Unsafe at Any Size

When you don’t hear from a healthy lifestyle blogger for a while, it’s usually not a good sign.  I’ve fallen off the proverbial wagon, and I’m having trouble getting back up.

I’ve been falling for a while… not tracking points for months and months.  I don’t track when I don’t want to know what I’m eating.  I was kinda making sure things stayed ok… in essence, I was doing Core (or Filling Foods, the newfangled term from Weight Watchers).  When you do Core, you limit your foods to certain foods and then only track the non-core foods.

I was still doing ok, though, drifting slowly down.  But then, they changed the schedule of classes at my local Y.  I had been going three times a week, twice a week to a boot camp class after work and once a week to kickboxing in addition to daily walks.  But the boot camp class moved from 5 pm to 5:30, which meant instead of going directly from work to the class, I would have to drive an additional 15 minutes home to get the kids from after school care and drive back to the Y since their after school care ends at 6:30.

Needless to say, any exercise plan that requires that much extra work (and driving in rush hour traffic) won’t work for long.  Instead of doing a class, I was trying to do some running* and then some hand weights/balance ball exercises.

Then daylight savings time ended, and with it that plan.

As darkness fell on my exercise regime, some people in my house actually went door to door and took the best kind of candy from our neighbors and stored it in big bags in our house.  Then, those people (ok, I should probably call them my children) would ask for it every night, and would very generously let me eat the Milky Ways and peanut butter cups because they were happier eating skittles and other kinds of candy that would definitely have been second or third tier back in MY day.

The good candy is now disposed of (note the crafty use of passive voice here!  Nothing here says that I disposed of it by eating it), but now I’m up a few pounds, without any kind of eating discipline and exercising irregularly.

Normally, a Weight Watchers meeting is a good way for me to get back on track, but last weekend our family celebrated a Bat Mitzvah.  For those who don’t know what a Bat Mitzvah is, it is when a girl turns 13, reads from the Torah (holy scrolls), and then has a big party and gets lots of money.

We skipped the big party, but not the delicious luncheon.  Did you know that restaurants make sandwiches with real crusty freshly-made bread (NOT sandwich thins), chicken, grilled onions (yes, with real olive oil, not Pam) AND with big slabs of brie (no laughing cow)?

It’s true.  Not only did this abomination to Weight Watchers exist, but I ate it.  Not half, the whole thing.   I also ate the chocolate cake with hazelnut whipped cream that came after it.  I would give myself credit for asking for the salad instead of the fries with that sandwich, but that meant I just ate my kids’ instead.

So I’m looking for my resolve.  Have you seen it running around your neighborhood?  Should I put up posters?  Offer a reward?

How do you get back on track?

*For the purposes of this blog, we will call the running-like motion without any appreciable speed running or jogging.  This is to humor the blogger, and by no means is an accurate representation of the activity described.

So when can I throw away the rest of the kids’ Halloween candy?

We went to a great neighborhood where everyone wanted to be the house where they gave the Good Candy.

You know what I mean… don’t pretend you don’t!  None of this Dum Dum sucker crap, no healthy stickers… no, I’m talking about FULL SIZE BUTTERFINGER BARS.  Yes, it’s hard core.

My kids pulled in such a bounty they don’t even care that I’m picking out the mini Milky Ways and the peanut butter cups.  Now, when I was a kid, you would have lost some fingers trying that.

Sam has been gobbling up his green beans all week so he can have his candy; I don’t even have to nag.  Maybe all of this candy is good somehow?

NO!  Time to trash it.  Right?  Before I go bankrupt paying my husband for all of this free candy.

So I have a headache.  A bad headache.  Bright lights make my eyes hurt.  And no, I don’t have a hangover, honest!

I’m trying the usual things… Motrin.  Excedrin.  Napping.  A warm bath.  And I’m trying the not-so-usual things.  Two Weight Watchers bagels.  Two large bowls of beans and rice.  A big bowl of Fiber One. Not a very exciting binge, eh?  Nothing like the raw cookie dough of days past.

