Rationalizing Decent Day 50 + Willow's Food (at very bottom)

DECENT DAY 50

It has taken me a total of 63 days to have 50 decent days. That's a 79% success rate.
At day 30, my success rate was 75%.
I have improved my rate of success by 4%
It took me 25 days to have the 20 additional decent days that brought me from DD 30 to DD 50.
Thus, my most recent success rate from Day 30 - Day 50 is 80%.

Um, yes, I like math.
I like data.
I like facts.
I like charting progress.

Can you see how a person like me can end up with a very number based, counting based eating disorder, full of careful calculations? (ha....)

Food:

Breakfast: 1 packet of oatmeal with cinnamon (I am out of PB and bananas, otherwise both of those would have been in the oatmeal. I ate a whole jar of PB in two weeks. And one of those weeks I was out of town... lol)

Snack: 1 chocolate out of a box of chocolates (My little 4 year old wanted me to eat one so badly. He brought it to me as an x-mas present and he had learned how to say "Happy Holidays, Laura." (He's learning English) just for this moment... so I had to take one...)

Exercise: Run 8.5 miles (I wanted to run 11, but the back of my knee was really hurting and started causing me to limp. I knew I had to stop running because, last spring, I ran through injury and ended up having to take a few months off running to heal. I do not want that to happen! Plus, it's not like 8.5 miles is bad... still, I was kind of disappointed I had to stop. )

Lunch: 12 oz Saffron Chicken Noodle Soup (purchased. I don't know the nutrition count) + one layer of an apple (i.e., I ate once around the apple and then stopped. Every bite had part of the peel. Make sense?

Snack: one bite of an arabic cookie (like a shortbread cookie) and a couple sips of an arabic sweet tea (didn't want it, but wanted to be polite.)

Snack: 2 spoonfuls of ice cream + 4 oz frozen yogurt with 1 spoonful of reese cup topping

Dinner: Mmmm.... yummmy..... trader joe's prepared meal Tandoori Style Butter chicken (Rice, Tandoori Chicken, Spinach, Butternut Squash, Peppers, Raisins) - 360 ca., 10g fat, 29g protein

Updated: Another snack (out of hunger): 5 spoonfuls of granola + 2 spoonfuls of crushed almonds in a tiny bowl with whole milk



THOUGHTS:
-Truthfully, a little more uptight about food today than normal

-more hesitant to eat

-more questioning "Should I eat? Is it really okay to eat?" i don't really know where this was coming from. I thought back to when Tracy said, "You are allowed to be happy; you are allowed to eat foods you like." And I thought, Why am I feeling unallowed? Am I getting uncomfortable with good feelings. I don't want to self-sabotage.....

-more guilt than normal

-I counteracted the guilt by reminding myself that any single one of my meals were not anywhere near too big, so, although there was some snacky things, those things do not add up to be enough to count as overeating.

-If I had not eaten the snacks and had only eaten the meals, it would have been under eating, which is bad and not something I am aiming for.

-I considered skipping lunch and dinner, but I knew it'd come back to bite me later (in the form of more restrictive mindset or overeating or irregular eating)

-I was feeling a little bad about myself today (like I'm not good enough in the eyes of other people. Maybe that had to do with me wanting to restrict? Jane says restriction is linked to self-esteem... if it was a bad self esteem day perhaps that's why I wanted to restrict?)

-Body image was good. I actually felt totally okay with my body. Then, as soon as I ate diner, I felt fatter. But I knew I'd wake up feeling fine again tomorrow, so the fat feelings didn't effect me that much.

-Some of the things I ate, (as in all the dessert things) I didn't actually want or crave or truly enjoy. This would ahve been a fine time to skip them. So, then I'm not sure what drove me to eat them.

-I also had some general, vaugue anxiety today - like an overall feeling of nervousness and I'm not sure what it's about. You know what I think it is? I think it's that I'm afraid I'm about to mess up. I'm afraid I'm about to get off track and out of a rhythm. I'm afraid I'm about to binge or resort to weird eating instead of eating meals. I'm somehow afraid of losing my progress. Instead, I need to just take a deep breath, realize that, yes, I will lose a little progress. I will have a slip. And that is to be expected. But when I do have a slip, I will be able to handle the bad feelings that come along with it, and I'll be able to get back on track. I also need to realize that, I can feel this general uneasiness that I feel, and keep doing the right thing anyway. I just feel like I'm a/b to lose all control or something. I don't really know what I'm talking about, but this is what I feel.

