"Conscious Calorie Counting" ----- THAT is the number one thing that has helped lose weight. I do want to have a place where I can work out my thoughts and feelings and worries about grief, losing people, living life, how early childhood and family have shaped the way we think and feel about food and ourselves etc

In the year I have been a member of cc, so many things, good and bad, have happened. I have lost 3 people to death. I've been profoundly depressed and managed to find my way back from that. My mom thinks she may not be able to stay married to my (awesome) stepdad because in his grief over losing his daughter, he has pulled far away and pushed hard. We bought our first house. I had an incredibly rewarding 5 weeks of teaching middle school summer academy which reminded why I became a teacher in the first place and why I should appreciate my high schoolers. In short, cc along with life has made me feel introspective.

I was always a fat kid who loathed exercise even in the form of fun and who loved food like it was a person. Maybe even like a best friend or lover type person as food is always there to comfort you, never judges, and never says no. Food was a reward.

All that has changed. I jog almost every day. I eat right and drink water. I care how I look, how I feel, and how healthy I will be in the years to come. I stopped smoking. I try to help other people get fit and teach others about easy nutrition. For me, it was a total eye opener to consciously calculate the actual MATH of food and intake and exercise output, how the science of losing weight did not click for me until I found cc. NOW I GET IT.

I'd like this post to be a supportive group of ladies talking about how calorie counting and our lives, past, present, and future, has affected and is affecting how we make our journeys happen.

Join Me?

It's funny and enlightening to me to see all the different viewpoints on these issues.   My family was always eat what you get, no complaining, clean your plate, rarely snacking.  

My mom did try to cook healthy, but with three kids, cheaper is mostly what we ended up with, Hamburger Helper, frozen everything from burritos, chicken nuggets, fish sticks, pizza bites, etc, chips and sandwishes or ramen or hot dogs.  

It was an eye opener to me to realize I did much better at not overeating when I spaced my meals out through the day, EGAD -- had a morning snack and a something small to tide me over until dinner with the bf.   what an idea!

I love to cook for others too ---- luckily my J grew up in a (very) fat household and he is trying to change too.   I have no desire to still be trying to "get fit" at his parents age.  PERIOD    

I have said this before -- I have always known that my weight issues were my issues, but I would eat that big bowl of ice cream and tell myself that I needed it because things had been so awful that day (yep another emotional eater).

As I have started to use CC I have found that I am accountable to my calorie budget and I now muse - is that ice cream really worth it and having to THINK about putting this into my calorie budget - stops me for a split second and I rethink WHY am I eating this and not just the WHAT am I eating...

I also have more structure in my eating life and this has resulted in more structure in my overall life. I also have started to put my needs on a higher priority than I have before. I make sure that I eat better food. I insist on going to restaurants where I know there is food that I can eat.  I anticipate things better - I always carry two litres of water to work every day. I drink them too!

I am on less of sugar induced highs...

Take care.

AMEN for the awesomeness of realizing that food is fuel and not a friend.  ( : 

I too am recognizing more the WHY of eating vs. the WHAT.  I always knew what I ate was bad, I just wanted it to make me feel better in some perverse way.   Did it ever fill the hole?  Nope, did it make me feel bad and leave me wanting more?  yep.   crazy how our mids work, huh? 

Good for you, cawilder ---   take that water and drink it  (me too -- secret weapon, water!)   kudos for saying I want something healthy to eat, so let;s go here.  I need to do better at that.... 

Sugar is my bane as well ------   fruit is so good.  how did I substitute Little Debbie and think that was good enough???? 

(  :   yay for changing!     ( :

cawlider,

My mom made sure I knew from a very early age that ice cream is bad, that chocolate is bad, that fried food is bad. I may not have known the caloriec price tag but I always knew it was bad and I always went for it in secret in large amounts anyway.

I think the first time I actually got that "bad" things have a price tag that can be worked into a budget I was 21ish. Before that I would count calories but even then there were things that were to astronomical to count like burgers and pizza and chocolate cake.

Only about 6 months ago when I moved out did I try to councesly remove from my vocabulary the semantics of bad food. I mean I love choclate and pizza and french fries. I also love salads and omletes and bread with cottage cheese and baked potoes and chicken meat balls in tomato sauce (now I am hungry) :)

I tried to have all the decadent stuff around. I had a brownie cake, 1 kilo of ice cream in the freezer, a bar of bitter chocolate all the things my mother never buys and whenever it found itself in our house I would find myself eating a whoel kilo of ice cream or the whole cake. Anyway I found that for 3 monthes I maintained really nicely.

