Easter Dinner

I ate Easter dinner over at my parents' house, like we usually spend every holiday. That is, a single meal, prepared without much enthusiasm. But, it's a chance to spend time with my mother, which I will always take.

As we ate, and breaking the Lent fast meant I ate about 5 times my daily recommended amount of sugar today, all I could think was I wanted to eat my food. I really just wanted to go back to the food I've been eating for the last 49 days. And, I felt disappointed that the sugary food wasn't better. I wish I hadn't taken a bite out of the small chocolate bunny because then I could give it away. The Cadbury creme egg wasn't nearly as good as I thought it would be. The fried bananas (mad by me) and the wine was pretty good. The rootbeer float was nice, but even that was making me feel kind of ill by the end of it. I only had a bite of someone else's pie. I didn't want seconds of the sweets. I felt sick. I wanted my food. I wanted some fresh squeezed orange juice and some eggs on whole wheat toast or chicken with lots of spinach. I wanted an apple with greek yogurt.

I feel kind of bad, because I...think...my parents tried to prepare a good meal. I'm also a bit resentful that I wasn't included in the preparation plans. I'm a pretty awesome cook. They're...notsomuch.

Especially with my mom's stomach problems, she can hardly eat anything at all and her stomach is still swollen after all this time and the doctors don't know and don't care and she's tired of getting poked only to be told "we don't know." (and sometimes I wonder if it's psychosomatic, and sometimew I wonder if she's dying and sometimes I just suffer when I think of how she suffers)

I love Easter. It is undoubtedly my favorite day, but I feel disillusioned about the food. I thought it would taste better. I thought it would be worth how ick I'd feel. It wasn't.

It really really wasn't.

My Garden Started, as Promised

So, here's my garden. Give it some time; it's not much right now, just a few tiny plants and some colored sticks. But, on the left you can see the tomato plant that survived the winter indoors. I hope that it's strong enough to deal with the

outside, but I feel like the indoor stuff is starting to get kind of spindley. I used a pesticide on them this morning because I came out to discover that two (three?) of my seedlings had been devoured last night. Not cool. I'm not sure what it is but I will check to see if it hurts bees before I use it once the plants start flowering. I buy (very) local honey anyway, so if it's a dangerous pesticide I might be eating it anyway. I'm fairly happy with how it's coming along. The weather on Monday is supposed to get down to 32, but I think that only the endive might have a hard time with that. I've also ground planted some, so we'll see how that goes. I look forward to what this garden is going to do, and to adding in some cucumber and a zucchini plant, maybe a few carrots, and my herbs later this spring.

Today is, for all intents and purposes, absolutely beautiful. I haven't seen a day this beautiful in quite a while. The weather is in the low 60s, the sky is clear. It was lovely and foggy and cool this morning. It's perfect. It's so perfect I'm ignoring the headache I've had all day (migraine? Allergies? Someone shared a sinus infection?).

Went shopping. Still trying to figure out how I can get eggs that are natural, fresh, and cheap. Still trying to keep my budget to $60 a week. Though, after consideration, it might be good to try for $55 or even $50. I know of a family of 6 (7?) that's trying to feed themselves for $400. I spend over $200 for one person. >.< And, they're trying to eat veggies and stuff. Wow. This is where time-sharing (that might not be the right term) and bartering come in (which is totally something I want to do, but I don't know how to get into it).

Woke up at 8:30am again this morning, so that's great because maybe the melatonin is starting to work its magic and reset my body clock to something reasonable.

My Garden

My garden is pretty much planted. Hopefully I will get around to taking some pictures and posting them tomorrow. There are a few things (basil, carrots, cucumber, zucchini) that I'm waiting to plant until after the risk of frost, but everything else is in the ground, either as seeds or small plants. I'm trying to do that staggering thing. Hopefully it will work and the critters will not eat my food!

I spent a couple hours on the wheel today and so now my arms and upper back ache. Tried to throw a 4 pound vase at the end and couldn't even center it to begin with so I just rewedged it. I figure that can be my work out because I've got a migraine. I'm not sure if the migraine is from being hunched over the wheel or what? But it was probably coming on this morning, now that I think about it, because I was crying over a $15 parking ticket, and usually unreasonable tears predict an oncoming migraine.

Also, I got into grad school. :D

In a little while

This is not a picture of my garden. My garden is bigger,
has less intentional plants, and more unwanted grass.

I will begin posting pictures of my garden soon, but first it has to stop frosting. Right now I have inch high snow peas and spinach and everything else is dead and/or dormant. I have a whole table of baby plants ready to put outside. But, yeah, they're not very frost hardy, so I'm waiting. Hopefully the warm-up that's supposed to start tomorrow will last through the summer.

