I’ve been meaning to write a post about some of the struggles I’ve gone through in the past couple of weeks, and I’ve been having the hardest time trying to articulate them. So I’m going to just tell you a story about three girls: the dieter, the health nut, and the foodie.

The foodie was always the life of the party. She loved food…loved cook, loved to feed others, and most of all loved to eat. Her creations were always a hit with family and neighbors. She had a tendancy to be a snob about food…only the best quality ingredients went into her dishes and only the tastiest food passed her lips.

The health nut loved to shop at farmer’s markets and natural food stores. She would get excited about the nutritional content of everything and took great pride in sitting down to a high fiber, high protein meal brimming over with vegetables. She didn’t count calories, but was extremely suspicious of processed starch and saturated fat…only sprouted grain breads and super lean meats passed muster.

The dieter was a numbers girl. For her, it was all about the calories. If something was high in volume and low in calories, the dieter was all over it.

The three girls had a lot in common: they all loved fresh fruits and veggies from the farmer’s market, they all hated processed food, and they all believed in the importance of cooking for themselves so that they knew what went into their food. For awhile, they got along brilliantly. Working together, they constructed a tasty, nutritious, low calorie diet that slowly but surely made the extra weight melt off.

Unfortunately, the weight loss eventually slowed, and the girls started to fight. First, the dieter freaked out. She started snapping at the other two, demanding smaller portion sizes and leaner foods. She would sit in a corner and beat herself up whenever the foodie served her lean pork chops…she just knew she should be eating chicken breast instead! She would freak out if she didn’t know the amount of olive oil the health nut had put on her spinach and would refuse to eat the large portion that was set in front of her. The dieter demanded that the other girls go on an extremely strict low calorie diet. Needless to say, they weren’t happy with this. When the dieter gained control, weight loss tended to resume. But it was hard for the other girls to feel happy about that. Eating with the dieter was a joyless experience, and her stringent ways had a tendancy to cause muscle loss rather than fat loss.

After this, the foodie demanded to do all the cooking. Reluctantly catering to the low calorie wishes of the dieter, she would serve small portions of rich food…high in taste, low in calories. But the health nut was far from pleased. Where were her triple size portions of vegetables? Where was her sprouted grain bread? The health nut seriously doubted that the foodie’s dishes were adequately nutritious.

When the health nut managed to get control of the kitchen, food was nutritious and portions were never small. Unfortunately, the health nut’s singular insistence on only the leanest and healthiest foods available left the other girls feeling somewhat deprived. Sometimes, a little butter or chocolate goes a long way. And whoever told her that a mixture of vegetable puree, egg whites and raw oats made a good pancake batter clearly lacked taste buds.

The cycle would repeat itself over and over, each girl doing her best to gain control of the kitchen as often as possible. They didn’t know how to get back to their old compromise place, where food was low calorie, but satisfying to body, mind and taste buds. They’re still trying to work out a workable compromise. I can say that the dieter has finally admitted that she needs a few more calories than she previously thought, given all the exercise she’s been doing. But as for a more complete compromise…we’ll just have to wait and see.

I went shopping on Friday and bought lots of cute new clothes. I was very happy. Shopping is a lot more fun when you have less excess weight on you!

Many people talk about how it’s better to judge your size based on the fit of your clothes rather than your weight. While weight is a very imperfect measure, clothing size has always been a problematic gauge for me. Because of my frame and the places where I hold and don’t hold weight, my pants size changes pretty slowly even if I’ve put on quite a bit of weight. Even at my heaviest, a lot of the clothes in my closet were size 6. Size 6 is a completely respectable size to be, so it was easy to rationalize away my weight gain. I’ve lost 13 pounds now, but I’m still defeinitely a size 6. If I wasn’t weighing myself, I probably wouldn’t have any idea how far I’d come.

