Losing Half, Gaining More

If you’re looking for some Good Food motivation, here’s one that doesn’t seem to be at the forefront of discussions: Harvest for Hope: A Guide to Mindful Eating by Jane Goodall.

I’ve been spending quite a bit of time on food research lately to understand exactly what it is that I’m putting into my body(and my family’s bodies). This is the book that sparked it all for me 5 years ago(can it really be that long??) and I decided to re-visit, knowing how much it moved me. It began my desire to not just lose weight, but to learn about and appreciate the fuel that I eat daily. It also sparked for me an intense desire to understand the larger global impact of the food that we eat and that we can so readily access here in the U.S. It was an incredible introduction for me because Jane Goodall is amazing – her gentle nature and  beautiful voice convey the things that she discusses in the book with so much grace. Her strong convictions matter and she manages to deliver them in a manner that’s somehow not overwhelming, daunting and seemingly so much larger than us.

It’s funny, the more I get to “know” people through their weight loss blogs, the more I see so many similar sentiments that are expressed regularly. One of the things that I have especially notice is that many overweight people seem to be in the same boat as me – we could tell you nutritional and food information up on side and down the other. The challenge continues to be in applying that information to our own lives. I have a feeling that if you’re reading this post because you have a blog of your own or just a general interest in weight loss or food issues, much of this information is probably not new to you. I still felt like sharing, though – just in case it might help someone out there who wants to start to gather more knowledge about the food we consume.

Along with this book, some other resources that you might like if you’re also looking to learn more about our food sources and the larger impact that our diets have:

• Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural history of Four Meals, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto and Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual
• Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
• Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation
• Carlo Petrini’s Slow Food Nation: Why Our Food Should Be Good, Clean and Fair
• Eric Schlosser’s documentary Food, Inc.
• The documentaries King Corn and Super Size Me
• Food Week – a blog post in one of my favorite, thoughtful, inspiring blogs – Aura Joon
• You Are What You Eat and Just Eat Food – two fantastic family-focused food posts on In the Little Red House
• Grocery List Part 1 – also family-focused – at The Clean Eating Mama – looking forward to more from her!

So, that’s my list. For now. There’s more – always more. But that’s my list for today. Have more to share with me? I’d love it! It all makes me even more excited to get started on our garden – I can’t wait to get digging in the dirt!

A friend shared this link from Cheeky Lotus about being a role model for her daughter and I just needed to share. I worry every single day about how my weight issues are going to effect my kids and it’s a big part of why I NEED to do this for myself NOW. I need to take care of myself and be an example of healthy and reasonable and realistic beauty – I deserve it and my kids deserve it.

There’s so much talk about Fat-Talk Free Week and it’s all so positive. I think a huge part of that positiveness is that the lack of Fat-Talk also means that it’s less for young girls to be hearing and internalizing and taking through life with them. If I can make myself healthier and stop even one minute of my daughter doing that to herself, every difficult step of this weight loss journey will be worth itself a million times over.

For the record, I didn’t eat a single piece of candy when we celebrated Halloween on Friday(a party and Trick or Treating). I knew if I started with even one, it would be all over. Thankfully, the little bees were tuckered out after only a few houses and didn’t get much loot as far as candy – that was nice. They did get a full size Crunch bar, though. So instead of a ton of little pieces here and there, I ate an entire Crunch bar on Saturday, enjoyed it and moved on. Progress. This is progress chugging right along on the journey everyone! Weigh in is tonight. I haven’t done so great this week, so I won’t be surprised if the scale reflects that.

We seriously need to do this more! It was a gorgeous fall day on Sunday and it was so nice to get outside together. This is my favorite sort of exercise and, sadly, I don’t even slightly do enough of it. It’s kind of sad, but during the week I’m always really hesitant to take the kids out by myself on a walk like this. The paths are desolate and I *know* nothing would happen, but it’s still sort of unnerving. I try really hard not to let anxiety get the best of my in parenting, but this is one instance where I can’t shake it, which is sad because increased exercise of any kind would be a huge improvement for me. For now, though, we’ll stick to walks in the neighborhood when we’re not all together – that’s definitely something more than nothing!

And we didn’t forget the little one – he was just in his own happy spot:

I went to my cousins wedding in Philadelphia yesterday and had such a fantastic time.  We knew that it was in Old City, but didn’t really realize what that meant, which is sort of sad since it’s only about an hour and a half away from us! The hotel was literally half a block from the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall. The wedding looked out over Independence National Historic Park and Second National Bank and in such an interesting part of the city – tons of amazing shops and restaurants. We were disappointed that we didn’t have time to spend just walking around, but having a 6 month old at home who needs his food source sort of limits longer excursions for now. This was the longest I’ve left him so far and it was still just so nice to get away for more than just a couple of hours.

The food was FANTASTIC. It also helped me to realize a few things within the context of “celebrations.”  This journey that I’ve committed to has been a long time coming. I’ve been going to Weight Watchers meeting for over 4 months now without actually really keeping track of my food. But, the fact that I’ve continued to go is a huge testament to the psychological aspect of losing weight and how I’m slowly changing. This process seems so daunting and overwhelming as a whole, but it’s the little things that I can control in a day that make me realize that I really am doing this! I really am making lots of little changes in my life, and especially in my thinking!

At the wedding, I didn’t eat perfectly by any means. But I did eat much differently than I would have in the past and that’s a really big step.

• The things that I wanted to eat that weren’t the healthiest, I took one of and just took a bite.
• If I didn’t love what I was eating after the first bite, I didn’t finish it.
• I didn’t take appetizers from servers simply because they had it in front of me.
• I didn’t try one(or more!) of everything – I chose the few things I thought I’d enjoy the most and took smaller portions of them.
• I danced about 10 times more than I otherwise would have because I knew I was burning some extra calories while having some fun.
• I also just committed to completely putting aside my normal feelings of awkward self consciousness that usually keep me from something like dancing in a social situation and it felt SO GOOD.

As a whole, I still ate much more than necessary. But I also would guess that I easily ate half as much as I may have eaten in the past and that makes me really happy. Thinking about all of this and seeing these baby steps that I am actually doing is so empowering. Believing in myself that I really can, and WILL, do this is an incredible feeling. There hasn’t been a defining/”A-HA” moment for me when I just decided that this was the point where I wasn’t turning back. I read so many weight loss success stories where people talk about the one thing that happened that flipped a switch for them, but for me it’s just been a recent consistent realization of small things that have made me realize that I truly an changing. Knowing that I can deal with each situation as it comes and take small steps to get to each thing along the way feels fantastic and it’s been a really long time since I’ve felt that about myself.