Day 6 and holding

I'm still hanging in with the tracking and calorie counting.  It's starting to become an obsession to have Notey with me at all times.  Also the way I'm planning how to use my calories each day.  Weighing, measuring, anguishing a little over estimated calorie amounts when it's not possible to be precise.  Truth be told, I can complicate the contents of an empty paper bag, so I need to keep in check with the overdoing of even healthy behaviors.  Seriously.  This is such a head game that I must be aware of my tendency to get into perfectionism and black or white thinking.  I have so much healthy food prepared in my fridge that there is seriously no way I can eat it all before some of it spoils.  The addict mentality follows me wherever I go.

Last post I mentioned going to dinner at an Italian place and having selected my food before I even got there.  It worked out well and I ended up having the salad with the protein (white beans and shrimp) plus the marinated portabella.  That is an absolute first - probably in my life.  Wisely surveying the options ahead of time, making my decision, and sticking with it!  You could knock me over with a feather that I'm doing this and actually enjoying it.  Well, maybe not with a feather yet, but if I stick with it, maybe soon:)


Another friend called me to have dinner out last night, and after about 5 minutes of wavering, I called her back and asked to postpone for a couple weeks.  I'm on too good a roll here to tempt the fates 2 nights in a row.  So I made a turkey spaghetti sauce with mushrooms and green olives, and for the men cooked up a mess of pasta.  For me, spaghetti squash at a friendly 42 calories per cup!  I love it, and so had 2 cups with 1 1/2 cups of sauce.  Seriously, a restaurant meal couldn't have tasted better, and it was low cal!  Totally worth the effort of cooking the squash in the oven for 40 mins.  And it made a shitload of "spaghetti", so I will use it for other stuff as well. 

So for a minute I need to get back to the addict mentality I mentioned above.  This is something I have to accept about myself and learn to negotiate with food.   Having so much healthy food at the ready can render me vulnerable to overeating even that.  There is almost a "food fear" that comes up when I begin to do well - like if I don't have "enough" of everything I "might" want on hand, I'll lapse into bingeing bad stuff.  I know this sounds crazy, but I've decided to get as honest as possible about this here, because many times in the past my success has been thwarted by my thinking.  Weighing too often can do the same thing.  It's mostly a head game when one has an addictive personality - as in my head thinks too much, develops expectations of scale numbers and when the number doesn't say what I think it will, or God forbid, should, my resolve starts to crumble. 

I just listened to an amazing radio interview with Sean, of Daily Diary of a Winning Loser, who hit his goal
yesterday - losing 275 pounds!  Un-be-freaking-lievable.  You may have heard it before, but if not you can find it here.  What was so incredible about it was that he spoke to so many of my food addict issues.  He talked about the head game, the scale game, keeping eating in check without getting crazy or restrictive or eating things one hates in order to drop unhealthy weight.  I can't recommend it highly enough.  It's about half hour long, and a valuable time investment.  At least it was for me.

I guess to sum it up for now, I'm guardedly optimistic about my current very good place with eating and some of the new behaviors I'm working on.  But self awareness will be key in recognizing if I'm starting to get so obsessive or rigid  that I risk self sabotage.  I am the queen of self sabotage, and I'm ready to relinquish the crown.