That said, shopping at my current size is a LOT more fun! When I gain weight, I go up a size in some clothes, but many clothes just stop fitting me, period. No size fits me properly. I don’t carry extra weight well…it creates odd lumps and bumps that just don’t sit well on my frame. I used to go into the store and not be able to find anything that fit me and was flattering. Bigger sizes would look tentish or would hang oddly due to my small frame, and smaller sizes just wouldn’t fit at all. I ended up having a closet full of clothes cut in “curvy” or “loose fit” styles, and none of them looked very good on me. When I went into stores on Friday, everything that I tried on in a size 6 fit me. Dresses, skinny jeans, the works. Granted, some were flattering and some weren’t, but it was such a relief to be able to buy the things that look cute rather than the things that even remotely fit!

Yesterday was a day that I really would prefer to sweep under the rug, but I have decided to share it. It actually wasn’t that bad in terms of total calories, and I started and ended well. But the way I was eating was pretty terrible. I didn’t sleep well the night before, so I was stressed and listless all day. I didn’t pack myself a lunch…mistake #1. So I just ended up mindlessly, joylessly snacking my way through the morning. I never ate anything resembling a real lunch. The middle batch of snacks in my food log were all eaten before 1:00! I felt awful. I felt sick and bloated, but not particularly satisfied.

At that point, I managed to stop myself. I bought a huge bottle of water and just drank and drank for the rest of the day until dinner. Whenver the cravings hit, I asked myself whether I was really hungry or justed wanted food to relieve stress. The answer was always the latter. I had to stay late at school, so I called home and asked my husband to make dinner, which he agreed to do. I find that when I’m really out of control, it helps to know exactly when and where my next meal is coming from. When I got home, I made myself a yummy, healthy apple appetizer based on something I was once served in a nice restaurant. By the time I was finished with that, my husband was done making dinner.

As I said, the day wasn’t so terrible. But it made me realize how many days like that I used to have last semester before I started blogging! I was always eating basically healthy foods, and I wasn’t eating a lot of junk, but I would get lazy and not make myself a lunch, with the result being that I would eat almost no vegetables or lean protein during the middle of the day. I was bored and not getting adequate nutrients. Because I was focused on all the things I wasn’t eating (ice cream, chips, white bread, etc.), I didn’t understand why I wasn’t losing more weight. But now that I’m focusing more on what I am eating and how I am eating it, I feel so much better. I’m happier and have more energy and I feel far more satisfied, mentally and physically. I still don’t understand the math of all of it, because I think I am eating more food now than I used to, but the weight has started to come off, too.

So I have learned my lesson. No more laziness for me. I packed a healthy lunch for today, including a real main course (vegetable curry!) and lots of raw veggies to munch on in case I have risidual cravings. Onward and upward!

Food:
–1/2 Ezekiel English muffin with sauteed veggies, laughing cow, and a slice of salmon
–Coffee with cream

–orange
–Light string cheese

–Luna bar

–biscotti

–Handful of pistachios

–glass of wine
–Sliced apple with crumbled goat cheese, toasted walnuts and honey
–Pork loin with red wine sauce
–big pile of wilted spinach

–Crystallized ginger

Steps: 10525

As I have posted before, I’ve been having a rough week. I was out of town last weekend and ate in restaurants the entire time. Although I made pretty good choices, I came back 1.5 lbs heavier than I left. That may not seem like a lot, but I lose weight very slowly, so this represented a pretty big setback for me. I took a deep breath and told myself that the gain was probably water weight and that it would go away. The next day, my weight was even higher. It stayed up the entire week. I did my best to eat well, but I was jetlagged, lethargic and bloated. I felt terrible. This weekend, I had an unexpected guest to entertain, which meant cooking festive meals and eating out a few times. I was sure this meant disaster.

Then I got on the scale this morning. When I saw the number, I almost fell over. 134.4 pounds. That’s 2.5 pounds lighter than my weight 48 hours earlier and .6 lbs lighter than I was when I left town last week. That also represents the achievement of one of my weight goals. I haven’t weighed this little since I was 16 years old.

