July « 2009 « Healthy and Sane

Archived Entries

Taking responsibility for my actions

July 30th, 2009 · 24 Comments · breakfast, eggs, snacks, yogurt

I’ve been doing a lot of soul searching lately and trying to think about why I keep bingeing. I’m honestly sick of talking and thinking about it, and I hate that I feel like a victim to this “bingeing demon.” I’ve decided that I’m no longer going to give in. I’m taking responsibility for my actions and changing them for the better. On that note, I think I figured out why going from calorie counting to intuitive eating probably triggered this crazy bingeing. I almost feel like with this new self-discovery and my new “plan” I can get this resolved… for good! Feel free to skip over this part and scroll over to the food pics if this is not relevant to you… I won’t judge

So here we go… When I was in a hardcore losing weight mode last year, I counted calories religiously for 6 days, then went 100% nuts on day 7. I worked out during those 6 days and had the seventh day as my “rest day” – from everything! I ate all day long, whatever I wanted, and of course gained some weight due to this one “cheat day” but overall I lost more during the week so the number on the scale was going down and my workouts helped shape my body. I thought that this approach was a good one – for me. I accepted the fact that I was an all-or-nothing person and thought that I figured out a way to make things work with this handicap. Unfortunately, it looks like the second I stop counting calories, my brain thinks it’s “day 7″ so all bets are off – and my binge eating is triggered again. This is not healthy and I’m stopping this madness. I’m serious this time! <– scary smiley face=I’m serious

Oh, about my plan. I’ve been emailing back and forth with Eve, who’s been absolutely wonderful. Eve is an RD in NYC and I wish I still lived there. I think she would have been a huge help to me! Anyways, she said something very basic yet kind of genius. She said that I still needed rules even if I stop counting calories … and she’s right! I work well with rules. That’s how I lost weight before. I just need some slightly softer rules now as I’m trying to resolve my food issues and lose weight slowly. So here is my new rule: I can have 1 treat (any treat) a day, every day, if I want one. If I know I’ll be going out at night, I’ll eat super clean during the day. If I want a large cookie or a special dessert, I can have it too… but just 1, and I have to eat super clean for the rest of the day to provide my body with the nutrients it needs. Simple, right? Today I allowed myself to have a treat, but I didn’t want one! I passed by free office cookies with no problems, and then passed by a cute brownie stand at the farmers market like it was nothing. I wanted cleaner foods so I rolled with it. I think I’m still kind of disgusted by Tuesday’s incident. It won’t last long but it’s ok, because I can have a treat every day if that’s what I really want. I won’t lose weight as fast, but it’s ok. I’ll be sane, and with my workouts I think I will still be able to lose some weight. Thanks again, Eve!!

Onto today’s cleanish eats. I’m so proud!

In the bowl: TJ’s organic nonfat european style yogurt, 1 fresh apricot, cantaloupe chunks, fresh blueberries, Kashi Golean cereal, Zoe’s almond cranberry granola (just a tiny handful) + cacao nibs. I feel like I haven’t had a big yogurt bowl like that in forever. This was delicious!!! The cacao nibs were really subtle. I still can’t figure them out – they’re either intense and bitter, or get lost in the mix. I’m going to keep experimenting

Mid morning snack: Nature’s Path organic cinnamon apple instant oatmeal + 1T Justin’s cinnamon peanut butter. This was such an amazing snack! It was sweet but hearty. I’m going to buy more packets to keep on hand for dessert. Seriously, I think this may satisfy my sweet tooth on many occasions going forward. Yay for new discoveries

Lunch was random (another dinner sans leftovers): yellow cauliflower from the farmers market (microwaved for 2 minutes) +Annie’s white cheddar organic mac & cheese. I added the cauliflower to the cooked pasta and then added the cheese powder to make everything nice and cheesy. Actually this was kind of ass kicking

Mid afternoon treat: decaf tea + 2 Indigo Rabbit heavenly chocolate pillows

Dinner was also ass kicking! I followed this recipe from Cooking Light for tomato goat cheese strata (found through Tri To Cook). We didn’t have enough eggs so I halved it. So delicious!! Adam said it was like a fancy deconstructed egg and cheese. Okay – whatever works

Multiply this slice by 2. This is only 1/2 serving shown here… I went back for seconds

Dessert: 2 turkish dried apricots. These guys are extra sweet!!

If you can’t tell from the tone of this post, I’m in a fantastic mood! I feel a lot more in control and feel like I am finally making true progress. I have a special treat in the oven that I will enjoy tomorrow since it’s 10pm right now. Yay to being rational

[Read more →]

Small bites

July 30th, 2009 · 17 Comments · breakfast, sandwich

Hi bloggies. Can you believe it’s Thursday already?!! This week is seriously flying by. I can’t believe it!

