Djuna's Thirty By June 2012

[djunamod]

I'm starting a new journal (a temporary one, really) to indicate a new start and also a set goal. Up until this point I have not had any weight loss set goals (long or short term) and maybe this has been a mistake. So starting a fresh journal will hopefully help me on my way.

Quick background: I am a 41 year old 5'1" woman who weighs (as of my last weigh-in) 174 pounds and am trying to lose 50-55 pounds. As many others on this board, I've struggled with weight most of my life (my mom took me to Weight Watchers for the first time at the age of 14 and I can't recall a time when I wasn't dieting since then) and I am also a binge eater, using food to cope with stress. In 2004, I did a low carb diet (was not vegan then) and lost the 35 pounds I had to lose. Then, had a lot of major life changes (including moving cross country 4 times in 4 years) and decisions which triggers stress and a lot of binge-eating. At the same time, I went vegetarian and, after starting to read books like "The China Study" and "Diet For A New America", decided to go vegan and I didn't have a firm maintenance plan in place. So, like many others, I not only gained everything I lost but also another 35 pounds besides. Discovered McDougall a few years ago and have been trying to stick with it since but stress keeps bringing me back to binge eating and, in the last year, I moved to Israel to be with my folks for a short time, so I have to contend with family gatherings and a lot of eating out (my dad loves it!) and Israeli restaurants are NOT accommodating to vegans (i.e., if there is something on the menu you want veganised, they flat-out won't do it - it's like you're insulting the chef or something).

Why 30 pounds until June 2012? Because in June (I hope!) I will be going off to do a 4 week certification course to teach ESL in San Francisco and I want to have lost an amount of weight that will be significant. I want to go into this certification course and not feel like the fattest person in the room. I also hope that my parents will be able to scrape up the money to come out and join me after it's done so we can do a little trip for a few weeks more. My mom always does a lot of shopping in the States (since clothes are so much cheaper there than they are in Israel) and I would love to go shopping without having to go into the plus sizes (right now, I am a size 16).

So my plan is to be consistent with both my diet and exercise. This is the thing that's been killing me - CONSISTENCY. I might do the diet and exercise regularly for a few weeks or even a month or two (which is how I lost 15 pounds on McDougall this summer) but then I break it with some idiotic thing (usually having to do with "rewarding" myself for getting through a tough spot or a way to calm myself down in a stressful situation. And that triggers junk food eating for a period of time (like a few days or even a week) where I just eat anything I want (not necessarily binging). Then I go back to eating and exercising well.

So one of my goals with this journal is to explore why that happens - what my thought process is in wanting to break the cycle of good eating and exercise. I think one problem is that I think in terms of extremes. When I'm eating the McDougall way and exercising regularly, I am being "good" and this, of course, triggers a need to be "bad" (I have a lot of issues with control because my family, wonderful though they are, are very manipulating and invasive and never instilled a sense of trust in me that I can make decisions for myself - so I don't trust my own decisions, even though, all in all, I've always ended up doing what was right for me). I was raised to be a "good girl" and to be obedient and let mommy and daddy make all the decisions for me (which I did too often because it was simply easier than to make those decisions on my own) and I've only begun in the last 10 years or so to really make decisions on my own and do what is best for me and set boundaries with my family. Food was the only avenue that I had for rebelling - it was like saying, "hey, you control every part of my life but you can't control what I eat." Of course, I was only harming myself in the end.

Sorry for the long discussion here! But the idea is that now I have some time where my workload is less and my expenses are less (because my parents are letting me stay in the in-law unit attached to their house without paying rent, though I pay everything else like utilities and such, for myself), so the stress level is going to also be less. So this is a good time to start focusing a little on myself and my health.

If you want to know more about my situation, I have my other journal called "Djuna's Journal", which I won't be writing in for the duration of this challenge.

I plan on journaling every day, including my daily menu and exercises.

[djunamod]

Yesterday went very well except that I didn't get any time to do some creative writing (something I'm trying to get myself back into).

