My Birthday and Weigh-In

This is a big week. Yesterday I turned 27, and today is my last day of work. Then on Tuesday I start the new job! I thought I would be sadder to leave, but while I will miss my boss and many of the people here, I am just so excited for the new position, and have been waiting so long to leave (over a year), that I'm not upset. This has been a long time coming.


I had another good weigh-in - down 1.4! That's 3 pounds for the month, and a total of 11.4 pounds in 12 weeks. I think the last time I lost a pound a week for three months was in college.


I was debating a lot how to deal, food-wise, with all these awesome things happening. My birthday was originally going to be a freebie, but then it happened to occur in conjunction with all these other events that were also going to be freebies - namely, the cake and then farewell happy hour for my last week of work. I had assumed they'd be a lot more spread out.

Also, I realized that I DON'T want to have a whole freebie week. I don't want to get on the scale and see that I erased the progress from the last couple of weeks. It doesn't seem worth it. Therefore, my goal for this week - for my birthday yesterday, for the end-of-work events, and for a relaxed movie/pizza/hangout we're going to have with some friends on Saturday as a birthday party - is just not to gain, and to do my best.

I was trying to figure out "What can I live with?" "Indulging but not going nuts?" I came up with w birthday meal instead of a birthday all-day-snackfest. Last night we went out to dinner, and I ate fettuccine Alfredo and creme brulee. It was beautiful. But I (mostly) stuck to the plan during the day.

That's my goal for the next week or so, leaving my old job and starting a new one. There's a lot of wonderful changes going on, but I'm going to try, at least, not to get too caught up in the eating part of it.

So bring on the cake and drinks, I (kind of) got this!

Some of the Best Recipes from Around the Web

I love to cook. Growing up, I learned how to bake at a young age and always volunteered to make dessert for holidays or any other events that called for them. But it was only in college that I actually learned how to cook.

It wasn’t always good: the first time I made chicken breast, I cut it into chunks, put the pieces onto a sheet pan sprayed with Pam, and stuck it into the oven at 350 for 20 minutes. When I checked on it, I was genuinely surprised to see that the pink flesh had turned white. Not knowing how to tell if it was done, I left the chicken in the oven for another 15 minutes. The results? Dry, pale chunks of flavorless protein. I didn’t care; I thought it was magical. It had been raw, and I cooked it.

Since then, I’ve come a long way. I’m still not an expert by any means, but I can follow a recipe and have a little intuition on flavors and improvising dishes. I’m always looking for new dishes, new ways to prepare staples like ground beef, chicken breast, or rice, and over this time I’ve built of a bit of a collection of truly great recipes from around the Internet. All are delicious, and most are quite easy and fairly healthy.

Part of why I like calorie-counting is that no food is off limits. If I really want something, I can fit it into my plan. Even the flourless chocolate cake has a place.

So here they are below, in some semblance of order. (I’m not affiliated with any of these website or their owners, I’ve just enjoyed their recipes.)

Soup

Black Bean Vegetable

• A little twist from blended soups - you blend half the beans with broth, and leave the other half unblended. It creates a nice texture.
• Changes: Add more of the spices, to taste

Classic Chicken and Dumplings

• This recipe makes a wonderfully comforting soup with a thick, mildly flavored broth. I altered it by using chicken breast and using some chicken broth, instead of the bone-in thighs the recipe calls for. I sauteed the carrots, onions, and celery in the oil, then added the broth and chicken breast, essentially poaching the breasts in the liquid.

• The dumplings for this recipe are especially good - one-bowl and easy to prepare, they puff up nicely in the soup. I recommend making them small for maximum flavor

Misc 

Easy and Unbelievable No-Knead Bread

• You know that perfect artisan-style bread - with the wonderfully browned, hard, crackly crust and the perfectly soft and fluffy inside? The kind that, when it comes to your table all steamy and warm, you can never resist? This recipe makes that bread. It’s about 7 hours from start to finish, but only requires about four minutes of actual hand-on work, and most of that is just measuring flour. No kneading involved, the long rising time does that job.

• This is what to make if you want to impress people, or just enjoy a seriously perfect loaf of bread.

Best Scrambled Eggs

• You might have seen this video - in it, Gordon Ramsay shows off his method of making scrambled eggs. I was skeptical because they looked undercooked, but they’re actually amazing - creamy and really rich, even though there’s only a pad of butter in the whole thing.

Entrees 

Balsamic Baked Tilapia 

• I use feta instead of the bleu cheese, and also often use less than the recipe calls for. You don’t miss it. 
• Balsamic is an underused ingredient. It is so good on basically every kind of meat and fish.

Ginger Chicken Stir-Fry

• This recipe is perfect, except you should add onions at the beginning. Quick, delicious, and healthy, a new way to prepare chicken breast.

