WAS IT OR WASN'T IT A BINGE?

My weight loss graph for July looks like a line drawing of mountain peaks: up and down, up and down ... but at least it always ends down. This week, challenges have included getting myself motivated to go to the gym (I always end up going, but boy, some days it's hard!) and restricting the nibbling (never can seem to eliminate it; but I can manage it. Let's face it, some battles you just are not going to win)! We're also walking just about every day. I enjoy the walks and secretly (or not so secretly) wish that they were enough to ensure continued weight loss or at least maintenance; but they're not, so that's that. I am also trying to do the E2 workout twice a week, since I can't seem to bring myself to do strength training without the guidance of a personal trainer. Let me tell you, it kicks butt. I am still sore from Monday's session. But I'm sticking with it. I have fantasies of one day being able to do P90X.

Next challenge up: travel. I'll be heading out for New York early early tomorrow, and I always have to watch myself extra carefully on the road. I'll be staying in a friend's apartment, so I should be able to cook for myself most of the time. I only have one restaurant meal planned, and I get to pick. So, the plan is to hit the grocery store when I get in, and keep it simple:

Cereal, fruit, and soy milk for breakfast; extra fruit for snacks
Chickpeas and black beans
Whole wheat pita or a couple of ww rolls
Big bag of salad, 1-2 carrots, cucumber, avocado to make salads and wraps

(Quick plug, since food is on the brain: last night we had the Sweet Potato Bowl from the E2 Diet book, and it was colorful and yuuuuummmmmmmeeeeee! For anyone who is looking for some simple, quick, tasty, and healthful meals you can throw together with very little effort, I highly recommend this book.)

I don't want to buy too much, since I'm only there a few days and some meals I will probably end up grabbing on the go. Happily, salad bars abound in NYC; and you can always pop into the corner bodega for some yogurt or cottage cheese and fruit. I also travel with Think Thin protein bars, which make a great snack or emergency meal. Finding healthy food in a big city like NYC isn't the problem; it's that dreaded "vacation mentality". I'm away from home, therefore I am on holiday and can eat should eat deserve to eat oh hell, WANT to eat with abandon.

My solution: one small treat a day. One "indulgence" meal out during the trip. I've learned the hard way that it just doesn't work for me to let go, even temporarily. It's too hard to get back on track. I always have, eventually, but it's just not worth it in terms of ground lost; and I am working very, very hard right now to recover lost ground. It is a struggle every single day.

And yet, the struggle is worth it. That's the question I keep asking myself, and the question I think it is important for anyone trying to lose weight to regularly ask. Is what I am doing right now to lose weight worth it to me in the long run? Can I sustain this, or is it so extreme that at some point I will be unable to keep it as a lifestyle and start gaining the weight back?

Speaking of these ponderings, recently someone pointed me to a blog post in which the writer took issue with my use of the word "binge" to describe an incident that happened back in February. Apparently, I did not eat enough for this to qualify as a binge in her opinion, and in her opinion, this makes my relationship with food "weird". We've had a cordial exchange over the matter, but it makes me think (and well, okay, it makes me feel defensive, too. Just a tad).

This is a blog about health, weight loss, and dieting. If diet talk makes you crazy or bores you, this is probably not the place for you. This blog has been a terrific tool for me in my own efforts. It takes an enormous amount of daily effort to stay in control, and I do think a lot about food, nutrition, exercise, and general health.

What I don't do is talk about them all the time outside of this blog. This is the place in my life for this conversation, hopefully with interested parties. I can't think of anything more boring than sitting around talking about what you eat (except maybe talking about NASCAR, or TV shows you don't watch, or someone's gastrointestinal woes). Sure, it comes up in conversation, but I think what's bugging me here is the idea that someone is characterizing me as someone who can't talk about anything else. This is my blog, not my life. I do have other interests. :)

Also, IMHO, one of the keys to success in any field is not to let others define what's right, what's appropriate, or what success means for you. I tell my consultation clients this all the time. Only you get to decide what it means to be successful. Only you get to decide what works for you. Until I accepted this, and started to figure out what worked for me and what didn't, what I was willing to do and what I wasn't, I was not able to lose and keep off major poundage.

So yes, that was a binge. Perhaps it wasn't a classically defined food binge, in terms of eating everything in sight and continuing to eat to fill an emotional hunger rather than a physical one (which I certainly have done before), but more importantly, it was a psychological binge. It could have been the first step down a slippery slope, except that I caught it and figured out what I was doing and why. That, to me, is the significant thing here. It hasn't happened since, probably because I think I now know how to recognize the triggers.

I'm grateful for the criticism, actually, because I do think the conversation about women's relationships with food and body image is a very important one. I do think it's very important to be aware of when enough is enough, and to be realistic about that. To realize that there are no shortcuts and that the only thing that is really going to work longterm is lifestyle change. On another of my boards, a debate is raging over whether one should go on Releana and a 500-calorie-a-day (!!!!!) diet to lose those last 10 pounds. Sad to say, the first thing I thought was "wow, if it works ...". And then I started looking at what you had to do to get those last 10 pounds off, and I thought it was insane. Inject yourself with a hormone found in the urine of pregnant women, and eat a starvation diet for three weeks, after which you have to go on an Atkins-type diet?  Honey, anybody who eats only 500 calories a day is going to lose weight fast, and probably put it back on faster.

Part of my personal mission is to keep track of the "crazy thoughts" and to keep listening, carefully, to my body. This is not going to be sustainable if I succumb to trends and fads or if I try to take my body where it's not meant to go. Someone once accused me of wanting to be a size 0, and that made me laugh --- there is no way, short of starvation or illness, that my body could ever go there, and it's never been a goal.

Health is the goal. Everything else is icing on the cake.

Comments

[Miss Mabel]

Hey Angelica - You're right! My original post (and maybe all others!) sounded glib. Feedback appreciated.

My comment about the boys and girls wasn't a comment on their intelligence. I do not hate zee womens. But don't you think that 18 year old girls (and apparently now even 7 year old girls) worry more about their weight than 18 year old (and 7 year old) guys? And doesn't that upset you? Not because there's something wrong with the females, but because there's something wrong with our society? It's not that the guys are talking about politics* but that they're NOT talking about how bad they were yesterday for eating 2 slices of pizza.

[* I said politics because 1/2 the time I walk into shipping that's the subject of conversation. 1/4 of the time it's music, and the other 1/4 it's the greatness of Greek civilization. I ain't saying these conversations are Intelligent.]

:-)

[A]

Hi Cindy, I'm sorry that Mabel's post bothered you. You shouldn't let it - I found her glib characterization of alcoholics and the cost of one drink to be particularly irritating.
What's striking, is not only the general tone of that post but the tone of most of her posts -- she appears to be a woman who sees herself as positioned against "those other types of women" - the dumb 18 year olds fixated on weight, the dumb women talking about food, those "North American women" who just fixate on food and their weight - the list could go on. And gasp! We're just not like those smart boys talking politics! Please. This is just a disguised form of female competition where she is somehow better than the rest of the girls out there. I'm also in a PhD program, and yeah, I damn well think about my body, my health, my food, and my weight and I'm not vapid or obsessed for doing so. I agree with your definition of what constitutes a "binge" and applaud you for responding to her. You look lovely in your last photo and I wish you much success. Angelica

[Mamie]

Love those last two sentences! I agree with you on the psychological binge concept. And I like the idea of one indulgence meal on a trip (or during a holiday season). I had a wonderful meal on 4th of July including an ear of corn with real butter (just about a tsp.) and salt and TWO pices of pie! I'll remember that for a long time...till Thanksgiving. We girls need our treats.