How to Control Myself Around Ice Cream

Ice cream, as I may have mentioned before, is one of my all-time comfort foods. My dad and I both love the stuff, leading to an inevitable love-hate relationship. For months, we’ll scorn each other (me and ice cream, not me and my dad), and then we’ll have a tearful reunion.

Tonight, the husband was enjoying some Ben & Jerry’s (right out of the pint!) and I didn’t even flinch. I didn’t even think about sticking a spoon or a finger into it to taste the yumminess (is yumminess even a word? I don’t care — now it is). Instead, I focused on what I was doing — told myself I didn’t need it, and trekked right along.

Tomorrow, we are going to celebrate my sister-in-law’s graduation from high school, and as per her request, I baked Chai Tea Cupcakes with a dulce de leche buttercream. I tasted one, which I factored into my day, and I’m pretty happy with the result. The cupcakes taste a little bit more like gingerbread than like chai tea, but I think Yael will like them.

Using self-control when it’s time to celebrate is a challenging thing. We are so cultured to associate food with good memories, with milestones, and with loving feelings. That culture is exactly what needs to change. There’s no reason that food shouldn’t taste good, no reason that we shouldn’t be able to eat what we want and when we want it, but there is absolutely no reason to overindulge, on any occasion.

If you’ve read my other blog, you know that my husband and I are both Orthodox Jews. Part of being an Orthodox Jew is realizing that food is meant to give us fuel and is meant to be one of life’s greatest pleasures, but that if we misuse the food, we are mistreating our souls, which use our bodies as vehicles. Weighing down our bodies is equal to weighing down our souls — with less energy and health, we are robbing ourselves of life’s biggest riches — the act of living life itself.

Because food is one of life’s largest pleasures, we should use it to commemorate milestones, and we should enjoy filling our bellies with the people we love — but we should do it in a healthy way. We should eat one cupcake, not three. We should eat slowly, laugh loudly, and use allof our senses.

Part of this journey for me is staying away from deprivation. I don’t want to deprive myself of anything; I want to be able to eat foods that I love, and I don’t want to use imposter sweeteners instead of the real thing. So far, so good. Four weeks later, even putting sugar in my coffee, I am over ten pounds down, and I’m doing this in a way that I can maintain. A way that will lead me to be able to live my life health-ily for as long as I live, while still enjoying flavors; enjoying every meal.

I’m finding that, with this attitude, I can control myself. Even around ice-cream.

Week 4 Weigh-In and Back on the Bloggosphere!

So I’ve officially been dieting for an entire month — I started this diet on February 1st, and it would be March 1st if it was not a leap year. So far, I’ve lost a total of 4.8 pounds, which averages out to a pound a week. Of course, I’d like to have lost more, but I am happy that I’ve gotten rid of a little bit of extra weight, even if it is a very little bit. Last week, I didn’t update with weigh-in results – for a few reasons. I was feeling a little bit overwhelmed with work (we had a VERY busy week), I didn’t weigh in EXACTLY on Weigh-in Wednesday (I did it on Tuesday instead), and the biggest reason — I gained. Only 0.4 pounds, but I gained nonetheless.

As someone who has been (for as long as I can remember) a serial dieter, I have experienced many weigh-in (even at Fat Camp) where I gained. The shame that I have felt in the past is indescribable – huge, heavy shame that makes any gain, no matter how much less than a pound, feel like a ton of bricks.

This time, I’m committed to NOT dieting. I’m committed to changing my philosophy about food, changing the WAY I eat instead of the THINGS I eat, and focusing on a life of health, energy, and longevity rather than a life of indulgence and shame.

Don’t get me wrong — indulgence is good. I love living with my senses (all five of them) and experiencing life to the fullest. Take this morning — I woke up with a terrible headache between my eyes (the kind you want to squeeze out of your face), so I went to the best coffee place in the city. Now, normally when I drink coffee I put flavored creamer in it that has enough sugar to put a diabetic into insulin-shock. But for this coffee – I just put a little milk, and REAL sugar. No equal, no sweet-in-low. This coffee is real, rich, and deserves only the mostnaturalof ingredients. And I indulged. And about 45 minutes later, I am SO happy that I did. My headache is gone, I’m alert, and my throat still feels warm from the delicious coffee.

