Embrace the Unusual

I guess its that time of year that people are really giving it the ol’ try ONE MORE TIME to lose that back forty.  There are lots of encouraging YOU CAN DO IT blogs out there right now.  I thought I’d take a different tack.  JUST DON’T BOTHER.  DON’T WASTE YOUR TIME.  GIVE IT UP.

Unless.

Unless you are willing to accept that you are going to have to do SOMETHING ELSE.  What you are doing now is not working.  You will have to do something else.  And you will have to do something else for the rest of your life.  That’s a big order.  For some, a bitter pill to swallow.  But you know, sometimes a bitter pill is the only cure available.

For each of us, the path is going to be a little different.  There is a lot of good food out there to choose from.  Some of the stuff you are eating might be okay.  Maybe you just need to ‘turn down the volume.’  There are lots of different exercise choices.  We all don’t have to do the same thing.

Now don’t get all upset.  I didn’t say you have to do EVERYTHING DIFFERENT, ALL AT ONCE.  Just something different.  For the rest of your life.

For me, the realization that I would have to do something different for the rest of my life came when I was 29 years old and weighed 230 pounds.  I wrote a college paper titled ‘Winning the Losing Game.’  It only took me 21 years and another 30 pounds to put that into action…

And for me, the ‘doing something different’ has changed and twisted along the path.  When I first started five years ago, I made a big change.  I went from eating fast food 3-5 times a week, to saving my ‘points’ (I was doing Weight Watchers at the time) for one fast food meal a week.  Now, fast food is not even on my radar.  I don’t think about it, don’t crave it.  Just don’t eat it, period.  Other changes weren’t quite as big.  I realized that little changes add up.  It was better to use Cool Whip Lite than regular Cool Whip.  I became quite enamored of Cool Whip Lite, and it served me well over the next few years.  Now, I haven’t kept Cool Whip Lite in my freezer for almost a year.

I knew that candy (and all things sweet) was a big problem.  I substituted ‘energy bars’ of all types and sizes.  I always had a stock of Weight Watchers snack bars on hand.  Dark Chocolate was supposed to be good for you, so I found a dark chocolate bar that I liked and indulged in that when I wanted some candy (which was almost every day.)  Eventually, most of these things changed too.  I realized that most of the energy bars were full of additives and junk that really wasn’t that good for me, so they are gone for the most part.  And the dark chocolate is still there, but I went from having the whole bar, to 1/2 a bar, to 1/4 of a bar, until now I am usually satisfied with a single square.

When I did away with the energy bars, I embarked on baking my own more healthy choices.  That worked for a while until I realized that I still love baked goods a little too much.  Even if they were healthy, you probably shouldn’t eat them four times a day.  Baked goods are not completely gone.  I just have to watch how often I eat them.

Since last April, when I started working out with Vicky, my personal trainer, my eating has done a one-eighty.  I never expected that to be a side effect of working with a personal trainer.  She is  a stickler for good whole foods, organic, no additives, no artificial sweeteners (I still have not conquered that one.)  I have tried more different foods in these last few months than I have tried in the last 30 years, I bet.  And a lot of them are GOOD!

Hmmm, I really didn’t start out to write all that stuff.  I just wanted to tell you about a new food combo I tried tonight that was REALLY good.  I guess that made me think back about the journey, and how I never would have put this in my mouth five years ago.  But this was really really good.  We have to learn that there are more good foods out there than what we have been sold in the last century.  You don’t have to try all these ‘crazy’ new foods all at once.  Just try one.  And then try it again.  You just never know when you will discover your next ‘favorite new food.’

Okay, back to what I ate tonight.  Remember the ‘zucchini fettucine?’ THAT STUFF was good, and I had one more serving of my favorite new spaghetti sauce in the freezer.  I had bought some zucchini at the store a couple of days ago just for this purpose.  I waited til I was hungry, and went to get the zucchini out of the fridge, and WHAT?  No zucchini?  There’s only me in this house, and I guess I already ate it all.  I do really like zucchini.  Then I remembered another idea I had had.  How ’bout doing carrots with that vegetable peeler idea?  And adding that really good sweet onion.  And then I decided to chop up some brown mushrooms to add to the mix.  I sauteed these all for a while, and topped with the spaghetti sauce.  Man oh man oh man.  That was really good.  Best of all, I have some of the veggie mix left over.  I might use it in a wrap tomorrow, along with a little asiago cheese.  See what I mean?  You gotta embrace the unusual.

And now for the Noah and Sophie report.  Noah went to the vet’s today.  He was such a good boy.  Very sociable, so calm, walking well on the leash, good in the crate in the car.  So he got a new toy on the way home.

Noah likes his new toy.

Noah REALLY likes his new toy.

Then Mom looked away for ONE SECOND and Noah found a new toy, the sofa cushion.

Noah doing his Steve Martin impression "I am a wild and CRAZY guy!"

"Mom, you have no idea just exactly how wild and crazy I can be!"

"Mom, I'm trying to be patient. But between Steve Martin there, and your blog, my patience is growing a bit thin. A cookie might help."