Category Archives: Food

Health Information Spin-Doctors

February 11, 2015 dotyness 2 Comments

I saw an article last week about adrenal fatigue and was intrigued. I read it and was even more intrigued since it seemed to explain why I’m so exhausted all the time these days.

Then I did some more research.

Turns out that adrenal fatigue isn’t a medically defined condition. Now, as you know, I do not believe that doctors are either gods or the end all and be all of everything; however, I think that they’ve spent an awful lot of time studying the human body and can be good resources. I also believe that this Information Age is just as easily the Disinformation Age and anyone with an idea or product to sell can create a condition for their idea or product to cure. The symptoms of adrenal fatigue are really just the symptoms of exhaustion…..adrenal fatigue just sounds so much better. Right?

Hospitalization for exhaustion or bed rest for fatigue sounds awfully Lindsay Lohan, n’est pas? It sounds like you’ve been out partying too much, you’re secretly in rehab, you’re having a nervous breakdown or you’re just a wimp. I mean, the Mormons walked across the country pushing wheelbarrows, for crying out loud. What do any of us have to be exhausted about?

Well, actually, we have a lot.

I don’t think that anyone can deny that this is a very stressful time to be an adult in the United States. The news tells us that the country has recovered; but, I talk to an awful lot of unemployed or underemployed people who have not seen that recovery. Paychecks don’t go as far as they used to. For instance, I now make the same amount of money that I made 20 years ago – not the same amount adjusted for inflation, the actual same amount. However, the cost of living certainly isn’t what it was 20 years ago. That causes a tremendous amount of stress for me. That kind of stress will just wear a body out; but, it still sounds kind of wimpy to say that I’m suffering from exhaustion, doesn’t it? Makes me sound like some silly Victorian female suffering a fit of the vapors on my reclining couch. But, if I’m suffering from adrenal fatigue, well, that’s a whole different kettle of fish, isn’t it? It’s not that I can’t handle the stress, it’s that my adrenal glands are letting me down. Damn the luck! Wimpy glands.

Okaaaaaaay.

Here’s what I found most amusing about the condition – its prescribed treatment: get plenty of sleep, drink plenty of water, exercise regularly, and eat a balanced diet including lots of fruits and vegetables. That’s really the prescription for everything, I think: obesity, arthritis, high blood pressure, and, now of course, adrenal fatigue.

It’s hardly earth-shattering. It’s hardly revolutionary. It’s what our grandparents knew and what we also know, if we’re honest with ourselves. It’s just that simple.

And it’s just that hard.

In our stressful, fast-paced world, we want an immediate solution. We want a pill. We want someone else to do the work for us. We want an overnight miracle. But, it just doesn’t work that way. We have to prepare our meals. We have to make healthier choices. We have to do the work and take care of ourselves.

And I, for one, have got to get started right this very minute.

Body Changes, Emotional Eating

Appropriate Accomodations

February 10, 2015 dotyness Leave a comment

With all of the see-sawing I’ve seen in my weight over the past few months, my clothes have gone from loose to snug to don’t-even-try-fitting-that-in-here back to just tight now back to you-must-be-delusional. It’s frustrating and irritating.

Just before I took that ridiculous shot which started the two month PMS cravings, I had gotten rid of my Fat Jeans. I’m seriously regretting that decision now and have considered several times going to get some larger pants. I still have some stretchy pants that I can wear, but my jeans are out of the question. And I really like wearing my jeans – particularly since my favorite footwear (my cowboy boots) look ridiculous with yoga pants. Alas, I’m in yoga pants right now. So, really, it’s because of my cowboy boots that I’ve considered buying another pair of Fat Jeans.

Uh huh.

You may notice that I’ve said “considered,” not “bought.” You see, I know that lie. “I’ll just buy these so that I can wear them for a little while until I get back into my regular jeans.”

Lie.

You know as well as I do what would happen. I’d get all kinds of comfy in those Fat Jeans and wear those suckers out. Who knows? I might even eat my way out of them into the next size up. I’ve done it before and I’m not stupid enough to say that I wouldn’t do it again. For me, there is a slippery slope there. Just like Marie Osmond said in a NutriSystem ad a few years ago – your jeans get tight and you get a little muffin top going on. You wear a sweater to cover the muffin top. Eventually, you buy bigger pants to get rid of it; but, you just grow another one that you cover again with larger, loose-fitting shirts. The cycle spirals up and up until you look in the mirror one day and wonder who that fat woman is staring back at you.