• The site I linked above, Mel's Kitchen Cafe, is also just a kick-ass site. So many good recipes, I've made several of them and they all come out great. (See especially cookie bars below)

Bubble Up Enchilada Casserole

• This recipe sounds a little weird (baking cut-up refrigerator biscuits in sauce?) but is delicious and makes a huge, filling serving size

• I make it vegetarian by using soy crumbles, and usually cut down a bit on the cheese

One-Pot Chicken Lo Mein

• I shared this recipe a while back on this blog, and it’s worth mentioning again. If you’re willing to buy pre-cut veggies, it comes together in about five minutes

Italian Meatballs

• Great, easy-to-follow recipe that yields tender, delicious meatballs. 
• The secret ingredient is mint - you don’t taste it at all, but it adds this great extra flavor

Desserts

Ultimate Flourless Chocolate Cake 

• I made this for a work event, and people were raving over it.
• Bonus: It is incredibly easy to make and happens to be gluten-free, but is rich and chocolaty, and looks impressive. I pressed chopped almonds into the rim, which made it look extra fancy (it's a terrible photo; it actually looked pretty good

Big Soft Ginger Cookies

• The name is exactly what they are. Simply spiced, soft and chewy cookies. They sound basic but are surprisingly wonderful.

Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars

• I quite frankly can’t recommend these highly enough. Easy to make, you don’t even need a mixer, and they taste like perfect, chewy chocolate chip cookies, but without having to form individual cookies.
• Note: Be sure not to over bake them though.

The Best Brownies I’ve Ever Made

• Okay, they’re called “Brooke's Best Bombshell Brownie,” but they are the best. These are the brownies that you’re looking for - with the crackly, shiny top, gooey inside, and rich chocolately taste throughout. And easy, too! I made these as part of the Mother's Day meal we put together, and my mom loved them and thought we'd gone to a bakery.

• The only change is to replace half the white sugar with brown

I’m always looking for new recipes, so feel free email or comment with your favorites!

Eat the Damn Donut

There are plenty of food-based activities at my company. We use it to welcome people, to say goodbye, to celebrate Friday, to mourn Monday, to discuss important celebrity issues over lunch, or just because. Employees occasionally leave treats in the kitchen for people to share, and the firm sporadically buys bagels and lox for all. These events are a good way to bond and get to know people outside of the office setting in which I usually see them. However, inevitably, there is always, always, at least one comment like these when it comes to the actual eating:

While taking a bagel: Haha, I should not be eating these, but they look so good!

While enjoying some fries: This is why I have salad for lunch!

Eating a cookie: I think this is okay, I had such a great workout this morning, right?

On taking a second cookie: Ugh, why am I doing this! This is like my second cookie, someone take them away! I’m getting fat!

On appearing dazed and with blood on their clothing: So I was just… at the library.

Don’t get me wrong, I adore my co-workers and I’m lucky to work with such great people. This is a larger criticism of our reflexive belief that we need to either justify or condemn ourselves for any bit of unhealthy food. This isn’t limited to my co-workers, but to everyone who thinks they need to explain the donut in their hand. I’ve heard customers justify their coffee or pastry orders to Starbucks cashiers, who truly do not give a shit. Skinny, slim, average, and overweight alike, most of us have done it.

I used to be much more sensitive about what I was eating in public. Perhaps struggling with my weight made it worse. Getting some French fries? I hoped they didn’t think I was just another fatty gorging on fries. Ordering a salad with grilled chicken, dressing on the side? I hoped they didn’t think I was just another fatty on a diet that would never work. Check a fake text at Potbelly’s when buying a sandwich AND a cookie to make sure that I’m getting the correct type of cookie for my “friend”? Been there.

Then I finally realized that if someone is judging me for what I'm eating, then quite simply, they are the ones with the problem. And if I am judging someone for what they're eating, then I have a problem. Unless they stole my lunch from the fridge, the food choices made by a fellow adult are none of my damn business. So when people laugh about how they can’t believe how many pieces they’ve eaten of the fancy French chocolate that someone bought while in Europe, and how they need to stop, I just shut up. Even if they probably shouldn’t be eating that third donut, it’s between them and the donut.

I think part of why we assume others are judging our food choices - hence the need to justify or condemn them - is because we’re doing it to ourselves first. It ties into the larger problem that so many of us have, which is feeling guilty about our food choices. I’ve ranted about this before, about how feeling guilty over something I ate is just an utter waste of time, serves no purpose, and is often used as an excuse for inaction or to continue eating. It’s not going to change anything and I didn’t actually hurt anybody, so I need to move on and forgive myself for my mistakes.

Wisdom.

That’s part of why I started a blog. How many people want to hear my debates over 1300 net calories vs. 1100 net calories, or about how I’m deciding whether or not to count vegetables in my daily totals? I write here so that anybody who is interested can read, and anybody who’s not isn’t forced to listen to me describe the controlled experiments I conduct on my heart rate monitor. Similarly, nobody wants to hear about why their co-worker is or is not eating something.

We feel like we need to justify all these things, forgetting that nobody cares that much, and it’s none of their business anyway.

Leah's Proposed Alternative Eating Commentary:

- "This is/that looks delicious.”

- "In my studies on the planet Thorcrondeux 92, I learned that humans get energy by putting particular substances into their unattractive face gaps and I feel that I am fitting right in. Shall we talk about the lack of water falling from the sky, or the current temperature?"