Enjoying Coffee

You know that moment, that wonderful moment, when you take that first sip of coffee? The coffee from the big mug that you don't let anyone else touch, and the coffee is extra strong and just the right temperature, and you added the perfect amount of milk and just a dash of raw honey and it has that nutty wonderfulness of it.
sweetness to you and you can just get lost in the

You know what I'm talking about, right?

Greek Yogurt and Why we Eat

I want to take a minute to give a shout out to Greek Yogurt. Particularly, the Greek Gods brand plain Greek yogurt. I love it. Love might actually be an appropriate word. I enjoy it every time I put it in my mouth. I put it on top of beans and cheese, in sandwiches, and, mostly, dip my fruit in it. My cat also loves it and more than once I have turned my head away from my bowl only to look back moments later and find his head, or his paw in the yogurt.. He says "I licked it, it's mine now." Haha, silly cat. I ate the yogurt anyway (and probably have a cat disease now, but that's beside the point).

I've noticed that a lot of people have an issue with the thickness, and the flavor. I'm not sure what that issue is since I've loved Greek yogurt from the first time I tried it. But then, I've lived abroad and tasted a lot of things that most people here in America would find pretty unpalatable, so that may have skewed my perception of flavors (for the better, I say). Also, as I've mentioned before, I'm off sweeteners, so it may be that even the slightest bit of sweetness is detectable to me. To me Greek Gods plain (fatted, no 0% fat) Greek yogurt tastes like cream. Really, who wouldn't want that? It's also really low in sugar and high in protein (I noticed right away when I first started eating Greek yogurt that it kept me full for a long time), and it has healthy fats and bacterias that aid in the digestion and the processing of nutrients. I would suggest it to anyone. I would suggest it to you. You should try it. Chop up an apple and dip it in the yogurt. It's awesome.

While I'm on the topic of awesome food, I wanted to talk a little about the purpose of eating and why we eat.

I feel like food, and food perception is really skewed in this country. I don't think many people would disagree with me.

I feel as though food as become the great comfort, or the great enemy. You either consume as much of it as you can, using it like a blanket to ward off the difficulties of life, or you treat it as a necessary evil, consuming as little as possible in order to be sociallymorally <-this is a new word, I made it, dibs) good.

There is a pastor at my church (yes, this is related), who I have lovingly dubbed "the crying pastor," because he's a guy with emotions, and he's not afraid to show them. Honestly, sometimes I tune him out when he gets really emotional, but that's one of my issues, not his, and I try to listen, and something he said did get through. Let that be a lesson to all the pastors who think none one is listening, even the ones who aren't, are.

He kept saying that we should use food for the reasons that God gave us; for our joy and our nourishment  For our joy and our nourishment. Our joy, and our nourishment  Not just nutrition, not comfort at all, not as a balm, not just because. He's said it many times (or it felt to me that he has). I ignored it the first time, thought about it the second, and then by the third time it started to sink into me. I heard another pastor say the same thing, and started to wonder if there was something I was missing. How often would I eat lovely foods, but not for joy? When was the last time I enjoyed my food; just took joy in my food? Was I eating for nutrition, to feed my body, to nourish it? Or, when I ate, was it with the goal of "making up" for the "sin" of the bad food, or with the goal of "thinness" rather than health? I knew the answer to that, and I didn't like it.

Around this time I was also thinking heavily about body perception, fat shaming, and body acceptance. I'd started reading books like Fat? So what? I thought 'I should start enjoying my food.' So I did. I tried to stop eating ice cream with guilt. If I was going to eat it, I should love it. I stopped eating with guilt. I put on some weight. I made every effort to love my body. And then I started to think about eating for my nourishment. What did I think that looked like? (What could I afford?) Lent began. I gave up sweeteners.

I still do my best to enjoy my food, to let it bring me joy. It's a fight, to see food at something to nourish my body and bring me joy, but I'm trying, just like I'm trying to love my body, no matter what size it is. Greek yogurt is one of those foods that brings me joy.

So, eat food for nourishment, eat it for joy. And, if you're feeling adventurous
. Try some yogurt.

A Stupid Article and Why I Will Not Return to Urban Active

So, cycle started yesterday, and boy did it start with a bang. For about 3 hours I felt like my legs were balloons and my vagina was about to fall out. Spent those three hours in the bath, where I turned the water a rusty red, twice. WTheck, body? WTheck? Then in the middle of the night I woke to more cramping.

