Working Girl Cooks!

I am sitting here in Starbucks, with my Green Ginger Tea, completely amazed and proud of myself. I stepped on the scale this morning and it said 126.4lbs. On Monday I was 129.8lbs. That is over a three pound difference! Granted, I seriously doubt I have lost 3 pounds in four days, some of it is probably water weight and such, but I have lost weight! It is working! And so far it is not very hard! What is amazing to me is how hard I worked and how much I suffered when I was in college to lose weight. I tortured myself by restricting, and saying no to anything that looked remotely tasty (because if it is tasty it must be bad for me!). I would gorge myself on vegetables and fruits thinking if I could fill myself up I would not crave any sweets, carbs, or meat, which all carried the most calories. I did not care about protein, or listen to anyone who told me about healthy unsaturated fats or whole grain carbs because in my book any fat or carb was bad! This restricting myself from eating normal foods and gorging on fruits and vegetables to try to hide my cravings made me completely lose site of portion control. Occasionally I would give in and have that bite of pizza, or grab a cookie from the tray, or sneak a piece of candy, and feeling like I had broken my rules I would decide all bets were off and I might as well go all out and eat everything! So I would binge until I was full and to make up for it, I would purge as much of it as I could. It was an endless cycle of restriction, bingeing, purging, and restriction again that ultimately led to weight loss, but it was miserable! I would obsessively read stories of people who lost weight in all the health magazines and I could not understand how those people were actually able to lose weight and be happy about it! Even though I was ultimately losing weight I did not feel in the least bit good about it, or even notice the weight loss. The constant binging and purging caused horrible bloating so I always felt fat. It was awful!

It took many many years, but now that I realize I do not have to starve myself to lose weight and I see myself and my weight loss in a whole new light. Since I have gotten serious about losing these ten pounds and started talking to and getting support from friends, it has been an enlightening and rewarding experience. I have not starved myself, I eat when I am hungry, I enjoy what I eat, and I am losing weight!

Yesterday, when I woke up I decided to have a much heartier breakfast than the day before. I started my day off with a toasted whole wheat English muffin slathered with Sabras  Sautéed Mediterranean Vegetables from Costco (that is amazing by the way!)  and topped with two fried eggs. It was really delicious and very filling. So filling, I did not even think about lunch until around 1pm. For lunch the day before Miranda had made a quick rice bowl with 1 cup rice, some mixed frozen veggies and shrimp all topped with a teriyaki sauce that looked really yummy. Me being the food snob I am, would never have even considered buying frozen vegetables or pre-cooked shrimp, “only fresh food in my kitchen!” I would say. But day 1 taught me how important it is to have fast and easy healthy food at your disposal, so I put away all that pride and bought some frozen veggies and pre-cooked shrimp and made my own rice bowl for lunch with some leftover brown rice I happened to have in the fridge. It was delicious and totally hit the spot! My mid-afternoon snack was some carrots and hummus, and for dinner I made these awesome spiced turkey burgers that I ate on top of a bed of lettuce mixed with a bit of low fat ranch dressing and a good helping of salsa (Recipe below). I also used the leftover ground turkey to make a soup with white beans, tomatoes, and spinach which I can’t wait to try for lunch today! If it is any good I will post the recipe.

Last night I encountered what could have been my first possible challenge: We were invited to trivia night at Rogue with some friends. Rogue is an Ale House in North Beach that gets packed on Thursday night with young and hungry groups of friends ready to play a few hours of trivia, drink lots of beer, eat good food, and have a good time. TDH and I have been to Rogue several times but we always end up drinking too much and eating greasy bar food. This time, I was going to come prepared. The following decisions were crucial to my success:

1. I decided ahead of time to have dinner at home so I was not tempted by the food at the restaurant.

2. I told TDH and our friends that I was not eating anything at the restaurant because I was trying to lose weight. This was key because now that I had said it out loud I actually had to follow my own rule!

3. I decided to only have one drink that night, instead of my usual 2 or 3. Since I was only going to have one drink I took my time trying to decide which drink I wanted. Rogue has a ton of great beers and ciders. My favorites are the sweet, fruity ones like the pear cider, cherry beer, or raspberry framboise. They are full of sugar and I drink those way too fast and always want more so I decided to go with something less sweet, more substantial, that I would be able to sip and nurse all night. I decided on the chocolate stout, a thick, rich, heavy lager. It was perfect. I sipped it all night and did not even end up finishing it.

Although there was a ton of yummy greasy food around me and I will admit I lingered and stared at it a little longer than I should have at times, I was still able to say no and distract myself with friends and trivia and I still had a great time!

Now if there had been a huge piece of gooey, fudgy chocolate cake in front of me….that might have been a different story. But,we all have weaknesses right?