Being "normal"
Well, today was interesting.
We had a day-long orientation seminar at work, to get started for the new semester. It started at nine and went right through until five, with very little in the way of breaks. They were very nice and provided food... obviously, I could have brought my own and been very fastidious about what I ate, but I'm still not really comfortable with letting people know what I'm up to (especially the people I work with). I guess I feel that being open about it will leave me open to criticism down the road (if and when this attempt fails), and will invite people to scrutinize me in the meantime to see whether it's working or not. So I knew that the food they provided wasn't going to be great, and that it would be hard to stick with the program, but I went with it anyway. Call it an experiment in eating the way a normal person eats.
The result was disheartening. After a cautious, careful breakfast (a lowfat yoghurt and an orange - I knew there would be unhealthy food later so I planned for it, which I guess is a point to me), I ate:
I have no idea what the caloric value of all this is, although I'm guessing I've already gone over 1500 calories. It certainly is far fattier than I really wanted to be. The strange thing is, I didn't want to eat this way. I wasn't craving the scone, or the cookies, or the wrap. I ate them because that's what we were having, and I knew it wasn't the best for me. Maybe that's the most normal thing of all.
On the whole, though, I like to think of today as a challenge that continues. I'm not going to get emotional about eating the way I did today, and I'm not going to beat myself up about it. I went off my diet for a day, but that's just what it was. The diet is my normal, from now on.
I will have dinner tonight, though, because I have the best leftovers ever. Last night I was trying to use up some stuff in my fridge that was getting on in years, so I made a chicken and rice tomato soup. It's awesome: just leftover steamed white rice, a can of chicken breast, and the hind end of a white onion, in a broth made from half a can of tomato paste and six cups of water. I put some hot sauce in, since I wasn't sure it was going to have enough flavor on its own, but when I make this again I probably won't bother. Otherwise, some dried parsley, salt and pepper. Higher in sodium than I would like (when I make this again I'll go for a "real" chicken breast over the can, I think), but only about 200 calories per serving! And I made the recipe up, myself, out of stuff that I had in my house. I rock!
We had a day-long orientation seminar at work, to get started for the new semester. It started at nine and went right through until five, with very little in the way of breaks. They were very nice and provided food... obviously, I could have brought my own and been very fastidious about what I ate, but I'm still not really comfortable with letting people know what I'm up to (especially the people I work with). I guess I feel that being open about it will leave me open to criticism down the road (if and when this attempt fails), and will invite people to scrutinize me in the meantime to see whether it's working or not. So I knew that the food they provided wasn't going to be great, and that it would be hard to stick with the program, but I went with it anyway. Call it an experiment in eating the way a normal person eats.
The result was disheartening. After a cautious, careful breakfast (a lowfat yoghurt and an orange - I knew there would be unhealthy food later so I planned for it, which I guess is a point to me), I ate:
- 1 scone (and what a scone!) with coffee with half-and-half. I don't even really like half-and-half that much, and have always preferred skim milk in my coffee. I was very sparing with it, though, and only used little drops.
- a small shwarma wrapped in a pita, with a pickle, hummus, and that weird yoghurt stuff (what's that called, anyway? Not tzatziki, the stuff that's more like mayonnaise?). Again, I think of this as the healthier choice (although it was pretty greasy), since I loaded half my plate with a massive fresh veggie salad, and I choose the shwarma over a falafel wrap, since I knew that this would fill me up more with fewer calories. Maybe I'm just rationalizing.
- two cookies! One chocolate chip with nuts and one sugar cookie. They were spaced out through the rest of the afternoon and consumed mostly to keep me awake. But eating to stay awake is another one of those very bad habits of mine that I need to address, I think.
I have no idea what the caloric value of all this is, although I'm guessing I've already gone over 1500 calories. It certainly is far fattier than I really wanted to be. The strange thing is, I didn't want to eat this way. I wasn't craving the scone, or the cookies, or the wrap. I ate them because that's what we were having, and I knew it wasn't the best for me. Maybe that's the most normal thing of all.
On the whole, though, I like to think of today as a challenge that continues. I'm not going to get emotional about eating the way I did today, and I'm not going to beat myself up about it. I went off my diet for a day, but that's just what it was. The diet is my normal, from now on.
I will have dinner tonight, though, because I have the best leftovers ever. Last night I was trying to use up some stuff in my fridge that was getting on in years, so I made a chicken and rice tomato soup. It's awesome: just leftover steamed white rice, a can of chicken breast, and the hind end of a white onion, in a broth made from half a can of tomato paste and six cups of water. I put some hot sauce in, since I wasn't sure it was going to have enough flavor on its own, but when I make this again I probably won't bother. Otherwise, some dried parsley, salt and pepper. Higher in sodium than I would like (when I make this again I'll go for a "real" chicken breast over the can, I think), but only about 200 calories per serving! And I made the recipe up, myself, out of stuff that I had in my house. I rock!