more than a number

Weight is more than just a number, and self-esteem is a big scary word.

[aweighwithwords]

week 2 thoughts

This was the end of my second week of food journaling and food-watching.

There were some highs and lows. I'm still adjusting to this new pattern of eating, but being held accountable by the journal definitely makes me think before I eat things. But let's break it down a little bit.

Highs

Drank lots of water. I think I averaged between 6-8 cups each day, which is pretty good! Next week I'm going to set a goal of 8 cups per day (including at least one full cup at each meal).

Made (overall) good food choices! We had 2 class parties that involved food, and at one I only ate small servings (which ended up being dinner, so that's OK I think) and at the other I didn't have anything!

When I did have some sugar or a treat, I didn't guilt myself. It was okay. I sort of thought about it like this: "Will I be more regretful if I eat this or if I don't?" If the answer was "If I don't", I let myself have some. And that's okay! Very proud of myself for not letting a treat make me feel awful about myself.

Lows

Felt a lot of guilt at my class party on Wednesday when I wanted to eat more food. Fortunately I was on imessage with BH and she was supportive of my choices. :) Yay friends!

On Saturday night, I ate mac and cheese and french fries out at dinner, and they really weren't delicious enough to justify the decision. I wish I had gotten a veggie burger instead. :(

Overall this week was pretty good. I had a few conversations with different friends about these changes, and everyone was actually supportive. No one told me I wasn't doing "enough", or that I should also be exercising, or weighing myself, or whatever. I'm happy about that. Means I have good taste in friends!

One thing I noticed is that if I don't write things down AS I eat them, I forget what it was that I had. So for next week I will increase my mindfulness a bit. :)

[aweighwithwords]

weekend recap

I had already intended to use Shabbat (Fri PM-Sat PM) as my "off" day. But then, predictably, real life got in the way.

I actually did fairly well Friday and most of Saturday. I definitely ate MORE carbs/sugar than intended, but as far as "sufficient amounts of food" goes I think I probably didn't really eat ENOUGH.

Sunday, I did not do well. I drank lots of coffee, and almost no water at all. My research group came over to work on our IRB stuff and final paper, and we ended up baking cookies. I ate four, and had a glass of milk. Then I had to take Fiance to the hospital, and by the time we got home I was so pooped that I just ordered Thai food. The problem with that is that my mouth liked it so much I ate more of it than I should have. But still, like Saturday, I don't think i actually ate enough food for the entire day. :(

That being said, I'm feeling less guilty/awful than I expected to. I think because I really enjoyed making the cookies, and also because I was so happy that Fiance is okay that I was not really concerned about my food intake. 

I got a new notebook to do my journaling so I'm hoping to stay more on top of things this week. Week 2 starts today!

[aweighwithwords]

and we're back.

It's been more than a year since I posted here, I think. Between my health, my personal life, and graduate school, weight loss kind of fell by the wayside, and for awhile I was happy with how I looked and felt, so I sort of let this blog go.

I was a little hesitant to start it back up. I have an extremely addictive personality, and I'm nervous about going back to food blogging/weight loss at all, because I have this nasty habit of getting very disordered, very quickly. Fortunately I've got some RL friends at my back to keep an eye on me, but so I'll definitely be more cautious this time around.

My catalyst for starting this up again was a weigh-in at my parents' house over Thanksgiving. Granted, this WAS directly after Thanksgiving and my 5-year high school reunion, which involved a decent amount of Chinese food and alcohol, but it was the first time I'd stepped on a scale in almost a year. The number read 160.6, which is the most I have ever weighed, and at 5'2" that is a lot of extra weight on a pretty small body.

I'm getting married in June, and I know that I want to look better and feel healthier by then. That being said, I have a lot of barriers to effective weight loss right now. My fibromyalgia has gotten MUCH worse in the past several months, as has my chronic fatigue. So pain and exhaustion will definitely be a barrier to a lot of exercise opportunities. There's also less time for cooking, with my schedule being the way it is. My stress levels have also been a lot higher, which means I'm more likely to stress-eat or binge out. Which is less good.