Well, if I don’t buy larger clothes, I hope to short-circuit that process. I cannot get comfy in larger jeans if I don’t buy them. I will wear what I have and be sick of it until I can fit back into my jeans again. I was closing in on it before last week’s ginormous binge. Looking back through my posts, I’m amazed that less than ten days ago I felt like things were getting better only to crash again. Last week lasted about 46 days, I’m pretty sure.

Only it didn’t. It lasted the normal seven and I am still alive and have the will to get back on track. I have a closet full of appropriate clothes that have fit me before and they’ll fit me again. No need to move into larger posterior accommodations. The accommodations I have are just fine and I’ll be comfortably back in them in less than a month.

Emotional Eating, Family

Time to Say Good-Bye

February 4, 2015 dotyness 7 Comments

It’s a beautiful song, but often a terrible thing to do. Today, I will say good-bye to Trey. While I am destroyed over it, it’s time. He has stopped eating and drinking more than a couple of mouthsful – except for last night when he got a plain double cheeseburger and cheese curds from Dairy Queen. (We’re not going to discuss what I had.) He doesn’t wag his tail and the sparkle is gone from his sweet eyes. Even with medication he is in constant pain.

My tireless sister has found a vet that will come to my house this afternoon. Trey will be in his home, comfortable and unafraid when he makes his journey across the rainbow bridge. My friend Sean and my niece will be here with me. My niece will take his body for cremation. I know. I know. I used to think that was ridiculous, too – cremating a pet. I don’t anymore and, frankly, I don’t care if anyone else still does. I’ve lived a highly transient life and don’t see me staying here forever either. I don’t want to leave him here. Maybe if I were living in the house I planned to retire in, I’d feel differently; but, I’m not and I don’t.

It’s been a highly emotional couple of days for me and there have been several times when I’ve wondered if I could actually dehydrate by crying. There have been times when a tiny voice in my head called me silly for grieving so over a dog; but, another voice stands up and says that he’s more than a dog – he’s a friend. My other dog Ellie is not the brightest bulb on the circuit – beautiful, sweet and lethal for squirrels, but not all that smart. She doesn’t seem to know that anything is wrong; however, she will grieve for the loss of her playmate, the one who taught her to play when she was a terrified stray. Although I will let her see and smell his body, I expect her to look for him for awhile. At this point, only the cat Bodhi seems to know something is wrong. He’s stuck very close to me and has even been snuggly with Trey.

It has been emotional here and will continue to be for awhile yet as we learn to adjust to life without the old man.

So, remember yesterday when I said that I wouldn’t always make the right nutritional choice? Well, I won’t be making it this afternoon. My sweet friend Katie has already announced that she’s coming by after work with the comfort food of my choice – ice cream, any flavor but mint chocolate chip (I really hate that one). So, I don’t know what flavor she’s bringing and I don’t care. I’m going to eat whatever she brings.

Helping my old friend across the bridge is the right thing to do and it’s time; but, I don’t know that I could do it without the help of my other friends. My most sincere and heartbroken thanks to you all.

Emotional Eating, Habits, Thought Patterns

The Reality of the Fail

February 3, 2015 dotyness Leave a comment

My mother was the leader of my sister’s Girl Scout troop from the time the girls were 1st grade Brownies until she took them to Europe for six weeks as juniors and senior in high school. Though five years younger than the troop members, I was always along for the ride. I meet them when I was a toddler and know a few of them to this day. Yesterday, one of the Doty Bunch commented on my post. Rachel said, “…by sharing your failures and successes, you also share your authenticity and credibility! I love you!”

What a humbling thing! It’s humbling to me that: 1. Rachel (and you) choose to spend part of your day with me, and 2. That a woman who knew me when I was in diapers takes me seriously. Her comment raised something that has always bothered me – reality in the diet and health promotion industry.

