Dear Reader:

So, I looked in the refrigerator this morning and found myself in that desolate place.   I was out of eggs.   You know, dear reader, what this means.   My morning ritual was disrupted.   I was cast adrift in a sea of unsatisfactory breakfast choices.  So, this happened:

It's OK, people.   I'm going to survive this trauma.   I picked up a dozen eggs on the way home, plus, randomly, some Vaseline.   Kids in winter=chapped everything.  It's rather odd to go into a grocery store just for eggs and Vaseline.    Also, it was so cold outside this evening that my fingers felt like they were going to actually fall off.  Can we order up some spring?  Please?  Please?   

Here are the daily stats today:

Pounds lost:  30  (still no movement, more on this later)

Calories consumed:  1680 (ish)

Calories burned:  337

You've seen my breakfast (add a piece of toast at home so I didn't collapse in an eggless stupor while on my way to McD's).

Lunch:  

Dinner started with this, plus 10 chips (only one with the cheese dip - admirable restraint, no?):

And, ending with this remaining on the plate:

Snack:  mini-bag of Cheezits and peanut butter crackers.

And, I will say that it was also admirable of me to continue my walk after my walking partner abandoned me after one lap around campus to work on the declension of Latin nouns.   Because it was COLD.  Like - hurt your face - COLD.   And, I went right on trekking.   Also, can we talk about the fact that being abandoned for Latin noun declension is a special kind of rejection?   Just kidding, friend.   I'm sure it was RI.VET.ING.

So, the good news is that I really feel as though I have turned a corner in feeling like exercise is now a consistent and here-to-stay part of my life.   I actually - very often - look forward to going to the gym.   That, dear reader, is really nothing short of a Christmas miracle for this girl whose butt has been happily parked on a piano bench for about 36 years.   I am doing at least two days a week of strength training in addition to the daily cardio.   I am building muscles - I can feel them.  I like it.  I am planning to do a 5K sometime in the summer/fall.    No kidding.

But, the food thing.   I feel like I'm probably letting my vigilance slip a bit.   It's like I made it to base camp at Mount Everest and am sitting there thinking - well, this is a major accomplishment - surely, I don't have anything else to prove, right?   Plus, I've got a recital in a few short weeks and all of my days are spent either thinking about how much I need to be practicing or actually practicing.   So, a lot of times lately I've let a handful of nuts or a piece of cheese or an extra package of potato chips creep into the diet.  And, I've not been absolutely 100% every day logging my choices.  So, I really am going to have to reach deep inside me to pull out some more motivation and some
accountability.    I cannot stop this now.   Really, dear reader.  I CANNOT STOP THIS NOW.

Also, can we talk about the fact that I really, really, really need to incorporate more green vegetables into my diet.   Why, oh why can't I be the kind of woman who laughs alone with salad:

http://thehairpin.com/2011/01/women-laughing-alone-with-salad

Look at all of those beautiful, fit, happy, joyous salad eaters.  Come on.   I've tried to be virtuous and get super-excited about kale.   I'm trying to find it in me to embrace the asparagus.   But, let's face it.   It is actually rather easy to make a mediocre salad.   There was this fantastic place that I used to occasionally eat at when I was in grad school in Michigan - the restaurant was called Seva and there were 1,000,683,457,997 types of scrumptious salads on the menu there.   Like salads that had ingredients that can only be found on some remote South Pacific island.   Rare Indonesian lettuces.  Seeds from the single species of passion fruit found only on the top of one particular New Zealand seaside cliff.   You get what I'm talking about.  Those salads were cosmically delicious.  So, my current spinach and grape tomatoes and cucumbers concoctions feel really depressing.   Sob.   I need some green inspiration, folks.   Help a girl out.  Seriously.   Send me some recipes.

Back to the positives:  I think I am getting better at recognizing that my emotional states are almost always temporary and thus not always trying to push the uncomfortable or painful emotional states away with food.   The thing that remains consistent for me is my awareness of these states and my ability to think on them (hopefully), mostly without judgment.  This mindfulness business really is pretty much the best thing, I have to say.   Many years ago, I read a fantastic book entitled "The Perfect Wrong Note" about approaching piano practice without judgment, which was (and still is) very hard for me to do.   I see it in my students all the time.  They make a mistake and immediately focus on themselves and how they are "not talented enough" to do it right.    This talent business is a bunch of crap sometimes.   The book emphasized looking at all of your mistakes with curiosity and fascination.   The whole idea is to say "What can this mistake teach me about what my next course of action should be"?   The author even goes so far as to recommend laughing at one's mistakes when they happen.   Seriously, why not.  Sometimes, it is just ridiculous that you can't play those sixteenth notes evenly.   So, I tell myself and my students - ALL THE TIME - that it's really not about them/me and how well we can play.   It is about the music and what it requires.

So, maybe I can transfer these kinds of thoughts to my eating.   It is about my body and what it requires.   It does me no good to beat myself up about those extra chips or cookies.   Let's call it fascinating that that happened and try to figure out what the next course of action should be.  It is not a moral failure to have eaten in response to stress or unhappiness or boredom.   NOT A MORAL FAILURE, LISA.   Just laugh at it and decide that it means you should have apples for a snack tomorrow instead of chips.   And, try to figure out what triggered it so that you can see it coming next time.   After all:

All right:  I am going to reset my goals.   And, try to be reasonable here.  I'm at base camp and can at least get up to the next shelter on the mountain.   So, it's the last day of February.   By the last day of March, I would like to have lost 5 more lbs.   OK?   OK.    And, I'm going to recommit to logging in my calories EVERY DAY of this next month.  EVERY DAY.   OK?  OK.   

Many thanks for putting up with me, dear reader.   

Thanks for reading!