Yesterday's menu:
Morning: Sweet potato (actually, I think it's a yam because I read somewhere there yams have the bright orange flesh) sauted with zucchini, celery, and grated carrot (grating the carrot really makes a difference), a little frozen peas, cilantro, chili powder, and paprika and 2 rice cakes with a bit of honey
Mid-Morning: 2 rice cakes with honey and 2 small tangerines
Afternoon: Mom's leftover food (McDougall-friendly): 1 stuffed pepper (stuffed with brown rice and veggies) and stir-fried vegetables and sweet potato noodles
Mid-Afternoon: 2 rice cakes with jam
Evening: Vegetable soup; sweet potato, cubed and mixed with 1 tsp maple syrup and then roasted in the toaster oven (this turned out tasty except that I put the sweet potato in the microwave to soften it a bit and I went too far, so the cubes feel apart); 1/2 cup high fiber organic cereal and 1 oz dried fruit (I know this is technically not recommended on McDougall but it did a great job of killing the chocolate cravings for me, which I'm having right now)
Herbal tea and water throughout the day
Exercise: 50 minute brisk walk in the morning
Excedrin Migraine pills: 3 (I want to log here how many pills I take for migraines so I can see how eating this way can help me reduce and hopefully eliminate the need for them - these are single pills, not doses, as a dose is 2 pills, but I always take them one at a time)

One issue that I've had in the past when doing McDougall was that I planned out menus including snacks that were well balanced and not a lot of calories but then played games with myself and missed snacks. So that led to a very low calorie intake which I know led to binge eating. I know that calorie counting and cutting calories to the extreme is not what McDougall is about. So now I'm trying to be more conscious about eating everything (or most everything) that I put on my menu. One thing that's helped is that I now prepare everything I have planned for my meal and put it in front of me because if I put it in front of me, I'll eat it! For example, rather than eat the potato hash in the morning first and then go and spread the rice cakes with honey and eat them, I got the potato hash ready and the rice cakes ready and just had them in front of me so I ate all of it.

It's funny to think I'm doing something that all the "experts" say you shouldn't do - that is, have food in front of you if you're inclined to eat what's in front of you. I was just noticing earlier this week that this is a pattern I picked up at home from my dad. My mom and dad had just finished eating when I came in and my mom offered to make me an omelet with fresh herbs and I agreed. When she served it, I could already see my dad eyeing it and then he said, "Give me a corner of the omelet" (this is how he's been about food all my life - he doesn't ask politely, he just assumes that he has a right to YOUR food. Before I put a stop to it, he would even have his fork in his hand before he said it and reach out to take what he wanted before he could get the words out). I flat out refused - not because I wanted the omelet (I ended up throwing part of it away anyway because it was too much) but because it infuriated me that he had just eaten a full breakfast and there was no reason for him to want to take from mine (actually, I think it goes way beyond the actual food - I think it's one of his ways to control the situation).

I also noticed it on our recent trip to Germany. My aunt and I are not big eaters at all and we usually leave food on our plates, sometimes quite a bit if the portions in the restaurants are huge. My mom has a tendency to clean her plate, mostly because she was raised to do so. My dad, of course, always cleans his plate. And then he starts edging his fork into my aunt's leftover food. He doesn't dare do it to me (because I put a stop to it years ago) but sometimes my mom will ask for a bite and I'll gladly give it to her (because she respects my space and asks nicely) and he'll take from there. But it just amazed me how, even when he had cleaned his plate of a big portion, he was still picking from everyone else's (and we're talking from EVERYTHING left over, from the main entre to the bread basket).

I guess I'm including this in my journal as a way to see what unhealthy food habits I've picked up. Examining them might lead me to see how I can break them.

One more thing to note. I went walking yesterday morning and noticed that my sinuses were stuffed up (not surprising, since I was eating quite a bit of dairy for the week prior and I know that getting back into dairy does this to me). So when I walked, I was breaking a little heavily. Because of the stuffed up sinuses, the sound was more wheezy, which made it seem like I was having a much harder time walking than I really was (the walk is brisk but not super intense). It was actually a bit embarrassing because I passed people by and some looked at me, probably thinking how this super fat woman was breaking so hard walking.

Today when I went walking, there was no stuffiness at all and my breathing was clear. This is what happened with ONE DAY of McDougalling - clearing up the mucus in my sinuses from a week's worth of dairy. Pretty amazing...

[veggiemamma56]

enjoyed reading your post here. very interesting about your father and his take on food! ( pun intended! )

that is wonderful that your sinuses are clearing up already! yay!

[djunamod]

Here's one thing I've noticed in the past 2 days. I notice that my appetite seems to be a bit high, especially in between my morning snack and lunch. I notice that an hour after I eat the snack, I am hungry again. This might be because I'm eating 2 rice cakes with jam or honey and a fruit. So I'm thinking that I need something more substantial on the rice cakes .

