On Eating and Holidays

Like many, I wonder why we eat so much during holidays. I don't know about ya'll, but for me holidays can be defined somewhat by the food consumed during them. Easter has the candy, 4th of July has hot dogs and hamburgers, Thanksgiving has the turkey, Christmas the ham, and News Years the black eyed peas.

We are a food-oriented culture, and that's okay. I love food, but sometimes lack the patience to prepare it properly, and I suppose this is why we have resturants. Convenience, laziness, quickness, tastiness, and socialization all have helped the restaurant industry grow so much. It's so hard to resist those colorful signs while traveling and in the daily life. When I live close the a fast food joint and its along the way I normally drive, I am much more likely to stop there to grab a bite, or more. If, on the other hand, I rarely see the fast food, I don't really miss it and cook my own food more often. The convenience of convenience foods really has led to so many people eating them daily instead of for the occaisonal treat.

For example, since the parking issues here at Eastfield began, I've driven to one of the many local fast food places much less often. This is also because my brother used to work almost the same schedule as I did at a building less than a mile from Eastfield and sometimes I would bring him something from one of the local places since he didn't have a lunch break and so couldn't drive away to grab anything. I think he mostly ate tv dinners. I can count on my hand the number of times I've left the campus this semester for lunch because of Bro and because it now takes so long to walk out to the car and back. That's 10 minutes or so right there.

There is a subway on campus, but I try to avoid it. It's still not really healthy, although the veggies are. Also I can rarely resist making the daily special a meal by adding a soda and chips and it can cost a pretty penny. I need to practice my avoidance for these unhealthy foods.

So I've been trying to bring food in more often. It's nice, but too often what I bring in is still a convenience food like canned soup or a frozen dinner.

Once I brought in a rotisserie chicken, but for some reason it just didn't fill me up and I was ravenous eat everything in sight by the time I got off work 4 hours later. Maybe if I bring the chicken and something a little more satisfying then salad, I'll be fuller longer.

It's odd, I was reading on a blog that most women don't eat enough calories and I have to agree. I shoot for 1300-1500 a day and when I really looked at what I was eating last week on Sparkpeople, I was sitting at 1100-1200 everyday and this is with pretty much ignoring my low carb lifestyle. Even at this calorie level, I don't loose weight, so I suppose focus is necessary.

So here are some potential avoidance strategies for when I'm craving, but not really hungry and don't need anything.

• Start sewing.
• Start working on Nanowrimo or some other writing
• Start homework
• Go outside and take Luna for a walk
• Call a friend
• Turn on Heroes or some other distracting tv show
• Remind myself of why I want to be healthy
• Look at pictures of obese people online (not a nice one, I wonder hoe effective it would be)
• Read a book

Maybe my goal should be to use these strategies for 30 minutes and if I still want it, then have it. I've heard of this before, but have not the excitment to carry it through. Maybe I will be more conscientious this time.

Short Term Goals (New Years)

• Lose 10 pounds
• Be smaller
• Take Luna on a walk everyday (no matter how short or how cold it is that day)
• Try to run a little on each walk, gradually building the walking into running
• Get 5 fruits and veggies a day
• Focus on reducing sodium content
• No caffeinated beverages.
• No sodas

Longer term goals

• Size 8 (I think I look best at an 8 with curves in the right places, but no bulges. I've only been a size 8 twice since my freshman year of high school. Once right after I got back from Germany and was jetlagged and not eating for a couple of weeks and once after starting low carb, but when the holidays happened, my newly svelte frame became a thing of the past.)
• Run a 5K
• Eat a reduced sodium, no added sugar, no high fructose corn syrup diet with some fish and soy eaten every week and also lots of fiber from veggies.

Hopefully wrting all this can help me tomorrow to resist the Thankgiving Feast. To be a good feast-er, I'll have the turkey, salad, pumpkin pie, and deviled eggs. I will eat only one bite eat of the mashed potatoes, stuffing, and creamed corn and that will be it. I woulod refuse to eat these at all, but my brother is putting a lot of effort into making them, the least I can do is taste them. I only hope I can keep it to just 1 bite and not all of it.

Also, I'm thinking of sending my parents a link to a food scale. I think it would be great for us to know exactly how much food we are eating before we eat it. Wish me luck :).