[Introspective rant] coming up.
Here is the summary: I think eating high calorie, high sugar, high fat foods is a very dodgy business requiring great care!

Thanks, Cannon. I'm still happy with what I'm doing. I guess re the cake, overall I'm happy that I have no sense either of being deprived, or of acting in a way that will stop me losing weight. That is, I'm pleased that these days it seems I can handle both sides of the issue. On the one hand the fact that I don't usually eat that food, and on the other, that I can have it rarely when it seems there is an established reason. I make an exception for family birthday cakes. I bought my favourite sweet treat from that cake stall on Saturday. (I won't even mention the name here, seeing as I didn't eat it or feel obliged to record it, and it is so evocative!) However I didn't eat any. If I made exceptions for cake stalls, and mums bringing in cake for kid's birthdays at schools, and lucked in on the day the teachers bring morning tea into the staff room, and somebody baked a cake and it's really healthy, and I visited my mum and she put out afternoon tea for us all.... Well. I've already been there done that and it's part of what I'm not going back to.

I find it's easier to deal with those things in the way I dealt with stopping smoking. It was so long ago that in those days people would constantly offer cigarettes. But that issue was not an issue once you were not a smoker. Just "No thanks I don't smoke". Easy peasy! In the bad years of my eating I used to constantly think about that and wish there was a way to make that happen with my food. It took a long time for me to find out that I could do the same thing - just do it for particular kinds of foods and that has made my life a lot simpler!! Things like exceptions are the area I'm still exploring, to work out how to make sure that they are the exception that helped me feel I am able to enjoy the whole of my life and not be deprived and NOT the exception that started the beginning of yet another backsliding, yo-yoing descent into fat prison.
Did I say that!!?

I guess I think that there are times when we need to be 100% strict. I absolutely needed that when I started on here. If I slipped up badly, I would still go back to that position even now. However I do also think that an ongoing sense of deprivation was sometimes a problem for me in the past, and would be a problem if I had it now. Which I don't. I feel like I now get a kick out of special event sweet indulgences that I couldn't get when they were an everyday occurrence for me. Also that I have a mindset now that allows me to say no to things other people are saying yes to, without feeling like I am missing out on anything that's worth having.

The thing that I am thoroughly and all the time convinced of, is that for me, eating regularly and in a well balanced way stops me feeling cravings and stops me feeling as though it is normal to have a lot of indulgences. I like to eat a lot and not be hungry for long or feel deprived. I also believe that it's worth my while to discipline and channel my thinking so that it's easy for to feel that healthy eating is normal eating. Indulging used to feel normal for me. I look around me and see that it is normal for many people. Also that it is normal for many people to normally be fat!! I soooo do not want that!

Also I am a person with so many failed changes behind me, that I do still want to be very aware every time I make an exception. I want to be very conscious of what it was and how it went and what the implications are... I need to know every time that it was an exception with an end, not the beginning of a slide. I guess there could come a time when the way I manage exceptions might also seem routine to me, not requiring much thought, but maybe never or maybe not for years, because I do tend to forget things if they are not happening all the time and by definition that's what an exception is!!

Ha ha. End [/introspective rant!]

Thank you to my listeners.

SS - worth waiting for!!

OMG. I feel like I have turned into a nurse. Both kids sick and over vomiting but still constantly talking about being sick and measuring their temperatures and coughing and blowing their noses, and asking for medicine, and that is when their father is not asking me about whether I should be contacting the hospital...

and then the girl, who is 11 years old, came in and asked me if the new little bottle I'd bought today was my own drink, because she was going to have it, but then thought maybe I'd specially bought it for myself ...

and when I looked incredulous and said "No, it's not a drink, it's poison," she looked incredulous and said "Then why is it apple flavoured...?"

I wonder if fiddling with the child proof cap would have been enough to make her read the bit about apple perfumed triple strength disinfectant concentrate.

Does this mean that it is good enough to just bring your daughter up to be polite about what she chooses to drink? and that it doesn't matter that I have obviously skipped something fairly basic in the safety area?

it's a good thing she was considerate enough to ask first... good job on raising her with manners

how scarey though...

Seems llike that is one of those things that you just don't think about until it could possibly happen... I'm not sure when common sense appears in a person, it might take a few years...

I swear my parents gave me repeated lectures about don't drink ... well I don't know what I wasn't supposed to drink really ... blue kerosene ... I don't know what else but I was warned! I don't know when my common sense is coming!

I have told her about drugs, and cigarettes and alcohol and boys...

(edit: and giving out information on the internet and strangers and cars and sunburn cream ...)


Tuesday

Breakfast 8:30 2 weetbix, 1/3 C diced peaches , 1C low fat soy milk. 1 slice wholemeal toast with plum and cinnamon jam . Boiled egg . Coffee with 40 ml Hilo milk.

Snack 3 x Coffee with hilo milk.

Lunch: 1:30 2 slices wholemeal bread, 1 grilled with ~30 gm low fat cheese, 2 slices double smoked ham, tomato, and black olives (all the best bits out of a pizza ),and another toasted - 1/2 with vegemite and ½ with plum and cinnamon jam. 8 dates. Low fat apricot yoghurt. Coffee and milk.

Dinner: 7:30 ~130 gm grilled rump steak. 1 slice fresh wholemeal bread. Lots of fresh veges: squash, carrot, celery, lettuce, tomato, snow peas, mushrooms – very colourful! 8 dates. Low fat apricot yoghurt. Green tea.

Exercise: 30 minutes Just cos the dog needed walking. My ankle would have been better without it.