I went to a Registered Dietitian yesterday to talk about my bingeing problem. I wasn’t sure if talking to an RD would be the right thing to do. After all, I feel like I know quite a bit about balanced eating and nutrition in general, but what I really wanted to ask her if calorie counting is something that I should resume or give this “intuitive eating” more time. I feel like I’ve been really out of control lately. I basically ate non-stop all weekend, then had a major bingeing incident on Tuesday again. I keep yo-yoing between “happy” and “depressed” and the 2 have a direct correlation to whether I’ve been eating well or not. After stopping calorie counting I feel like all hell broke loose… and I don’t know how to stop this train wreck. On that note, I’m also hesitant to go back to calorie counting. I feel like I should be able to stop it and eat intuitively. Anyways, the appointment with an RD was pretty much a waste of time (the answer to whether I should calorie count or not is “depends – it may make things worse or better”… yeah, thanks for that tidbit!). BUT, she did give me one advice that I thought I’d share here with you…

It was very much in line with what the Intuitive Eating book talks about – how it’s important to really taste your food and savor it. She recommended getting quality foods (like 1 gourmet cupcake instead of a package of grocery store bought ones) and dividing them into bite size pieces. She said that when we frantically stuff our faces, we don’t really taste the food (yup, definitely agree!) so dividing it into small bites and then counting them down, could help. For example, instead of shoving a cupcake down (I know, classy!) cut it into let’s say 8 small bites, then start counting down. Mmm, I have 8 bites left. The first one is so sweet and rich. Ok, now I have 7. Still delicious. Taste every bite and take your time. When you have 1 bite left, really take your time with it and know it’s your last. Hopefully the experience of eating this truly satisfied you, or you may realize that at bite 5, you’ve had enough. Small bites + slowing down. I know it makes complete sense but I don’t know if when the bingeing demon attacks, I can be this rational. Worth a try though

Here are yesterday’s eats. It was a good day. No bingeing. Notice my dinner… small bites

Lunch was the langostino salad. The tortilla chips got slightly soggy but the flavor was really good. I’ll put them in a separate baggie next time, but I still enjoyed this salad. A lot. Adam did too. He couldn’t stop talking about his delicious lunch

I doubled up on my workouts yesterday because I missed my run on Tuesday. I felt like I started slacking off on my training a bit, so it’s good to be back on track. Check out my training progress here.

Oh and before I go, check out Amanda’s gluten free giveaway. Looks delicious!

Happy Thursday!!

[Read more →]

A nutritious meal can be minutes away

July 29th, 2009 · 11 Comments · chicken, rice, salad, shrimp

I usually love making 4 servings for dinner, so there are plenty of leftovers for Adam and me for lunch the next day. Somehow the last few days I ended up making 2-servings type dinners, which meant I had to get creative for lunch.

Yesterday morning I dug deep into the fridge and, freezer and combined a whole bunch of leftovers to create this wholesome lunch:

In the mix: leftover brown rice, leftover mushroom sauce, tiny bit of leftover grilled chicken + rest of opened packet of TJ’s black lentils, frozen peppers + frozen peas. I defrosted the frozen veggies straight in the pan (took just a few minutes), then added the rest of the stuff to the pan to combine. The flavors worked great together, and it took literally less than 5 minutes. Closeup…

This morning I was faced with the same dilemma – buy lunch or get creative. I dug into the freezer for a protein and found some lagostino tails. I defrosted them in the sink under cold water while making breakfast, then threw them on an EVOO sprayed pan to warm them up and combine them with cajun spices. So here is what’s for lunch today: romaine lettuce, cajun lagostino tails, cucumbers, fresh zucchini, black beans, tortilla chip crumbles, salsa. Can’t wait!

Getting cozy together

Operation “empty the freezer + fridge” is underway in our house, and I think I’m doing quite well so far. There is no reason to buy lunch – you can definitely make a nutrious meal in minutes with a little creativity and some help from your freezer

[Read more →]

No bad attitudes here

July 28th, 2009 · 11 Comments · Cooking Light, Uncategorized, beef, breakfast, dessert, salad, snacks

Thank you all for your comments on my previous post. It’s hard for me to write posts like that but I’m glad that my honestly is appreciated. I just want to get to a place where I can eat delicious healthy foods in moderation and give you guys advice about how to keep up with life and food and stay healthy and sane One day!

Hope your week started on the rights foot. I saw a funny post yesterday in a doctor’s office that said: “Bad attitude is like a flat tire – you can’t go anywhere until you fix it!” There was a silly picture of a cat on a bike with a flat tire that went with it. Funny stuff. Anyways, I thought that was good message to share. We all need to be good to ourselves and leave the bad attitude behind.

I don’t have much to say this morning, so here are yesterday’s eats (scroll over for descriptions).