I spent most of today studying, and I'm about to resume studying. I just...I want to address a Yahoo article I read (I know, pearls before swine). It was something like "Diet strategies that just don't work" or "diet fact and fiction." I'm not sure. I am, however; sad that now Yahoo will write more bs articles like this because other idiot ladies like me clicked the stupid STUPID link. I hate Yahoo. I hate it with a passion. It is a representation of all that is wrong in our society.

I'm not going to give them the satisfaction of clicking the link again in order to quote it, but aside from the first one (I don't know what to call it, myth? Pervasive dieting idea, they were doing this "true/false" thing), about weight loss being harder the smaller you get. Oh, my gosh. No. I take that back. I just remembered. It said "predicts just how long you'll have to say non to french fries." FOREVER, you twit! If eating french fries made you bigger the first time then any time in the future that you return to eating french fries will return you to your former size. This idea that bad-for-you food is a "right" of the thin because thin people don't get fat off it, only fat people do, is a myth. And it's disgusting, and it presents bad food as a "reward" and abstaining as "punishment" for being fat, and ugly, and a failure, and socially unacceptable.

So, here's the deal, the studies say that the smaller you are the lower your metabolism is. That is; the smaller you are the less you can eat before you start getting fat again. And yet, we have this idea that once you're skinny enough you can go back to eating like you did before, as a reward. And I know I see plenty of skinny people eating junk food all the time. Are they just still in the process of getting fat? Or, do they have better metabolisms? Is it that smaller people have better metabolisms and bigger people don't? And that bigger people's metabolisms will, in fact, get even WORSE if they loose weight? And will never restabilize? I really want to know. Because this whole line of thinking is like a maze with no end.

Then it was like "If you work out you won't loose weight. True." And proceeded to say, you won't loose weight but you'll loose tummy fat and get leaner and healthier. This is the kind of BS I'm talking about. You WILL loose weight, when we mean "fat" by weight, because only someone with disordered eating/body image is going to think that all "weight" is bad. If I loose a dress size from working out but  no "weight," I am going to be CONFIDENT THAT I AM HEALTHIER. SCREW YOU SOCIETY. SCREW YOU.

There was more. The whole article was awful. The ideas presented were awful. Eat right, not because it's punishment, but because it's a reward. Learn to see bad food as bad. Learn to see good behavior, like being active or working out (and communicating effectively, and healthy body image, and good time management skills) as good. Forget these stupid bs articles, they lie.

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One more thing before I go. Two years ago I started at Urban Active. When I started I was told that one of the trainers would show me how to use the machines when I came in. So, on my first day I went to the trainer station and said I'd been told someone would tell me how to use the machines. I was pretty shy because I'd just come back from Korea and was still in that "passive Asian femininity" mode. So, when I waited a LONG time, and they had me fill out a sheet on my eating habits and working out (I knew I wanted to loose some weight, I'd put some on in the two months I'd been back), I didn't say anything, even though I had no idea what this had to do with the work out machines.

I tried to tell them why I was there. I wanted to know how to use the machines. When they said they were going to weigh me I didn't say anything even though I had no idea what this had to do with the machines. Finally a trainer came up to me and said I was 2 pounds obese and needed to loose 37 pounds, and that would only cost me about $40 a week. I was horrified, both at being called fat when I was already insecure, and being told I needed to loose almost twice the amount I had wanted to.  I just wanted to know how to  use the machines. At least I had the confidence to turn down the "offer" to drain my VERY limited bank account. He took me into a work out room and started running me through a private useful-only-with-a-trainer work out.

I said, again, that I wanted to know how to use the work out machines. He looked at me with this patronizing smile and said "Only the guys use the weight machines. You don't want to look like a guy do you?" I hung my head and said no. OF COURSE I WANT TO LOOK LIKE A GUY IF A GUY GETS TO EAT WHATEVER THE HELL HE WANTS AND HAS HARDLY ANY BODY FAT, YOU ASSHOLE!! I wish I'd said that. I hate body stereotypes  I am so embarrassed that I let that guy shame me. And angry. Angry at myself, angry at them. I never did learn how to use the weight machines, and I was too humiliated to ever go back and ask again. I spent the next six months working out two+ hours a day on the treadmill/stairmachine at the gym, until I felt like puking, limiting my calories to about 1100 a day, desperate to loose weight, going home and crying EVERY DAY because I still wasn't small enough. Never did loose all 37 pounds. Finally, I dropped the gym membership, because I couldn't handle it anymore.

Urban Active, you're a fat shaming body stereotyping bully and I will forever encourage everyone I know to NOT go to your gym.

