Week 1+ Reflections

As an educator, the first thing you learn is that you can't evaluate kids without evaluating yourself first. So I think I am pretty good at reflecting on my own actions. But this week+ has been really eye opening.

When I started this, I had no illusions. I am not an expert. I am not a clean eater by any means. My dress size will tell you I probably can't even call myself a healthy eater. But we have been making steps. Converting almost all the time and dollars we spend at the grocery store to the farmer's market made me believe I was really making some changes. Even moving with Dave eliminated most of my torpid late-night calls to DP Dough or Cal Tort runs. So I was really beginning to wonder why I hadn't lost a pound since I moved out of my apartment aka the place where I could eat anything I wanted and not be accountable to anyone.

In just a week I guess this blog has given me most of my answers. My counselor talks about "telling stories" - the little tales you tell yourself to make yourself believe that you are doing what you are supposed to be doing. The story I was telling myself was that I have been eating great, all natural meals. That I had eliminated the majority of the crap from my diet because somehow shopping at the farmer's market meant I was suddenly a clean eater extraordinaire. I thought my new obsession with homegrown and homemade was, in addition to being healthy, chic and sophisticated, but truthfully the conviction that I have been eating healthy is somewhat jejune.

I don't want to totally beat myself up here. Since the beginning of the year I have almost totally given up soda. They do creep back in occasionally, but it is a big improvement from the 3-4+ a day I was having. I have also almost entirely eliminated "fake" substances, particularly sweeteners, from my beverages, and from most foods. I have significantly cut back on the fast food I eat, particularly what I was eating between meals.

But I started this to go further. I have truly TRULY come to believe that the obesity epidemic in this country can be blamed almost entirely on the dangerous side effects from the chemicals in our food, and the habit of eating food that doesn't nourish the body but rather just takes up space in the stomach. Every time I turn my head, someone new has a thyroid problem. In the past few months, I have had 2 people close to me calling for advice about their thyroid since they know I am also a victim. My doctor told me the increase of these types of problems is staggering, and there are not enough endocrinologists to keep up with the patients. I know that weight loss is about calories in versus calories out, and that we all have a choice of what we put in our mouths, but I also don't think that means it should be legal to sell a lot of the chemicals that are masking as food.

Even with my strong beliefs, I don't think I could sit here and honestly say that I will NEVER eat another hot dog, NEVER sip on another coke, NEVER order Chinese takeout again. But I would like to take steps to drastically reduce my intake. And even though in my head, I feel conscious of what I am eating, this blog proves, with photo evidence, that I have a long way to go.

This week alone, I ate:

• 6 hot dogs!
• 2 PBJ
• 1 Whoopie pie
• fried veg
• 1 meatball sub
• 2 cheeseburgers and a cheeseburger sub (one was a SNACK)
  
• 3 servings of apple crisp with ice cream
• Jarred cheese dip
• 3 bagels with cream cheese
• Oatmeal pie
• Ice cream sundae
• a BIG helping of Chinese food

This is a crazy list for a person who wants to be a clean eater. I don't intend to beat myself up like this every week, but I the "story" I was telling myself is that I was having something like this a few times a week. The truth is, it's 1-2 times a day!

I thought this blog was a good idea for me because I know I should be journaling what I eat (research shows it's the #1 factor in whether someone loses weight on a diet) and the proof is in the pudding, literally. So where do I go from here? I think I want to analyze my week this time and see if I can do better than that list above. I would also like to start one day at a time - literally. One day a week that is 100% natural AND within a respectable calorie count. That's the goal for week 2!