bad day

Mondays

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Ah, here we go again.

Another Monday.

Yet another re-commitment to my diet. To a better lifestyle. To everything that is good and wholesome and caring for my body.

My weight jumped back up today, which I can only attribute to the massive dinner I had Saturday night at Kobe’s. Soy sauce, noodles, and rice – OH MY!

Good God, they give you a ton of food there. Despite spending 90 minutes on the elliptical and 15 mins running fartleks on the treadmill that afternoon, I couldn’t cancel out the massive amount of calories I consumed in one sitting.

Why is it SO easy to consume 2,500 calories and yet SO hard to burn it back off?

It’s unfair that I can take thousands of calories into my body in just minutes but it takes HOURS of vigorous exercise to burn them back off.

Seriously, was this God’s practical joke on the human race? Make food delicious, readily available, and chock full of calories and then make it ridiculously hard to expend enough energy to burn it off? Then, to top it off, introduce a society that glorifies thinness and collarbones and you’ve got a bona fide eating disorder on your hands.

Grrrrrrrrrr.

Sorry, I’m in a bad mood today. I’m just tired of the fact that I work out EXTREMELY hard and then sabotage my own success by pigging out. I love food too much – but it doesn’t love me back.

There once was a lady name Tori,
Who, with food, she had quite the love story,
They got in a fight –
And try as she might,
She couldn’t kick its ass out the door-y.

[A bit of a forced rhyme, but you get what I’m feeling here.]

Tired of the yo-yo,

~ Tori

 

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Bad Decisions

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Two days in a row, I’ve skipped the gym.

Two days in a row, I made really bad food choices. I skipped lunch, then gorged when I got home. The day before, I pretty much polished off a box of Kix cereal all on my own.

What gives?

Last week, I had the will power of a saint. This week, I’m like a flailing infant, unable to keep my arms and legs in check. I’m eating everything, letting my laziness overpower my desire to workout, and I’m starting to feel like I’m going to be forever stuck in the 140-141 plateau.

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I’ve faced some criticism lately, where people tell me that I AM at a healthy weight and I need to stop being obsessive.

What people don’t seem to realize is that I’m 5’2″. I’m very petite, so 140 on my frame is different than 140 on the frame of an average [5’5-5’7″] woman. For me, 140 means thick thighs, squishy tummy, and arms that wiggle and shimmy like leaves on the breeze.

For my frame and height, I should probably be between 120-125.

Of course, I wouldn’t know for a fact what my true ideal weight is because I’ve NEVER been there.

I was in the 140s-150s in elementary school, the 150s-170s in middle school, and the 170s-214 range in High School. I’ve never been my ideal weight, so I’m basically guessing as to where it should be.

If I keep up with my current habits, my ideal weight will remain that: a guess and not a reality.

I really need to get myself into gear and stop making excuses. I’m still signed up for GymPact and I have to get 3 more workouts in during the next 4 days or I lose $10/session. At the minimum, that should get me moving!

Enough bemoaning the past. Today is a new day. I will make better decisions. I have kickball tonight, so that should be fun. 🙂

As always, my friends, bon appetit –

~ Tori

The Good & The Bad

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This weekend, my husband and I spent the weekend with some friends in Tampa. I’ve probably not mentioned it before, but we’re craft beer aficionados. The local brewery in Tampa, Cigar City Brewing, was having a celebration in honor of the release of limited bottles of a Hunahpu, a delicious, complex, and decadent stout that they brew and age with cacao nibs.

So, we left Orlando early on Friday afternoon and stayed the night in Tampa, spending the entire day at the brewery on Saturday.

While we had an awesome time and got to sample dozens of rare and unique beers, my diet took a back seat for a solid 24 hours. Food trucks were lined up at the event, selling every fried, fatty, porcine vittles possible to an inebriated audience of 5,000+ people.

Why is food, especially BAD food, so closely intertwined with events?

Do we have to gorge on unhealthy things every time we’re happy, celebrating, or otherwise being entertained?

There were a few healthy options at the event, but they ran out quickly. The one truck boasting healthy sandwiches ran out of 99% of their “fresh” ingredients within an hour and was pumping out only breaded chicken tenders and french fries for the majority of the event.

My Saturday menu consisted of:

At the event —

  • A Dunkin Donuts veggie eggwhite flatbread [my attempt at a healthy breakfast before the event started.]
  • A vanilla nonfat, sugar free latte.
  • Three munchkins. [They were staring at me, taunting.]
  • At least 10 samples [2 oz pours or less] of heavy, craft beers. My guess would be 100-200 calories per sample.
  • A slice of cheese pizza.
  • An empanada that was so greasy, I could have cooked an omelette in the pool of oil left on my plate.
  • Deep-fried broccoli and cheddar “bites.” Something quasi-healthy made irrevocably unhealthy in one moment.