I can’t count how many times this week I was exhausted and discouraged and wanted so badly to skip my afternoon walk or reach for a danish for a quick sugar rush. But the act of blogging here every day reminded me of my commitment to myself and my health. And reading my blog title every time I logged in reminded me how important it is to have faith in myself and in the power of exercise and healthy eating. As Roni always says, if you are eating well, the scale will eventually catch up.

Here is my food log for yesterday.

Food:
–tangelo
–Whole wheat scone
–Nonfat latte

–Whole wheat spaghetti frittata
–Leftover spinach salad
–Apple
–.5 oz dark chocolate

–Pumpkin ricotta with 1 tsp cream, 5 pecans and a sprinkle of brown sugar
–.5 oz dark chocolate

–Shrimp and vegetable fajitas with guacamole
–Tortilla chips with salsa
–2 bites of refried beans & 1 bite of tortilla

–Grapes (munched over the course of the evening)

Steps: 11527
Resistance: bicep and tricep exercises with resistance band
Abs: Easy Pilates stuff

I am proud to say that I made it through my Valentine’s dinner while adhering to my person rules of feasting. My rules of feasting are certainly more lax than my rules for every day life, but they help me to feel in control and to enjoy my eating rather than feeling out of control and sick. My rules are as follows:

1. Fill up on vegetables and fluids (water, broth-based soup, tea and decaf coffee).
2. Eat something high in protein to fill you up.
3. Identify which “treats” available to you are sublime, which are good, and which are mediocre. Make your decisions accordingly.
4. Pick one or two treats that will make you very happy. Don’t worry about the calorie content and enjoy them. Pass on the rest. Don’t eat things just because they are in front of you.
5. Eat slowly, savor your food, and stop well before you are stuffed. You don’t have to clean your plate.

I did a very good job of following those rules, I think. I ate four(!) different vegetable dishes and my main course was fish. I didn’t eat any bread, potatoes, fatty meat or alcohol. I picked two treats. My first treat was loosening the reigns a little with the butter and cheese–I had butter sauce on my fish and blue cheese in my salad. I almost always do this when I go out to eat at a very nice restaurant. It makes eating out a lot more fun and I have never noticed that it makes me feel heavy or bloated. Fat in combination with starch sometimes does, but with vegetables and lean meat, it doesn’t really give me a problem. My second treat was an afternoon snack of a heavenly mocha truffle cookie from my very favorite bakery that I have occasion to go to approximately once a year. I ate moderate portions of everything and did not stuff myself.

Some people exercise far more self control than I do when they eat out, and I tip my hat to them. But for me, being able to eat rich food once in a while keeps me happy and motivated. I don’t see judicious indulgences as veering off track. I didn’t gain my excess weight from eating butter sauce on Valentine’s Day. I gained weight from eating out of stress and boredom. I gained weight because I allowed ice cream, cookies, and french fries to become parts of my daily menu rather than occasional treats. As long as I am keeping rich food firmly in the category of “special occasion food” and don’t stuff myself or eat things just because they are there, I think I will be just fine.

Food
–Bowl of Kashi cereal with skim milk, strawberries, and nuts
–Small latte

–Whole wheat quesadilla stuffed with tomatoes and fresh herbs, topped with 1/4 diced avocado
–Strawberries

–1 Ezekiel English muffin with peanut butter
–1 small glass of milk

–1 mocha cookie

–Mixed green salad with pecans, blue cheese, and balsamic vinaigrette
–2 oz. halibut and 2 scallops in lemon butter sauce (husband ate the rest)
–Steamed asparagus
–Steamed spinach
–1/2 roasted tomato topped with pesto

–Diced mango

Steps: 11847
Pushups: 25 bent leg
Abs: Pilates–the 100
Resistance: biceps, triceps and back

One of my dearest friends in the entire world is 5′3 1/2″ and weighs a little over one hundred pounds. She was a bridesmaid in my wedding, and she had to order a size zero gown and have it taken in so that it would fit her properly. She loves food and has never been on a diet in her life. Many people would never be her weight and size without starving themselves, but she is one of the few genetic freaks of nature who are just naturally tiny.

