Dieting is For Dorks

Yesterday a lot of people were asking what kind of dieting I’m doing. Before I go on and on about this, please realize that I am not advising anyone to do what I’m doing…I’ve heard that it’s dangerous to eat under 1000 calories a day, although I’m obviously not feeling any of those so called dangerous effects.
I weighed myself at 20 days into the diet and have lost 14 pounds.
I'm hoping to lose 60 by February. Why February? I don't know. Just picked something that seemed kind of far away but not too far.

I’m an overeater. I usually eat really healthy foods, just too much of them at a time. I also eat when I’m not hungry and eat things I’m not that fond of to begin with just to put things in my mouth.

I have a strange oral fixation where I literally feel better after I put something in my mouth. I used to chew gum until it screwed up my jaw. Just tonight I went to put Max's half eaten, totally slobbered on chocolate dipped pretzel in my mouth. I stopped myself just short of jamming the damn thing in there.

And before you think I’m just ripping on myself for no reason, I will tell you my weight. It's hard to even write it down. Ugh!

I’m 28 years old 5’3’’ and I weighed 190 pounds before I started dieting 21 days ago. So everyone is congratulating me and all I can think about is the 50 pounds ahead of me!

I weaned Elijah a month ago, so since I’m only eating for me now and not creating giant buckets of breast milk, let’s have at it!

As far as exercising goes, I’m a pretty active person. I clean a lot, play with the kids a lot, we go on walks and ride bikes quite often. I do a yoga/pilates routine after I put Elijah down for his nap around 1p.m.
I’m mainly working on holding poses, doing long smooth movements and contracting different muscle groups.

Max and I do jumping jacks, push up and sit ups after that, but just a brief ten minute thing.

Other than that I try to be active, but I don’t ‘work out’.

My diet is a different thing altogether. I’ve been a vegetarian on and off most of my life…mainly because I just don’t like meat.
I don’t like chicken, I don’t like pork (unless it’s my mom’s yachamay), I rarely eat any red meat and if I do I’m perplexed at why I’m even doing it, considering I don’t like it.

So I don’t eat any meat. However, I do eat eggs (no yolks..yuck) and dairy (but sparingly).

So I made a decision to change the way I eat.
Here’s my intake for today:

Breakfast (I usually eat ½ cup of multigrain cheerios with a splash of skim milk 125 calories):
1 small piece banana peanut butter bread (homemade by me with smart balance peanut butter and applesauce instead of butter) (I have no idea how many calories this is…it was a very small piece)
1 apple (80 calories)

Lunch:
2 cups spinach
Three button mushroom
3 whole small pickled beets
One handful sugar snap peas
Alfalfa sprouts
1 tbs newman’s ginger soy dressing ( 35 calories for 2 tbs…I thought I’d use 1 to be safe)
3 salt and vinegar soy crisps
(all the veggies add up to about 80 calories 15 for the dressing and the crisps are 100 calories for 17 crisps…so lets not even count them, who wants to do math right now?)

Snacky Poo:
Four Pecans
Four cashews
8 peanuts
2 macadamia nuts
(it says that 1/3 cup is 140 calories…so I’m guessing this was 100 calories)

Dinner (the second week of dieting I made a giant pot of cabbage soup and had 1 ½ cups of that for dinner for five nights…I added stuff to it over the week to change it up):
Brussel Sprouts
Mushrooms
Sprouts
Black beans (just a couple)
½ tbs of olive oil
Tons of spices
A splash of worsteshire sauce
(here I’m also guessing the total calories to be 200)
(45 for the brussel sprouts 50 for the beans 50 for the olive oil…50 for the mushrooms and sprouts?)

Dessert:
I’m not there yet, but I’m going to have about 10 oz. of gingerale. I think drinking fills you up more than snacking…for less calories. I usually add a half a lemon wedge. This drinking of gingerale thing seems like an extravagance to me, but I stay up pretty late and it’s hard not to snack while Jeremiah’s eating chips or triscuits every night)
(150 calories)

During the Day I’ve been drinking a lot of coffee with a splash of skim milk. So I’m guessing total 100 calories for the milk?

Total Calories: 830

Now I imagine total I burned 200 calories. One short aerobic workout, yoga, two short bike rides (once with Max in the kid’s seat, once with Elijah) and one long walk with all four kids.

So Calories for today 630. According to some online resources this isn’t healthy…but I feel freaking awesome.
I love being in control of what I eat and making the portions pretty and petite. I like being healthy and I really like being different.

I made excuses in the past like, ‘I don’t want to make myself a separate dinner‘, etc…etc…but I really enjoy preparing myself alternative dinners. The saute I came up with tonight was excellent.

So to curb cravings I do these things:
Add ½ ounce of cheese to my salad or soup. (cut a block of cheese into 8 pieces, those are 1 oz. pieces)
Eat dill pickles.
Make cold green tea with lots of lemon. Just the time it takes to make it curbs the cravings enough that I’m satisfied with the tea.
Eat green peppers. They make you feel a little bloated after awhile…then you’re not hungry!

These are the times I failed miserably in the past three weeks:

Jeremiah, Elijah and I went to a Mexican joint. I ate two enchiladas, one spinach, one mushroom. That’s not so bad but they ladle this cheese sauce over EVERYTHING. I also had a dollop of sour cream with it. I was sooo sick afterwards.

I had pizza at Elijah’s birthday party.

Elijah and I shared a small bowl of chocolate ice cream.

It’s been super hard and there’s been a few times where I’ve been down in the dumps (I think it may have been a lack of iron in my diet, so I added some beans to my dinners), but it’s been worth it so far.

I’m hoping to lose enough weight where I’m not embarrassed to be around people at the holidays. I’m hoping I can get to the point where I don’t eat when I’m not hungry, where I make healthy decisions and most importantly where I feel like I'm hot, so I can stop being the touchy silly self conscious fool I've been lately (sorry Jeremiah).

That’s it. If you want to talk about being fat or dieting or getting tips whatever, don’t hesitate to email me. I'm a prompt responder.