Hey Felici- Thank you so much for stopping by my journal

And on the eating sweets- In my opinion, it's perfectly fine, if you want it, and can control how often, without over indulging
There's a technique that is called Intuitive Eating and basically, it says HAVE those things, in moderation, if you are REALLY craving them. But also listen to your body, and see what else it needs. Often our bodies will tell us if they need veggies or fruit, and many times we are just so stuck on what our 'diet' is that we aren't paying attention to our natural diet.
But anyways, the point is a healthy diet does include those sweets, but in moderation. If we deprive ourselves from them, we not only feel MORE guilty when we give in and eat them, but we aren't ENJOYING our meals, and we aren't awknowledging the fact that we are HUMAN, not robots.

No worries, Britta. Thanks for your response.

I think I was being very long winded about saying something similar to you about eating sweet things. My impression is that this is an area in which there is a big difference between individuals. I feel very differently now about food from the way I felt 12 months ago. I don't want to forget what I was like because I think remembering might help me stay different. I remember that I behaved as though I was addicted to sugar and that was the main cause of years of battling with my weight, so I am very cautious about how I treat it now. I realize that a lot of other people who need to lose weight don't especially have issues with sugar. I suspect Intuitive Eating is like that too - possibly useful for some people and dangerous for others.

As far as me eating cake on my boy's birthday - I think it was basically the right thing for me to do - not ideal only because I had too much - but not a big problem because it didn't lead to any genuine bingeing, and won't .

Good for you! You had cake! it's really not even something I would think twice about - I too had cake on friday night for my dad's bday. And I had salmon pasta with two cheeses----YUMMY

The fact is that if we give in for a treat, just dont over eat(which we are more likely to do when it's a treat because we tell ourselves we can't have it). You dont have to explain yourself for having cake, that's silly

Oh- and make sure the cake is GOOD, and worth it!

LOL! Hey isn't arsenic peach flavored?

Well it was, but there was a frozen patch in there, which I am blaming for the lapse re: quantity, but only in my own mind of course, because it would be silly to talk about this one second longer wouldn't it!!!?

Could be. Actually I think I may have heard something about it smelling of almonds - I'd better add this to the list of admonishments. I've just been checking through a few more - (don't run on the concrete... and don't take medicines unless I give them to her ... and swim between the flags ... don't poke things in electrical sockets... look before you cross ... and now I have told her about not jumping straight over logs in the bush in case there is a snake on the other side... and I am not going to tell her to drape toilet paper all over the seat in public toilets ... well not unless she feels like it... )



OMG My son has started taking his empty cups and glasses to the sink! And he hasn't even noticed. I noticed that they weren't around for me to refill and we discussed that probably they were disappearing because I was shifting them without noticing, and this morning I SAW him do it, and when I mentioned it, he said he hadn't realized.... Hallelujah! He is only 14! Only just 14!

And their temperatures are dropping...

This is only the third day ... I really need to get out of here, or do some exercise or eat really well or really badly, or at least get my fingers off this keyboard....!!

Wednesday
Breakfast 10:00 2 weetbix, 1/3 C diced peaches , 1C low fat soy milk. 1 slice wholemeal toast with plum and cinnamon jam . Boiled egg . Coffee with 40 ml Hilo milk.

Lunch: 2:30 1 toasted wholemeal muffin filled with:
50 gm tinned red salmon, 5- 10 gm grated parmesan (I weighed it for once instead of guessing but just to reassure myself), 2 slices grilled eggplant (which had been slighly brushed with oil – leftover from husband's dinner last night), mushroom, tomato, and black olives. All warmed or grilled – a bit like a hamburger.

Omg that was stacked so high I could barely stretch my mouth over it! (I did cut it in half.) By this time I had been to the supermarket while I was hungry which is not a desirable thing - and that muffin tasted soooo good. *Looks for indecently satisfied smile emoticon*. I love making healthy food that makes me feel like I have spoiled myself rotten!!

Ladyfinger banana. Oooeee. *decides to use giant grin in place of truly accurate unavailable emoticon*

2 x Coffee and milk – yummy coffee too – better than the instant I usually drink. I think I might keep on with this better coffee for a while - I like this indulged feeling.

For someone with the sniffles and a headache and STILL with a sore ankle I do feel VERY nice this afternoon!

Hi Felici, hope your kids get well soon! Wait til they're two years older, in the middle of their teen years. You'll get 10 chances a day to second guess your parenting skills. In the end you just have to accept you did the best job you could, and sure -- you make mistakes like everyone does. But good parenting is a matter of consistency, and also LUCK. Yes, there are some bad, neglectful parents. But most of them are doing the best they can. And sometimes, shit happens, to the good parents as well as the bad ones.

What agreat feeling for a very deserving lady

I'm sure you're right.

It's a funny thing that someone tut-tutting about other people's parenting seems to be an easy thing to find, yet it is the norm for parents to cherish their children ahead of all else, and do "the best they can", just as you say.


That's very kind! Thank you.

Dinner: 6:00 Turkey mince ( ~ 150 gm) - cooked in a little EVO oil with onion, garlic, celery, cauliflour, grated carrot and chicken stock, (very yummy!!), and ½ C basmati rice. Fresh veges: a carrot, ½ tomato, lots of broccoli sprouts, zucchini. ~ 2 tspns lite french onion dip Low fat yoghurt with chopped fresh pear. More yummy coffee and hilo milk.

Exercise: 5:15 30 minute walk in the bush with my husband and the strange dog we own. My ankle was hurting when I shopped today but not a bother on this great gentle walk. Redbeak orchids are in fat bud and a flock of fearless little speckled pardalotes came and twittered all over some low trees we walked through.

( ... and I have restrained myself from posting with total truth just how much I really enjoyed that lunch time banana. )

Ok Missy, spill- what DID you do with that banana that you enjoyed it so much