So tomorrow I'm going shopping and just added chickpeas to my list. I'll make some fat-free roasted red pepper hummus (have a new blender I've been wanting to try out anyway) and will have that on the rice cakes with some raw veggies and a fruit and see how that works for me.

One thing that's making me a bit nervous is that I'm trying not to think about calories. I have a big issue with that. When I log food into something like Fitday, I like to see low numbers (like 1250, 1280, etc.) and even then I start to play the "how low can I go?" game, reducing this or taking out that or replacing something with something lower in calories.

I'm trying to remember that McDougall is not about counting calories but about eating the right foods. So that means that even if I am hungry and feel like having more than what I originally planned for my menu, it's OK to do this, as long as the food is good foods.

[djunamod]

Yesterday went pretty well, though I am still finding myself quite hungry between meals even with the snacks that I've given myself. I'm not quite sure what's going on, as I don't every remember being this hungry on McDougall before. It might just be because PMS is going on. I am, though sticking with the plan and eating McDougall-friendly foods and despite the hunger, don't have cravings for junk food and chocolate and coffee, which is a huge plus.

Yesterday's menu:
Morning: oatmeal with a bit of rice milk, 2 tbsp raisins and cinnamon (not crazy about oatmeal, but not bad); 2 rice cakes with honey
Mid-Morning: 2 rice cakes with jam and 1 green apple
Afternoon: same as yesterday (mom's leftovers)
Mid-Afternoon: 2 rice cakes with jam
Evening: lentil soup (another mom leftover, also McDougall-friendly) and maple glazed sweet potato (but didn't microwave the potato enough so it was a bit "crunch" in some pieces); high fiber cereal and dried cherries
Lots of water and herbal tea without sugar or sweetners
Exercise: 50 minute brisk walk in the morning
Excedrine Migraine: 3 pills

Went shopping today with my mom and bought some spices and low-sodium gluten free veggie boullion and gluten free cereal. I really want to try and cut down/out the gluten and see how that affects my migraine issues. So far, no migraines, but then, I have been headachy and taking Excedrin Migraine

I will be facing some challenges already, though. My mom asked me if I wanted to go with her and my dad to Tel Aviv on Friday to the farmer's market. While I love the farmer's market, I really don't need any vegetables (since we just went shopping...) and the bigger issue is that I know my dad will want to go out for breakfast. Breakfast in Israel is much healthier than breakfast in America (rather than eggs, bacon, white toast, pancakes, etc., the typical restaurant Israeli breakfast is eggs, lots of mini salads like guacomole, tuna, etc., a big garden salad, bread that usually has whole grain options, jam, and coffee at the end). While I could probably find some vegan options, it would be very difficult to find McDougall options and I know I would be very tempted to just chuck it and eat whatever (including stuff like eggs and cheese). So, to be honest, I would rather avoid restaurants and family gatherings as much as possible for these upcoming months and go only when absolutely necessary. So I will probably forgo the trip this Friday.

But Saturday my aunt has a birthday and I have to go to the birthday lunch. Luckily, she's made a reservation at an Italian restaurant I know very well. They have a good pasta with marinara dish and a few other (non low-fat, though) vegan-friendly dishes and for dessert, I can order sorbet. There's a big big problem with Israeli restaurants that I've discovered in this past year - they will absolutely not make alterations for people on special diets. So if I go out to eat, I have to make sure the place already has a vegan-friendly option (which usually they do). If not, there is no way I can ask for adjustments. I've tried several times and have gotten rude responses from servers (one time, when I asked a server if she could give me a sandwich on the menu that sounded good without the egg in it, the only non-vegan thing, she looked at me as if I were an idiot and said, "Well, that's the whole point of the sandwich" and refused to do it), like I was offending the chef or something by asking for adjustments! One time, I asked for a pasta dish that had feta cheese in it to be served to me without feta and the chef came to our table and grilled me as to why I didn't want it, saying that nobody had ever "complained" about the food before (!!!)

Needless to say, Israel does not quite have the "customer is always right" mentality down . But you'd be surprised that they have gotten much better in the last 15 years since I lived her!

[carollynne]

Djuna, hello again, all the way from Pennsylvania! I enjoy your family stories, and wish you the best of luck at restaurants! I, too, get that response from many waitresses, and do not like it. I, thought hey isn't the customer always right/ But no always here either. Sometimes even though I ask about the cheese, or meat products in a menu item, the waitress is wrong!! I honestly do not enjoy eating out anymore. but still will do it for family reasons. Good luck on your migraines.

