trying not to go crazy about it

So, I am officially "not dieting" at the moment.  Due to ongoing annoying persistent illnesses of various types (stomach flu, bronchitis, menstrual cramps,) I have decided to nourish my body back to health by eating healthfully, rather than knocking it down and commanding it to lose weight already.  Maybe it's the start of one of my "self healing new-age phases."

This annoys my husband.  No, I still have not read "The China Study."  Instead, I am reading "Energy Medicine," and trying to clean out my chakras.  I think it might even work, I mean, if I didn't have kids who yell and need to be driven everywhere and who need to eat all the time, and then get changed in and out of various uniforms, like, if I could actually get some rest, yes, it might even work.

Not dieting is challenging.  Because then I may say to myself, "Hey, I'm not dieting, I can eat that."

But I can't eat that, really I know that.  Sometimes I find my stomach growling and dizziness approaching, because I've waited so long to eat something.  Because it's almost easier to just not deal with food, than to figure out what to eat that will not make me gain weight after this damn low carb "diet."

Eight pounds, that's it!

That's all that I seem to have lost during this whole dieting experience.  But, I will say, that my waist is curving in more at the sides, my belt is on it's smallest notch, and my clothes fit better.  Also, I never really seemed to get in to the groove of exercising that is necessaryy to lose much weight.  Apart from the couple of weeks before the nasty stomach bug when I started walking every day and doing some Wii fit, there was always some reason not to exercise.

What will happen now?  Today I'm just laying in bed with hot tea, I feel like I'm on the verge of getting bronchitis, and I have menstrual cramps.  I've also lost me sense of humor, hopefully this will be temporary as well.  Anyways, there doesn't seem to be any chance of my moving more than necessary, it seems.  It's always a question, will exercising when I feel like this help me or make me more sick?  Sigh.....

that's just fine, stomach bug, cause I wanted carbs ANYWAY

So naneey naney poo poo to you.  Because my tummy still hurts from puking my guts out two days ago, I have had to say "to hell with it" as far as low carb eating.  FINE.  See if I care.  Cause I'm going to the Jersey Shore, and I'm gonna eat at Surf Taco, and I can actually enjoy my tacos for once!  Not that I'm going to get the hot sauce or anything like that, but I can actually eat a taco, while enjoying the shell.  Yum.

Yeah, I'm a little worried about how bloated my stomach is becoming, and why it still hurts, and...have I done some sort of permanent damage to myself by eating low carb for so long?  I mean, I have lost weight, my clothes are looser, I even have to return some summer things that I bought a month ago.

Oh well, maybe if I keep eating carbs I'll keep the clothes and just have a chubby ass summer!

the stomach bug did me in, for real this time

Nowhere in the "Protein Power" book, do I see anything about what you are supposed to do when you are puking your guts out, or the day after.  The thought of eating a hot dog today is about as appealing as the dead bug I see upside down on my bedside table, only I'm too weak to do anything about it.

So much for the low carb diet for now.  How am I supposed to do that when I can only pretty much eat afew crackers and half of a banana?

Truthfully, I'm sick of it all anyway.  I would like to lose weight, but I'm damn sick of dieting.  I can do without sugar and junk food, but I just want to eat like a normal person again.

Eating in bed

It's my dirty secret, eating in bed.  I love it.  I think it's some sort of regression, back to my teenage years, when I would lay in bed in the morning and pretend to be sick.  Then after my mom went to work (sorry mommy!), I would pull out my secret stash of yodels, turn on the Howard Stern show, and revel in my comfort.  I loved that feeling, of not being at school, eating chocolate, and listening to the sometimes slightly scandelous Stern.

I am such a hypocrite.  Here I am with my plate of meatloaf mush and pureed cauliflower, which is pretending to be mashed potatoes, sitting right next to me on the new comforter.   Yes, the new one!  If anyone else in my household so much as thought of eating a crumb in their beds, (unless they have a bad sickness,)  they know there will be hell to pay.  Hell, in this house, you can't even get away with not sitting down at the table for snacks.  No living room eating, no standing up eating, no floor eating, no no no.

Maybe that's why, when I found my 11 year old's secret candy drawer, I pretended not to know about it.
Life is full of contradictions.

Battle of the books

He keeps shoving it in my hand, oh gee, how funny and charming it is (sarcasm).  I have a good argument, no?  That he hasn't read any of the books I've read over the past 10 years that have shaped my diet to what it is now?!!!  Fine.  I agree, I will read your book, "The China Study,"  IF you read mine.

Now the question is, what are my books?  There have been so many, which have led to various cookbooks of various and opposing philosophies.  I went through the grains and beans phase, I've got "Skinny Bitch" (catchy title!)  I've got lots of Moosewood (which I still love,) but the mother of my book collection that is what finally and completely made sense to me is "Real Food" by Nina Planck.  I just love her.  Reading this book was one of those "aha" moments.  It finally made sense!!  Especially since I have been through so many food phases, as she herself had as well.  I also grabbed my copy of "Pasture Perfect" but it's been so long that I can't remember what it says.

I should add that by "diet philosophy," I mean what I eat when I am trying just to maintain weight, rather than to lose it, as I am now.  Although the low carb approach can sort of fit in with the Real Food/grassfed meat approach, kinda sorta.

Also, our two dieting philosophies don't disagree on everything, there are actually some common intersecting ideas, which are the obvious ones:  don't eat sugar, don't eat refined crap like white bread and rice, don't eat processed crap with added crap like corn syrup and chemicals and, of course, don't eat crap.

Did I mention that I married a lawyer?

Well here I go, I better study up for my case and review my facts, because a showdown's a comin around.

what the f*((&*&*((&* is wrong with my husband???

So kiddo 1.0 comes home looking upset and says his stomach is really hurting him, so I assume it's the dreaded stomach bug, and hustle him upstairs to the toilet.  When he doesn't throw up immediately, I tuck him into bed with the big metal throw up bowl, towels, and rinsing water.

"Ow."  He clutches his stomach.  "It really hurts."  I decide if he doesn't throw up right away, maybe some bland crackers will soothe his tummy, just a couple though. 

He wolfs them down.

Okay, how about some applesauce, some ginger cookies to soothe the nausea?  Hell yeah, he wolfs them down too, stops crying, and looks a big more optimistic.  "How's your tummy now?"  I ask.  Apparently it's getting better by the second.  He bounds downstairs saying, "wow, that applesauce was GOOD."

Oh. My. He doesn't have the stomach bug, he was hungry.  So hungry that he was suffering from, apparently unfamliar, extreme hunger pains!  "What did you have for lunch?" I ask......"Only half a sandwich and one chicken strip, that's all that daddy packed for me.  Plus just half a bowl of cereal for breakfast."   I am rage.  This preteen, who has grown through two clothing sizes in the past six months, needs calories!  He needs fuel!  He needs to eat, dammit!  He is not a vegan or a dieter!

Now, dad is not the kind of parent that I would call neglectful or abusive at all, unlike those very sad and horrifying cases that we hear about in the news.  This is a man who reads shelfloads of books about proper medical and emotional development of children at every age and follows it to the tee. 

So it makes little sense, that kiddo was suffering from hunger pains!  So I submit this as further evidence that, the vegan diet has driven my husband insane.  I mean, what (otherwise) sane person does stuff like that?!