The good thing about getting rid of the junk around the house is that I’m pretty limited in how I can self-medicate with food.  Nonetheless, now on top of feeling sick I also get to kick myself for expecting food to make me feel better.

Though it’s not that unreasonable a hope?  If I don’t eat, I get headaches and become… unpleasant.  Just ask my family.  Wait, don’t ask my family.

Just goes to show that my new healthy habits aren’t as habitual as I’d like.  How do you stay on course when life takes a turn?

How could I forget the POST OFFICE?

So, like a good daughter, I wanted to send mother’s day cards to all the maternal people in my life.  I had said cards!  I had them addressed, even!  All I needed was postage.

So where did I go to get stamps?  Why, the post office of course!  That is where they sell stamps so people can use their service.

Right?

Well they do… but you have to wait in line.  No stamp machines.  Big empty hole where the stamp machine was.  Meanwhile, the line is out the door with people with packages with insurance and registration and who will take a million years to get through the line because the post office people recently received customer service training from the DMV.

After waiting ten minutes in the line, I decided I’d try the post office next to the gym.  Turns out it’s not a real post office, just a place where you can pick up packages.

And there is a stamp machine!  Hosannah!  But wait, there is a piece of paper on it.   An article.  Turns out, there are no parts to maintain the stamp machines in the bay area.  The entire area!  Everyone in the San Francisco Bay Area, including the East Bay where I live, go to your bank, the grocery store, really anywhere except for the post office to get stamps.

So, Coca Cola can manage to have a functional vending machine selling sugar water on every corner, but the post office can’t manage to maintain a few stamp machines.

Here’s an idea: have Coke machines sell stamps!  Win-win!

Last night was Not Good.  I had a bad day, and consoled myself by eating everything in the kitchen.  Fortunately, my kitchen is somewhat binge-proofed, so what that added up to was eating FiberOne cereal and one point bars.

Still, not what I was wanting.  So, here’s why I think I did it, and what I’m going to do differently next time.

1.  Frustrating day.  For some reason, my computer was slow as can be all day long, making it next to impossible to do anything.  I kept plugging at it though, and sat there and stewed and opened up even more programs to do something else while it was thinking hard on the first thing, which probably wasn’t helpful.

Music might have smoothed out the edges, but instead of walking out to the car to get the ipod I forgot there, or opening Pandora, I decided it was time to download Itunes and download Grooveelectric (which is an awesome music podcast) to my desktop.  Yes, that was a brilliant decision when my computer was already boggy.  Needless to say, the installation failed three times, I had to uninstall and reinstall blah blah blah.

What I’ll do differently next time: Take a walk.  Even if it’s down the hall.  Waiting and pushing the any key for hours wasn’t helping.  I couldn’t change my computer, but I could change my attitude.

2.  Meh workout.  The good news was I went to the gym, even though I Really Didn’t Feel Like it.  The bad news was that I didn’t really push myself as hard as I normally would, and I didn’t feel like I got as good of a workout.

What I’ll do differently next time: Commit to where I’m at.  I’m at the gym, so I need to fully commit to where I’m at and what I’m doing.

3.  Cruddy kids.  One needed everything RIGHT NOW.  Dinner, water, pencil sharpened, you name it, all at the same time.  Then the fight over what to do after dinner–video game or TV?  The last straw was the gum battle.  Sam wanted gum, and, beleaguered parent I was tired of fielding requests, I said no.  Well, that started a long confrontation where Sam yelled at me, pretended (but not actually) punched and kicked me, threatened to kill me, and all the other wonderful ways five year olds express their extreme displeasure.  I dodged all this while getting another 100 calorie bag of cookies out of the cupboard.

What I’ll do differently next time: Give him the damn gum!  He was already frustrated about not getting his way in the game/TV battle, and he wanted the gum to help regulate himself.  There was no reason for me not to let him have it other than being frustrated about all the other requests of the evening.

So that was my binge.  What are your binge triggers?  How do you deal with them?