Then stuff got crazy at work and I found myself regressing to my old patterns of going out of my way to buy junk food and then eat it all in one sitting.

My goal is to have food as a friend and not as a family member that constantly shakes you and guilts you and shames you.

I dont think food will ever be just fuel for me. I do hope it will be a positive influence and not a destructive one.

 

 

 

Ok I know I am rambling but you have to help me out with a dilemma.

Yesterday I ordered a big order from the supermarket over the internet (water bottles and cleaning products yada yada) I saw they had serving size packages of ben and gerries so I ordered 2 choclate ones.

Small mistake they brought 2 reg size ones at the same cost.

Now the reason I order serving size ones is that I can't easily eat 0.5 kg of ice cream. This way if I end up eating that much I would actually have to go to the freezer like 5 times and face that decision each time.

Now I dont want to treat food like the enemy so I wont throw out 2 Ben and Jerries packages out...

What to do?

Tupperwares. Dish it into serving sizes and refreeze it in lots of little containers. I'm not sure I could resist having more than one anyway, but at least it wouldn't be 5 at once.

I agree with malaika!!!!!     (good idea)

YUM to ben and jerry's, but no way could I just have 1.2 cup scoop and be done if it was easy....... 

sorry, T -- didn;t mean to preach......   I see your side of things too.....    I liked your analogy with food very much.   It;s funny how people's pasts not only haunt them but the people around them too.....    Have you ever asked your mom or talked with her about food and her feelings about "bad" and where they originated? 

I ask only because.......  my mom never did that.   she also never told me "you are fat/chubby/lazy.  get out there and do something besides read!"  which I guess is good, but on the other hand.....   My mom is the oldest girl in her family -- she has one big brother, 2 younger siblings.   Her mom expected her to do EVERYTHING related to housework, childcare, etc BUT it was NEVER good enough, EVER.   Her mom called her "the fat, lazy, worthless one" to her face, in front of other people, family, friends, etc.   SUffice it to say, verbally and physically abusive.    AND her mom was a Southern cook, born and bred, meaning lots of food, fried and butter and bread and you ate it,  no matter what.  

SO ---  my mom, I guess, did a 180 from all that and was always positive and encouraging.   I do see now that she did try to ask me nicely to go play or ask me nicely if I was sure I wanted more........    BUT   I never got the message.      I really need to have that heart to heart and ask her about her mom and he food feelings.   Could be good for both of us.........  

Here;s to being as great as my mom and going one step better!!!!!  

Great thoughts. I wonder about this stuff a lot too.

I think I have a basic disposition that tends to get me in trouble with food. I'm always aware of the food in the house. I always have been. My chubby dad was the same way. I always identified more with my dad than my thin as a rail mom.  I don't remember her really being all that into food while the family was always aware of Daddy's food passions. (The man put more jelly on a piece of bread than anyone I've ever seen!) Mom was/is a wonderful cook and baker and she obviously did it as sort of a gift to my dad. Of the five children, I was the only one that wasn't thin and athletic. I was also the only one that didn't have brown eyes. I look at them both as genetic traits.

Since we were fairly poor (although I didn't know it), celebrations were about the food. We never had soda pop in the house but once a month or so (payday?) we'd go to the nearby gas station and each get a bottle of pop on a Saturday night. That was big stuff! Of course holidays were always about the food.

Nearly everything we ate was made from scratch (including the clothes!) and the quick meal fall back was the ham that was always in the fridge. My parents both worked and my dad would start peeling potatoes as soon as he walked in the house after work. The only time we didn't have potatoes was when we had spaghetti. I guess you wouldn't call it light and healthy fare but it wasn't a bunch of deep fried stuff either. Obviously four of five kids did very well on it. I think with my tendencies, had I been brought up in a different kind of household -- with fast food in abundance, I would have been much bigger.

My hope is that as I'm getting into my 50's, my awareness of food can be used to my advantage. I've always battled the food demons, whether successfully or not, so middle age spread shouldn't sneak up on me. I have no doubt that if I stop 'trying', I'll be very overweight in no time at all.

""I have no doubt that if I stop 'trying'""

Imagine my George Bush voice, Chris...  Not gonna happen...."