Dinner was a little special and featured a beautiful piece of local and grass fed filet mignon we bought at the Tendercrop Farm on Saturday. I followed this recipe from Cooking Light for filet mignon with cabernet sauce and the haricots verts and wild mushrooms with hazelnuts recipe from the same The Best of Cooking Light 9 issue for the green beans (the recipe does not appear to be online, I substituted almonds for hazelnuts and omitted the mushrooms).

I got impatient and didn’t let the sauce reduce enough but the flavor was excellent. This is also the first time I had beef in ages. I was really craving beef so it really hit the spot! I had a splash of red with it

+ ww wrap with nutella for dessert.

We ended the evening by watching lots of home improvement shows. I can’t believe we’re moving into our new condo in 3.5 weeks. Exciting and scary!! Enjoy your Tuesday… and be good to yourself! No bad attitudes, ok?

[Read more →]

Major IE setback + Tendercrop farm and Newburyport

July 27th, 2009 · 20 Comments · Boston, bakeries and more, breakfast, dessert

Hi all. Sorry I took a few days off blogging. I had some rough time with intuitive eating. Not sure what happened; I just snapped and binged for what seemed like 2 days straight. I’m learning that Intuitive Eating is in a sense like dieting – you need to be careful and not only be aware of how you feel (i.e. whether you’re hungry, eating out of emotion, etc.) but also make the decision to “do the right thing” (i.e. stop eating if you’re eating for all the wrong reasons). It’s the last part that I was having major problems with this weekend. I knew I was just stuffing my face and not even enjoying it; yet I couldn’t stop the train wreck. Clearly I have issues. I’m working on figuring out what the triggers were and why I keep doing this to myself. Anyways, I’m writing this not because I want you to feel sorry for me; neither because I feel like you guys can “figure it out for me.” I’m even embarrased to admit that this madness was going on this weekend, but at the end I want to be honest and share this journey to Intuitive Eating without editing. Know that it is hard but I think the end justifies the means. I’ll keep you posted on how everything goes. Today has been going great so far.

Before the stupidity began, I actually had an amazing time with Adam. Breakfast was another apple cranberry muffin with crunchy Barney Butter (new shipment – oh how I missed crunchy BB!)

Then we decided to go to Tendercrop Farm to buy some local/grass fed meat. Since we were in the area, we decided to stop by Adam’s hometown, Newburyport, pretended to be tourists (window shopped and took lots of pictures) and had lunch at the famous Michael’s Harborside. The weather was gorgeous! I really felt like we were on vacation

Oh on the way to Newburyport I busted into this passion fruit/macadamia nut KIND bar. I actually had a few bites from it at a time throughout the weekend. This was when I was still trying to eat intuitively and tried to balance not ruining my appetite with not letting myself starve and trigger overeating.

Some pics in Newburyport…

This duck was so cute! It was just chilling by its little “Inn”

Newburyport is right on the water and is known for their fresh seafood so of course I got seafood for lunch. Before our main course arrived, we were served some fresh rolls with butter…

… but after having a bite of it I realized it tasted like regular bread and just “wasn’t worth it.” The appeal of warm bread kind of dissapears when it’s sweaty mid-80’s. For my entree I got the grilled swordfish in citrus ponzu glaze, with asparagus and rice on the side.

The asparagus was drenched in butter. I was so disguisted. Thankfully they had some steamed asparagus in the kitchen (waiting to be buttered) that the waitress was able to snag for me. It made this meal a little better. The citrus ponzu I thought was too intense and actually masked the flavor of what otherwise was a nicely grilled fresh piece of fish. It’s a little sad that this is what most people want – butter on asparagus and thick sauce on their fish. Most food was fried of course, so I guess this was still one of the healthier meals.

After lunch we finally drove to Tendercrop farms. We were both happy to find out (especially me!!!) that we could pick our own blueberries. Yay!! My outfit doesn’t exactly scream “ready to blueberry pick” but it was actually really easy (i.e. no crawling required) and sort of therapeutic. The best part – a whole pound of blueberries was $2 (if you picked them yourself). We got 2 pints for $3. Sweet! I was really happy at this moment.

At Tendercrop farms we got some local meat, fruits and veggies and these 2 baked goods that I had to dig into in the car (ate the rest later that night). First up: whoopie pie – tasted like chocolate cake with frosting. Yum!

And a rocky road bar. OMG SO good! I want more now (actually that’s a lie… after a weekend of serious overeating all I want it salad and fruit to cleanse my body but this brownie thing really was amazing!)

Dinner that night was a whole bunch of (unpictured) walnuts and probably more than 1/2 a box of these Russian chocolates (they have some kind of peanut paste in them that doesn’t taste like peanut butter).

Addictive stuff. I basically finished this box on Sunday morning. Yeah, good times. Anyway, that’s Saturday’s eats. The first half of the day was so amazing, I just had to share it with you. Hope your weekend was good. I’m back at work today with a reignited fire to eat healthy. What else is new?!