-now that I write this out, I realize that, I probably wanted the fro yo because I probably was hungry and that was what was most easily available at the time. Actually, I remember feeling hungry.

-Also, now that I think about it, when I started feeling fat, it was probably me just going from feeling empty all day (without acknowledging it) to feeling satisfied.

-I did not count calories and I don't want to either. I know I might get to a too low number (Taking the run into account especially), and that might scare me. I also might not be in a mental space right now to handle an getting to a healthy calorie number right now. So, best to not count. I don't want to anyway.

-Well, I had the chocolate out of the box, but, in that situation, it was okay to have it even though I wasn't craving it. IT was just adorable to look at my little boy offer me chocolates. I would have totally confused him and broken his heart if I had said no. Eating it was the right thing to do. Plus, it's not like it tasted bad!

-The arabic cookie and tea: Well, I didn't want it, but I think I did the right thing here. I had a normal size bite to be polite, and I made the kid eat the rest of it. It's good I didn't eat the whole thing. But it's good that I tried it. 1) IT was polite to take a bite. 2) I've never tried that kind of arabic cookie before. IT's okay to try things just because I'm curious. It was just a bite.

-And, the fro yo... well, maybe I would have rather had something else, but I can forgive myself. I think I had it because I was hungry and it was easy and accessible. IT's not like I ate a whole ton of it. So, preferably, I would have either had a bigger lunch or a snack that I actually wanted. But, I didn't, so eating the fro yo isn't the end of the world.

-Now that I realize that I basically did nothing wrong today, I feel better. I actually feel less anxious too.

-Actually, I also now realize it probably wasn't quite enough food. I need to be prepared for a hungry day tomorrow!

okay, now I am going to press enter 20 times and show you Willow's food. I have to admit, at first after reading her food diary, it, for the first time, made me uncomfortable. I was uncomfortable because I started to feel like she's starting to eat less (maybe as a result of reading my food diary? maybe as a result of having to write a food diary? maybe she's actually not starting to eat less and it's all in my mind? maybe one lighter day doesn't matter and it'll alll even out?) I had to read it over a second time and really pretend it was MY food diary. If it were MY food diary, I'd have thought it was a decent day, but I'd have thought I had some good, substantial things. I would not have considered it a light day. I guess this just goes to show that I'm not really evaluating myself the same way I'm evaluating other people. Like, I was uncomfortable because the amount she eats adn the amount I eat are becoming closer and closer to being the same. Somehow I wasn't okay with that. It's as if I think I always have to be the one who eats a little less. Then I questioned myself and said, "Wait. That is incorrect. IF I'm aiming for normal eating, then it should be the case that I don't eat noticeably less than other healthy people. It should be the case that I eat similarly." It was after realizing that, changing my mentality and my self-expectations, that I read her food diary again. The second time I read it, I didn't feel uncomfortable. It is kind of strange, though, to realize that I think our two food diaries are becoming very similar. Am I eating more or is she eating less? I'm going to stop overanalyzing anymore. If this ends up becoming some weird competitive thing for me, I'll tell her to stop sending them. or if I am continually uncomfortable... but, for now, I'll let her keep sending them. It's really nice of her to go to the trouble to do this just so that she can help me learn what is normal.

So, without further adieu, in 20 enters, here is Willow's food diary:





























BREAKFAST:
-2 pieces of bread w/ PB and honey
-coffee with soymilk

MID-MORNING:
-tea w/ milk and honey

EXERCISE:
-run 4.5 miles

LUNCH:
-medium-sized piece of spinach quiche

DINNER (went out to eat with friends)
-french bread dipped in olive oil
-several pieces of pita with a variety of greek dips (one was tatziki (sp?), one was an eggplant-ish dip, one was a red pepper and feta dip...)
-Greek dish consisting of half a large eggplant stuffed with a tomato meat sauce and topped with this fluffy cheese-like stuff (yeah, i know, weird for me to order something with meat.....but this was a specialty at this restaurant so i figured i'd try it)
-1 small/medium-sized potato

DESSERT:
-5 or 6 reese's peanut butter cups

(Laura talking now: I don't know if those are real sized reese cups or mini sized ones. It seems like an awful lot if they're real sized ones, but I guess it's possible.... I don't want to ask her if they were real size or mini ones b/c I don't want to offend her if they were real sized ones. I feel like they must be mini sized ones....)