Change of POV

Yesterday an idea popped into my head that I think is going to help with my carb cravings, food addiction, and emotional eating.

Instead of focusing on the stuff I cannot have, thus feeling deprived, I need to focus on what I can have. And that list is huge.

I guess, no, I know, I have been thinking and behaving as if well, now that I've lost all the weight I want to lose, and diabetes and HBP are in remission, I am going to eat what I wanna eat.

Uh, no.

It's not about losing weight, JULES. *thumptohead* It's about your health. It always has been about your health. With my lab results just coming in and several things being out of whack, I need to make some changes to my diet and nutrition to return to better health. I feel like crap right now. I'm sure most of it is the anemia (I'm working on it), but I've felt blah since about the first of the year.

Turns out? My protein is low. I told my mom yesterday, "I never thought I would ever say 'I'm not eating enough.'"  LOL  Seriously.

So I still have a couple of tubs of various flavors of protein powder for shakes, so I had one last night before bed. Syntrax Nectar Caribbean Cooler, it tastes like pineapple, mixes with a spoon in water, and I popped it into a big sippy cup with ice and a straw and sucked it down in about 10 minutes. I got not only 23g of protein, but about 16 ounces of water. Win/win.  I just had another one before coffee and first breakfast.

Now I'm having a slice of the peach clafouti I made last night (recipe in previous post), with whipped cream, and it is delicious.

Before I head out of town for an overnight trip, I am going to have some scrambled eggs with beef chorizo and cheese.

OMG, delicious. I'm enjoying it so much. I don't feel deprived. I feel sated, full, and the protein is not bad, about 8g of protein because I cut my clafouti into sixths, not eighths.

So I need to change my focus to the good foods I can eat. And I can eat moderate amounts of fruits and vegetables now. Not like before, certainly not, but a handful of lettuce supporting a boiled egg, bacon, cheese, nuts (once I get used to the dentures and they are relined because they are too loose right now), dressing.

So it's about gratitude. There are people on feeding tubes who can't eat. My father-in-law was on one for over a year. He said "eating is overrated." He would sit at the table with us for family dinners on holidays, and just look at the food and enjoy being with his family. He never acted deprived, although periodically he would ask for a tiny cup of coffee, which he would sip very carefully so as not to choke. He was a die-hard coffee addict. Coffee and related gifts always made him happy. (For those unaware, he had ALS and ALS either starts from the top down, or the bottom up. He was a top down, so the muscles in his throat atrophied and swallowing became a nightmare. Aspirating any fluid into the lungs while choking could trigger pneumonia, which is a slippery slope to a fast death. He was able to walk, albeit slowly and short distances, right up to his final hospitalization, for pneumonia. He handled it better than I would. He passed this last May.)

I'm lucky. My mouth, throat, stomach still work. Focusing on what I should not eat is ridiculous. I need to count my blessings and quit feeling sorry for myself.

I feel foolish saying this all now, but food addiction is a real thing. Just ask any obese or formerly obese person. How many alcoholics could get through the day just having three beers and no more per day. How successful do you think they would be? That's what it's like being a food addict. I need to have three protein-heavy meals per day, and two snacks. Actually, it's more like 5-6 small meals per day.

I need to get back to tracking on MyFitnessPal. I had the app installed on my phone, but it kept crashing and then freezing my Android phone, so I finally took it off. I never added it back onto my new phone, and the spotty wifi here has made it difficult to post online.

But those are excuses.

I can still write stuff down instead of trying to remember everything in my brain. (Not!)

I've written down everything for yesterday and so far today and at some point I'll get it input into MFP.

This feels like a revelation. How many other food addicts have come to this realization on their own? It took about nine months (carb cravings started after Christmas when I indulged for the whole day and then kept indulging, on/off, on/off, on/off. Once you get started....) for this to finally smack me in the face. But I think this is good. I'm excited. I want to be healthy. I want to go back to taking walks and start lifting weights (as soon as the anemia is addressed, doctor's orders).

I'm not suffering. I'm lucky.