Wow! I have written a thousand blog entries in four years. I am quite pleasantly surprised.
Now for even more exciting news: I lost two more pounds! I am now one pound LESS than when I took off for the cruise. I almost couldn't believe it when I saw the scale say 236.5 this morning.
I have now lost a whopping FORTY pounds since June 6 when we returned from Maryland.
In fact, in just 17 more pounds, I will be at my pre-cancer weight! That is definitely the next goal. It doesn't matter if it takes me several months to do that either. I'm sure it will take a lot longer to lose the next 17 pounds than the past forty because of the many challenges in the next few months: Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, a week with Evey and Eric visiting, four days with another friend, two cruises in December, another week with two more friends visiting. Yes, there are three sets of company coming between Thanksgiving and New Years, two cruises, and several holidays. Whooeee!! Big Doings ahead.
Last night Evey sent me an email with a link to a very interesting article. Actually, it seems to be someone else's blog post. Here's the link if you'd like to see it, http://www.girlsgonestrong.
The article is called "The Law of First Bites" and proposes that every bite should taste as good as the first bite. The girl who wrote this sounds so much like me, which is why Evey sent me the article, I'm sure! The author writes, "Basically, I’m not the “one piece of chocolate a day” type of girl. I either eat no chocolate, or all the chocolate." That is totally me. I am better at having NONE of something I like because I will just eat ALL of it. (That's why I didn't go to the dessert table last night.)
She talks about how she has had to learn moderation. I'm certainly still working on that. She talks about how she has learned to savor and enjoy the pleasure of those first few bites, but then she recognizes when she is no longer tasting and enjoying the food in the same way, when she is mindlessly gorging on it despite no longer even enjoying it. I can so relate to that.
Ice cream is like that for me. I still remember the time I sat at the dining room table back in our old house in Laurel. Evey was with me as we sat and watched TV. I got out a half gallon of butter pecan ice cream that was almost completely full and began to eat it, mindlessly, out of the carton. Pretty soon most of it was gone. I also realized that my mouth, tongue, and lips were NUMB from the cold. I could barely speak. I could certainly NOT taste the ice cream. I told Evey how I was feeling, laughing at how silly I sounded trying to form words with a frozen mouth. She looked at me, horrified, and said, "Then why are you still eating? STOP!" I should have listened, but I continued to eat until the entire half gallon was gone. Wow! How stupid.
I'm not sure I have learned moderation yet. I'm trying to eat more slowly and mostly can do that. I put my spoon or fork down between bites a lot more frequently. I STILL want to eat the entire carton of ice cream while I watch TV. I don't allow myself to buy half gallons of good ice cream anymore because I know I cannot control it. Thank goodness for Arctic Zero! It is a pint of ice cream that has only 150 calories in the entire pint, unlike most pints that have four times that amount. I can take out a carton and a spoon around 10 p.m. while watching a TV show and eat the entire carton. It takes me a half an hour to do that. I savor every bite. I feel full and happy when I'm done. It is the most wonderful product I know for someone who still has the desire to finish the entire box, bag, or carton of anything! Is it the world's greatest ice cream? No. Are there 31 flavors? No, only four. Is it what I want to do about one night a week when my calories allow that sort of snack at night? ABSOLUTELY!!!!!
I am continuing to work on my eating habits, recognizing my emotional eating and my need to eat it all. But I've come a long way, for sure!
Tonight's challenge: wine pairing, multi-course vegetarian dinner party for Breast Cancer. We prepaid $50 each for this dinner. It was awesome last year, but there will be many delicious foods to eat. My game plan is to relax and enjoy everything they serve. My saving grace will be that I'm not much of a wine drinker, so I probably won't even like most of the wines they bring to pair with the foods. I also plan to go to the gym today for my weight routine and then either take a long walk or swim some laps in the afternoon to burn up some extra calories in advance. I am planning my usual low calorie breakfast and lunch to leave most of the day's calories for the dinner. I also plan to step on that scale tomorrow morning again and see what happened. I'm pretty sure I will NOT be down another two pounds. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if I was back up those two pounds, but I'm also not worried. I will take them back off again. It's a life long battle, but I'm currently feeling like I'm winning.
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