My Stomach is Growling

My stomach is growling. Not that this is anything new. I'm fairly certain my stomach has been growling nearly non-stop since I gave up sweeteners. It has become a background noise, occasionally growing aggressive enough I begin to contemplate zombieism. I over steamed my kale this evening, I think my body is complaining that it didn't get enough nutrients. Ah well.

I think my period is finally starting. I know, too much info. Except, it doesn't feel like it's starting, but I think it is. Is this what periods feel like when you're not filled with artificial foods/sweeteners? I might be okay with this. Is it also going to be short? Because that would be awesome.

Today I discovered that I can increase the font size on my kindle reader. It is now possible to exercise on my stair machine AND read. I think I'm in love.

Period?

So, I'm on day...36. No period. Hmmmm. That's interesting. I felt like my period was starting yesterday but it didn't (phantom period?). Which, things could be worse. I cramped a little yesterday and not really anything today, but I feel kind of heavy in that area (actually, aside from needing coffee, I feel pretty awesome). Am I going to skip my period? Is this because of sugar? I strongly doubt it's because of weight loss, or eating (I've exericised a lot more, weighed a lot less, and eaten a lot less without any change to my period), so that really leaves sugar. Or stress. Could interviewing for graduate school be sostressful it changed my period? Am I going to feel like my period is on for the next week and then have a period that doesn't feel like it's on? This kind of inconsistancy seems quite odd at my age (29). Not that I'm complaining persay. No longer space between periods is actually very convenient. Bleeding from between your legs and cramping for five days is the opposite of convenient.

Ah well. I was offered red velvet cake yesterday, and did not eat it. But, I look a lovely long sniff as it left the room. ~.^

I have decided that plain fat free yogurt sucks in comparison to fatty plain yogurt. The fatty yogurt tastes amazing, you don't have to add anything to it, AND you can go for hours after eating it without being hungry again.

My Breakfast

I'd like to mention my breakfasts, because I think they'll surprise you. Well, they may surprise you.

Before I do that I want to say that I eat a hearty breakfast, (brunch? I'm trying to wake up earlier but since I work in the evenings and have class in the afternoon I tend to wake up around 10), but I find it very difficult to eat 2000 calories in one day when I'm not including things with sweeteners. I've done a little math and figure that usually I'm eating between 1400 and 1800 calories a day. This is way down from the average of 2500 that I was eating a day when I wasn't on the sweetener fast.

Usually I have a piece or two of toast. But, toast, you say, has sugar in it! Most bread does, yes, but I eat Ezekiel bread. Not that I think Ezekiel bread is holy. I don't, I think that whole "we're making Bible bread" speil is horse hockey, but it is probably about the healthiest bread you can eat AND it has no sugar or sugar substitutes. They use malted barley (like in beer) to feed the yeast and all the grains are sprouted.

If I am hungry I will fry two eggs (cage free, antibiotic free, hormone free, vegetarian fed. Can't afford humane certified. $6.99 is too much for 12 eggs), and will probably add a little (like, no more than 1 serving) of shredded cheese and a hearty fist full of spinach to the eggs when I'm cooking them. If my stomach is upset I will also add basil. Olive oil butter on the toast and maybe a tiny bit of honey in the center for a little flavor treat. Water, or a cup (not a glass, a cup, 8 oz=1 cup) orange juice, or a cup of milk, or coffee. Maybe, but rarely, all of them. Also, a banana and maybe a second banana or an apple. I know, omg, I just ate so much! You can't hear it from where you're sitting but my tummy will be sending me happy vibes for an hour.

And after that, I won't feel hungry for four or five hours. Yay!

My smallest breakfast consists of a cup of milk, some water, a piece of toast with butter and honey on it, and a banana. The toast may or may not have nuts or coconut butter on it. This is my rushed day breakfast which I usually eat in the car because I woke up at 9:30 and it's my one day a week that I have  class at 10 a.m.

On really really bad days I will stop by Heine Bros. and get a medium latte (no sugar, no whipped cream, no honey) and an organic banana. All coffee from Heine Bros. is fair trade, organic, locally ground, and they're hardly any more expensive than Starbucks. In addition you get to feel like you're not ruining the world with your love of coffee, and you get to help a local business, and you don't have to try and remember what the heck "venti" means.

So, that's breakfast, or somewhere between those first two options is breakfast. I think it's pretty awesome, and for all the bajillion calories I'm consuming at breakfast, my body seems pretty happy with it.

p.s. lunch and dinner are notably smaller, unless I was busy and skipped lunch completely and I'm starving and ready to go zombie on somebody.

