The problem of overeating and comfort eating

Anyone who has had trouble with their weight will know exactly what I'm going through right now just from reading the title: Overeating and comfort eating.

Overeating, simply put, is to not stop eating when you know you should. I used to do this a lot. A lot. I would not stop because there was still food on my plate, or because I thought it was a waste to throw food away, or because I was convinced I should, but mostly because I thought I had deserved it (comfort eating). Eating for comfort could be seen as a disorder, and could be fuelled by emotional issues, stress or depression.

Before, I used to overeat because it made me feel better, even though afterwards it would make me feel worse. I know I used to comfort eat a lot when I felt miserable because I thought I deserved a treat to make me feel better. This type of overeating is often caused by emotional discomfort or depression, and in my case (and I think this is the case for a lot of people in this situation), I often got stuck in a loop: I'd feel terrible about  myself, eat for comfort, and then feel bad again because I just stuffed my face. Other moments, and these may even have been worse, I would stop myself from eating something because I knew I should not, succeed in convincing myself, and then reward myself for my great resolve... by eating that same thing I was not going to eat.

But I also used to overeat because I thought it was just part of my routine: I would sit down behind the pc to game (I play World of Warcraft) and I would grab a bag of sweets or crisps because I felt like that was part of it. I would have a bag or bowl nearby and every time there was a quiet moment in-game (during a raid after a wipe, or after a boss kill, or while flying from one spot to the other...), I'd reach for a treat without even noticing, emptying a bag in record-time just because I was on flight points a lot or because we were wiping a lot during progression raids.

This last week I have been stuck in a similar loop again and it is bugging the hell out of me. Even though I know I should not eat that one bad thing, I seem to have lost all self-control and even found myself thinking in old patterns again where I would reward myself with food. I polished off an entire bag of crisps in two evenings. I emptied a bag of almonds in one. I ate sweets for the first time in weeks. Last night after dinner, I went to put my plate in the kitchen and ate leftover pasta sauce straight from the pan. Even though I haven't touched it all week, I know there is a bar of chocolate in the cupboard with my name on it and even though the fact that it's been in there for a week and is still untouched is a good sign, I get distracted and cranky just thinking about it. And I know this may not sound terrible, but it is making me feel awful! These are old habits, bad old habits, and I have been trying so very hard these past five weeks to kick those habits and I thought I was succeeding, but I let my guard down for one week and I end up doing those exact same things all over again.

The lack of restraint has been showing in my weight, but it's not as bad as I originally thought. I have been bouncing like a kangaroo on a skippy ball all week (those with an imagination like mine, enjoy that image in your head), but I am still down 1.3 kilo from last week, currently weighing 104 kg, meaning I'm 8,5 kg down from my starting weight. My weight loss schedule has not been harmed. But I'm doing this to be happy and feel better about myself, so despite the apparent lack of impact on my weight, I'm really not happy with this situation.

The stupid thing is, I know where it comes from. I start a new job tomorrow. I'm unbelievably nervous. This is a job that I have no actual education or training in, that I only have amateur experience in, that I applied for based on the confidence others have in my ability to do this job. What if I fuck it up? I know that it's not a big deal should it happen, but I don't handle rejections and failure very well... (I am also a very bad loser at games. I once tore a pack of cards in two after losing a game of Mau Mau. This may be related...) Last week, and this week, I started receiving the necessary equipment and logins and passwords needed to do this job (I will be working from home) and there is now a phone staring at me from the corner of my eye, and software popping up and blinking with new messages. I am pretty damned nervous for tomorrow.

 So despite knowing the source of my discomfort and cause of my uncontrollable impulse to eat, I am having some real trouble stopping myself from eating... But I have come up with a new strategy. I am going to try and distract my mind with the Olympic Games and some crochet and see if this brings any good results next week. Hopefully I'll still have that chocolate bar, and a nice, sturdy crochet basket to keep it in!

Post-workout musings

I don't know about you guys, but after a good workout, I am absolutely parched! That's probably why my favourite post-workout snack is this:

Grapes and ice cold water. Oh yes. Delicious, cold, juicy grapes... Oh how I love thee.