So, this week I lost the 0.4 pounds that I gained last week, bringing me back to the total loss of 4.8 pounds. I am only 8.4 pounds shy of my first goal, and I am confident that this time, when I reach it – it will be for a long term loss, instead of a weekly one.

Please — share your tips, share your recipes, share your advice — I am looking for a community of committed women out there who can lose (and gain) with me.

One day at a time.

Breaking Chains

I realized this morning that it has been almost exactly two weeks since the last time I ate ice cream. I’ve gone to the supermarket twice, to Target once, and to our friends’ houses plenty of time without even thinking about reaching in the freezer to eat the sweet goodness. Last night, Jonathan made our dessert smoothies for a change, and he put in some protein powder and oil (I know, sounds CRAZY) but it TASTED like…

ICE CREAM!

I even liked the way I make my smoothies better. They taste more like fruit, and less like sherbert. But it is good to know that a sherbert-tasting smoothie is an option.

I don’t know when my love affair with Ice-cream started. Maybe I always had a secret longing for it; maybe the sweet, sugary, dairy treat would call out to me in my sleep, infiltrate my brain in the wee hours of the morning. Maybe ice cream just loves me more than I love it.

The other day in the supermarket, I even told Jonathan to walk away from the ice cream freezers — that we were NOT going to bring any of it home. And I’m okay with it.

I can’t think of something that ice cream couldn’t cure. Every hurt, every bad day, every argument with a friend, my husband. Every disappointment. I would bury myself in the creamy, rich, milky cream, preferrably cherry garcia flavored, or mint-chocolate chip, or my favorite of favorites, chocolate peanut butter.

I have been known to drive 45 minutes for ice cream, to go to more than one store, to make a special trip because only one store carries the exact flavor and consistency I love. Does that make me weak? I don’t know. Does it make me stubborn? Definitely.

My life without ice cream isn’t as difficult or as painful as I thought it would be. I haven’t really missed it at all. Maybe I’ve thought about it once or twice, maybe I’ve sent a sad glance down the aisle of Ben&Jerry’s, maybe I’ve hoped secretly that Jonathan will enable my love affair with chocolate peanut butter.

But I’ve survived for two weeks. I know one thing for sure – I will never deprive myself of something that makes me happy. I will never deprive myself of something that feels good. But I do need to learn how to deal with things as they come – I need to learn to process, to talk it out, to stop burying myself in a carton of ice cream.

I think I’m doing alright, so far.

Week 2 Weigh In and What to Do?

Since it’s Wednesday morning, I did the usual routine and got back on the scale. I lost 0.4 pounds.

Yay!

I am trying to be happy, I really am — but my mind keeps going back to when I was at Fat Camp and someone would return to our cabin crying after weigh in. Which only meant one thing.

Maintenance.

“Don’t worry — once you don’t have as much to lose you lose much slower!”
“We’ll do extra cal’s this week.”
“Don’t worry — you look fabulous! You must have just gained muscle!”

The list could go on and on. I know I didn’t “maintain” this week and I still lost a little bit of weight, but I can’t help but think about how difficult this whole process is for me. The whole gaining and losing. If you look at me, you’d know that losing is much more difficult than gaining. I can do that with a blindfold on.

Dietary plateaus are very difficult to overcome. I know that I’ve only been blogging my weight loss for two week, but I just hit a plateau with the “number” I’m at now that I’ve continuously hit for the past six months. I can lose to here, but I can’t lose further. Or, that is to say, Icouldn’tlose further, because now I am convinced that I can. But I know that just a few pounds down, there’s another plateau, and then ten pounds from that, another one — I’ve been there before, I know those numbers well.

And unfortunately, our minds are our own worst enemies when it comes to these plateaus — because we have associations with them, we tend to treat them as, well plateaus, and turn them into penninsulas that we just can’t get off of because we keep turning in the wrong direction.

Do I see where I could have done better over the past week – yes. Do I see where I screwed up – surprisingly, no. I didn’t screw up one bit. But I am done celebrating a week where “I didn’t gain anything.”

To overcome this plateau, I’m going to try to do a few things differently. First, I’m going to eat less sugar. Second, I’m going to be much more tedious about measuring my food (maybe I’ll even buy a scale) and I’m going to convince Jonathan to jump on the bandwagon with me. Finally, I’m going to exercise. And Jonathan is going to come with me.