I’m sure that lots of other people have a friend like mine…the one who happily munches her ice cream while you eat nonfat yogurt, yet somehow manages to stay skinny. I grew up with this girl, and I know that comparing myself to her did me a whole world of damage. But I know that I’m also beginning to learn a lot from her attitudes toward life and food. I’ve gained some really valuable insights, and I wanted to share them.

1. She eats exactly what she wants. My friend has a gusto for food like few people I’ve seen in my life. She never eats processed junk food, but she loves red meat, potatoes, ice cream, butter, and gourmet potato chips made with olive oil and herbs. She eats lots of vegetables, but always sautees them in a truly alarming quantity of extra virgin olive oil. She eats delicious, rich food that tastes great and is psychologically satisfying. I don’t think that I would feel very healthy or happy if I ate the way she does, but she is really an object lesson the importance of including foods in your life that make you feel indulged and happy. She also is proof that the love of food isn’t synonymous with the abuse of food. (More on that below.)

2. She never eats anything that she doesn’t want. I don’t know how many times I have eaten something fattening and mediocre out of convenience, politeness, or an ingrained habit of cleaning my plate. My friend will have none of this. If she doesn’t want to eat it, she won’t. If the food isn’t good, she will find a way to get something else. If there are leftovers on her plate, oh well. She has no shame about ordering a gigantic ribeye steak and eating a tiny portion of it. She just takes the rest home with her. Often times she will eat it for lunch or dinner the next day, but if she never gets around to it, she refuses to feel guilty about that, either. She eats to please herself, and not anyone else.

3. She never overeats. And by never, I mean NEVER. She eats exactly what she is hungry for. She is not impressed by stress, particularly tasty food, or the knowledge that she will not have easy access to food for several hours. She eats exactly what she is hungry for at that particular meal and never a single bite more.

4. She isn’t afraid to bring the world to a screeching halt to make sure that she is supplied with delicious food exactly when she wants it. My friend is the queen of bringing along snacks and leftovers so that she can eat as often as she wants. If she doesn’t have anything preprepared, she will simply push her other tasks to the side and stop to make herself a delicious lunch or snack. She never resorts to junk or packaged foods if what she wants is a meal. If she is traveling, she refuses to overeat at one meal so that she won’t be hungry later. Anyone who has ever gone on a vacation with this girl knows that you have to be prepared to stop every couple of hours to get her food. If she is hungry, the world knows it. She refuses to go hungry and refuses to overeat, so her only alternative is to aggressively prioritize supplying herself with good food. If I prioritized preparing myself fresh food half as much as she does, I would probably be a lot thinner.

Observing this girl, I have begun to get in touch with my inner food diva…the part of me that says, “There is no reason in the world why I shouldn’t eat good food exactly when I want it. I don’t have to eat anything that I don’t want, and I feel no shame about putting time and energy into making sure that I have consistently delicious food. Because food is a wonderful thing, and I am worth it.” I think that I tend to unconsciously feel guilty about prioritizing my own eating. I should be paying bills, doing homework, cleaning house…making sure that I have timely and tasty food just doesn’t feel important. Getting in touch with my inner food diva is helping me to shift my priorities.

I do want to state a disclaimer that it has taken me years to get through my head. If you have a naturally tiny friend, never, ever compare yourself to her. As a teenager, I made myself completely miserable as a over this. At my skinniest weight, I was still twenty pounds heavier and 2-3 dress sizes larger than my friend. It completely clouded my perception of my weight and size. I was miserable because I was trying so hard, yet I was still so big compared to her. This kind of thinking is destructive and will get you in trouble really fast. Weight and size are very personal things, and we aren’t all meant to be the same. You can certainly improve your fitness and appearance, but if you compare yourself to those who won the genetic lottery, you will be miserable. I know that for me, skinny is a size 4, not a small size 0. Comparing myself to my friend only made me miserable.