[djunamod]

I know I haven't written in a few days, but I am doing very well on the plan and enjoying it more and more. Today was actually filled with many "firsts" for me.

I developed the first migraine since recommitting to McDougall last night. It wasn't totally unexpected. I am at the height of PMS (I know this by other symptoms I have that usually come with PMS) which is always migraine time and I spent most of yesterday staring at the computer screen, as I decided to make all new email addresses (since reading the post about Yahoo mail in the Main Forum) and that meant notifying people and changing emails for all of my online accounts (and there are a lot of them! I still haven't finished that project ). Doing intense work on the computer for long periods of time has also known to trigger migraines for me.

But it was a very small migraine, much smaller than the typical one. I did take pills for it, but only one Excedrin Migraine (usually I would take 2 and maybe 2 more a few hours later if I saw it wasn't going away). It didn't go away when I went to bed. I woke up at about 2 a.m. and it was still there but still small. I took another pill. When I woke up this morning, it was still there but still very small. Since then, showering and taking one more pill has caused it to go away.

This is something I never would have dreamed could happen with diet. I knew that my migraines were not going to disappear overnight and that I would still have them at this stage of the plan. But I didn't anticipate that they would be much smaller (I could function and do things, unlike in the past, when all I could do was go sleep) and that much less OTC meds would make them go away. So this is a wonderful start.

Another first for me was about eating out. Weekends are a big time for my parents to love to eat out, especially my dad. He's in celebration and relaxation mode and that always means plenty of food. My parents had some errands to run in Tel Aviv today and of course planned on finishing off with lunch out. They invited me but I declined. Usually, I would love to go on these excursions, both to get out a bit but mainly for the restaurant. I wasn't even tempted to go with them and I didn't hesitate to say "no" as in the past so I'm proud of myself for that. I'm annoyed a bit that my dad tried to give me a guilt trip. He just looked at me with that crooked expression on his face and said, "you know, it's a real shame you don't want to come with us." It always works on my mom, who has a much more forgiving heart than I do. But it wasn't working with me!

Weekends are always very tough for me because they are real binge triggers. It used to be horrific when I lived alone in the States. I've identified the pattern, though. It starts by my feeling the relaxation of the weekend. Then I wander over to the TV guides online and see what old movies are on this weekend. Then, I find an excuse (usually, "oh, that film is on, I love that!") to say "I just want to relax this weekend with food" and I start planning what junk food I'll get. From there, I might go down to the supermarket (driving in Texas and walking in San Francisco) and pick up a bunch of stuff and then feel relaxed and happy for the rest of the day, completely liberated (like a drug, no?) Here in Israel, this pattern has reduced considerably, mainly because I now have my parents living right next to me and I've always avoided binging too much around them, since it leads to criticism and questions. But I have taken to stealing out in the mornings while they are out on errands to the market across the street and just buying some junk food and then having it at night in front of the movies. This is still a little bit of an improvement because in the States, I would binge the entire day, from muffins at breakfast to gourmet sandwiches or take-out pizza for lunch to junk food in the evening.

Today I didn't feel like popping over to the market even though my parents have been out for most of the day, which is a first.

Tomorrow, though, is going to be a challenge. My aunt has a birthday and invited us along with my cousin and his family out to lunch. Luckily, I know the restaurant we're going to very well and I was even able to look at the menu online. So I'm going to arm myself with knowing exactly what I want to order before we go and just ordering it without looking too much at the menu options. I'll also eat something (probably some rice cakes with the roasted red pepper hummus I made today) before we go so I won't be ravenous. I usually just let go when we eat out and don't even try to stay vegan but I'm not giving up this time!

Yesterday's menu:
Morning: sweet potato, red pepper, celery, shredded carrot, peas, cilantro, and oregano sauted in water; 2 rice cakes with honey
Mid-Morning: 2 rice cakes with hummus (one my mom made which was very bland), cucumber, cherry tomatoes; 2 tangerines
Afternoon: Mom's food (vegan and McDougall-friendly) - bulgur and roasted potatoes with roasemary; eggplant, peas and carrots
Mid-Afternoon: 2 rice cakes with jam
Evening: lentil soup (mom's) and potato roasted with spices (this was delicious! I never tried roasted potatoes without any fat, but it was great); gluten-free cereal (1/2 cup) and some dried cherries
Herbal tea and water
Exercise: 50 minute brisk walk in the morning
Excedrine migraine: 4 pills (because of the migraine last night )

Tomorrow is my weigh-in day. I haven't weighed myself in at least a month and, given my not-so-good eating before this week, as well as PMS bloat, I'm anticipating that either I stayed the same 174 (if I'm lucky...) or I gained (but hopefully not more than a few pounds). I'm also measuring myself so I have another gauge of my progress.