PLEASE, girl!!  you know what it takes and you are doing it. 

Here's to being aware and creating a different destiny!    : D


--We, on the other hand, almost always had soda in the house and not diet either.....    I loved it.   I hate it now, almost always....   I  think we will have once a month soda Saturdays at my house too, if kids ever happen....  how about more like nightly cooking together and  exercising in fun ways together???? 

My goodness, you do a really great George Bush immitation, Olivia! lol!

When you institute the regular exercise with any possible kids, just be sure it's stuff they like too. My ex and I took our kids out hiking regularly. My daughter, now 21, considered it being dragged along hiking and now wants nothing to do with it or the outdoors generally! She would have loved dancing (not me!) so I really regret not getting her into a class.

I'm looking forward to the day when I can use all this hind sight on some grandchildren! (not too soon, though!)

GOOD CALL< chris!   I agree --  I was tortured in various ways myself as a kid.  ( :  

I guess I meant I want to teach any kids to appreciate their health and fitness and not lose them.   I do not care if you roller blade while I run, you know? 

I wish very much that my mom had instilled eating right and exercising in me.   Or that I had listened, had she tried? 

Here's a mind game thing that really bothers me:

Last fall I finally broke through to a weight within a couple of pounds of my goal. For me, breaking 130 is a biggie. I actually bought a pair of jeans that were just a tad snug for my taste --something I NEVER do-- because I was so confident I would lose the last four pounds. I remember how I felt, successful and sure of myself.

Almost immediately, I turned things around and screwed it up. The holidays were in there but I really think it had a lot more to do with my head. I know I did the same thing in my early 30's. I've had enough of this self defeating stuff! Do you think I have to understand why I do this or is it enough to just not act that way anymore???

 

depends how you best handle things.....

WHY do you do that?  (I do too......)   I have lost and gained hundreds of pounds in my lifetime, and I am only 31.... 

NOW, this time, with my friends and tools behind me, I KNOW this is the last time I will have to "get fit."  I will be living the rest of my life in a way that I can maintain my eventual goal and be happy about it.  

That;s what it is for me.....   I will exercise every day or close to it forever.  Ditto drinking water and tea, not soda and sugar.  Same for keeping track of what goes in my mouth because I understand the science behind this enigma of my body.   I will be annoying forever, trying to get people hooked on cc and what it can do for the,.  

: D   not such a bad forever..... 

This is a pretty cool discussion! I'm liking what I'm reading, the sharing, the questions. I especially like "why do I do it?"

I grew up with great parents, really, they loved us all and wanted to be good parents. My mother was a l-i-t-t-l-e controlling about food. She was an excellent cook, but spent a lot of time cursing in the kitchen. She was passionate about nutrition, and strictly regulated all the soda, candy, desserts we ate. Our family of six always ate dinner (and sometimes breakfast) together. There were a lot of rituals surrounding eating, and there were regular birthday and holiday dinners.

As a kid (oldest of 4), I loved Friday nights when we could actually have TV dinners! and Sprite (a soda). So funny!

As a mother, I have not given as much care to raising my kids to eat healthy. I gained the weight a few years before my divorce, and I just didn't give a hoot what I ate. Impulse candy, cookies, cake. Once ate a full bag of Christmas Reece's Miniature peanut butter cups. For a year we had Little Debbie and some of her friends in the house all the time. One of my kids finally said, Mom, don't buy that stuff. It's junk and it's expensive. (I do not lie! 12 years old.)

All three of them are normal weight at the low end of the scale. They are careful about alcohol and food. I tried to raise them to use their own judgment and live with the consequences.

It's taken me 20 years of morbid obesity to finally say, this stuff is ruining my health and my life! To look at myself honestly and say: my extra 100 pounds is my biggest health concern. I feel so fortunate to have found CC+. And you are all right! Community is what makes this website special. Community and a real commitment on the part of the pain and volunteer staff to stick to the truth as we know it. No weird fads and strange diets.

Since I started (in May), I have tried to keep my focus on this one priority. It takes time to log meals for 7 days in advance. It takes time and trouble to enter recipes and measure servings. But I have never felt so empowered over this mysterious huge weight I carry.

I have injured myself exercising, gotten gall bladder trouble, started a new rash on my face (stress?) and gained back 4 lbs I had lost in a week. It's been rough. I get mad and sad and sometimes even scared. Annoyed, irritated...but when I spend a holiday, and get some cake, but don't overdo it--then it's all worth it. It's good to hear the real success stories who have been working a year or more and getting good solid results.

