Same time last year

May 31, 2011 by Leave a Comment

I went an entire summer without ice cream last year. Seriously, doesn’t that just seem like the worst? What are summers for if not for creamy deliciousness?

Right around this time last year I was recruited to be a diet pill model. When the offer came in I was super torn: on one hand I believe very strongly in the importance of a rational diet, on the other—a national commercial spot is nothing to sneeze at as an actress. Eventually I ended up quitting the gig; my conscious got the better of me, as did my innate desire to not be a total whack-job.

I have to give the company I worked with credit, they gave me a nutritionist that monitored my diet, and at the beginning things seemed pretty easy; all I had to do was eat cleanly. But after my initial 10lb weight loss, the scale stopped moving—it didn’t matter how many hours a day I logged at the gym, or how lean my meals were—I was as low as I was going to get. After weeks of frustration on my part and the part of the company my diet went from clean to crazy. That’s when I pulled the plug.

As bizarre as that experience was, I learned a lot about clean eating from it and it has been something I’ve continuously tried to reincorporate it into my lifestyle. Before my diet went off the deep end I felt amazing. Thanks to the lean eats and uptick in weight-room time I felt like my body was working more optimally than ever. The challenge on a daily basis is reconciling my deep-rooted need to not go to extremes, with my interest in getting back to that super-clean feeling place. Also, umm, it’s really hard to eat clean all the time, a girl’s got to live too!

Now that the heavy meals of winter are behind me, and I’m no longer chained to a cubicle all day, I’m up for the challenge of finding that balance. Perhaps it’s a summer challenge of sorts, but I’m not taking frozen desserts off the table again—that’s a non-negotiable.

Breakfast


Scrambled egg whites
Pineapple
Watermelon

Snack


Babybel cheese
Hummus and baby carrots

Lunch


Turkey ‘Ruben’: Sandwich thin with turkey pastrami, lite Swiss cheese, sauerkraut, and mustard
Kiwi
Blackberries

Dinner


This was my first attempt at making broccoli rabe. I sautéed it lightly with a little bit of olive oil and garlic, then added a cup of vegetable broth and some red pepper flakes to boil it down. It was so good I went back for seconds. Is it considered gluttony if you’re binging on broccoli?
Steak

Dessert


Vanilla Fro-yo with a dollop of peanut butter

Exercise: 45-minute spin class

Kim

Filed Under: Daily Confessional Tagged With: , , , ,

Balancing Act

October 8, 2009 by 2 Comments

Someone in my house is losing weight, and it’s not me.  My mom’s lost 7 lbs in the last couple of weeks, which normally would be cause celebre for her, but it’s making me a bit worried.  She looks tiny. She’s currently surviving mainly on fruit.  Getting her to eat something in non berry, stone or citrus form can be a full time job.  It’s all fruit all the time here.  Now, personally I’m a big fan of indulging cravings.  I’ve even had a few fruit benders in my lifetime. In this case, however, I’m concerned about her getting enough protein, fat and fiber.  I feel like I’m starting to understand what parents must go through on a regular basis.

To all of you that have kids, and are always worrying about all those little things, I am in such awe of you.  I’m also on my way to refill my birth control prescription, you know, just in case.

My days are usually spent balancing her meals in my head.  Honestly, I’d probably enjoy being a nutritionist, if I weren’t nagging my mother to eat all day long.  I’d much prefer to nag someone elses mother.  Anyone have a mother they’d like me to nag? I’ve got that loving yet slightly condescending tone down pat.  Oh, and I give a mean foot massage afterward, just to make sure there are no hard feelings.

The one good thing about all this, is that I am working extra hard to keep my meals balanced, to eat by example, and prepare foods for the two of us that will help her body get back in tip-top shape.  Maybe it will help my body get back in tip-top shape too!

Breakfast 10.7.09

IMG_0437

Whole wheat English muffin w/peanut butter
Strawberries
Grape juice
Coffee w/milk and truvia

Lunch 10.7.09

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Minestrone soup
Salad w/ lettuce, tomato, cucumber, olives, artichokes, and onions

Dinner 10.7.09

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Turkey burger, low fat American cheese, katsup, kaiser roll
Broccoli

Dessert

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Strawberry ice cream (She wanted ice cream, how could I say no?)

Filed Under: Daily Confessional Tagged With: , , ,

Self Discover: Apparently Dairy Hates Me

August 9, 2009 by 4 Comments

dairy

I tend to think that I’m pretty well in-tune with nutritional information, and with how that info relates to my body, but you learn something new everyday.  I’ve been dealing with a lot of bloat and being a bit “backed-up” (sorry, I’m trying to make this as non-gross as possible) for a while. By awhile, I mean an on-again-off-again battle for years.  Last week I decided to play around with my dairy intake.  You may have noticed I swapped out my regular 1% milk with soy, and although I did include some cheese, I tried to cut back. 

I felt awesome.  A lot of my bloat disappeared, as did things start “moving” again.  I dropped about four pounds last week.  Which, I assure was more water-and-other weight than it was fat reserves.  Then, over the weekend, I switched back to dairy, had some milk, had some ice cream, and immidiately my stomach started reacting like that creature from Alien was about to spring forth to destroy the world.  When I woke up, I felt a bit bloated and decided to measure my waist, and as I suspected, my measurements were up.

Could dairy be bloating me on a regular basis?

I love cheese.  I love ice cream.  The discovery, albeit a bit late in life, that it may not love me as much as I it, is truly saddening.  I’m going to keep playing around with my dairy intake over the next few weeks to see how much I can take before my body gets angry again. 

While I’m a bit saddened by this discovery, I’m also kind of excited.  I’m a firm believer that we all have a sort of formula that makes our bodies happy, it’s just figuring out what yours is that’s the hard part.  That is one of the reason I read diet books like they’re fiction.  I find them entertaining (I’m a health geek, what can I say?), but take the info in them with a grain of salt.  While the diet described in a book may have worked for one person, a person with an entirely different physiology might have a completely different reaction to that diet. 

I’m a big fan of trial and error.  Eating, then taking note of how your body feels afterward.  I just wish my body felt like it was BFFs with dairy and wanted to take it home to meet the folks.  I guess you can’t have everything in life.

Filed Under: Body Love Tagged With: , , ,