorite sushi restaurant, I can't imagine eating my protein portions raw. Raw meat disgusts me. Fresh beans are impossible to get, and indegestible when they're dried. I can barely watch that scene in Rocky where he drinks the raw eggs. Yuck.

Starches don't seem any more promising. One time, when I was traveling and hungry and without access to a stove or a store, I tried to eat a raw sweet potato by slicing it very thin. It crunched nicely, but tasted awful. I was nauseated for hours afterward. It's true, I do sometimes eat my oats raw. They are surprisingly good just sprinkled on top of yogurt with some fresh ground flax seed and mixed berries. But of all the others I know: rice, wheat, quinoa, teff, amaranth, I can't think of any that I would be able to chew without cooking. Of course the raw foodists remember that these things are actually seeds, and they sprout them. But again that's too much work.

The fat category offers a few more options. Cold-pressed olive oil probably counts as raw. And I already buy raw nuts and nut-butters when I can find them. Oh, and avacado is a delicious raw fat, of course. But I'm not giving up butter, or mayonnaise, or the oils I use to cook with. Anyway, fatty foods are so calorically dense, it probably doesn't matter much which way I eat them. And the kind of micro-nutrients that raw-only enthusiasts rave about are probably only present in minutes amounts anyway.

The real area to focus on, it seems, if I want to eat more raw stuff, is fruits and vegetables. Fruits are easy. I can't really think of any that I don't like raw just as well, or better, than I like cooked. The only time I ever eat them cooked is when I run out of fresh ones at home have to turn to the freezer or the canned goods shelf if I want any fruit at all. And vegetables offer a lot of options: carrots, cauliflower, sugar-snap and snow peas, peppers, jicama, cucumber, celery, radishes, tomatoes. Even summer squash, beet roots and onions are good in small amounts when added to other dishes.

But I'm can't give up all my cooked veggies. What would I do without creamy cauliflower soup, home-made babaganoush, chick-pea saag and grilled asparagus? I would be sad. And, the whole point of this project is to be happy!

I'll make a compromise. From now on, when I'm planning my meals for the day, I will commit to including at least two raw servings of fruit or vegetables. That's half my allotment. I know it doesn't sound like much. It's only 12.5% of my daily calorie intake. But it's probably a lot more than most people eat. Especially when you consider that I am not measuring servings by size, but by calories.

According to the Food Pyramid guide, a serving size of most vegetables is one-half cup. For leafy greens, it's a whole cup. But even a whole cup of fresh salad leaves is less than 10 calories! I don't even count mixed raw greens on my food plan because they are negligible, calorie-wise. I use them as a bed under my meal. It adds color, crunch, volume, interest and of-course, nutrients. When it comes to other vegetables, I probably eat between three and seven of the standard "servings" at every meal.

For instance, 100 calories of carrots is 240 g. That's about 3 carrots. Chopped up, I bet they'd fill a cup and a half. Compared to other fresh vegetables, carrots are relatively calorie dense. Cucumber is on the other end of the scale. It takes 880 g to make up 100 calories. I don't know how many half-cups that it, but peeled and sliced with a little lemon on top make a huge, and delicious, bowl full.

So I'm going ahead with my two-raw-a-day plan, and feeling confident that my diet is healthy enough. I'll continue to relish dribbling my steamed chard with bsalmic vinegar and sprinkling it with dried cranberries or baking bits of tofu and turkey bacon inside fat rolls of green cabbage. And the next time I'm saying grace at the table, there will be a nod for those blessed habilines who captured the flames and passed them down to me.

Charting Progress

When I started this project a week ago I thought I'd be filling out a whole page of data every day. But, very quickly I started to narrow the report down to just the information that seemed to be the most relevant, and the most understandable.

I got rid of any information that tried to measure my actual state of health. Instead, I am only calculating how well I adhere to the health program I devised on day one. I figure I can only test one hypothesis at a time. The one I'm testing now is: does following this particular routine of "healthy" behaviors affect my daily happiness? I cannot also be following: does this particular routine of "healthy" behaviors affect my daily health.

So, I stopped measuring weight, personal perception of health, physical comfort, and appearance. They weren't very useful measurements anyway, and there wasn't any way to combine them into a coherent daily score. I am, however, still listing symptoms if they are significant. For example, on Day 5, my right foot was so swollen from a bee sting I'd gotten while jogging the previous morning, that I was unable to walk. It is interesting and predictable that Day 5 was also the day with my lowest compliance rating, and my lowest happiness score.

The primary comparison I am making each day is between my Happiness Mean Score and my Compliance Rating.

I find my Happiness Mean Score by averaging the four measurements I take each day (waking, bedtime, day's high, and lowpoint) and multiplying it by 10.

I find my Compliance Rating by dividing the sum of all my possible point in the 5 health categories (Food, Exercise, Water, Sleep and Hygeine) by 15 and multiplying by 100.

I can tell something about the relationship between Happiness and Health (y behavior) by just looking at the numbers.

Baseline 50.00:10.00
Day 2 61.25:96.00
Day 3 58.75:86.66
Day 4 53.75:96.00
Day 5 50.00:66.00
Day 6 65.00:90.00
Day 7 70.00:96.00

But to really see what's going on, I have to make a chart.

I made this one at a free website called Chart Tool.

http://www.onlinecharttool.com/graph.php


It was super easy to make, and I can create a profile and save my charts. It's vital to be able to save the chart, so I can go in and add data as the experiment progresses.

But, the maximum number of data groups I can track is four. This is fine for just looking at the Mean and the Total. But, I'd really like to make a chart that had all the details one it including: waking happiness, sleep score, daily happiness high, food compliance, etc.

If I made a chart with all the details I want to look at, that would be 10 data groups.