I also know that my disordered eating habits are going to be hard to get around. There's a few things that I know I can absolutely not do, such as calorie counting and scheduled weigh-ins, because I get very obsessive and restrictive very quickly. 

So my plan for the next 6 months (!!!) is to do the following:

1. Keep a food journal. I'm going to start off by just writing down what I eat, when I eat it, and how I'm feeling physically and emotionally. I'm also going to try and use that to keep track of my levels of physical pain each day. 2. Walk more. I don't want to set specific exercise goals yet, but I think just increasing the amount of walking I do around campus will be helpful. 3. Clean up my eating. One of the good "ground rules" I've often heard is "don't eat anything your great-great grandmother wouldn't recognize as food", which seems like a pretty good guideline. I already avoid most processed food, so I'm going to try and limit those. I don't want to practice total restriction, though--moderation is the key. 4. Less sugar. Speaking of moderation. My father-in-law-to-be has lost a ton of weight by cutting out sugar (bread/pasta/white rice, not natural sugars like fruit) during the week, and then has a carb-friendly day on Shabbat (Friday PM to Saturday PM). He looks and feels great and is still able to lose weight while eating things that he loves once a week. Again, it's moderation, and not total restriction. Because of reasons.

I started journalling on Monday, and so far it's going pretty well, except for the part where I'm already worrying that I'm not eating enough. Tracking the amount of food and the amount of drinks (especially my coffee intake) IS good for making me more aware, though.

One day at a time.

[phippsterr]

WHEN MY FRIEND RECOMMENDS WE GO ON A DIET TOGETHER

[thatdisneygif]

[aweighwithwords]

Getting there. :) I'm nowhere near my goal weight, but I am currently:

- healthy

- in a great relationship

- about to graduate summa cum laude from a high-ranking university

I'm pretty happy with myself right now, regardless of the number on the scale. 

[aweighwithwords]

fuck. scales.

I cannot fucking deal with scale disparities. Here is why:

Scale at home: 145.9 lbs

Scale at gym (where "official" weigh-ins began today for my work's Biggest Loser competition): 151 lbs

I was 157 lbs when I STARTED this whole mess almost eight months ago, and I was so fucking proud of myself for losing ten pounds already. And now this scale is telling me I only lost half that, AND that I'm in the 150s again, AND that this is the scale I'm going to have to go by for my official weigh-ins.

Here is how I feel about that:

[zombifieddancingmushrooms]

[aweighwithwords]

One of the biggest problems I have. :(

[klainedestined]

Health at Every Size

I stand campaign was made in response to this Georgia Childhood Obesity PSA

While the original ad is trying to tell kids and parents that there are reasons why children are over weight and to do something about it the main the thing they are really doing is shamming children and making them feel like there is something wrong with their bodies. One of the children even says “Big bones didn’t make me this way. Big Meals did.” Trying to deny the fact that there are numerous children born with the predisposition to be overweight. I do agree that exercise and healthier eating habits are important for everyone especially children but how effective are those things going to be if we take away their self esteem. The I STAND ads were simply a response to that why should it matter that some of the women are over weight. 

I would also like to add that I can’t understand why people are wasting their time to reblog this simply to write negative comments. I’ve seen pictures on tumblr where people cheer for mutilated human lives but get all up in arms if they see one fat person. Stop being a puppet for society and decide for yourself what is attractive and not. Stop buying into the stereotypes; fat people are hard working clean articulate kind people, just as much as they can be lazy ignorant dirty assholes same for thinner people. Everyone judges themselves the most they don’t need someone else to aide in that.

You can find more I stand images or submit your own here: 

http://istandagainstweightbullying.tumblr.com

[aweighwithwords]

I'm trying to lose weight for myself, because I don't want my joints and bones to hurt anymore from the weight they're carrying. Weight loss should not be about shame, and we should NEVER be directing our own body issues onto children. Ever. Kids have enough problems without shitty ad campaigns like this. Michelle Obama's Let's Move campaign is so much more positive--childhood obesity is an issue, yes, but shaming children for their bodies is not the way to solve the problem.

