The Incident of Ice Cream in the Night

I continue to manage my eating, and I continue to lose a small amount of weight. At the same time, I've really upped my exercise because I'm planning on a walking vacation and I will have a lot more fun if I am in better shape. I'm very mindful of what I'm eating, logging it all, and thinking through my approach to mindful eating, asking myself "Do I want this now?" (ask twice, once with the emphasis on this, once with the emphasis on now).

One night this past week the positive answer to that question led me to consume two four-ounce cups of mint chocolate chip ice cream that just happened to be in my freezer. I did pause and ask myself about it, and I owned the moment. It was not hurried, mindless consumption. I slowly savored each and every spoonful, noticing the uneven distribution of chocolate through the ice cream, enjoying the way the cream melted in my mouth, leaving a last chew of chocolate before swallowing. But I don't know what happened to drive me to a "yes" answer. I tried to talk myself out of it, but I kept coming back to "yes" and so I chose to go for it. Asked again, harder, before the second cup went down the hatch, and came up with the same answer.

So about 360 calories and 60 grams of sugar. So what? I was surprised at the immediate consequences on the scale the next day. After steady though small progress, the scale jumped up two whole pounds overnight and stayed there for three days before coming back down to where I was the morning of the ice cream incident. So I conclude that 60 grams of sugar led to my re-absorbing water throughout my body, because only water retention can explain that big a gain (or loss for that matter) overnight. My weekly trend, and Trendweight.com's more complex calculation, so a small loss for the week, but knowing specifically the consequences of a sugar incident may give me pause before my next chosen indulgence.

Energy

I am feeling better and more energetic and optimistic and productive than I have in a long time.  I am conscious of this, and grateful and trying to ride the wave and get a lot done, but I really don't know why I feel like this, so my Scandinavian pessimism is telling me not to get used to this. A piece of me is waiting for the bubble to burst.

Is it the spring weather in February? Shouldn't I feel guilty for enjoying it so, when it's a symptom of the ill-health of the planet? Is it something I'm doing physically, my diet, my vitamins, my sleep, my exercise? Is it something I'm doing mentally/emotionally, meditating, connecting with family, connecting with friends, planning a fun vacation, rationing my media consumption, listening to great music and reading only fun books? If it is driven by my actions, which ones? How do I keep this up? If driven by externals, it's surely not the state of the country, which is in dire peril and makes me feel helpless when I allow myself to dwell on it, which I don't. Clearly the absence of any major immediate family crisis is part of it. My work is probably at least partly responsible, where it is urgent and busy and feels important and as if my personal contribution makes a difference to the part of our nation's commerce I work in (at least). And I'm making plans, and science says we sometimes gain more satisfaction from planning and deciding to act, rather than actually acting.

Not every thing nor every moment is coming up roses, of course, but when I pause and check in with myself, I have an underlying happiness that is burbling along. Sure wish I knew the formula for this, and could reproduce it at will. If I could bottle this and distribute to everyone I know, I would!

Me and My Devices

Aaron Carroll, a health blogger and NY Times columnist I follow, wrote an article covering a study that looked at how a tracking device helped (or not) with weight loss and increasing activity.  The study results were negative.  I had already tracked back and read the original publication some time ago, and so I commented on it in the NY Times on-line.  This morning I looked, and my comment had risen to the top of the "readers picks" in comments. How about that? (Internet fame is so fleeting that it maybe won't be at the top anymore if you go look.)  Here is the article - if you have a subscription you can get to the comments.

https://nyti.ms/2lZULns

Steady as She Goes

It has been a good week. No flu. No migraine. I cooked enough that I carried my meal to work every day. I am mindful as I eat, and conscious of the tastes, slower, and enjoying it as I go. The weight loss I see is real, though less than the initial woosh.

Total Calorie Burn.
Big one-time drop was switch in technology.

My real focus is on upping my activity, though. If I can manage the food the way I did this week - not the main focus of my week, but good and easy due to planning, then I have more time and energy to work on the activity. I spent some time going back and looking at my activity statistics.  I've definitely got scope in improve my activity levels.

Steps from fitbit

I've tracked my calorie burn since I first started wearing a device.  The big drop shows that different devices calculate it differently.  I think the more recent data is probably more "true". The absolute scale is actually not that important - it's the trend. So the calorie count shows that the past few months I've definitely upped my game from last year.

Zooming in on steps in the past couple of years, you can see there is a lot of variability in how much I walk.  In June of 2015 and 2016 I took vacations with a lot of walking. But generally, 2016 had fewer steps than 2015. This last January, I took a work trip that required being on my feet a lot. I've got another walking vacation coming up, so I'm strongly motivated to get these step counts up!

Speaking of that, it's warm and sunny and the dog is restless.  Catch you later.

Cooking

Cooking at home is the key to controlling what I eat (and also to keeping it reasonably priced).  But I have years and years of a habit of not cooking on week nights.  Am I too old a dog to learn this new trick?

