Episode 54: Starbucks Sunday

It is a beautiful day today.  The sun is shining, leaving golden streaks of light across the floors, there is soft music playing over the loud speakers and the woosh and swirl of coffee drinks being made fill the air as well as the chatter of my fellow diners.  My keyboard clicks pleasantly, and the cares of my week sort of melt away.  It is Starbucks Sunday, and I sit in my neighborhood Starbucks, typing up a new blog post and enjoying the companionship of AM.

It's funny sitting here, drinking my Grande Skinny Cafe Mocha (which we figured at 4 points) and eating my Noah's Everything Bagel Thin with Garlic Cream Cheese and Lox (7 points), for a satisfying, healthyish breakfast.  AM really fell into my Sunday morning routine pretty quickly, and nearly every other day of the week, is trying to feed me healthy foods like vegetables (gasp!) and fruits (swoon!) and even... even.. some Pho soup, which he makes pretty well! 

The last couple of weeks haven't been entirely good for my diet though.  My birthday came and went with two different chocolate cakes (I totally *don't* recommend the Chewy Fudge Bistro Cake from Safeway if you aren't prepared to die in a decadent chocolate heaven and want to eat the entire thing in one evening... which I did with the help of a few of my friends) and Valentine's Day as well as one of my students selling Girl Scout cookies.  Thin Mints are evil little minions of the diet devils!  AM finally hid the box of cookies for me on the top shelf of our kitchen storage in a place that I can't get to unless I use the foot stool. So, they are safe for now.  

So, we are rededicating ourselves to the idea of tracking points again, reading articles on the Weight Watchers website, and doing Wii Fit and walking to melt off the weight.  It is just as easy to buy and eat healthy food as it is to buy and eat junk food. There is a sign at the Weight Watchers that says "If you don't buy it, you can't eat it" and I was looking at that sign and thinking about how that is so true. If I don't buy the healthy foods, I can't eat healthy foods and get myself better.  If I don't buy the junk foods, I won't eat them because they won't be at my house.  I think that's a fairly good idea.  And with time, I will start to look at the vegetable aisle more than the cookie aisle; I will start to scope out the flavored waters instead of the Monsters; I will make a berry cobbler rather than a whole tray of cinnamon rolls.  I will be a healthier, happier person... and I will love myself more for it.

I have been eating a lot healthier than I was before, and amazingly enough, I am seeing the rewards.  My skin is clearer, my moods aren't fluctuating nearly as rapidly, and I can almost say that my bipolar disorder is a thing of the past.  I still get sad, and I still get happy, but everything seems so much more controllable. 

I am happy... and that is the best thing in the world.  Thank you to all of my friends and family for helping me to take care of myself.  Thanks most to AM who is helping me be a better person.  

Love, lollipops and hugs!

ToryLynn

P.S. I do plan on posting more often.  Hopefully I can get back to nearly daily updates.  I have a lot to think about and.. Spring Break in 2 weeks! Woot woot!!

Episode 52: Hiatus Over!

This blog was meant to record my weight loss journey, and quickly became just a place for me to talk about my life, my divorce, new love and getting myself back in order.  The last three weeks or so have been crazy in the "not caring about what I eat or taking care of myself at all" end, but food has definitely taken center stage in the last few weeks.  Such delicious, wonderful food.

So, on the 7th, I picked up AM from SFO and really, we have been eating up a storm ever since he landed! Bubba Gump's, Dante's Pizza, Ghirardelli (for breakfast on a Sunday morning.. mmm)... well... let's say they haven't been good for my waistline.  In the last two weeks, I have gained almost 6 pounds.  Ugh... time to get back to writing down everything I eat and start looking at the way that I eat.  I guess you can't live like a teenager forever.

It's not that eating right when I'm with someone is difficult.  I can make healthy meals and share them.  I have kind of taken to ordering great meals, and sharing them with someone now.  The problem is that I am not keeping track of what I am eating, and I am not really ordering the lowest point food on the menu.  I have been eating a lot of high calorie foods that just aren't good for me.

On the other hand, I have also been discovering a new love for some foods I would have never thought to try before.  One night we tried Vietnamese food, specifically a place called "Pho Lucky" which has wonderful noodle soup and some really great sweet and sour pork. I probably didn't need the sweet and sour pork, but every time I go to any place with Asian cuisine, I have to order sweet and sour pork. It is the touchstone I use to judge.  They have really awesome sweet and sour pork. The batter is light and fluffy and the sauce isn't drowning the pork, but rather lightly poured on so that you can try the pork without any sauce as well.  It's awesome!

Pho has been the only cuisine I have really discovered that I haven't tried yet, but we do plan on having different cuisines that are new to me, including Thai, Indian, and Japanese hibachi, and a few others that I can't really think of right now.

So, I am starting a new culinary exploration, but I am also going to try and stick to the diet plan, so if we go out, it will only be once a week.  We will try new foods, old foods and foods we enjoy.  I want to find healthy meals at new places, but also try some of the full fat stuff as well, so this is what I plan.  I am planning on documenting our culinary journeys in this blog, as well as keeping it full of my thoughts on weight loss and life and everything.  When we go out (and it should be limited to maybe once a week instead of once a day), I will take a picture of both of our meals and write a review of how they taste. (AM is ok with me stealing a few bites from his plate for a good cause) and write a blog of the best food places in California.  We plan on going to San Francisco about once a month (definitely for my birthday this year, if anybody wants to hang out), and out to dinner once a week and to Noah's and Starbucks every Sunday morning where we hang out and have bagels, coffee and spend an hour or so writing (until my laptop battery dies).  Altogether, I am having a pretty good existence.  Now.. I need to have a good existence with some healthy food thrown in as well.

I will definitely update this blog at least once a week, if not more often.  For now, know that I am happy, I am safe, I am well nagged, and I am loved.  Life couldn't be better than this. Well, it could if I was about 150 pound lighter and without an ear infection, but those will all pass away into memory and I will be happy, sexy and so blissful they will see me glowing from the Empire State building.

Love and hugs and happy nibbles to all!

Tory