I had a tiresome workout today, and I'm not quite sure why. All I know is that I was absolutely spent after an hour and I still had some exercises and cardio left... I accidentally skipped my crunches (d'oh) because I completely forgot, and I only did 6 minutes worth of rowing, I think. Not an awful lot... Though I don't know for sure, since therapist Mark told me of the fishing game on the rowing machines and challenged me to break his record, so I'm more focused on playing the game than on how long one round of fishing actually is... It's so much fun, though. You are a medium-sized fish and you need to eat the tiny regular-sized fish and avoid getting eaten by the big fish because that costs you points, and you move your fishie up and down by rowing faster or slower. My record so far is 1470 points. The score to beat? 2120. I've got a lot of work to do still. He promised me a big bowl of blueberries though if I ever do, so I'm determined to beat his score. I'm a sucker for free fresh fruit...

I've been playing around with the cardio programming on the bikes and elliptical machine but it's throwing me off a bit. There's one called 'Extreme Heart Rate Interval' and holy mother of Bob is it Extreme. With a capitol E. It calculates your top heart rate (I think mine was at 163) and then builds up levels as you go to get you to that heart rate faster, and once you reach it, it makes you drop to a low rate by dropping levels again, in my case 123. But the problem was, I never got down to that lower rate! I was so frustrated, because I have a pretty high heart rate and it was pretty much impossible to get it down to that low rate! I tried again today and, following Mark's advice, also slowed down my pace and focused on my breathing to allow my heart rate to drop. And I did reach the lower level! It was a pain, though, to peddle at a speed that was waaaay slower than what I usually do. (I went from an average of 95 rpm to 80, it felt like I was standing still! (which I was, technically, since I was on a bike and a) it was a stationary bike, and b) I was sitting down.))
I've checked with previous recorded sessions on my heart rate monitor and the amount of calories burned was pretty much the same, so it did not have a negative impact, but still. It's weird to work out with doing way less than you're used to doing.

Spicy garlic chickpeas

We were unbelievably uninspired at dinner time this week. It was almost painful to watch, I am sure, the way the BF and I were standing in the supermarket, staring at the coolers with meats and wandering back and forth between the veggies and the frozen pizzas... I'll be honest, I have not been feeling very well this week and to say that I wasn't exactly in the mood to do some actual cooking is an understatement.

So we settled. We had some pre-baked Egyptian pitas in our cupboard somewhere, and they're awesome with shoarma and garlic sauce, but that's not really a healthy option for me, so the BF took home the shoarma, and I made myself some spicy garlic chickpeas! It was an experiment, because I had read some recipes that sounded pretty great, but I did not follow one at all. They turned out so unbelievably delicious though, so I'm sharing the recipe.

Spicy garlic chickpeas

- 1 can of chickpeas, washed and drained (I used the 425 ml can from Bonduelle)

- 3 cloves of garlic / pre-minced garlic with olive oil
- olive oil (if you're not using the pre-minced stuff)
- 2 teaspoons of spicy curry powder
- rocket lettuce
- cherry tomatoes
- pita bread

For the garlic sauce

- 1/4 cup of Non-fat Greek yoghurt
- 1 clove of garlic
- pinch of salt and pepper


Wash and drain your chickpeas thoroughly. I don't know if this is typical for the brand, but mine always have this top layer of nice, loose chickpeas followed by a thick layer of squishy-looking peas in a jelly-like substance, which just looks grody. So rince thoroughly!
Finely mince your garlic cloves and add to a pan on medium heat with about half a tablespoon of olive oil, and let simmer for a minute or so. If you are using the pre-minced stuff (which I was using since the garlic in our supermarket looks like it's about to start talking), don't add any extra oil.
Add your curry powder and mix to combine with the garlic. Then add your chickpeas and stir to coat with the curry-garlic mixture. You can taste one to see if you need to adjust the spices. Keep to one or two though, if you're like me, your pan will be half-empty before it reaches the table...
 Keep the heat to medium/low and, stirring occasionally, cook your chickpeas for 8-10 minutes.
In the meantime, bake your pita bread, wash your lettuce and chop your tomatoes in quarters.

Then grab a bowl and make your garlic sauce:
Add the yoghurt to the bowl. Mince your clove of garlic, add the salt and pepper and stir to combine. Taste and adjust flavours to your liking. I love garlic, so I always add at least one more clove, but if you like subtle tastes, stick to one!