Two days a week I go to the gym, which totally shoots the evening.  I should definitely get a pass those nights.  But other nights - I get home between 6 and 7, depending on work and traffic.  I'm generally in bed before 10 (and sorry if I'm not - a post on sleep and how I crave it will be coming). There is still time in that evening window to cook.  And yet, I rarely do.

What do I eat if I don't cook?  Leftovers, mostly.  I try to have a surplus from when I do cook so I have them. Gym nights, I don't want to eat much if at all before going. Afterwards, I either grab leftovers (as I did last night) or else stop at Whole Foods hot food table.  Often, on gym nights, I end up not eating much at all - sometimes, it's just pistachios. On work nights without the gym, its almost always leftovers. There are also a very few frozen dinners I like and often have on hand.  I don't go out, unless its with one of the kids to a place like Chipotle.

Tuesday, I actually cooked.  I have an internal debate about what constitutes truly cooking. Heating up something from the freezer or fridge that was already cooked does not count.  But tonight, I had all the ingredients at home because I'd intended to cook Sunday night, and instead went out to a restaurant with the family.  So tuesday night I made italian sausages, spaghetti squash, and a fresh tomato sauce from raw ingredients, and by almost anyone's definition that was cooking.  I thought about it on the way home, and one thing I did differently tonight from most nights is that I went right to the kitchen.  I did not first flop down on the couch with the ipad to check up on facebook.  Instead, the dog went out back, I changed my clothes, and then grabbed all the ingredients out of the fridge and got right to work.  I had also walked through the steps in my mind while driving, so I didn't in the moment have to decide if (for example) the sausages were going under the broiler or on the stovetop. Decision-making is not my forte after a long work day, and that kind of indecision can drive me to the couch with the ipad while all my energy and good intentions leak away.  I also had a clean kitchen to work in.  Definitely a messy kitchen is often a barrier.

I know that for most women of my age cooking dinner is not that remarkable.  I did go through a stint where I made dinner for the family every night, but it wasn't for twenty plus years like most of us, only about five years.  Now I'm back on my own, and pistachios in lieu of dinner is actually just fine some nights.  No-one to please but myself.  But I'd like to get the inspiration and energy to cook more often than just on weekends.

So I guess the main points of my cooking success are:  clean kitchen, all ingredients already on hand, a clear plan of how it's going to go, and don't flop down on the couch first. Another key point is home before seven.  I'll see if this is repeatable more often.

Stress Reducers

We all have stress.  By any objective standard, I've had a fair amount of personal stress in the last ten years.  Right now, there is a great deal of stress coming from the wider world, accompanied by a strong sense of helplessness.

Cortisol is known as the "stress hormone". Chronic elevated levels of cortisol cause inflammation, affect insulin, and drive hunger. Through these means, stress leads to belly fat.  Stress disrupts your sleep, which also leads to belly fat. Stress makes us fat!

Stress isn't going to go away, not any time soon.  Sometimes, the stress cannot be reduced, only absorbed.  These are my go-to ways to avoid sinking into carbohydrate bliss when bathed in an internal cortisol bath:

1. Take Action

Whatever the source of stress, it is compounded by feelings of helplessness (especially true for me, who wants badly to feel competent and in control).  So figure out, "what is the one thing I can actually do to impact the source of the stress?" Figure it out, and do it.  This is the fundamental approach to resilience - shit happens, and how you respond is your business.  Find an employment lawyer for job stress, call your elected representatives for civic stress, find a nanny or a therapist for stress from your kids, read on the internet to get smart about the reasons the stress exists and so find other things you can do.  I've done all these things.  It may not fix the problem, at least not at once, but I think of it as starting to chip away at it. Control the things you can, which is what you do.  And as you fall asleep, think "at least I did something".

2. Run or Walk

Not just any kind of exercise, but moving through the world helps me a lot.  Running gets the heart rate up higher than anything I do and creates a cascade of good effects through the body.  I listen to music when I'm running, but running is so hard I cannot run and ruminate at the same time. Afterwards, the stress hormones are presumably lower (says the science) and good hormones and good tiredness fill your body.

Walking takes longer, but can also absorb me.  Walking has probably saved my life several times over.  It's sometimes the one thing I can do to take action  (as in #1 above), when my problem is me. I can walk to exhaustion, thinking, just being present, or lost in a good book through headphones.  The main thing is to get outside and get tired.  Not just tired, exhausted.

3. Write

I'm not a "writer", in that I'm not a professional, nor is it how I describe myself, nor is it part of my interior definition of who I am and what I do.  And yet, I find at times, that writing is my way out of a stressful dilemma.  When I'm ruminating, turning things over and over in my mind, writing can help. This is private writing, not blogging like this, though sometimes blog posts have been drafted or thought of in private writing first. I have been a journal-keeper in the past, starting in high school, but I am far from regular now. However, I have shelf of blank books in my bedroom, most of them filled with my scrawlings, some of them yet blank and awaiting my thoughts.  I believe that morning pages - the practice of daily writing at least three pages first thing each day - combined with the walking to save my life back when I lived in Chicago.