Why do I do things that are bad for me? Because I'm trying to find an "easier softer way" out of my troubles, a loophole, a quick fix, a cheat code. I am in denial about the real issue(s) and want to keep living in the dark. I'm having this ongoing "coming out" party--my real body is coming out of this fake fat suit! My real happiness is coming out of this weary, limping old person. I already walk with more spring in my step.

Keep it going!

hi earth mom  ( :

I read some of this on another post you made in response to some very deep questions....  can't remember the name...

I agree with you on so many points.    I am moving past the what I ate phase into the why......and answering that same question on fitness and mental levels too.....   ( ;

thanks for sharing!  bring on the measuring and being accountable.   once we can eyeball everything (in our heads even!!) and make it work, it is worth it to be able to physically be able to do it all and be happy! 

Earthmom, I really admire you resolve despite the problems. I think that's really key...brush off the dust and get right back to it. These are our lives, darn it, how do we really want to spend them? It's worth the effort.

Olivia, sorry I sort of got a conversation going and then disappeared. I didn't realize it was time to go home! I have a lab job so I often have times between steps to catch up on cc.

You are right that more activity would help...I'm just not sure how to do it in a sustainable way. For awhile I was getting up at 5 to go to the gym where an elliptical was my favorite. I just got too exhausted. (I'm in awe of you!) I couldn't get the family (esp. DH) on the same schedule.

I've never been much of a runner and bad knees run in the family. I don't think at almost 50 is the time to get serious about it. There is a pool where I work and I've been thinking about it. Just before my first husband left, I'd started going regularly with him -- sort of a last ditch effort at 'togetherness'-- and I was really seeing results. Then I realized the b___d was having an affair so that was the end of swimming and the marriage. I've sort of associated swimming with that ever since. I think I might be ready to let that go.

Right now I've got so much work to do around the house that I'm limited on free time too. (I know...excuses, excuses!) I've pretty much given up lounging around in the evening watching the tube. I think that will help a lot if I just stop rewarding myself for working with food and beer.

no worries, chris --  on your home page at facebook, btw, you should be able to type my name and where I live (see profile) and find me no problem.   ( :   there is a "friends" search bar on the elft of the page. 

TRY the swimming.   it cannot hurt.  if you do not feel good imagining the ex butthole eating your dust, err, wake, or him seeing you in all your buffness from swimming (or whatever), don;t go back.  if you like it, do!    I have a fitness ball I love!!  and any kind of handweights or resistance bands or just your plian old body can be a workout.     ( ; 

(that sounds really bossy, but you know what I mean!!!!)

EDITED TO ADD:  a new tip.....   since finally starting my real vacation from school i.e. time off., I decided to eat as consciously as I am trying to count calories.   I take my time and chew every piece, savoring.  It's made me slow down and enjoy it more, resulting in mot being hungry sooner/more.......    that's a Paul McKenna trick..... I miss his show.... 

Well, heck. It said it didn't have anything for me. I think it's only looking with in my 'network of friends'. :\  Maybe there's something wrong in my setup?

Ug, guess I'll go paint a window and burn some cals!

as there are many chris' (in PA??), I could not locate you either, but if you click the search box on the left it should allow you to search for me by name and location.

keep trying or pm your facebook info and I will add you

My mom always tried to get me to eat health- we had snacks, but everything had good nutritional value and in moderation... she came from Italy where that is standard... I was normal until about 2nd grade then my hormones went crazy... had a little pre period spotting (yeah, scary) but then it went away, but in that time, I grew taller than my classmates (not tall anymore) and starting developing... kids made fun of me for being "big" and for eating "weird" things... think My Big Fat Greek Wedding... I started sneaking foods we weren't allowed to have or foods that my mom would store for when we had guests... I guess I wanted to be like the other kids... but I was eating that stuff plus what my mom made... and there became the binging in secret... when we would go to Italy I would eat everything I wanted, but since everything grew on a tree or in a garden and we walked everywhere, I would lose weight like crazy... but then I would come back and go out with friends to fast food joints- weight would come back and then, self sabatoge... "I'll eat this, doesn't matter anyways..." you know..

I'm trying to get away from the self sabotage- that is my biggest problem....

well enough about me.........