Dietary challenges are never easy. Unfortunately, I’ve had to face a lot of them in my short lifetime. I’ve tried every fad diet, every CRAZY diet (except for the hot sauce lemonade diet. That is one I NEVER plan on trying), and I’m done with trying to diet. This is my journey, changing my life.

Taking it one loss at a time.

 

Almost the Weekend!

Last night, Jonathan and I were so hungry by the time we got near home and we needed to go to the supermarket, which was definitely a risky decision. Once we got home and ate dinner, I definitely noticed some things that we bought that we wouldn’t necessarily have if we weren’t so hungry at the store. Like tortilla chips.

But I am proud that although we were very tempted to go to a local synagogue that has a restaurant night with chinese food every wednesday, we resisted.

For dinner, we ate sushi, which took care of my leftover starches for the day and about one protein. I also ate some corn chips, which was not one of my prouder moments, but only because they really weren’t good.

Today, I ate some more kashi cereal for breakfast, and leftover chinese food for lunch. It was the healthier, more vegetable kind of chinese food with chicken breast, and not the thick, goopy, sugary sauce. I also ate a banana with peanut butter and these amazing fruit-only rope snacks that I’m counting as an LA lite (at 80 calories, I think that’s okay!).

So today I ate:

1.5 starches
1 dairy
1 veggie
1/2 fruit
1 protein
2 condiments
1 LA lite

Leaving me with
1.5 starches
2 veggies
2.5 fruits
1.5 proteins
1 fat
1 condiment

I know that I haven’t been doing this for that long, really one week isn’t something to be proud of – but I’m excited to continue. This diet doesn’t really feel like a diet–much more like a lifestyle change. All at once I’m amazed at how much food I can eat every day, but even more amazed at how much I ate before I started on this journey. I just feel better. More awake, more energetic, more willing to do activities and run errands. I’m no longer content with sitting in front of the computer for hours on end.

And that is something I can certainly be happy about.

Weigh-in Wednesday!

And I didn’t even do that on purpose!

This morning, I dragged myself out of bed, went to the bathroom to get every ounce of water weight off, took off my clothes, and stood on the scale.

I lost 4.2 pounds! I’m pretty happy with the progress, especially since I went to a friend’s house last night and drank wine AND ate some delicious Tu B’Shevat treats.

Today, I am enjoying lots of yummy fruits and nuts to celebrate the birthday of the Trees.

So far, I’ve eaten:
A bowl of Kashi cereal with skim milk
Salad with “lite” salad dressing
Two clementines

And I have a banana to put some peanut butter on later as a snack. Pretty good!

Casual Friday

I look like I dressed in the dark today. Okay — I kind of did. Not that it was dark — outside, or inside, really now that I think about it. But I did get dressed in exactly 2 minutes, which was an acheivement, I guess.

As long as no one looks too closely at me today.

I’m wearing a black skirt, black sweater, and blue top with frillys at the top — basically I look like a giant bruise.

Great.

In better news, I had a successful day two, and aside from my hunger rant yesterday I was able to stay on track. Jonathan made lentils and spinich for dinner in a kind of stew. I counted them as my protein for the meal, and had about one starch worth of rice in addition to my lentils. I made a mango-strawberry smoothie for dessert, which I sweetened with about a teaspoon of honey (my small treat for the day!). It was delicious, and I wasn’t hungry before bed.

I ate a banana this morning, but I’m trying to wait a little while before I eat the rest of my breakfast (which is what?). For lunch, I’m eating salmon and a salad. I’m trying to save my starches and proteins and fats for Shabbos — we’re eating at home (just the two of us), which makes me feel a little bit safer in this diet.

I know you may think that I’m crazy, but I swear that I’m already feeling some of the weight come off. The swelling in my hands has gone down considerably, my rings go on easier, and I just feel like I’m walking around a little bit lighter. Since I started this diet on a Wednesday, I will wait to weigh myself on Wednesday, but I am starting to get curious.

I’m going to share my smoothie recipe with you!

Simply Fruit Smoothie

About 12-15 medium sized strawberries (frozen)
About 1 small mango (frozen)
1 tsp honey
Water

Place everything in the blender and blend to your favorite consistency – I got mine to be just about the same as a Rita’s Water-Ice. Delicious!