What's been doin'?

Where did the 10 days since I last posted go?  Life is a whirlwind right now, in good ways.  Lots going on, and lots more coming, so I'll do my best to post at least weekly to stay accountable in the food realm.

Biggest news is that our daughter Jean flew home from the Dominican Republic on Monday and will be here for about 5 weeks.  We've been having such a great time hanging out and acting like teenagers.  I actually took yesterday off from work so she and I could play...in the form of fixing an awesome frittata for breakfast, going shopping at Target, DSW and Famous Footwear, scrounging for awesome left over crock pot refried beans and more veggies for lunch, and then lying around watching HGTV all afternoon.  Heavenly.

As happens most summers, it's become easier for me to stay on track with eating.  I lost 3 pounds this past week as of this morning - weighing in at 207!  That's the lowest I've seen for awhile, and it makes me WANT TO KEEP GOING!!  I'm eating tons of veggies in many forms...roasted, sauteed, grilled, steamed, and using beans and low fat cheese as protein.  Lots of eggs, which I always combine with egg beaters to stretch out the volume without stretching out the fat.

I just read Lyn's post (at Escape From Obesity), and she said she's going to return to counting calories.  It was interesting, because that's actually what I realize I've been doing.  Not strictly, but broadly.  For one thing, when I want to eat something crappy, like kettle chips, I often won't even look at the calories per serving because I just don't want to know.  (Translate:  I want to eat it more than I want to leave it out.  In that moment.)  But I HAVE been looking lately and it's helping me decide to eat something different, or to hold off for awhile and try to distract myself from the kitchen.

This tendency of mine to avoid "the truth" of what I'm putting in my mouth became apparent when hubby and I went to Northern California last fall to visit our son.  We discovered that in almost all restaurants, the caloric contents of all foods served were right there on the menu, and they really smacked me in the face.  It definitely made it harder for me to order something that was over the top, calorically speaking.  Which was good.  Except if I really wanted something on a menu but just couldn't bring myself to order it knowing what I'd be consuming.  (Still good, but a downer to my inner binge-er.)  So I'm trying to have an awareness of calories in anything that isn't vegetables, fresh fruit, Gr. yogurt, dried beans, or lean meat.  While I haven't set a max daily C. intake, I'm definitely leaving things out I might not otherwise.  For now, it seems to be helping.  We'll see how it goes...I know better than to think, "Finally, I'm getting this!"

2 weeks from Friday, we're going to Atlanta for 10 days for vacation (a hot and steamy vacay, given Atlanta in July, right Tina and Tammy?) and to see the family.  The big news there is that Jean's very serious boyfriend, Cesar, is flying in and going to spend the whole week as well, in order to meet the whole fan-damily!  We're so excited about that, and Jean's 87 y/o grandmother is thrilled to death.  I'm totally looking forward to this experience.  How different does that sound from the last few years, long time readers?  Progress, self acceptance, and loving this family have ensued.  For now.  And I'm grateful.

Happy Hump Day.