[djunamod]

Thank you so much for the encouragement veggiemamma. I've been amazed at how small health improvements have begun to pop up with even just a week of being back on plan. I've read in many places that health improvements begin quickly on a plan like this but I thought it was more for people who have serious health issues and, thankfully, I have been fine except for the migraines and weight issues. So I'm happy that the changes, though small, have come to me too .

Djuna

[djunamod]

Thanks, carollynne, and happy to see you again . I totally agree with you - I just don't enjoy eating out anymore either. I actually stopped enjoying it once I discovered veganism. When I live in the States, I actually very rarely go out to eat - usually only with my brother (who is just like my dad - all about the restaurants, baby!) and with friends. But I won't go out by myself. So this year has been a big challenge for me because my parents go out to eat a LOT. My mom can slave away in the kitchen all day making food (and she is not fond of cooking - it's the only type of housework she hates) and he'll say to her, "hey, let's go out for some steak."

Today is a perfect example. My mom spent most of the day in the kitchen yesterday, making side dishes and main dishes and soup, so there is plenty of food in the house - and all he could talk about this morning is how they're going out to lunch because they have errands to run. I'll admit I have no patience for him sometimes and I was not kind to him this morning. I said, "just because you're going out to do errands in Tel Aviv doesn't mean you have to eat out." His response was, "yeah, but it's an occasion to do so." I said back, "It's an excuse to do so!" and he just laughed (typical reaction - he never takes me seriously). I feel bad for my mom, since my mom does care about what she eats and cooks specifically so they won't go out, both for the health issues and also to save money, since their budget is very tight right now (both are retired). But my dad always seems to have money to go to restaurants (but when it comes to my mom's cleaning woman, which is extremely important to her, he argues with her and tries to cut corners...)

Sorry... didn't mean for this to turn into a vent!

Djuna

[djunamod]

Just wanted to note my weight and measurements, which I did for the first time in a month today. The news is not great:

Weight: 182.4 (so I'm up 6 pounds )
Bust: 46 (up 1 inch, not too bad)
Waist: 45 (up 2 inches, also not horrible)
Hips: 47 (up 1 inch, not too bad)

While I hate being back in the 180's, especially when I was on the low end of the 170's last month, it's not too surprising. If I take a hard hard look at what I've eaten in the last several weeks, I realize that I basically night binged on junk food (cookies, chocolate, white bread spread with Nutella) nearly every night for at least 2 weeks and possibly more. So it's no wonder that I gained 6 pounds. But I'm glad that the inches aren't horribly up (probably because I continued to exercise).

I'm not letting this get me down, though. I didn't weigh myself at the beginning of the week when I really restarted McDougall, so I have no way of knowing if I was really heavier and actually did lose weight this week (which I feel like I did). So I'm continuing to do what I've been doing and going by how I feel.

[djunamod]

I did pretty good yesterday at my first restaurant experience since starting this challenge. I ordered a green salad for the first course with dressing on the side and ate the salad with lemon juice from slices of lemon that my dad asked for with his cola, so that was McDougall-friendly. The main course wasn't so friendly, though. While it was totally vegan (pasta and egpplant in tomato sauce), there was a fair amount of oil in there. I ate about half the pasta and had the rest for dinner, though. Dessert was sorbet on a bad of fruit. The sorbet came with 3 balls - strawberry, mango, and coconut. Naturally, the coconut had fat in it (coconut milk, I imagine) so I gave it to my mom and had the other two with the fruit. Then I ordered herbal tea (though, in typical Israeli fashion, I was told very hurriedly that it was caffeine free but from the slight headache I got afterwards, I imagine it wasn't).

What was nice was not so much that I stayed vegan and partially on plan (hey, 2 out of 3 entres were McDougall-friendly - not bad) but that I didn't have the heavy feeling in my stomach after eating a dairy-heavy meal and the headache from the tea went away quickly with some rest whereas my usual dessert (latte with milk and chocolate dessert) would have given me a headache for the rest of the night which probably would have turned into a migraine this morning. So again, I'm seeing changes I didn't anticipate. I also didn't anticipate that I wouldn't have any temptation for the more fatty foods that others ordered and offered me (like deep-friend mushrooms stuffed with goat cheese and cheesecake). I really didn't feel deprived when I said no.

