Last fall I decided to STOP weighing, measuring, and tracking my food because it felt triggering to me. I have spent a LOT of time working on healing from my eating disorders (binge eating, compulsive eating, and food obsession) and felt I had succeeded for the most part, but all that attention and focus (obsession?) with tracking food seemed to trigger the food obsession for me again. When I was tracking, I was thinking about food ALL the time, or it felt that way to me. The emotions rising up around food felt unhealthy, so I decided I would not be counting calories at that time and give myself more time to heal my attitudes about food. But I think maybe it is time to try again. I don't feel any weird emotions welling up about food when I think about tracking now. I know I do not need nor want to count calories for the rest of my life. But maybe it has been long enough, and those internal "food voices" have been silent long enough, that they have left the building. I haven't heard them in ages. Either it will "work" as it did in the beginning of this blog, or it will resurrect the food obsession and I will stop. But I do have one more try in me, and am starting the tracking today. I don't have a calorie goal... well, maybe a super broad one of 1200 to 1600 calories a day to start (and see what the results are). I do have a carb goal of no more than 100 grams/day. That has worked well for me in the past. I feel unwell when I eat less than, say, 70g/day, so I will aim for 85ish but not go over 100.
Breakfast this morning was a minor change from the usual. Instead of scrambled eggs, cheese, sausage and hash browns in a tortilla, I had 2 eggs, 2 pieces of bacon, and some sweet potato hash browns with coffee and cream. I know one of my challenges has been going for convenience foods (like frozen breakfast sandwiches) but I can still pick some convenience items and make healthier choices. For example, I found some frozen, plain cubed sweet potatoes in the grocery store that I can quickly grab and prep for "hash browns" without having to peel and cube fresh sweet potatoes (which I will still do when I have time). I will be hitting the farmer's market, too, and start prepping the veggies and freezing them myself to use on busier days.
Almost one year ago, I started my biking journey, Fat Mom Across America but after biking 164 miles in a little over a month, I basically crashed with my eating (too much and too many carbs) and gave up on the biking. I think it was just too much with what I was trying to do: make it a true virtual trip where I looked online at the actual route I was riding each day and shared some photos of the "journey." That was fun because I got to "see the sights" as I rode, but it was too much work and time spent just on the looking and posting. There is *no way* I have time to do the "virtual ride" in that way now, but I do have time to bike and occasionally take a peek at where I am virtually on the map at My Virtual Mission to see how far I have come and where I am on my trip across the USA from coast to coast. By the way, this trip was inspired by Eric Hites, "Fat Guy Across America," who started an actual biking trip across the country in 2015 weighing 560 pounds. Out of curiosity I looked him up this morning, and although it has been over two years since he started, he hasn't finished his trip yet. He went home and took a break, I think about halfway through, and is going to start back up riding soon. I'll be watching his progress while pushing myself to finish this goal (I chose a longer, northern route of over 3,000 miles to make the start point (near my home) and end point (near where I grew up) meaningful to me, versus his shorter southern route). I will be updating My Virtual Mission page in real time, so you can check in and see my progress!
I feel very positive about making these changes and putting in the effort to lose weight for the final time. I downloaded the MyFitnessPal app on my phone to make calorie counting easier; one of the reasons it felt overwhelming to me before was that I only had MFP on my computer, so I was always running to the computer to enter whatever I was eating. I usually have my phone within easy reach so this will be much more convenient and take less time for me, plus I will have it at my fingertips when we are travelling to specialists, on the road, and even when we are in the hospital I have a good feeling about this. Let's get going!
Weight Loss
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