Lent Almost Over

Lent is almost over, but I'm not ready to end this fast. I'm ready to make it a lifestyle. As it is, I feel healthier, and if nothing else I feel more confident about my health. I also think I have more energy over all.

It doesn't hurt that since January 5th I have lost at least 12 pounds. I think it's probably more than that but I was waiting until the scale said I'd lost at least 10 pounds for two days in a row and then I was  going to throw out my scale (because health, not weight is my goal). The scale did this; it showed between 8 and 9.8 lbs lost for about a week, and then one day 11, and the next 12. Sooooo no more scale. I feel as though my pants have been getting looser, which I hadn't felt at all before. I assume this means I may have lost a little more.

Also, my hormones seem...better. My sister has a period every 21 days, which sucks, and my period had begun to follow hers, which sucked. Now mine is late (but I can feel it's going to start soon) and has almost reset itself. Yay!

Also, I did break fast once, (I had a cupcake at a dinner party) and had pretty awful stomach pain the next day. Not cool.

So, what I want to do is continue this; not eating any sweeteners except the occasional raw honey, eating less pasta/grain, and working out a few days a week/being active every day, for the foreseeable future. After Lent I will make the caveat that if I'm at a party or social function I will allow a little sugared food (e.g. the aforementioned cupcake) so as not to be rude, but will continue on with my no-sweetener ways.

I'd be lying if I said I don't hope to get a little smaller, but that is not my goal. My goals is the confidence that I am healthy.

I'm excited.

There is no Wagon and you Cannot Care for a Thing you Hate

I'd like to start by pointing out that in the last post I was very frustrated and very down on myself but that any kind of self-damaging behavior was not and is not an option.

That said, a lot has changed. 

My weight went up.

And up.

And up.

I didn't like how I was feeling. But, I was very concerned about psychological effects of any weight loss efforts. See, when I looked at dieting and exercising it seemed to have a very similar mentality to self-injury. It was trying to punish and deprive the disgusting worthless fat part out of me. And, I knew that this attitude was COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE. This is not how you condition any living organism. You cannot create a desired behavior through punishment, not ever. Unless the desired behavior is anger, fear, and learned helplessness. Which is exactly what our society is doing. So, I made an effort to start loving myself, and loving my body, and combating the feeling that I needed to hide until I was thin, that I needed to wait to start my life until I was thin. Because, here's the thing, you cannot take care of a thing you hate. We teach all girls at a young age to hate their bodies, to hate their bodies so much...that they take care of it? No. They don't. I think it's a fair measure to say that even most of the "normal weight" and "thin" girls are not taking care of their bodies. I tried to start seeing my body as good. Because I have to love myself as I am. 

I decided it didn't matter if I lost weight. I was going to be healthy. If my body wanted to be healthy at whatever weight it was, then I would learn to love it.

I bought a stair machine. Because I love my body. And I like the feeling of running up stairs two at a time, and I missed being able to do that.

And Lent began. I've gone off all sweeteners but raw local honey (again). And, of course, the honey is not meant to replace all the sweeteners I'm not eating, but to be a special treat on top of a toast or in a coffee. I'm fasting from sweeteners for two reasons; 1. Because it isn't easy, so whenever I want a sweet I am reminded of the suffering of Christ, how he sacrificed for me. And, 2. Because it's GOOD FOR ME. Did you know that almost everything has sugar (and if not sugar than a sweetener) in it? Yeah, I mean that literally. That bread? Sugar. No sugar added? That's 'cuz they added Splenda. Those crackers? High fructose corn syrup. Those potato chips? Sugar. That frozen diet dinner? Sugar, and a ton of salt. Those frozen veggies with butter/cheese? Sugar. That yogurt cup? Sugar or splenda. That soy milk? Sugar....eeeevvvvrrryyyyttthhhiiinnnggg. I've watched a lot of videos on healthy eating and have come to a few conclusions; Whole food is better, organic is better still, veggies are way under suggested and sugar is bad for you (with the exception of fruit and the occasional teaspoon of honey). I love my body and I love God, so I gave up sweeteners. 

My weight has come down some. About 10 pounds. It's still high. And that's okay. I'm going to throw out my scale now. Because my scale doesn't get to determine my value or my health. 

I've started my garden, it's more than twice the size it was last year. I do pottery. I do sculpting. I use my stair machine every day. I don't watch television. I'm considering continuing my "fast" after Lent ends. I love going to parks and walking. I've been accepted into grad school. I am of sound mind and sound body. I have no time for things like scales. Life is calling to me.