After the event [I’d already blown my diet, anyhow]:

  • Some curry laska soup.
  • Several bites of pad thai.
  • A heaping serving of basil fried rice.
  • Sauteed bak choy.
  • Two coconut fried shrimp.
  • A bottle of beer.

So, needless to say, I was feeling pretty bad about my diet and eating habits by the end of the day. While I had a BLAST at the event and enjoyed dinner with several friends in the evening, I wish that I had better control of my diet and impulses to eat badly when in the company of others.

I’m so regimented and controlled on my own.

Why does company – and celebration – break down my resolve?

I hope to post a video blog later this evening to explore this concept a bit deeper.

Until then, bon appetit!

~ Tori

Logic > Emotion?

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Another confession: today is a very, very low day for me.

After several days of NOT stressing about food and pretty much just eating what I wanted to [still relatively healthy, but larger portions], I hopped on the scale today.

Four pounds up. In less than three days since my last weigh-in.

Logically, I know this is NOT possible. I would have had to consume more than 14,000 calories (3,500 calories per pound gained) over what I needed to survive in order to put on this much weight. Not to mention that I exercised substantially in the last few days – kickball, over an hour on the elliptical, running errands –  it’s just not physically possible that I’ve gained a solid four pounds of fat.

Logically, I understand this.

Emotionally, I’m in tatters.

I’m mad at myself.

I feel guilty.

I feel fat.

Disgusting.

Pathetic.

Worthless.

This is the emotional roller coaster all yo-yo dieters face. We have our ups. We have our downs.

Today is a down.

I am blessed that I have a husband who, amazingly, understands. He had been overweight as a kid and, as a result, he can empathize with my struggle on a deeper level than most.

Instead of letting me sink into a depression, he’s taking me out. We’re going to drive around and look at properties [we’ve been house-hunting for a while] and then hit the farmer’s market for fresh, organic vegetables and fruits. We’re going to savor the cooler weather and the sunlight.

We’re not going to let a number on the scale ruin an otherwise perfect day.

Can logic overpower emotion?

Today, I’m going to find out.

~ Tori

Food Guilt

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Anyone that has ever been on a diet – regardless of the extremity of said regimen – knows the concept of food guilt. It’s when you “cheat” and eat the food item that is on your no-no list. If you’re on an Atkins diet, that’s any type of carb: pasta, rice, fruit, etc. If you’re on the Paleo diet, that’s anything processed and beans: peanuts, soy, milk, etc. If you’re on a low calorie diet, it’s basically anything that tastes good.

Today, I’m experiencing some pretty severe food-guilt. You see, I’ve been doing this quasi-vegetarian thing for several weeks and I’ve been feeling really good about myself. I haven’t really been doing it as a weight loss regimen; I’ve been primarily doing it because I was feeling bad about eating so many cute, fuzzy little animals. I know, I know – I’m silly. But, as I’ve said in previous posts, I have a hard time differentiating between my adorable 8lb Chihuahua and a 10 lb baby piglet. Both are equally inquisitive, furry, and adorable. With that in mind, eating copious amounts of meat has been a moral dilemma for some time. I finally just decided to throw in the towel and dive back into the world of tofu and beans again.

With that being said, I fell off of the wagon today. You see, there is a little sandwich shop walking distance from my office. It’s owned by the nicest little Indian couple in the world. In addition to offering the basics – you know, sandwiches, burgers, etc – they also have daily specials which are frequently hand-prepared dishes of Moroccan, Indian, and African influence. They’ve had exotic soups, killer falafels, and mouth-watering curries. One thing they have on the menu frequently is a dish called: Chicken Tikka. It’s a yogurt marinated chicken served over basmati rice, which includes salad and naan. Before I dove back into the vegetarian world, this was quickly becoming my favorite meal.

I’ve managed, quite successfully, to avoid this delicious temptation for weeks. A few coworkers have gotten it and I’ve managed to avoid the delicious scent wafting my direction, happily munching my salad instead.

Today, however, I caved. And I caved HARD.

Not only did I order this delectable dish, I ate all of it within minutes. Pretty sure I didn’t even fully chew the chicken – I just swallowed it whole. To top it off, I followed the meal with half a Snickers bar [ah!] and a piece of beef jerky. Really, Tori? Beef jerky?

So, at the moment, I’m wallowing in a bit of food guilt. Granted, it could have been much worse – I could have sat down to deep-fried pigs feet or something atrocious – but still, I’m not happy with myself.

I realize that food guilt is NOT a healthy emotion nor is it worthwhile. That doesn’t make it go away, though. Whatever diet I’m on results in the constant threat of potential food guilt. So why, exactly, do we do this to ourselves?

Perhaps, somewhere deep inside us, we like to feel guilty once in a while. The remorse is so painful that it keeps us on the straight and narrow the majority of the time, primarily we don’t want to feel that sucky again for a long time. The food guilt makes us stick to our diet plan at least a few days longer. Right?

I think I might be stretching here. The food guilt has made my brain malfunction.

Tikka or death!

Tori