Where I ponder diets and ignore the state of my house

My house? Wow. It's bad. Luggage is STILL out and strewn all over the downstairs. Addie's room looks like a toy bomb went off. There is cat fur on every surface, I'm not even kidding. It's a rainy glum day, no trip to the pool today, so I have no excuse to not get everything in gear!

Diets. I am continually amazed and overwhelmed at the sheer volume of diet books out there. A lot of them similar, some radically different. Sometimes, you can find 2 different diets that tell you the EXACT opposite of the other. It's enough to make your head spin.

I've done a lot of thinking lately about food, how I eat now, versus how I ate back when I was thinner and in shape. When I was thin, I guess you could say my diet most closely resembled the Warrior Diet. I would have my coffee in the morning, and typically didn't eat much until the evening. This was also back when I was married to my first husband, who was of Indian decent. We ate mostly vegetarian Indian food. Lots of beans and lentils and veggies. I usually modified the recipes to cut out most of the fat (Indian food uses an obscene amount of butter and oil). I was also really physically active. Walked every day, went to the gym 3-4 times a week. I kept myself very busy. Most days, even now, I find that the WAY I eat is mostly like the WD. I am not a breakfast eater. I seriously have a hard time choking down food first thing in the morning. When I do eat breakfast, I feel energized, but I have found that I tend to eat MORE throughout the day. I have no idea why. But the days I try to follow the "eat sensibly and often" rule, I really eat waaaaay too much. If I have my coffee, and then go on about my day, I typically will have a snack late afternoon (between 2-4pm) that consists of either a handful of nuts, or a banana with peanut butter, or a slice of cheese with a bite or two of lunch meat. Then I eat dinner between 5 and 7pm. Dinner is usually chicken or fish, salad, and/or veggie. I make a starch for the kids (rice, pasta, or bread) but I usually avoid it unless I'm still hungry. I do allow myself dessert if I am having a serious sweet tooth, but I'm getting better at controlling it. Yesterday, I actually did have lunch, a small bowl of gazpacho and a slice of whole wheat bread from Great Harvest. Dinner was a fantabulous salad of chicken, grilled eggplant, fresh spinach, tomatoes, olives, feta, basil, mint, oregano (from the garden), and balsamic vinaigrette. It was heavenly. I had a little bit of ice cream for dessert.

I haven't been eating enough fruit lately, I'm not sure why. I have cantaloupe and strawberries in the fridge, and I haven't had any. I've been on more of a veggie kick lately. Especially the tartness of the gazpacho. It's like a crunchy bloody mary, minus the vodka.

So there's my food rant. I'm getting better with the food thing, but I still feel like I need to tweak it more. I don't count calories anymore, mainly because I know roughly what I'm getting each day. I'm trying to keep snacking under control, and it's been a lot better. I just want to step on that scale and be below 130. I will feel like I've accomplished something then.


(ETA: I went on my food diary.com, and recorded the last several days of eating - something I haven't done for awhile - and found my calories are a lot lower than I thought. A serious conundrum. Why is the weight not coming off faster? Between heavier swings and less food - but good food!- I feel I should be seeing more results. Oh well, what choice do I have? Just keep doing what I', doing, things should start working soon.)