These days my writing is generally at a keyboard.  I can type faster than I hand-write.  When I'm using writing as a stress absorber, often the words come tumbling out and have to be captured as quickly as I can think them.  Some times, that isn't the case, and I want the sensation of my hand gliding over the page, using a lovely pen on quality paper.  Not often, these days, though.  In fact, sometimes when I want the handwriting feeling, I use longhand - but on my ipad.  (That is how I move through my work day, handwriting free-form notes with different colors and pen widths, then being able to refer back to them weeks and months later, because they are filed neatly in my pretty Notability app.)

These days, my version of morning pages will be done on 750words.  This minimalist site is inspired by morning pages, but captures your words in a private session. It's slightly social, in that it posts who has written.  Of course one of the things I like is it counts words for your, and even does some elementary sentiment analysis on your words.  You make badges for consistency (number of days in a row) which everyone can see. Every month is a "write daily for the entire month" challenge with its own badges and encouragement. Having un-interrupted streaks is not so very important to me (though I've done the one-month challenge successfully a few times).  But when I use the site, the length is about right for me.  

Writing gets me out of repetitive cycles of ruminating thoughts, able to build on one thing written down, and move forward, instead of simply repeating over and over again.

4.  Meditate

I took a class called "Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction".  MBSR is an 8-week class structure developed at Boston University by Jon Kabat-Zinn specifically to help patients coping with chronic, severe, or fatal illness.  I am neither religious nor spiritual, but this is very practical and doesn't go far into the woo-woo stuff that puts me off.  Later, my friend Kim introduced me to 10% Happier, by Dan Harris, who makes a skeptic's journey through the land of meditation.  Harris has developed a meditation app, which I now use regularly.  

An app for meditation, you say? Huh?  This particular app features brief (2-8 minute) video lectures or discussions on aspects of meditation, followed by guided meditations.  I find it helpful, and of course I love that it logs my minutes of meditation and gives me a record of how much I'm actually doing it.

I got into the meditation game persuaded by science that meditation "works". I believe it has helped me reduce self-imposed stress, by cutting my ruminations, and also helps me better handle the stress I can't reduce but have to live with. For me, that is working. 

5. Escape

Allow a book or movie to transport you out of yourself and your own problems.  Look at someone else's for a change.  However (and this is key) do NOT allow yourself to eat during this transportation. Eating doesn't have to be totally mindful all the time, but there is huge danger combining stress, food, and the silver screen.

6. Run Away

I do this from time to time.  Get in my car and go away. Sometimes for days. I have a couple of places that are my special places of power.  I gain strength by being outdoors and alone.  I don't want to talk to anyone, I disconnect, I go away.

I did this on election day.  I took the day off and took the dog for a long hike / rock scramble.  We were gone for six hours. I went home and dropped off the happy but tired old dog and walked to downtown to eat alone in a restaurant wearing earbuds for isolation, and then walked home - about a 3 mile round trip.  I was still jangly anxious, unable to sit down, and the dog was game for more travels around the neighborhood.  I went to sleep very early, woke up just after midnight, and only then broke my self-imposed isolation to check the phone. (Sadly, of course, the stress has only mounted since then.)

These are the things that keep me going in the face of stress.  I fight the impulse to succumb, to lie under the covers and ruminate, by some combination of the above things.  I imagine I can feel the cortisol coursing through my veins and I use these things to absorb it and move forward.

Restaurants

Restaurants are hard, especially in the early days of a diet, when food choices are most restricted but habits are not well formed.  I always want to opt to being social, but my somewhat unconventional understanding of what is "healthy" makes it hard sometimes.  For our family, it is incredibly hard to pick a  place, since one of us is vegan, and so the only foods we overlap on are salads!

Almost all Thai food is cooked with sugar. A lot of Chinese food is as well.  What doesn't have sugar has corn starch, often. Coatings on meet and vegetables are starch based. So at a Chinese place, I'll opt for simple - beef with broccoli, or else moo shi without a pancake or sweet hoisin sauce.  I simply try to avoid Thai places.

Waffle Houses and IHop - did you know they put pancake batter in their omelettes?

Sauces most places are extremely suspicious.

The family went to Red Lobster Sunday night, which all things considered was the least-bad choice in terms of what I wanted to eat.  I got grilled shrimp, steamed broccoli, and a side salad.  The problem was it just wasn't terribly tasty.  So the reason I was there was not primarily the food, but the company.  It's just important to shape your mind around that.

Because I'm tracking every bite right now, another problem with restaurants is simply understanding what the food is and how to count it. My crowd-sourced app has a lot of the chain restaurant menus already included, but you have to study the entry to decide if it's correct.

Much easier to eat at home.