I went to lunch with an old co-worker friend. We ended up going to the Bamboo Bistro, a fantastic Chinese Buffet downtown. I made healthy choices for breakfast that morning. I had an english muffin with a 1 Point Weight Watcher Cheese wedge and a Lactose Free Yogurt. I had all kinds of stuff at the lunch buffet, fried rice, general Tso’s chicken, fish and crab rangoon. For dessert I had a few pieces of honey crisp pineapple. I knew I had blown my points for the day. I made up my mind right then that I was having stir-fried veggies for dinner and told my friend I was doing so as confirmation.
Once I got home, I was tired and figured I could just grab some fast food and relax. Luckily, I talked myself out of that foolishness. I felt kinda bad about eating so much at lunch, so I decided to go to the gym as “punishment.” Then I read somewhere that working out should not feel like punishment, and you should do activities you enjoy. I turned on my new favorite toy the Xbox Kinect
. Sweat is sweat, whether it’s elliptical sweat or doing sexy dances to Rihanna
in my living room sweat. I had fun doing the 20 minute Dance Central fitness routine. After my mini workout session, I was so against veggies for dinner I actually ate nothing. I sat in my own silent protest to such a “horrible” dinner. Then around 10 o’clock my stubbornness started to wane because I was hungry. I went in the kitchen and chopped up some fresh zucchini and squash. I put them in olive oil and sautéed them with pre-chopped frozen green peppers. It was such an easy dish to prepare. I seasoned them with a veggie seasoning I got from the spice store at the market.
After they cooked down some, I added some frozen chopped spinach. It started to smell really good. When it was ready, I topped it off with a little bit of shredded mozzarella cheese. I can put cheese on just about everything but ice cream. And…guess what? My 4 point dinner was delicious! I couldn’t believe it. It didn’t feel like punishment at all. There was no meat, no side dish with carbs, and I was satisfied. I even went back for guilt-free seconds!
On Sunday, my Little Sister told me her and Mama were going to dinner. I self-invited. Much to my horror, I discovered we were going to a buffet. I said why don’t we try the Asian restaurant instead? Nope, everybody wanted the free buffet with the coupon. I kind of freaked out. I text my Special Friend telling him I was scared. He likes to eat too; he understood and said he was scared for me. When the hostess asked what I wanted to drink I just said diet soda. Even though I don’t drink soda, I was just thinking about not drinking my calories/points. My mom ordered unsweetened tea, I always forget about tea. I ordered a tea as well and sweetened it with Splenda. I had a light breakfast that morning and 20 bonus points left in the week. I couldn’t do too much damage? Right?
I got little bits of everything but mostly meat and veggies. I ate a few spoonful’s of each dish and then scraped it all into one plate. I actually did it, I wasn’t stuffed to the point of being miserable and ate proportionately. But, it’s still hard for me to waste food. I grew up in the clean plate club. You couldn’t get up until you ate all of your food. Still to this day, I rarely leave anything on my plate unless I just didn’t like the way it tasted. But that day, I threw away good tasting food. It feels so wasteful, it’s probably people starving blocks away, and we pick over it and throw it in the trash.
Anyway, it was time for dessert. I figured my “get everything and eat a few bites” philosophy worked well with dinner, it should also work with desserts. WRONG! I got apple cheesecake, strawberry short cake, and 2 flavors of gelato Italian ice cream. It was all displayed so beautifully and tasted just as good as it looked. I started with a few bites but ultimately ate ALL of it. Me and my sister felt like pigs afterward. Lesson learned, if I have to get a dessert, just get one. After dinner we went home and worked out, hoping to balance things out. I’d probably have to work out for 8 hours to burn off all of that food.
The next day was my Weight watcher weigh-in. I took off my heavy sweater and exchanged it for the thinnest t-shirt I could find. This was the first time I was actually nervous about the scale, even though the whole week was great prior to the buffet. On Saturday, my scale at home said I’d lost 3 pounds. I stepped up at the meeting and lost .8 (eight tenths) of a pound. I almost felt bad for a minute, knowing that I had really done much better before the buffet debacle. But then I realized that’s almost a whole pound and I’ve consistently lost weight for 4 weeks. I literally haven’t done that in years. I lost 8.4 pound in January, and I’m no longer bursting out of my pants. They actually fasten now. That’s what I call success and a lesson learned.
I’ve been doing a really great job staying on the weight watchers plan for the last month. It’s really a mind over matter thing, but sometimes I lose my mind and forget I’m on plan. On Friday afternoon they sent out one of those dreaded food emails, detailing whatever free treats are in the office kitchen. This particular day it was chicken wraps. How bad could a chicken wrap be? It could be my afternoon snack. I hurried over to the kitchen eager to get one before they were gone, completely ignoring the fact that I wasn’t really even hungry. They looked good, so I got two. Prize in hand on the way back to my desk I saw the left over brownies from the same meeting at another secretary’s desk. Yummy free brownies, how dare she not include that in that in the email? Free dessert always tastes better. I got two brownies as well. Then it hit me as I looked down at the two handfuls of food hidden in the paper towel, so no one would see how much I really got. I’m a weight watcher now, trying to get healthy, I don’t eat like this anymore. I no longer hide food and mindlessly eat because it’s free or because it tastes good. I put one of the brownies back.
When I got back to my desk I started eating the chicken wrap which was very difficult with my new braces on my teeth. I threw the other wrap in the trash. But there, are starving kids in Africa, that’s wasteful right? Well, I’ll say a prayer for them and release the guilt of throwing away food. Well maybe I can take it home and give it somebody I thought. But in reality, my family would look at me like I was crazy if I brought over a half of a chicken wrap left over from a meeting at work. Now, for that nasty little brownie situation. I pulled up my WW e-tools online that I use to track my food points. I had pretty healthy day, and there was some wiggle room. I tracked the brownie, ate the brownie and enjoyed it.
As I walked in the door at home after work, one of my friends text me, saying “congrats on your weight loss.” I was hungry and just wanted to eat, and didn’t care what I ate. I was probably feeling this insane “hunger” because of the sugary brownie messing with my blood sugar. I made a quick pot of chili and starting filling up a monstrous sized bowl. “I don’t care,” I said out loud, “I’m hungry, I’ll eat how much I want” Right in that moment I heard myself. “Of course you care, you even have friends that care” I reminded myself. I put half of the chili back and counted my crackers according to the serving size on the box. I went to my laptop and pulled up my e-tools as I ate, tracking everything. Friday taught me an important lesson. Sometimes, along this journey, I will have moments that I temporarily lose my mind and revert back to old mindsets, but taking just a few seconds to re-assess the situation can make things back the way they should be.
Since I finally seem to have gotten my insane eating under control with the help of weight watchers, I decided to do a new type of post called Delicious Discovery. Anytime I find or re-discover a new food, I’ll do a quick post and a review. So, today’s Delicious Discovery is Lactose-Free Yoplait Yogurt. I’m lactose intolerant (allergic to milk/dairy), so I was super excited to see this in Super Wal-Mart yesterday. Here is the nutrition label.
It comes out to 170 Calories or 4 Weight Watcher’s Points Plus. It was delicious. I highly recommend it.
Its looks as fresh as the day I bought it. I was actually kind of scared to eat it, wondering what kind of voodoo curse that weird green bag put over my broccoli. But, I ate it, and I survived and it tasted fine. Not all foods work great (like strawberries), but if you know you bought it, and from reason, may not eat in right away, try a green bag.
