Hanging In There

Often when I have lapses in writing, it means I'm not doing well; I'm not "journaling" (when did that officially become a verb?) because I'm emotionally shut down and in a bad way.

But this time, the last two weeks or so, I've just been too darn busy, and I've actually been doing pretty well. After foraging my way through the Foodie Fest known as Memorial Day weekend (including one family reunion and two picnics), I felt so bloated and sick of food that I found myself WANTING to eat better and more mindfully. And even though I had more foodie events (family birthday dinner, meals out, movies and a party laden with high-calorie hors d'oeuvres) I had a true desire not to go unconscious and mindlessly overeat. And I didn't!

I admit part of the motivation was another doctor's appointment, which I had yesterday. And I'll also confess that after the appointment I let myself splurge a little (it was the first night of our town's yearly carnival). But unlike the previous few months, where the two weeks or so after the appointment would be a free-for-all, this morning I truly wanted to get right back on the Intuitive Eating track. And I did.

Maybe it's my love of routine, which reduces my stress and allows me to have the illusion of control over some aspect of my life when so much of it is chaos. But it's just easier to get back to the "food plan" I've set up for myself. I use the term food plan in the loosest possible terms: while I do measure just a few things when I'd like to know the suggested portion size, I am not counting calories (which I know is driving my doctor nuts -- he keeps asking me how many calories I'm eating every day and I have no clue). I do eat some "diet" or lower calorie foods or condiments, but only because I like the taste of them. But otherwise I'm pretty much eating what I want.

A big thing I've been working on and getting better at is leaving some food on my plate. Even if it's just a spoonful of food, I try to leave something behind at least once a day. This is usually dinner, because my breakfasts aren't that big and my lunches are usually packed and both are somewhat measured out and portion-controlled. Dinner is more of a free-for-all, served family style at the table, and it's much easier to get big portions and seconds. So that's where it's most challenging -- and in the end rewarding -- to leave something on the plate.

I find when I'm eating out it tends to be bread that I leave on the plate -- restaurant sandwiches are so huge, with the majority of it being the bread or roll, that I wind up leaving half the bread behind, and I can still feel completely satisfied. I do find myself rebelling against ordering salads in restaurants: I make my own salads every day for lunch, and it's rare that I can get one better than mine that are still relatively healthy. I never use iceberg lettuce (I vary between Romaine, Boston, red or green leaf), and the low-calorie dressings in most restaurants are horrible. At home I use almost exclusively the Paul Newman salad dressings. My favorites are the Newman's Own Lighten Up Honey Mustard, Low Fat Sesame Ginger and Balsamic Vinaigrette -- I prefer them over a lot of regular, high calorie dressings. And I like using small portions of dried fruit, nuts and different cheeses like Gorgonzola or feta to jazz up the flavor. Compared to my creations, that little pile of tasteless iceberg lettuce with some nasty chemical-tasting dressing on it isn't worth putting in my mouth!

Unfortunately, in a lot of places it's hard to find something on the menu that's half-way healthy and isn't a salad, so in those instances I just order what I want and try to either leave something on the plate or take the rest home in a doggie bag. I will give props to the Black Bean Burger at Chili's and the Greek Salad at Panera. I got the salad to go the other day and realized they didn't give me any dressing; I went ahead and ate it without it, and it had plenty of flavor just with the feta and kalamata olives on it.

The biggest victory for me was the hors d'ouevres party I mentioned above. This was at a person's house that is often a binge-trigger place for me. I can't count the times I've left there feeling stuffed to the gills and miserable because I went on eating auto-pilot. The hostess is a good cook, and that day the finger food was primarily high-calorie and loaded with lots of sugar or fat -- it would have been so easy to go wild. And this time had an even bigger binge potential because it was attended by a lot of people I don't know very well and not that comfortable with. This is usually the recipe for a major binge episode for me. But I was amazed at my ability to eat a little without feeling deprived. I took one little tartlet (it had cheese and other yummies in it), one little piece of toasted bread with seafood dip on it (super creamy and fat-laden), and a couple bites of the dessert, a chocolate-dipped sugar cone bowl filled with mousse and topped with berries. It was my daughter's dessert, and after she had her couple bites, I took a couple more, then threw the rest away.

Part of my restraint was due to the fact that after the party I was planning to go out with my daughter for dinner and a movie and didn't want to snowball myself into a huge binge. And I didn't: I got a veggie sub for dinner and left half the roll on the plate, and at the movie I got Twizzlers and only ate three pieces of it. In fact, the bag is still sitting in my living room!

I'm not claiming victory here. I'm aware I'm in a good place right now food-wise, and I prefer to stay that way, but I know there will always be bumps in the road. This Intuitive Eating journey has been a difficult one with plenty of relapses, but I guess after trying again and again to implement better habits and beliefs, some of it might finally be sinking in and taking hold.