I’m sure there are people who really do feel compelled to eat nothing artificial, nothing with added sugar, nothing processed. I’m sure there are people who, given the choice between an orange and a warm sticky bun will always choose the orange without even thinking that they’ve giving anything up. I’m sure there are people who deal with life’s challenges and outright sucker punches by going for a run without even considering eating their way through the freezer at Dairy Queen. I’m sure these people exist. After all, there actually are people who get their jollies by dressing up as giant stuffed animals. Surely the Stepford Health Nuts are no more unlikely than the Furries. Well, not much more unlikely.

Whether they actually exist or not, they appear to and they appear to write a great number of books. In the ones I’ve read, I haven’t really found any confessions of people dealing with emotional eating or cravings or sugar addiction. Maybe I’m just not reading the right books; but, it’s always been frustrating for me. I see these people with their 64 teeth, their beautiful bodies, their spotless kitchens, their organic pantries and I don’t see anything that looks like me. Their image is perfection. My life is messy. Emotionally, I see their image as reality, as an achievable ideal. And I see my inability to actually achieve that ideal as a constant failure on my part. Intellectually, I don’t think that most of us are wired to achieve their reality (if it even exists) any more than I think that most of us want to zip into a giant teddy bear suit. Intellectually, I might suspect that Jillian Michaels gagging over a gordita is at least some acting on her part; but, emotionally, I believe her wholesale rejection and think that I have been somehow a failure since I’d have eaten that in a second.

But that’s not right.

Her reactions are not mine. My reactions may not be the most healthful; but, they are my reality. I might choose the orange over the sticky bun today, but I’d give that sticky bun a good sniff and I might even shed a tear or two. I might do the right thing for my body this time; but, that doesn’t mean I always will.

I will fail. But that doesn’t make me a failure.

Depression, Emotional Eating

Just a Duck at a Penny Arcade

February 2, 2015 dotyness Leave a comment

Last week was an exceptionally emotional one for me. It started out great with that five pound weight loss; however, that triumphant moment was followed quickly by a professional disappointment, then an enormous financial failure. I kept my chin up, though, and focused on good things and solutions. Then, as you know, our dog stopped eating, signaling his approach to the rainbow bridge. Still, I kept moving forward. I got help for the financial crisis. Trey got pain meds and began eating again. I was still moving.

But the coup de grace still awaited – or, rather, the coups de grace (if that can be plural).

Sunday found me accidentally awakening a childhood demon. This event was followed literally minutes later by a real blow when I received an email from a man from my distant past. This man is associated with a particularly difficult time in my life – a watershed time, you could say. My life has since been divided into before him and after him. It wasn’t a bad email; but, it portends another irrevocable change in the life I’ve made. These two things on top of everything else were just too much for me.

My emotional eating triggers started snapping and, honey, it sounded like a shooting gallery in a penny arcade! (Do they even have penny arcades anymore?) Anyway, those triggers were going off left and right! I wanted to strap on a feed bag of puffy Cheetos, go after a gallon of Phish Food with two spoons, then (as I told my friend Jeff) climb into a bottle of cheap Cabernet. (It would have to be a cheap bottle. Good ones are for sipping. Cheap ones are for drowning.) In the end, I did none of those things. If I had, I would still have all those issues to face today, plus I’d have processed food and wine hangovers. I’d have initiated another bout with my sugar addiction AND I’d have the guilt associated with all of those things.

So, in the end, I had some veggies with hummus and a little ranch dip, some fruit, a little Margherita pizza, some chips and corn salsa, a vegetarian corn dog (hot dogs are a Super Bowl tradition for me), and a little salted caramel Dream gelato while I watched ~~Pete Carroll blow~~ the game. I drank one Mike’s Hard Lemonade and did not count my calories for the day. Well, I didn’t count them yesterday. I counted them just now. Ouch.

For the day, I ate just under 2200 calories. With the little bit of exercise I performed, my net for the day was just under 2000. It wasn’t a gawd awful day, but my daily calorie budget right now is 1317. Sooooohoho…….I blew that up. Do I feel guilty this morning?

Nope. Not even a little bit.

In the face of what I wanted to do and what I would have done four years or even four months ago, I restrained myself yesterday and I count it a victory. For sure I felt like a shooting gallery duck but, that’s okay because you know the great thing about those little guys?

When they get to the end of the line, they get right back up again and make another pass.