So, this site is insufficient for my needs. Also, the end product looks a little fuzzy, doesn't it?

This next chart is MUCH crisper looking.

I made this one at a site called ChartGO.

http://www.chartgo.com/resetall.do?from=generaljsp




The first problem with this one was that it was difficult to use. But, after some experimenting I was able to figure it out.

The second problem is that, while I seem to be able to go back into the chart and make changes (I'll have to wait and find out if the chart is still there to be edited tomorrow) the link that enables me to share the chart on this blog is the sort that needs to be updated in some special way, or the blog keeps showing the old one. I remember having this problem with posting photos on my old blog. A friend told me how to fix it but I don't remember how. If I can figure it out, I will definitely be using this site.

Well, I'd like to write some more this morning. I've spent most of my time playing with charts instead of writing. But, it's time to go running. If I want to get a good compliance score today I'd better put my shoes on and go. According to the data above there is a high probability I'll be happy if I do.

Eating: Not Too Much

Mr. Pollen's next bit of advice, "Not Too Much," sounds easy to follow. We've all heard it before, and even if we hadn't, we'd probably each figure it out for ourselves. It's a pretty self-evident solution to our main symptom of food related misbehavior: obesity.

So, why don't more people follow it? Why are we facing an epidemic of overweight adults and children in this country?

This mystery is similar to the one I was thinking about when I first started this project: why don't people do the things they need to do in order to be healthier? But I don't think it's the same answer. Like I wrote before, (at least, this is what I remember writing...I'll have to go back and read it to be sure) I think the problem with us not being healthier is two fold. The first problem is that we don't really know how to be healthier. There is so much conflicting advice and so many things to do, it's hard to figure it all out. And secondly, I just don't think the motivation is very strong. "Healthier" is such a vague quality. Most people associate it with living longer, which is a distance reward. Actually, most people associate it with maybe living longer, which is a kind of gamble that probably just doesn't seem really worth it compared to the immediate temptation and certain gratification of most unhealthy behaviors.

But with eating less, it's not confusing. It's simple. As the coach tells the team in that silly cheer-leading movie, "Think about what you eat every day and cut it in half." A person wouldn't even need to be that specific, or that extreme. Even just eating slightly less would have an effect.

And, it's not a vague goal like health. Being thin, or at least a little thinner, is a really attractive reward for most people.

So why is the instruction: "Eat Less" so seldom obeyed in this country? I think to answer that, we need to ask another question. Eat less than what? The obvious response is, less than we do. That's the answer that makes obedience sound easy. But the real answer is, less than we want. And that reveals why it's difficult.

So, the next question is, why do we want to eat more than our bodies need?

I can understand why, evolutionarily speaking, we are wired to eat a little bit more than our bodies need. Surely our ancestors, who relied on wily game and the seasonal fluctuations of edible plants, instead of 24-hour grocery stores, experienced periods of privation. During those times, a good store of fat wouldn't just come in handy. It would be life-saving.

But if that "good store" was so abundant that an individual's physical fitness was compromised, it seems like the burden would have outweighed the benefits. A pre-historic person who couldn't walk all day, and occasionally run quickly, probably wouldn't have survived long in a primitive environment anyway.

Maybe that just didn't happen. Maybe it was impossible for people to gain too much weight before the advent of agriculture and modern conveniences. Maybe there just wasn't enough food around to get fat on. Even in times of abundance, maybe there was too much physical effort required for simple daily living. Both those propositions seem highly probably.

So, if being overweight was just impossible to do in the early years of our species, it would be no wonder if we hadn't developed any physiological responses to keep us from getting that way. I mean, our skulls haven't developed sufficient strength to withstand the impacts that occur when an accident occurs in a vehicle driving 60 miles pr hour. Like saddlebags and spare tires, high-speed travel wasn't an issue our ancestors dealt with.

So we shouldn't be surprised if the solution is to simply engage our will-power in a fight against our biology. It's not a winning proposition. Just look at all the eco-activists who end up procreating for an example of biological impulses overriding rational decision-making. If it comes down to making the right choices in opposition to the urges that have been built in and reinforced over thousands of generations, it really doesn't look good for us humans. We're probably going to be fat until the climate shifts so dramatically that food production is hampered.

But I think maybe it's not as hopeless as all that. I think maybe we lucked out. (Not about the environment, we're definitely going down in flames on that one.)

Is seems to me that we do have an instinctive tendency to eat the correct amount of food. The reason we end up overweight is that our bodies aren't only in need of food as fuel. I'm going to suggest that we have internal monitors that normally shut down our desire to eat only when we have achieved BOTH of the following criteria each day: we have consumed enough calories AND we have consumed enough nutrients.

When you think about it this way, it's obvious why we keep stuffing our faces long after we've passed the 2,000/day calorie goal that would keep most of us fit. If we've reached that marker by filling up on fats, sugars and starches...which is all most processed foods are...of course our bodies are going to urge us to keep eating. Even with all the "added" vitamins and "enriched" food-products we eat, I am convinced that most of us are suffering from chronic nutrient deficiency.

So if we are really serious about eating "Not Too Much," here is what we need to do. Stop eating nutritionally blank foods. (Of course, if you're following my advice from the previous post about how to "Eat Food," you're already doing this.) Start eating nutritionally dense foods.

These are:
Whole grains
Fresh fruits and vegetables
Plant-based fats
Lean proteins

When I stick to these foods, I'm usually just not hungry at the end of the day. On the contrary, sometimes I have to make a mental decision to eat again, after calculating my day's intake and concluding I haven't eaten enough.

It's such relief, not needing to struggle against that powerful urge to eat, eat, eat. It's almost as much of a relief as it is to give in to that urge. But the side effects are better.

I fit into my clothes. I feel radiant and beautiful. And, sometimes, I feel happy.