To assemble, slice open your pita like an envelope, grab a spoonful of garlic sauce and spread it around inside and up the sides of your pita. Then add a handful of rocket salad, a few quarters of tomato, and several spoonfuls of the chickpeas. Top with some more tomato and a few dollops of garlic sauce.

These make a delicious and easy dinner, and I can say from experience that it tastes even better the next day for lunch!

Enjoy!

4 weeks in: my first evaluation

Whew, those weeks have flown by! It's hard to believe that I am already 4 weeks into this whole.. thing.

Thing.

Let's tackle that one first, shall we? I find myself opening up to people about this whole weight loss and health thing I've started more and more, and I like talking about all the stuff I learn (mostly from Pinterest), but the one thing I seem to have problems with, is actually giving the beast a name! What is it I am doing, exactly? Am I on a diet? Because really, it sounds like a bad thing to just call this a diet. Apart from that, calling it a diet also raises expectations and more questions about what kind of diet, whether there's a book they can buy, whether there's a program to follow, or a blog to read or video to watch. But I don't have any examples, since I'm doing this by myself and through my own program, my own recipes, my own 'handbook'. It's making talking about it difficult, because it is apparently hard for people to grasp the concept without resorting to asking me 'why'.

Talking about it like it's a diet also brings out the less than kind comments ("You don't need that! Are you nuts?!") and unwanted advice, and even though most of them are not meant as such, it makes me very insecure. I made this image in the first week, when I felt that the only one fit to reassure me that this was a good decision, was me.

So I'm not liking calling it a diet. It's far more than that, obviously, since I am also working on my health, on getting fit, on building up muscle instead of fat. But to call it a change in lifestyle also doesn't suit me. It sounds fine enough in English (albeit a bit fancy), but it sounds downright pretentious and, quite frankly, ridiculous when I call it that in Dutch. I'm still not certain what to call it. A change of habits, is what comes closest without raising eyebrows and questions. 

Anyway. This... change of habits. Four weeks in and boy am I feeling the changes! No, not really, to be honest. I think the biggest change I am actually 'feeling' is that my body seems to have become far more sensitive to sudden changes in daily diet, because, and I'll spare you the details, there have been some periods of.. less than regular toilet visits. I suspect it has something to do with this being the 'Summer' (I use this term lightly because we have had torrential showers and storms for weeks now) and, as a result, there have been several barbecues after which I felt less than stellar. As in, my stomach felt like it was out to kill me. Am I becoming more sensitive to badly cooked barbecued meat? (I hope not, that would mean I can't ever cook meat for dinner by myself again.)
Whatever it is that causes my stomach to get upset, it has put a few dents in my regular weight loss and it fluctuated heavily through the week, but it always ended up resolving itself after a few days and if I put my loss from week to week together in a graph, it's still a nice, fluent line!

That's right, you are seeing that correctly. That's a loss of 5.5 kg! I'm proud of me. Go, me! Yay! I made comparison pictures and I can see a bit of a difference, but I'm far too insecure still to show those on the blog... Sorry! You'll have to take my word for it.
People are beginning to notice some change in my appearance, friends that I hadn't seen for a long time who noticed immediately, or my brother's girlfriend. Since I don't see any difference, having them tell me they do (unsolicited, I must add) felt pretty good!


This weekend, I came to a realisation about my struggle with my weight and why it feels as though this whole lifestyle change is coming quite natural to me. It has been one year since I first went to the gym and I remember crying after I made the first appointment with a trainer for a training schedule. My first steps into that gym were tentative and slow, and I felt like it wasn't doing anything for me for the first months at least. But now that I look back on how this year has gone by, I can only say that I think it was all just ramping up to this decision I made a month ago. I think by the time I was ready to make that decision, I had built up quite a bit of mental strength along with the physical muscles. I am now in a position where I feel comfortable enough to ask my trainers for more exercises, exercises that target specific muscle groups or areas, or that help me with specific problems. I am aware of my shortcomings and know that I have miles yet to go, but I am feeling comfortable enough with the process. I think it's a bit of an understatement when I say that this realisation was quite liberating!