Body Changes, Cravings, Food

Feeling Groovy

January 30, 2015 dotyness Leave a comment

I suspect that my high school AP history teacher, Mr. Paterson, had a party going on in his head most of the time. He would constantly interrupt himself with non sequiturs and asides to the point that it was almost like listening to a rubber ball bounce off the walls of his mind. He loved history; so, to sit in his class was as informative as it was engaging. Anyway, I mention him because of today’s title – Feelin’ Groovy. The actual title of Simon and Garfunkel’s song was The 59th Street Bridge Song; but, everyone knew it as Feelin’ Groovy. Anytime Mr. Paterson would mention the song (which was more frequently than you might imagine in a history class), he would say, “Feelin’ Groovy, whoever that is….” As a result, I never think of the song without thinking of Mr. Paterson.

And, I think of him today as I am feelin’ pretty groovy myself.

I’m about a week and a half into my Recommitment and things are humming along nicely. I can actually feel where I have lost weight in my hands, my abdomen, my face, my thighs and my shoulders. I love that! In addition, my hunger pangs have all but disappeared. Some of that may have to do with how worried I’ve been about the pup; but, regardless, I feel less hungry. I’ve eaten tasty meals heavy on the veggies with some starch, grains, nuts and legumes thrown in for balance. I’ve enjoyed snacks of fruit that give me plenty of fiber and a little burst of sugar when I need it. I am sleeping more soundly and am waking with good energy. At work, I’m getting in plenty of walking; so, my exercise is covered, as well. As a result, I’m feeling stronger. So, it’s good things all around!

And I do mean ALL around. Trey actually ate some of his dinner out of my hand last night and he was hungry for more when I got home this morning.He’s got some pain meds that are helping him manage. While he is still approaching the rainbow bridge, at least he is more comfortable for now. He may even be feeling a little groovy.

Like I said: good things all around. So why wouldn’t I feel groovy? Do something good for yourself today and join me! (beads and flower headbands at your discretion)

Accountability, Exercise, Food, Habits, Motivation

Two Days Later….

January 23, 2015 dotyness Leave a comment

Well, good morning, friends! It’s two days since I truly recommitted myself to taking care of my nutritional needs. As a by-product, of course, I’ll be shedding these pesky 20 pounds; but, the main goal here is to get back to eating healthfully, in a way that gives my body what it needs to be its best.

Using my old profile, I have started a new program on LoseIt! and it tells me that I should reach my goal in the middle of June – perfect for bathing suit weather! I entered my current weight into the program, along with my goal weight and the amount of weight I want to lose each week. It gave me a calorie budget to get to that goal. Right now, that budget is 1350 calories per day. However, as I lose weight, that number will decrease to keep me on track. Here’s the thing I have to remember, though: although my daily calorie budget will eventually be under 1200, I must eat at least that many calories each day to allow my body to function properly. If I dip below that, weight loss will slow. I will feel tired all the time. I will feel cold all that time. This is the voice of experience saying that weight loss dieters need to eat those 1200 to stay healthy. As I get further into the program and my calorie budget drops, I will have to ensure that I am exercising enough to stay within it.

For the last two days, I’ve been within that budget – yesterday, well within it. There are several different tasks I may be assigned any given night at work. Last night, I was given the most physically taxing one. I calculate that I walked anywhere from 13 to 15 miles over the course of my ten-hour shift. (And, honey, my bones are feeling every. single. step. right now.) Like exercise does, my long walk has left me hungry this morning. So, when I got home, I had a little 100 calorie snack because I don’t want to eat anything super caloric right before I go to bed.

Okay, scratch that.

I do want to eat something super caloric – like, say, oh a few chocolate glazed doughnuts from The Doughnut Palace – but, I’m not going to do that. So, yeah, I’d be lying through my teeth if I said that I’m not willing to sell a kidney for pastries right now. Indulging myself just wouldn’t be the smart thing for me to do since all of those calories would immediately go into storage. Likely on my thighs. And I’m into cleaning that storage unit out, not adding to it!

So, I’m going to drink a nice cup of herbal tea, brush my teeth and go give my body the rest that it needs.

(Psst! If you’re O+ and need a kidney, call me later!)

Body Changes, Cravings, Depression, Motivation

What Do I Know, Anyway?

January 22, 2015 dotyness Leave a comment

When I find myself with a set-back like the one I’m dealing with now – ugh – that negative little voice inside my head asks, “What do you know, anyway?” “Why should anyone pay any attention to what you have to say? After all, look at what you did!”