[staff]

One of the great things about Tumblr is that people use it for just about every conceivable kind of expression. People being people, though, that means that Tumblr sometimes gets used for things that are just wrong. We are deeply committed to supporting and defending our users’ freedom of speech,...

[aweighwithwords]

Freedom of speech ends when it promotes doing harm and instructing others on how to do harm. Good job, Tumblr staff.

[aweighwithwords]

sick for the past week and a half...

Eating about 1,000 calories a day...mostly of carbs and sugar.

Is it even worth it to weigh in today?

[smellslikepoison-deactivated201]

Reblog if your tumblr is not famous, but you love your followers and want to talk more with them.

[aweighwithwords]

meal planning, part two

YOU’RE STILL READING? Awesome! :D

This is part two of my little blog how-to on meal planning. If you missed it, check out part one. 

Meal planning is a process. I do my meal planning every Sunday, and plan meals from Sunday dinner to Sunday lunch, and do my grocery shopping on Sunday afternoon. I take several things into account. 

Budget. I shop on a budget of $75 per week for two adults (my fiancé and I), and often spend less than that (which is always hugely exciting). I always check the circulars for our local grocery store to find out what’s on sale, and those sale items often determine what we make that week.

Scheduling. This is a biggie. If I’m going to be away from my apartment all day (for example, on Mondays I’m out of the house from 7am to 10:30pm), I need to have food with me that can keep without a refrigerator. I also don’t like to eat very late at night, so if I’m not getting home until 6:30 or 7, I need to plan meals that cook fairly quickly. This is also where I take Shabbat into account—being a fairly observant Jew, I don’t cook on the Sabbath, which means from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, there’s no opportunity to make new food. Buying this little gem has made planning for Saturday lunch infinitely easier:

I’ll do another post about meal planning for Shabbat later, but the point is, it’s important to think about your weekly schedule when you’re meal planning.

   3.  Leftovers. It’s not always necessary to make new food every day, and sometimes it’s not even favorable. I usually plan to eat leftovers at least once a week. 

 So all of those things are important. Here’s how my process generally works.

Break out my personalized food pyramid. There are some great websites that will help you figure out just what you should be eating from each food group each day. My favorite is ChooseMyPlate.gov, because it features the lovely and beautiful and flawless Michelle Obama, who is my arm-spiration. My pyramid tells me to aim for 6 oz of grains, 2-3 cups of veggies, 2 cups of fruit, 3 cups of dairy, and 5.5 oz of protein foods. I try to space things out throughout the day, and usually have this breakdown: Breakfast: fruit, dairy, grain Lunch: protein, fruit, veggie, grain Snack: grain, veggie, dairy Dinner: protein, veggie, grain 

Break out the recipe books and food blogs. I have a couple of go-to recipes that I really love (some of which I’ve posted), but those get old after awhile. My favorite food blogs are Smitten Kitchen, Budget Bytes, andTastespotting.

Decide on my dinners, and space them out throughout the week according to how much time I’ll have to cook and variation (for example, I don’t like having pasta dishes back to back, so if I eat pasta on Monday, I won’t have it again until Thursday).

Figure out lunches and snacks based on expected leftovers and transportation ability (will I be near a microwave? Will I need to carry empty Tupperware around?)

Plan out my breakfasts and possible treats (for example, this week I used some lingering bananas to make banana bread). 

After that, I compile a shopping list (more on that later) and hit the road!

This has been Meal Planning 101 with Shelly. If you have any questions, or have your own tips and techniques for successful meal planning, I’d love to hear about them! Feel free to drop me a line in my Ask Box!

[aweighwithwords]

meal planning, part one

Let’s talk about meal planning. 

Meal planning is awesome, and everyone should do it. Here are the reasons why it’s awesome: 

It helps with budgeting. When you plan for a week of food before a shopping trip, you can spread out your ingredients so that they work with more than one recipe, and you can save money. It’ll also help you make a comprehensive shopping list, which will help you avoid a) impulse buys and b) extra trips to the store.