I went to the grocery store this afternoon and loaded up my cart with healthy food–lots of fresh produce, some lean meat, skim milk and cheese, spices, olive oil, dried and canned beans, etc. It always makes me happy to look at grocery cart brimming over with healthy food. I love all of the colors and it makes me feel good about myself. But today my husband was overcome with a craving for Fig Newtons. (It had been a long day.) So we wandered down the cookie and baked good aisle. I don’t even remember the last time I was in that section of the grocery store. Everything was packaged in really loud colors and smelled like a combination of sugar and cardboard. It was amazing to me how negatively I reacted to it. In some sections of the grocery store, you can actually see the color of the food through the packaging. The packaging is supposed to show off the food…not hide it or made up for it. In the produce aisle, there typically isn’t any packaging at all, and that is the prettiest section of the whole store! It made me really glad that I’ve chosen to eat more fresh foods. Because I see no reason for food to be packaged in neon. Real food is beautiful on its own!

When Roni posed this question on her blog, I was really surprised at how hard it was for me to come up with an answer. One reason is health…at my highest weight I slipped outside of the healthy weight range for my height, and it was important for me to correct that. But right now, I am within the healthy weight range for my height. So what makes me want to keep going?

I’ve had a very antagonistic relationship with my body at times, and I want that to end. I am trying very hard to feed my body nutritious food and to figure out the size and shape that I was meant to me. I want to reach a point where I can say, “This is how my body was meant to look.” And I want to learn how to love that.

I know that I am never going to be skinny by some people’s standards. I remember in high school when I reached the lowest weight of my life–120 lbs–I was crushed when I heard someone describe another person of my height (5′4″) and weight as “average.” I didn’t want to have to work so hard only to be average. This time, I am trying to throw comparisons to other people out the window. I want to feel good and look good on my own terms.

When I think back to my past weights, I’m always sad at how hard I’ve been on myself. I can’t really think of a time where I was able to totally accept my size and weight. But my goal weight comes from my memories of how my clothes fit. When I weighed between 125 and 130, I may have nitpicked my body, but clothes fit me really well. I could wear a slinky skirt without lumps and bumps showing and I could wear shorts and be happy with my legs. That is one thing that I hope to achieve again…that feeling of being happy with how my clothes fit and fall on my body.

It’s taken me awhile, but I’m beginning to accept that certain parts of me are just thicker than others and always will be. I’m never going to magically have a skinny waist, for example…I’ve always been a little bit thicker in the middle, even when I was thin. But when I’m at a good weight, my good features look much better than they currently do. I’ve always had thin legs and slim hips. When I was at my goal weight, I didn’t have to worry about how my legs were going to look in a short skirt or whether my hips were going to look lumpy in a slinky dress. For me, if I start having to cover up my good features, then my weight is too high.

I guess, long story short, I want to lose weight because I want to reach a point where I can feel proud of my body. I want my body to look like the best version of itself. I think that achieving that will improve my health and make shopping a lot more fun.

Roni’s post yesterday really got me thinking about the benefits and perils of both trusting yourself and monitoring/counting/measuring your every move when it comes to food. I’ve been on quite a journey with that issue over the past year.

As I’ve touched on before, I graduated from college last May weighing 146 pounds. I wasn’t obsese by any means, but I’m pretty short and it felt like too much weight for me. I knew that my weight was the result of eating too much junk and not exercising. I was determind to do something about my college weight and immediately started South Beach. My wedding was coming up, and, like most brides, I wanted to look great! I was definitely in a diet mindset for the rest of the summer. I got off track numerous times when I had to travel or spend time with friends who were downing lots of junk food, but I lost six pounds before my wedding.

The problem was, I was making myself miserable. Everything was either on plan or cheating…there was nothing in my mind about healthy indulgences. I remember crying the week before my wedding because I was so upset that I hadn’t lost more weight and so embarrased have dozens of photos taken of me. Even on my wedding day, I had to swallow my self-consciousness during the photography session.

