FELICE ANNO NUOVO! (w:176.8)

Happy New Years Everyone!

Well, now that that's out of the way! :) I hope everyone's New Year's is going well, I'm spending mine tonight with my mom cooking my brains out. Which leads me to two very important topics: my mom, and cooking.

It's hard to talk about one without talking about the other. I love to cook, I've never discussed it much here, but in my real life I am a kitchenophile and I must say (modestly) that I am damn good at making food. I don't mean green bean whatever with a can of soup tossed on top good. Because though that may taste good, there is a different between making good food, and cooking well. I would contend, that after cooking and screwing up, and learning for years I am beginning to come into my own. From such a young age, I would see my mom making her delicious Italian gravy rushing back and forth between hot pans, making the whole house smell rich and warm and I fell in love. I used to only be allowed to grate the cheese, now I can practically cook the whole ordeal myself. Cooking and my family go hand in hand, while my mom only likes to do her big gravy once a year, my dad is Puerto Rican and loves doing time consuming things like paella as much as he loves whipping up some chicken. Where my mom and I are about flavor and quality he is all about economy, and can get a terrible cut of meat, but season it and cook it until it tastes like heaven. Its not hard then to imagine why none of us are thin. Its less extreme in my dad's case but not by much. My mom weighs around 275, and it scares me. I want her to live for a long time, to see me grow up, and I want her to be healthy and happy. We had a heart to heart yesterday, and I basically told her that if she keeps living the way she is living, without changing anything she will die sooner. It's just fact. We cried, and she looked so sad but I told her, I promised her that we would commit to changing our lives together. I can't be selfish and do this alone, I need her to be healthy too for our family. She knows that, and she's started counting her calories too. It's nice to have a buddy to do this with. Lord knows i need her help as much as she needs mine!

So calorie count should be around 1,545 today (a little lot high...but okay it's a holiday...excuses! I know! But I'm just starting again! Can't get militant on a holiday!) . I've already factored in everything we should be having for dinner (rib roast, roasted potatoes, asparagus, etc.) but I'll let you know tomorrow if anything has changed I've eaten my own weight in butter. Stay tuned tomorrow for a description of dinner, and (cheesy I know, but I can't help myself) some resolutions for 2011! Happy 2011 Everyone and good luck in the New Year!

-Bella

Counting Ze Calories! (w:177.0)

So miraculously after last night I woke up to a weight of 177.0. Why is that miraculous? Well if you considered what I had to eat that day...suffice it to say my evening culminated in an unreasonable amount of crazy delicious slow roasted pork shoulder, with the fat (chicharron to all those in the know :) ) sandwiched on a piece pieces of potato bread. mmm.

So clearly I expected to wake up to 178 at least.

However I woke up to 177! Fluke of flukes! I decided today to start counting my calories again. It's a pain, and I've never been able to do it for long but I've heard others do it with a fair bit of success. I've forgotten how much I'm used to eating in a day...I had hoped to end the day somewhere around 1,200. Well, with the left over pork we made cuban sandwiches...and we went out to coffee (where I got a calorie dense chai tea latte) so I ended the day somewhere around 1509. Within a 1,200 to 1,550 range. I think that spread is a little high though, and I don't like the idea of being around 1,500 so I'll try to stay around 1,200. Hrmph.

Why is it that when I commit to start doing something like this again all of a sudden there is nothing I want more than a whole stuffed crust cheese pizza?! :)

-Bella

Going to bed hungry? (178.6)

Sorry for the melodramatic last post. I can get snotty if I'm in a bad mood. I've read some good blogs lately and am feeling better/have a renewed sense of faith in/about the blogging community.

So anyways,
A thing I've often heard about weight loss, is that if you go to bed hungry you're going to loose weight. Is that really the case? Since college/since the gaining of all this weight I have noticed that night times are times when I'm especially prone to eating. But it makes me feel gross, the food sits in my stomach like lead and I go to bed...unhappy with myself. I feel good when I can "beat it" (ie, when I go to bed instead of walking over to the campus Coffee Shop to get a bag of Salt and Vinegar chips).

The reason I'm posting this is last night I was SO hungry, I had to eat dinner early, because of a dentists appointment later that night. And then after I sat in the living room at 9:30 debating over what type of toppings to get on my LARGE Papa John's pizza. Yikes. Instead I had a piece of whole grain toast with some reduced sugar organic jelly, and a little cream cheese. It was a better choice, not the best, but better. However I woke up this morning to 178 (instead of my recent usual 177) and knew it must have been the toast before bed. It just...sits there. Yuck.

I'm going to try to get back into the swing of things this week, not full swing mind you, but maybe half swing. Not over night anyways, slower, something I can...tolerate and swallow right now.

Good luck to all!
Bella

What are we doing here?

Hey World,

It's been a while since my last post. I'm sure all of you were quivering in anticipation for the one that's coming now, the topic of which is: What are we doing here? By "here" of course I mean the internet, and by "we", I think right now I mean diet bloggers.

Don't get me wrong, I love a good blog, and some of the diet blogs I've read here (escapefromobesity and such) are among the most inspiring things I've ever read. But the rest of us (myself included)...what are we doing here? What does blogging add to our journeys? Surely, I'm not really helping anyone by blogging once every three months...surely my selfish inner rantings are not guiding the two maybe three of you who have ever read this towards any sort of insight into your own lives...so what exactly are we doing?

I think it has to boil down to something about us then. Something personal and possibly good happens when we air our dirty mental laundry out for everyone else to read. For example, right now I'm home, away from school. That's good because most if not all of my friends were getting on my nerves and I needed time away from them. It's also bad because it means I'm spending an almost excessive amount of time with my mother, which is dangerous for both her and me. Finally in terms weight loss, my progress is zero and I hover around 177.

I feel better having said that to you Internet. I do. I don't know why I do. Something optimistic in me is at work and when I put pen to paper (or rather fingers to keyboard) I feel maybe even just a little bit closer to getting it right, to maybe not f'ing up so much. But is that all just hope? I'm not sure. But if it is...is that really that bad?

I'm not really sure if I'm trying to lose weight right now. I want to be thin still. I want to be healthy still. Hopefully I will post again with some notable weight loss and a renewed sense of something, of some sense of what we are doing here.