All in all, these first four weeks have been very interesting. In the next four weeks, I want to:
- Focus on expanding my healthy dinner options. I am doing excellent in the breakfast and lunch division, but my dinner-options are still quite lacking in variety. It's mostly chicken. And salad. Not that I'd have trouble with only eating chicken and salad, but there's a certain BF that would like some variation in his daily hot meals.
-Keep a better weightlog. I like making notes and the app I use to track my calorie intake does allow for comments, but I want to start keeping it in a notebook. I still have one I have barely used that's a lovely little size and perfect for the job, since that's not the only thing I want to keep track of...
- Start weekly measurements. I took measurements a few weeks ago, but I lost the piece of paper! I want to keep track of both weight and sizes since muscle and fat aren't interchangeable in size, after all. This would be far easier to do in something like a notebook or an excel sheet. But since I like jotting things down in notebooks... I'm going to make a weekly log of weight and measurements.
- Keep visual track of my progress. I have taken a few pictures, but I am so severely self-concious about my physical appearance that I won't post them online. However, I do want to keep taking those pictures so I can keep track of my progress in the easiest way I can: by looking at those pictures. I love the Tumblr Before and After Pictures of Weight Loss because it shows what those people were capable of. It's impressive! Whether they have lost 5 or 50 pounds, or even over 100, I love looking at those pictures and hope to one day have one of those pictures of my own progress.

This list may not contain an awful lot of changes compared to the last four weeks, but for now I simply intend to keep up the good work I have been doing so far.

Home Improvement, now with less painful comedy!

I'm sorry Tim Allen, but really, you were one of the most unfunny guys on tv in the Nineties. And I should know, I watched a hell of a lot of TV back then.

Anyway, home improvement time! I have several issues with our house that will need some serious addressing. Or have been in need of some serious addressing for some time already. I think it's time to put my shoulders under it and get some of that out of the way, and it's always fun to blog about this stuff, isn't it?

My biggest concern about my house is the lack of storage space in it. We have a small kitchen, with a small amount of available shelving space. There's odd corners and a weird layout that prevents us from getting more out of the space in the hallway. There were three built-in closets when we bought it, but we knocked the wall out between two of those to house our washer and dryer, leaving little space in closets to use for storage. There is still some spaces here and there that we could use for storage, but if I'm honest, I don't think I want to clog up what little space we have left with our stuff. We need to redo the storage spaces we have to provide us with the storage space we want. This is going to require some out-of-the-box thinking and tinkering, I expect, and I hope not too much in terms of expenses, but I am excited to get stuff going so we can make our house a better place to live in.

One of the spaces that has always bothered me, was the closet in our study. As you can see from the blurry picture below (sorry), it was a silly storage space. There was one shelf, to the top, and the rest of the closet was empty space. Not very efficient.

We had tried to build some shelving to the right of the door before for our printer and scanner and the toolbox, but they were not very accessible. The shelves were too close together for us to open the scanner on top of the printer easily, and there was no light, making actually seeing what you were doing a pain. The toolbox is a heavy beast, and heaving it in and out of the space was pretty tough.
The rest of the closet was occupied by an old server that the BF wanted to use for personal fidgeting, but the thing was enormous. The shelf you can see there, with the bottle and the Zyxel-box on top, is resting on top of the server. Just to give you an idea of its size. We had leftover crap like our old hoover, a yoga mat, my ironing board, and other bits and bobs hanging around there. This was actually taken after a thorough cleaning session, when I tossed out 6 plastic bags of crap and old shoeboxes and other nonsense. Within a week, there were backpacks, cardboard boxes and other nonsense stuffed inside on top of the piles you can now see here.

The plan was hatched to add shelving to this closet so we could make better use of the space, but it never really happened. You know how it goes. Then this Saturday, I went to an amusement park and came home to...

Surprise! Shelves!

The BF lured me into the study after I got home at midnight with an excuse ('there's something in the printer, could you get it for me?') and I think I was grinning from ear to ear when I found my new shelving. There's space in the bottom for a large crate where I can store soda bottles, empty or full, along with our old hoover and some cleaning supplies, three shelves where we've got space for crafting supplies, tools and toolboxes, and one that's still practically empty, and a new shelf where our printer now resides with enough space to open up the scanner without having to twist your neck to see if you're doing it right. There's space left to the right of the door between the wall and the shelves where my ironing board fits perfectly. I've got all sorts of plans to use this space even better, I'm going to move some stuff around and get some new boxes that fit between the shelves so I can move some more stuff around...

It's the beginning of something big, I tell you. Like the snowflake that started the avalanche.