Yep. Look at what I did. I gave in to cravings and ate myself 20 pounds up the scale. It doesn’t matter if the cravings were the result of medication, 70-hour physically exhausting work weeks, heartache, or moon cycles. Those things may have caused the cravings but none of them drove me to the grocery store. None of those things bought the Tastykakes that I stuffed into my gob. Nope, I did that all by lonesome. I did it years ago and I did it this time, too. I failed myself.

But, it ain’t over yet!

I lost 94 pounds four years ago and I know how I did it. I know what worked for me and what didn’t. I know how to do it again. Here are a few things that I know without a doubt:

I cannot buy bread. I can’t buy it because I cannot be trusted with it. I will eat it plain or with something smeared on it to make it a sandwich. I will eat a butter sandwich rather than make a nutrient-dense meal that my body needs. I can’t do that if there’s no bread in the house; thus, I cannot buy bread.
I cannot be trusted with a family sized bag of chips. I will turn into a family of one and eat that bag all in one sitting. If I treat myself to chips, they must be in the tiny, single serving size.
I cannot open cans of mixed nuts while driving in the car. I will eat the entire can.
I am an emotional eater. I must deal with wayward emotions in another way, like going for a short walk, doing ten jumping jacks, meditating, or writing lists to figure out the source of the negative emotion. Eating to make it go away solves nothing.
I want the sugary snacks in the vending machines at work. Therefore, I must not take my debit card or cash to work.
I am a sugar addict. I must eat more fruit to combat the cravings my body assaults me with.
Each meal must consist of 75% vegetables.
I must move more. I don’t have to start by running a race. I can start the same way I did last time – by walking the dogs.
All food must be carefully measured, else the nine-serving box of cereal becomes a three-serving box.
Undocumented calories still count.
There is never undocumented exercise.
My food and exercise diary app is invaluable.
I deserve to have a body that functions properly.
I deserve to have a body I feel comfortable in.
I have way too many clothes in my smaller size to redo my wardrobe now!
I don’t want to redo my wardrobe.
I can do this.

So, as it turns out, I know lots of things. I just have to remind myself because there is a great, big, giant chasm between knowing and doing. And, yesterday, in setting a new goal in my LoseIt app and by logging all of my food and exercise, I began doing again.

Food, Thought Patterns

Scattershot Goddess

December 9, 2014 dotyness Leave a comment

I haven’t published for a few days (as I hope you’ve noticed). There are a few reasons for this, the primary one being that I’m working a holiday schedule right now and am just worn slap out! By the time I get home in the mornings, I have barely enough energy to brush my teeth and go to bed, much less to sit down and write! The secondary reason is that I have several things on my mind and I’m waiting for those things to gel. Some of them, I’m deciding if they are appropriate for us to talk about at all. I’ll start with ones I know are appropriate.

Here’s the first thing on my mind: the blog, itself.

When I look at other blogs, they seem to have these nice, neat little themes they stay with. It makes for a somewhat predictable package and makes the author an authority on that one subject. I, on the other hand, am I little bit all over the place.

As you know, the blog started as a way for me to share how I lost weight. However, I often venture into the realm of emotions and thought patterns. That’s because, for me anyway, those two things (food and emotions) are inextricably linked and always have been.

I’ve told you before that I am an emotional binge eater. I’m a bulimic without the purging stage. I have been known to scarf down literally thousands of calories in one sitting. This, of course, leads to self-loathing, which leads to more bingeing, which leads to more self-loathing, which leads to …. an obese woman. My failure to acknowledge and to deal with this cycle is why all my previous diets failed and why only a complete lifestyle change would work to make me lose weight and keep it off.

I know people for whom the loss of five pounds of holiday excess is the extent of their weight loss battle – and I continue to both speak with and associate with them! But, I know far more people for whom five pounds is an afternoon snack. Those are the people with whom I can truly relate. For them, as for me, eating has an emotional component that is far larger than the stomach one. These are my people. These are the ones I understand.

So, if you ever read a week’s worth of blogs and see that I don’t appear to be holding to the weight-loss, healthy eating theme you thought the blog had, it’s because I’m really not. Or, maybe I am in a holistic sense. I just don’t see how we can separate our food intake from the other things going on in our lives and in our world, particularly if we are emotional eaters.

