Serenity’s Got Goals: Cutting the Crap … from my Diet

I’ve made a long-term goal of taking care of my physical self by making several lifestyle changes, and I know it’s high time I took a look at what I actually put into this body of mine before I damage it permanently. I’ll of course keep working out and getting more physically fit at my gym, but a big struggle for me with my health and weight is my diet. I’ve not gained a ton of weight, but it has slowly creeped on over the past 3 years, and I don’t like it. I feel sluggish, and my clothes don’t fit as well as they should. Plus, given my family’s medical history, I have to get crackin’ on this now to avoid, among other things, heart disease, diabetes, and thyroid disorders. Yeesh.

Now, while my diet isn’t totally bad, after a short time of keeping a food journal, I’m shocked at just how much crap I really eat, even though I thought previously that my diet wasn’t that bad!

Here’s a sampling from 2 Thursdays ago:

• Breakfast:   1 cup of oatmeal prepared with water, 1/4 cup Craisins, 1 tsp Splenda artificial sweetener, cinnamon. with 2 cups of coffee with creamer and more Splenda.
• Daytime Snacks:  1 granola bar with honey.. Also, during the work day, I drank 3 cups of tea (without sweetener, thankfully) and 1 bottle Diet Dr. Pepper.
• Lunch:  2 cups pasta with marinara sauce with 2 pieces of garlic bread (I took 2nds – bad girl!). 1 cup low-calorie juice which, unfortunately, contained aspartame sweetener.
• Dinner:  1 Jimmy John’s turkey sub without mayo and loaded with lettuce, tomato and sprouts w/ a large dill pickle on the side. Another Diet Dr. Pepper.
• Nighttime Snacks: 2 cups light-butter microwave popcorn. I mindlessly ate almost the whole bag!

Now, I’m not into counting calories, nor should I be. I learned a long time ago that I should eat when I’m hungry instead of starving myself since that will ultimately slow down my metabolism, and if I stick with healthier foods, I won’t over-indulge. But that’s not exactly what I’d call normal. Did you see all that artificial sweetener? Ick! My poor liver. The sodium in that dill pickle I indulged in with what otherwise could have been a semi-healthy dinner is enough to make me worry about my old blood-pressure worries!

Part of this diet craziness is that I eat a lot of smaller meals and tend to graze a lot, given my weird work schedule and that I don’t cook full meals because BF isn’t around to eat them with me. Except on weekends, when I tend to plan nice meals at home, we both fend for ourselves. BF, being a guy and also having no debt, is much more likely to eat his lunches out or in the company cafeteria. And he gets to eat his meals on a regular breakfast-lunch-dinner schedule. Must be nice.

Here’s the great news:  now that I’m starting my new job Monday, I’ll be on a fairly normal 8-4 schedule. Likely, I’ll have a lot more time in the evenings to make myself better dinners and I’ll put more effort into it since BF will be there to help too, but breakfasts and lunches will be more pressed for time. I’ll have to focus on using my free time in the evenings on making lunches for the next day, or do more cooking in bulk. But I have to keep the budget in mind. Eating lunch out is not going to be an every-day option for me like for BF, but taking a lunch will require me to keep more lunch-bag friendly ingredients in the pantry.

This is going to be an adventure. In my next post, I’m going to focus on my other diet/health struggles:  my fight against junk food binges, caffeine, and alcohol. Not only does it sap my wallet but also my health. Here come the big changes …

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