At that point, something finally clicked in my head and I realized how unhealthy my attitude was. I vowed not to weigh myself or actively try to lose weight for the first semester of graduate school. I simaltaneously vowed not to use this as an excuse to eat whatever junk I wanted. I read up about nutrition and actively committed to eating more vegetables and centering my diet around healthy foods. While I hoped that eating well would help my weight, I was determined not to beat myself up. If I wanted a treat, I ate one. I made a deal with myself that I would feed my body healthy foods and allow my weight to normalize where it would. I didn’t weigh myself, so I’m not sure exactly what the fruits of those months were. I know that my weight loss was small, but enough that my clothes began to fit more loosely.

That period of working focusing on health and nutrition was wonderful for me in so many ways. But eventually, a darker side started to emerge. I had absolutely no idea whether I had lost weight or not. I had absolutely no idea whether what I was doing was effective. It started to confuse me. In the end, I really did want to lose at least some weight. I was willing to have the weight loss move slowly, but I began to stress out about whether I needed to change what I was doing to ever see results. In the end, I realized that I had gained the benefit that I needed from not dieting or weighing myself, and that it was time to go back to a more active weight loss approach.

I’ve returned to “dieting” (I hate that word) and logging my food intake with a great deal of apprehension. I don’t want to get back into that self-destructive mindset. Even saying a goal weight is hard for me. I’ve tried to state a goal that is realistic and doable, but I swore to myself that I would change it or throw it out the window if my body tells me that it is happy somewhere else.

In spite of my concerns, I’ve realized that, right now, I need some level of monitoring to maintain consistency. I have always been a healthy eater by most people’s standards. I grew up on veggies and tofu and whole wheat bread and I eat almost no candy or fast food. Still, excess carbs, emotional eating, and a few too many treats can cause the pounds to creep up even for a relatively healthy eater. Journaling my food intake helps me to stay consistent and to realize the times when I get lazy and don’t prioritize making myself healthy food. I never allow myself to go hungry. Weighing myself every day has actually made me worry less about my weight rather than more. I know what I am dealing with, so I don’t have to fear the worst.

I think that Roni’s post give us an important reminder: it is possible to work on eating healthily and being active without being on a diet. Diets can be wonderful, helpful things. But if they are working against you, it might be time to consider a break. I know that my break from dieting helped me immensely. My mind is now more on improving my health and achieving long term results. I’m focused more on the foods that I should eat more of and less on the foods that I need to avoid at all costs. Of course I would love to look great in a swimsuit this summer, but I can be proud of myself and what I have accomplished whether my stomach is flat or not. Kudos to Roni and to everyone else who has the courage to do what is emotionally healthy for them, even if it seems scary or nonintuitive. There is no one right way to do this.

Let the record note that I LOVE bread. I do not ever intend to live without the stuff. I’m happy to eat stone ground whole grain bread instead of the white stuff, but good bread is one of life’s great joys and I do not intend to give it up.

That said, I abuse bread. For me, it isn’t about how often I eat bread…I’ve lost weight eating whole wheat bread multiple times a day. But for me, it is a warning sign if I start eating more than one serving of bread or pasta in a sitting. At first, I usually cut back on calories somewhere else so I can justify my bread habit. But it always comes back to bite me.

Everyone is different, but I know that I personally have no business eating more than one slice of bread or half of a large english muffin in one sitting, at least not on a regular basis.

I have noticed that my bread consumption has started going up too much. All too often I end up eating both halfs of my English muffin or wanting a second slice of toast. And for me, that just isn’t going to fly. So far my total caloric intake hasn’t really shifted, but I am nipping this in the bud before it gets out of hand.

This is really, really hard for me to admit. But this is just the sort of denial that always gets me into trouble. All of those seductive voices in my head saying, “Bread is good for you, one more slice won’t hurt. Don’t think about the calories or carbohydrates, you can make good decisions without reading labels! In fact, you can eat all the bread you want!” I want to believe them. But I am doing my very best to be honest with myself this time around, even if it’s unpleasant.