Gearing up for weight loss and healthier eating
The Tuttle Park recreation center is noted, at least in my mind, for its soda machine that sells 20oz bottles for a dollar–a pretty good deal around here, if you’re going to buy a twenty-ounce bottle of soda. There’s just one problem: they have regular Mountain Dew but not Diet Dew, and I despise Diet Pepsi, the one diet soda in that machine. So I grabbed a regular Dew yesterday while we were at the park, then nursed it for a while because:
1. I am still not used to drinking large quantities of what pretty much constitutes fizzy sugar syrup. I was afraid it would make me sick on top of the migraine.
2. I don’t like the taste of corn syrup nearly as much as I once tolerated it. The Splenda/Nutrasweet/Ace-K sweetener combination that PepsiCo now uses for their Diet Mountain Dew is, as far as I’m concerned, a massive improvement over the regular label.
3. I’ve been reading low-carb blogs and diabetes articles again over the last couple of days and am now massively paranoid that I’m going to destroy my health with this stuff. With good cause, of course–the dangers of excessive carb consumption are way understated by most “experts,” and carb overconsumption has already left me a wreck–but still.
I mean, I drank it anyway, but it took me several hours. I suppose it could have been worse. I think what helped was that all I had for dinner was a burger patty with cheese and then a steak after that–virtually no carbs at all. I also woke up without a headache, so it all worked out in the end, but I don’t ever want to do that again.
I weighed myself this morning (I’ll do a separate weigh-in post) and was pleasantly surprised that the past several weeks of excessive fast food and the occasional ice cream or milkshake had not completely blown me out of the water. On the other hand, who knows? Maybe it’s a down-tick because Aunt Flo just came for a visit last week, or maybe I’m in the beginning stages of that “unexplained weight loss” they talk about as a symptom of diabetes. I really have no idea what is going on and I can’t afford a glucose-tolerance test, so I’m just going to have to approach this with all possible explanations in mind.
So I’m upping the ol’ fat intake and starting to cut the carbs to finish out this week, and I guess I’ll probably go into Atkins Induction this weekend. I say “I guess” because I suppose it’ll depend on how well I stand up to stupid temptations. I do way too much rationalizing and not enough looking out for my own welfare. My recent experience with Eddy tells me I have the potential to seriously turn this around, because even a year ago I would have kept obsessing over him and let him lead me around by the nose for a while and now I’ve cut that short before it began, so I have more hope for the outcome of this new weight-loss attempt than I would have had otherwise.
I at least want my gut to go away. Is that so much to ask? Sigh.
Meanwhile I have another challenge to deal with: my daughter is becoming entirely too fond of junk herself. Popsicles are her especial weakness. If I don’t watch it she’s going to wind up struggling someday just like me.
A child her age needs high-calorie, nutrient-dense food because she has a small tummy that fills quickly. She also needs fat in her diet because her nervous system is still developing. It amazes me that nutritional “experts” want little kids to eat like small adults. Never mind that the diet they recommend for adults isn’t so healthy either.
I read recently that a daycare center in the UK was found to be malnourishing the children in its care because they were feeding the children too many fruits and vegetables! You wouldn’t think it’d be possible, but if you think about it, that’s a lot of bulk for too few calories. While fruits and veggies are fantastic sources of micronutrients (i.e., vitamins and minerals), they’re a terrible source of the macronutrients we need to maintain our bodies–they are generally low in fat, protein, and carbohydrates. Considering that many of the micronutrients you find in plant foods are also found in more nutrient-dense foods (i.e., meat, eggs, full-fat dairy), little kids need more bang for the buck with each bite they take.
So I am trying to figure this out. I don’t think that feeding my child a lower-carb, higher-fat diet would cause weight loss; I think it only causes weight loss in people with excess bodyfat. If you don’t have extra weight to lose, all it’s going to do is allow you to maintain your body in a healthy way–the whole point of eating food in the first place.
The irony is that a lot of the time she doesn’t want the junk food. Even when we go to a fast food place because she wants to “climb” (i.e., play on the playground equipment), I don’t think she ever finishes her meal, and sometimes she barely touches it. If I fix something at home that is more or less whole foods and relatively low-carb, however, she tends to eat it up as long as she is in the mood for the specific foods I give her. Her weakness seems to involve sweet treats, especially anything involving ice cream or popsicles, and sometimes cookies.
So I need to figure out a hack for that which would let her enjoy her favorite treats occasionally without blowing her out of the water nutritionally. I already have a nifty little ice cream maker where you stick a metal insert in the freezer and then throw in the ingredients when it’s cold; that would be a big help. I could just throw in heavy cream and berries and bam, she’ll have something good. I think I also want to find one of those Tupperware popsicle-making sets and put it to use, perhaps freezing berry smoothie for her.
I also need to do a meal plan for myself and her because I’m not going to be able to sustain this in the long run if I have to keep flying by the seat of my pants to figure out what’s for dinner. If I keep it simple I’ll also keep it cheaper, as well. The not knowing what’s for dinner bit is exactly why we wind up eating so much fast food. It has to stop.
Well, she’s asking for a popsicle so let me go wrangle with her about that. Yay.
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