Another good day
Sep 8, 2010

Just a note before my bedtime walk. It was a good day. Had a hilarious time at the mall with my son. Not a place I usually go, especially not for hours at a time. He's autistic, and a bit hard to herd now he's grown up, but it was really, really nice. Hours in the bookstore, and the music shop.
And I found a sushi bar that made brown-rice yam sushi, so I was happy. Didn't drink enough water, got really dried out by suppertime when we were headed home, but I didn't suck up any crap just because I was thirsty. And I didn't get mad. I just waited until I had my fabulous garlicky, tomato-ey, really really lemony rice and beans cooked.
One more good day down. I'll take that.

ps Here's something I found that might be of help to some of you goddesses looking for nice drink. I've quit coffee and tea for now, but I still like a nice hot drink. For the times when I'm sick of herbal tea, I drink hot veggie broth. I'm lucky; the vegetable store by my house sells really cheap cartons of an organic vegetable broth that tastes great. It's the stuff I think you're supposed to use as stock for soup, but it's great the way it is as a drink. One kind in particular has a ton of flavour, and for variety, some hot sauce or a squeeze of lemon (or both) goes a long way. And it's only 15 calories a cup!

Discipline? Motivation?
Sep 8, 2010

For the first morning in a long time, I got up feeling like eating stuff that's not good for me. That doesn't usually happen in the morning.
I decided to just tough it out. Had some tea, read the news.
No idea if that's discipline on my part or the motivation of knowing that I had a few late-season strawberries tucked away. Knew I was having a big strawberry and banana smoothie for breakfast, tried to think about how good it was going to taste.
It worked. Put the smoothie in my favourite big glass and enjoyed it.
Next up: Off with my son for a rare mall crawl. I promised him lunch, and I'm not going to be able to find anything there I really want. Unless they have sushi. Sushi would make my day. Otherwise, a big cup of tea and a fab lunch when I get home. Something lemony. I love lemons.
Down a pound today ....

Flavour
Sep 7, 2010

Today I leaned on an old habit that helped me through a really successful period of weight loss. (I gave the habit up during my even more successful period of packing the fat back on.)
When I found myself craving crap today (just anything I could stuff in my mouth, preferably sweet), I got busy thinking about dinner. I thought really hard about what flavour I'd like, and decided I wanted something chewy and garlicky. The dinner I had planned was brown rice and steamed chicken. I like that, but it's not so appealing at the moment when you're obsessed with something sweet... so what I did was think about how to pack dinner full of flavour, enough to make up for the sugar craving. I ended up steaming the chicken with some butternut squash, and cooking some onion in olive oil while it steamed (I eat a lot of olive oil). And while that was going on, I buzzed up a bunch of garlic and some dried tomatoes into a paste-y kind of mess. And then I tossed the whole mess together in the pan when all the bits were ready. It was hot, which was kind of nice now that it's cool out, and really, really tasty. I really enjoyed it.
And I did the same at lunchtime, when I planned some rice and beans. I tossed the whole mess in some pesto that's really just basil and oil, no cheese, so the basil flavour is really strong. It was totally fab.
And tonight, if the sugar calls my name again, I have some herbal toffee-flavoured tea to drink. Or maybe I'll slice up a piece of ginger and make hot ginger tea with lemon and mint.
The idea is to keep my focus on really nice taste, and make it more appealing than any of the crap that tempts me...
Not easy if you're cooking for a bunch of other people, or kids, but I'm trying to keep a little stash of things around that can quickly flavour up what I'm having.
I still have to watch how much I eat, but it's way more satisfying than three months ago, when I was stuffing crappy jellybeans in my mouth without even taking time to taste them.
Anyway, it got me through today. And that's enough for now.