It helps you stick to a diet. When you plan out every meal, you know exactly what you’re eating and when. That helps you avoid that “I don’t know what to eat, I guess I’ll just make some pasta” mindset.

It helps you get all your food groups in. If you plan out all the meals in a day, you can go through and make sure you’re hitting each part of the food pyramid and getting all of the essential macro-nutrients you need to stay healthy. 

There are a lot of great websites to use for meal planning. I really like MealsMatter, which lets you add meals, snacks, and recipes into your meal planner and also lets you select whether you’re eating in, going out, having leftovers, or packing a bagged lunch. For those of you with mobile devices, there are also some great apps for meal planning and shopping lists. I have a Kindle Fire, and I use Out of Milk for my shopping lists (saving so many trees!) and PepperPlate for my mobile meal planning.

For people who are used to eating spontaneously, getting used to meal planning can be a tough transition (I know it was for me). I started small: I just planned out my dinners. This was when I was living on campus and had a small meal plan (basically one on-campus meal a day), so I would have a small breakfast of whatever I was in the mood for in my kitchen (usually cereal or oatmeal), eat lunch in one of the campus dining halls, and then come home and make my planned dinner. Now, I live off-campus, leave my apartment around 7am, and don’t usually get home until mid to late evening. This means that I need to take two, sometimes three, meals with me, as well as some snacks, and that means that this baby gets a lot of use:

(I bought that little gem in 1997. Don’t you even judge.)

Interested in meal planning? Curious about my process? Just trying to figure out the best way to package your food? Check out part two.

[aweighwithwords]

30 followers! :D

I know some weight loss blogs have thousands of followers so 30 is seriously not a big deal to them, but I don't feel that I'm particularly interesting so I'm super happy to have all of you lovely folks! :)

In thanks, have a Zefron gif.

[aweighwithwords]

I BROKE MY PLATEAU!!

Granted, it wasn't even a full pound (so close though--0.9 lbs!) but I was just so excited to see the scale move after almost a full month of no change that I can't even be bothered!

SW: 147.2 lbs CW: 146.3 lbs

Change: -0.9 lbs 

WOOHOO!!!

I think it would be pretty awesome if I could get down to 145 by Valentine's Day. I think I'm going to make that my next goal. :) Here we go baby steps.

[aweighwithwords]

that first bite of food after a hard workout

Delicious post-workout snack: jazz apple, sugar snap peas, and a small slice of banana bread. YES MY TASTEBUDS YOU ARE SO HAPPY RIGHT NOW YES YOU ARE.

[stoutandabout]

There are many reasons besides weight loss to make exercise a regular habit.

A recent study by researcher Diane Klein, PhD, shed some light on the subject. Long-term exercisers (who had been working out for an average of 13 years) were asked to rank what motivated them to keep up with their regimes.

Their answers might surprise you. The exercisers were not as concerned with powerful pecs and awesome abs as they were with feeling good and being healthy.

Here’s how the study participants ranked their motivators:

Fitness

Feelings of well-being

Pep and energy

Enjoyment of the exercise

Making exercise a priority

Sleeping better

Feeling alert

Being relaxed

Weight management

Appearance

http://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/guide/exercise-habits

[catsthatarefat]

[aweighwithwords]

Fat bodies are seen as “evidence”.  People try to claim that our bodies are evidence of unhealthy behaviors, lack of willpower, lack of self-care.  Then they claim that this evidence is compelling enough to make it ok to target us for shame, stigma and humiliation “for our own good”.

Even more damaging, fat people start to internalize this message thinking “If I’m fat then no matter how healthy my habits are I must be doing something wrong.  I deserve to be treated poorly and have my body and choices treated like public property.”

This is just not true.  Fat bodies are not public property, they are not evidence, and they are not a sign that we need someone to step in and tell us how to take care of ourselves. First because nobody can tell what our habits are based on our body size.  Second because our health is our decision – we each get to choose how highly to prioritize our health and what path we want to take to get there, with the understanding that we may be limited by the resources that are available to us.

—Dances With Fat