Yesterday's menu:
Morning: sweet potato sauted with spinach, red pepper, shredded carrot, peas, cilantro, and oregano; 2 rice cakes with honey
Before we went to the restaurant: 2 rice cakes with homemade roasted red pepper hummus and cucumbers (I think this also had a hand in helping me eat less of the entre and not be tempted by what everyone offered me)
Afternoon: Restaurant - salad with lemon juice, spaghetti with eggplant in marinara sauce, 2 balls fruit sorbet over fresh fruit, herbal tea
Evening: the rest of the pasta from the afternoon; high fiber cereal and dried cherries
Lots of water and some herbal tea
Exercise: 50 minute brisk walk in the morning

[djunamod]

I know I haven't posted in several days but I'm doing fine in terms of the plan, though not so fine in other areas.

The reason why I haven't posted is because of health issues related to TOM. Basically, I had 3 days of PMS-migraines going into TOM+cramps+migraines (lovely...) So I was not feeling the best. It's annoying to have to suffer migraines and cramps just because you're a woman!

But I feel good now and much less bloated and being on McDougall has definitely helped (along with cutting out coffee and chocolate). The migraines were less severe and went away with less OTC meds. I rate my migraines as "tolerable" "intolerable" (when the pain is more than tolerable but I can still function and do things if I have to) and "debilitating" (where I can't function at all because the pain is so severe and I'm attacked by nausea as well as the pain and all I can do lie down in a dark room and try to sleep and even that doesn't always help). Before going back on plan at the beginning of this month, the migraines would get to the debilitating stage very easily and remain that way sometimes for a full day or two. But since coming back on plan, the migraines have reached only the intolerable point and I've taken a lot less Excedrin Migraine to get rid of them. So this is a huge improvement for me. I'm hoping that eventually the migraines will cease all together or at least be very infrequent.

On Wednesday, my parents convinced me to take a trip with them to Masada, which is near the Dead Sea, right near the border of Jordan. The trip itself was pretty interesting, though my dad was at his usual egotistical self (he's been doing a lot of crap lately that has infuriated me which I'll write about here another time). We decided to pack breakfast with us rather than buy it out and stop at a rest stop along the way, since we had to start for the trip very early. So my mom and I wanted to stop at one crossroad where there was a cafe and a few other things and looked pretty quiet but my dad was adamant that we stop at the place he wanted to stop at (only because he had planned it from the beginning and when he plans something, heaven help you if you try and change those plans!) So my mom and I agreed and the place we went to ended up being packed with junior high school kids who came in big buses out on a school field trip. So we basically gulped down our sandwiches and didn't even stand in line for coffee/tea because the line was just too long.

Then, of course we can't go out anywhere with my dad without there being a big heavy lunch involved. So my mom wanted to go to a place nearer to Rishon (where we live) which we all know well and is pretty fairly priced and has good fresh foods and (for me) lots of good vegan options, especially bean soups, which you don't always find around here. But my dad again insisted that we go to another place on the way that was much nearer (probably because he was hungry...). It was one of these "gourmet" places which I hate, where the food is usually more puff than taste and very heavy and fatty. They usually only have one vegetarian dish and it isn't always even vegan and when you explain to them you have dietary limitations and want to make alterations, they look at you like you insulted the whole damn restaurant, from the hostess down to the sous chef!

Anyway, this place had one vegetarian dish (gnocchi with cream sauce) and one vegan dish (penne with sundried tomatoes, black olives, bell peppers, and an olive oil-based sauce). I took the penne, of course, which was pretty tasteless, avoiding the olives (though I have to say they didn't drown it in olive oil - they put enough but not too much). I had a salad to start with which again had enough dressing but not too much. I asked them about non-dairy desserts and the server said they had sorbet and "chocolate fingers". I ordered the chocolate fingers without even thinking about it. They were delicious but definitely not low fat! They also gave me a bit of a headache afterwards. I take full blame for that. So in future, when I order dessert at a restaurant, if I feel like dessert, I will ask right off what flavors of sorbet there are and will order that without even looking at the dessert menu (almost every restaurant in Israel has sorbet because they always have a non-dairy dessert ready since many Israelis, religious or not, will not eat a dairy dessert if they've eaten a meat-based dessert).

But other than that, I've done good with the plan in the last week or so and I'm very proud of myself for sticking to it. I've been feeling very good overall, but part of this is also because I'm not in stress mode right now. We'll see what happens when things pick up in a few months when I start teaching my classes again.