And, if you think I’ve been inconsistent before, hold onto your hat because I’m really going to be all over the place this week!

Food

It’s Wonderfully Chili in Here

December 3, 2014 dotyness Leave a comment

As Clotille so tactfully pointed out yesterday, the pharmaceuticals in my system right now are not making my poor menu choices. I’m doing that all on my own. And, get this: I’m doing it in spite of having made and frozen four different kinds of chili and a black bean soup a couple of weeks ago. How ridiculous! I’m having to actually go out of my way to eat badly!

I made all of those easy freezer meals in preparation for the next three weeks at work where we will be working 12-hour shifts, five days a week. As I’ve mentioned, the work is very physical and I’m kind of old; so, I will be completely exhausted by the time Christmas is here – way too tired to be prepping food everyday. I found these great chili and soup recipes. Here they are (in ascending order of how much I like them):

5. White Bean Chili (Vegan, GF) – This one was actually my least favorite and I have to admit that I believe that part of that is due to poor execution of the recipe on my part. This photo is one from the website which posted the recipe. Mine wasn’t nearly this pretty. I think that I may have overcooked the beans a little and I know that I mashed more of them than they did for this shot. Mine is much pastier. It’s still good, just my least favorite of the five things I made.

4. Veggie Loaded Chili – This one is spicy! It is really flavorful with squash, zucchini, tomatoes, black beans and kidney beans. Next time, I will reduce the amount of cayenne I use since I’m kind of a sissy when it comes to really hot foods. Too much heat and I can’t appreciate the flavors of everything else! And this one has all kinds of different flavors and textures. There’s a lot going on here and all of it good.

3. Black Bean & Lentil Chili – Oh, my goodness, y’all! This one is where we go from “Those are really good” recipes to “Where have you been all my life” recipes! This one is amazing! The recipe calls for regular chili powder and chipotle chili powder – which I didn’t even know was a thing. Now I’m wondering why it hasn’t been in my spice cabinet all along! It adds such a wonderfully smoky flavor to the chili (which is literally steaming hot in the photo here). You might think that the dish would end up being really hot with all that chili powder, but it’s not. It’s just wonderfully fragrant and tasty!

2. Slow Cooker Black Bean Soup – I’ll admit it right up front: I didn’t follow the instructions on this one. I had already soaked and cooked my black beans for use in the other recipes; so, I didn’t cook this in a crock pot. I also halved everything since I’d already used half of my one pound bag of beans in the other dishes. AND, I didn’t use the immersion blender to get the pretty picture you see here. However, this is one fine bowl of soup, people! I am a big fan of black beans, anyway, and this soup is a great showcase for the legume. Because I didn’t blend everything up, the carrots gave it more texture and, if I hadn’t known better, I would have sworn there was meat in this soup. Nope. Not a bit. I’ll do this one again for sure!

1. Sweet Potato Chili – This one is my favorite, but not really by much. Sweet potatoes are not the first things that come to mind when I think of chili; but, they are just fabulous in this dish which also includes unsweetened cocoa powder and cinnamon. (Don’t worry, it doesn’t taste like any of that Cincinnati chili which I don’t care for. Like at all.) Although neither my nose nor my mouth palates are refined enough to pick out either spice in the finished product, the dish as a whole has such full and varied flavors that I wouldn’t dream of leaving them out next time since I’m certain that they are essential to the whole experience.

I have frozen servings of each of these dishes in muffin tins. Once the servings are frozen, I store them all in large freezer bags. They look a little weird, but they work out nicely for taking my food to work. I just cook up a batch of rice and put both the rice and a chili muffin in my container to heat up at lunch. By lunchtime, the muffin has thawed enough to look like an entree rather than like a treat imposter. By freezing the foods in the tins, I reduce the waste of individual plastic freezer bags and I take the guess work out of portion sizes.

Preparation, cooking, freezing and clean-up took probably about eight hours for all of this; however, I ended that time with enough meals to last me a couple of months. That’s not a bad return on my time investment. And, with a total grocery bill for the ingredients at under $50, it’s not a bad return on my monetary investment, either!

So, while I work through Christmas, it may be a little nasty cold outside, but it’s wonderfully chili in here!

The Daily Doty