Weekly Weigh-In - Back to Regularly Scheduled Programming

I was not looking forward to this week’s weigh-in. As much as I’d tried, and though it would have been much worse had I not been trying at all, I did eat too much over the last week-and-a-half. But I know that, just like if I eat something and then don’t count it anywhere, I’m only hurting myself..

When I decided not to take the scale during our trip, it meant I would be skipping a weigh-in, but I couldn’t justify lugging it around with absurd airline limits. Thus during this vacation, I haven’t had an idea of how well or badly I was eating. I was trying to make reasonable decisions and track when possible, but also knew I was indulging. So when I finally weighed in, I had that mindset of anticipating the worst while also secretly hoping for the best.

So here are the numbers, added at the right-most column:

Measurements	3/10/2014	3/19/2014	3/26/2014	4/2/2014	4/9/2014	4/23/2014
Weight	187.4	187.4	187.6	187.2	186.2	188.1
Pounds Fat			79.61	78.186	76.6	79.5
Pounds Muscle			67.26	67.2588	65.4	67.4

Weird numbers again, but they fit with the overall trend more than the last set did. Fat pounds are way up, and still up even for three weeks ago. Since I know I didn’t literally gain 3 pounds of fat in a couple of week as that would have required ten thousand or so extra calories, (I didn’t stray that far,) I’m hoping it goes back down just as quickly. Muscle mass is the same, which is good considering how little I’ve exercised in the last couple of weeks.

 

J and I spent the first half of the holiday at my parent's in New York, and the rest of the holiday in Michigan with my mother-in-law and her husband. It was really nice, especially since we don’t see them often. J’s mother also has a beautiful, huge kitchen I can only dream about. 

They have two dogs and a cat, so J and I had fun taking the dogs out for a few walks in the sunshine. It’s a fun and novel activity for me since I’ve never owned a dog. Of course, walking with a dog is kind of like walking with a toddler – lots of stopping to lick things, and maybe to poop. Besides these walks, which were lengthy but not particularly strenuous, I only ended up working out hard once during the holiday.

Waiting, hoping to be walked.

 

There have been positive eating moments this week, despite the indulgences. I turned down seconds or treats many times, and also think I ate with a lot of awareness – even when overeating. This is progress, as I used to sneak things and then lie to even myself about what I was doing, or that it was a good idea.

We flew home yesterday morning on the red-eye, and I headed to work straight from the airport. I had valiant intentions to go to the gym after work, but the idea of going to the gym on zero sleep, after going to work on zero sleep, seemed like a ridiculous idea. We will be going tonight.

 

Finally, I want to officially commit now to posting my weight here every week. That is my promise to myself, and to the Internet: I will always post my weight, not pretend the scale doesn’t exist, or that I was too busy, or to pretend that a gain didn’t happen. It’s a pet peeve of mine when bloggers whose focus is weight loss have sudden and complete radio silence about their weights, even though they continue to allude to their weight, post consistently about other topics and answer non-weight-related questions in the comment section.

Overall, I am overly happy to be back to normal, back into a routine of work, gym, and food tracking, where I know I do much better. This holiday/vacation ended up being kind of sucky timing – it started just when I was finally making real progress with weight and numbers, but before I got better at resisting in treat-filled environments. Oh well, I’m going to keep going this week, and hope the next few months of awesome and boring life will lead to some real weight loss. And whether I log 20 fewer pounds or 30 more pounds, I’ll keep putting it up.

My Biggest Secret

My biggest secret is that I weigh too much. It’s not really a secret, of course – anyone who sees me would be aware of it. But the reasons behind my weight are certainly more personal, like my struggles with food, self-esteem, stress, and depression.

I’m wearing a cellulite sign around my neck that everyone can read: “I probably eat too much, and there might also be deeper psychological issues here.” And I really forget that it's there.

Not fair, right? My weight, and any issues I have that may have to do with it, are my own personal business, to be shared only with close friends and strangers on the Internet as I choose to reveal them. Not to be immediately obvious to anyone who sees me.

It's like how you're mildly surprised when you hear yourself on a recording. Not because you sound bad or because it's so interesting, but because the voice coming out of the machine seems so foreign compared to what you hear when speaking. And then you realize, so that's how I sound to other people all the time?

It's the same way with my body. Like most people, I forget about how I look. This isn’t an issue, because I would not want to be focusing on my weight or appearance. Nobody should constantly be reminded of their appearance, good or bad. I feel bad for very tall people who hear, "Wow, you sure are tall!" all the time.

So I forget how I look. But then something happens, like I see a photo of myself, or someone asks me if I'm going to the gym because I want to lose weight, and I think, is that what I look like? All the time? To everyone? I'm reminded that nobody has forgotten my biggest secret. Hopefully they're not focusing on it, just like I'm not focusing on how other people look. But it's still out there.

Still though, it sucks sometimes. The people who've seen me periodically over the years know that I lost a lot of weight, and then gained a lot of it back. They don't know why, but it's clear that it happened. I sometimes wonder how much nicer it would be if being overweight could be a thing that I choose to mention or not mention to someone, like other personal details.

Mmm, so you like to hydrate by bathing.

Anyone else feel this way?