Yesterday's menu:
Morning: Sweet potato with brussel sprouts, red bell pepper, grated carrot, zucchini, parsley, peas, and Italian seasoning; 2 rice cakes with honey [must say that the brussels sprouts didn't work for me at all. I ended up throwing them away.]
Mid-Morning: 2 rice cakes with homemade roasted red pepper hummus, cucumber and cherry tomatoes and 1 pear
Afternoon: green beans, baby carrots, and corn with tomato paste and lime juice over a bed of brown rice
Evening: homemade split pea soup [I made this from the simple recipe given in the "Forks Over Knives" book - very tasty, except that I didn't add enough water so it was more like a pea stew than a pea soup! Gotta fix that...]; potato roasted with spices [too many spices, so I'm going to try cutting those down - I tasted more spice than potato!]; high fiber cereal and dried cranberries
Exercise: 50 minute brisk walk in the morning

I'm shaking up my menu a bit, mostly in the mornings. I feel like the sweet potato with veggies is a little too heavy for me in the mornings. I bought some oat bran (I just can't stomach the texture of oatmeal, but for some reason, I'm fine with oat bran), so we'll see how that works in the mornings.

[djunamod]

Weighed and measured today and here are the results of my first official weight loss week on the plan (last week wasn't official weight loss, as I didn't weigh myself before I started on the 5th, though that doesn't mean that I didn't lose weight last week too):

Weight: 180.4 (loss of 2 pounds - I am very happy about that, though it's a bit annoying to be 0.7 pounds away from the 170s )
Bust: loss of 1 inch
Waist: loss of 1 inch
Hips: loss of 1.5 inches

I am very happy with those results, especially the measurements, because that shows me that my daily exercise is helping me lose inches, which is ultimately much more important than the pounds I lose. I'm trying not to get too obsessed with the number on the scale. If I start to stall out or gain, then I'll be concerned and take a good look at what I'm eating, but overall, I am very pleased and feel that I'm doing well.

Today didn't start out so cheerfully, though. My dad informed me that another one of his childhood friends died. During my dad's time in Israel, it was highly possible and even probable to grow up in the same place and go to school with the same people and there was a group of (mostly men) that my dad grew up with, went to a kibbutz with, the army, etc. and he's kept in touch with them and once a year they have a huge get-together bar-b-que where everyone comes (Israel is a very small country, so it's not like in the States where people have to fly from all over to get there).

However, in the last 5 or so years, many of his group have been discovering fatal illnesses like cancer, strokes, and heart disease, and he said this morning that one of the group made a website in memory of the people who died and there are 10 on the list already. Most have died from health issues or health-related issues (one of his best friends last year basically shot his wife, who was going through the last stages of cancer and couldn't take it anymore, and then he killed himself).

Understand that these people are my dad's age (early 70's) - they should not be dying at this age!

Needless to say, my dad gets depressed every time he hears about one. I feel for him but, on the other hand, I have to hold back my rage at his hypocrisy. I want to scream at him, "well, if you don't want to be like them, take better care of yourself, damn it!" Instead, he will sit with his friends in a restaurant, lament about the poor souls that died while shoveling down steak and french fries and already eyeing the dessert menu. I wish I were more sympathetic.

In truth, though, my dad has been making some effort lately. He's told my mom not to buy any more dairy or meat in the house so they are eating a lot more grains and beans and veggies. That doesn't mean he's a vegan - not by a long shot. He still goes out to eat often (last week he went out to eat about 4 times!) and he always orders meat when he's out (and not some low-fat chicken dish, either - always red meat and usually something very fatty, like a steak or a schnitzel) I try not to say anything because I don't want to discourage him from what he's doing at home. I think anything that he does to reduce the amount of animal products he eats will be good for him. We'll see how long it lasts...

On the other hand, my mom has slightly annoyed me. She's decided she needs to "eat dairy for the calcium" because she's afraid of osteoporosis, which my grandmother had to the extreme before she died and which my mom is already showing symptoms of in a few discs in her back. So she went out this morning and is going to buy some cheese and milk and so forth. I've tried to explain to her what little I know about calcium in dairy from reading books like the China Study and Forks Over Knives (i.e., that the protein in dairy keeps most of the calcium from absorbing properly so it doesn't do much good, etc) but she won't buy it.

Overall, I'm seeing small changes and I'm happy about that (outside of the weight and measurements this morning). For example, I have some bracelets and a ring that I regularly wear. Usually, in the mornings after I go out for my walk, my arms and hands are a little swollen (from swinging my arms in the walking, I think) and so I have to wait a little while before I can wear them. This morning, I was able to put them on without a problem right after my shower. So I think I'm making progress .

Yesterday's menu:
Morning: oat bran with a dash of fresh squeezed tangerine juice and dried cranberries (I was going for an orange-cranberry flavor but it didn't quite turn out that way...); 2 rice cakes with honey
Mid-Morning: fat free salt free dehydrated chickpeas (this is a popular snack in Israel - wish they had them in the States!), 1 small guava (but the guava wasn't sweet, so I threw it away and had a big tangerine from our tree outside instead)
Afternoon: Mom's food: 1 pepper and 1 zucchini stuffed with vegetables and brown rice and some hummus with a small whole grain pita
Evening: veggie soup with a little whole grain rice noodles (mom's food); potato baked in the toaster oven (I'm finding that all of the spices I used to put on it was too much - just salt and pepper from now on); 2 slices whole grain pumpernickel bread with a bit of honey
herbal tea and water
Exercise: 50 minute brisk walk in the morning

[djunamod]

I have to say I am very discouraged today. I weighed and measured and the numbers are just not gelling with how I feel. The scale says I stayed the same and measurement numbers are showing that I added inches (in my waist, it's showing I added 1.5 inches!)

I just can't buy that because I've been good about staying on plan this week and I've exercised every day. I can really feel that my weight is going down, as my clothes are looser, I am walking better, and other stuff that is very minor, such as being able to wear a ring and bracelets after walking when before I would be too puffy after the walk to do so. So I don't know if I'm just kidding myself or the numbers are lying.

I do realize that there are some things I need to change. For a start, I don't think that making a daily veggie with marinade dish is working for me, as I've noticed that it's easy for me to get lazy and go to my mom's food (which is now all vegan but not fat free). So yesterday I had 2 beautiful small cauliflowers and I made curry with them to put over rice and I'll have that for the next several days. When that's done, I'll make some kind of Asian dish with some cabbage that I have left. After that, I'll probably move more towards SNAP-type meals, which are easy and tasty.

I'm also wondering whether having made a bean-based soup for the evening meal rather than a veggie-based soup made a difference. I made a split pea soup, a tasty soup, but I think I put too much veggie boullion in it and that added a lot of salt. So maybe part of the issue with my weight and measurements this week has to do with having eating that soup for most of the week and the salt adding to water retention.

I've been eating more gluten this week, in the form of oat bran and pumpernickel bread with honey in the evenings. The bread definitely has to go - not just because of the gluten but because I find I have a really hard time keeping away from it, especially since it's bakery bread and when my mom brings it fresh from the bakery, it's really tough not to grab a slice or two from the ends and just munch on it as is.

Also, I went and weighed one slice of bread on this great digital kitchen scale I have and discovered that the slice was over 2 oz! That means that I've actually been eating the equivalent of 4 slices of regular bread in the evening rather than 2 slices like I would normal packaged bread. So even though the dried fruit isn't the best choice on McDougall (even on the regular plan that I'm doing), it seems to be a much better option than that bread .

Also, I think that the oat bran isn't working for me in the mornings. I'm actually thinking that I will go gluten free completely this week and see what happens in terms of how I feel. Instead, I think that doing mashed potatoes in the morning (which I love), might be a good option. I've never had white potatoes first thing in the morning (I've only had sweet potatoes, but I don't like them as much because of the texture) but we'll see how that works for me.

Also, I've had a few evenings where I've eaten the roasted potato pieces (i.e., the baked and chopped potato) with ketchup, like french fries and I think overdid it on the ketchup. So I'm going back to putting spices on the potato and eating it that way without any condiments. I actually found a BBQ spice mix (no sugar in it) in my mom's cupboard so we'll try that and see how that works.

Overall, I am not giving up and I am not getting discouraged! I KNOW that I am doing well, changing bad habits into better ones, exercising almost daily, and feeling much lighter and physically better. So I know that this will pay off if I stick with it and move away from processed foods.

[djunamod]

Not to beat a dead horse here, but one interesting observation. I was looking through older posts in my other journal to see what I was eating last year that might point towards menu items that are more successful for me than others and noticed that I logged in several times my weight and measurements as I progressed. I noticed that when I logged in that I weighed 175, my measurements were very similar and even slightly higher than they are now. So I'm sticking with the idea that the numbers on the scale and even the numbers in the measurements don't always tell the truth...