So I went and pulled those glass dishes out on Monday. Tuesday, when I had to go into the cellar (that´s also where the trashcans are), I took the plastic box I´d put them in along and dumped the whole contents into the trash. They hadn´t hit bottom before I caught myself wanting to dig in and retrieve them. So pretty, and I had them for so long, and besides, they were a gift from Granny. Well, actually, they were just bought off some money she had given me, and she´d never even seen them. So, I stuck to my guns and left them where they´d fallen.
Yesterday, I ditched the bowls to that set I still had in my kitchen, and then dug out the other glass cups and plates I have, which had been languishing hidden behind the pots in the kitchen, and, after washing them up, put them into the cupboard formerly occupied by the white ones, where they are relatively more accessible and have a chance of being used. The space that used to hold them will be the new home of my pasta machine that used to clog up a whole compartment of my hallway cupboard, and the space that held the bowls is the new storage for spare dinnerware (we have two of each in use, but did get some extras for MIL´s visits, so there are actually three sets of our most-used ones, but they don´t forcibly all have to sit in the main dishware cabinet, do they?)
Going through all that stuff went a long way towards showing how far our culinary habits have changed during the last years. Witness the layer of dust on those 36cm-diameter-pans that I was once so keen on getting because I thought you had to have them if you wanted to be a good cook. It´s, with me, something like a father-daughter-thing. My father is, himself, having a passion for good food, likes to cook and spends a fortune on cookbooks and kitchen gadgets. He´s also always been super critical of me and my lifestyle. For a long time I tried to put together a set of kitchen equipment he´d approve of, even though he has been inside my flat only once and will not enter it again (long story there, let´s just say we´re both quite stubborn).
Having good kitchen equipment, as in, pots, pans, knives, and such, is in my opinion really essential for good cooking, So, getting me pots and pans of good quality wasn´t all a waste of money.
Getting multiples of each, on the other hand, was. I simply do not do meals that have several courses where I´d need to have, say, three big pans at once.
And I´ve by now discovered that the smaller portions we eat can easily be prepared in the smaller pots I have, so, the big ones that hold a gallon or more of liquid are, for all practical purposes, not used any more.
Another category of rarely-used items are the multiple microwave glass dishes I once thought I absolutely had to have. Nowadays, I rarely ever use the microwave any more, and if I do, I find myself using the same two dishes all the time (again, the best ones). Thus, the other ones are also candidates for eviction. Even if I want to keep them in case one of the others should break (it does happen sometimes), I can take them to the cellar, after all, glass doesn´t rust or get musty. And that would free another compartment of prime kitchen cupboard.
This is getting interesting, really. Perhaps, when I´m through decluttering and reshuffling, I´ll finally know just how much cupboard space I really need. And be able to put what I have in there without building stacks of things that require careful disassembling every time I want to use a part of them.
Julia
2011/10/27
2011/10/25
Liberating cupboards
Yesterday was pure pandemonium at work, so, when I came home by eight p.m. I found myself pretty wired and hungry enough to eat up half a cow on top of it.
As DH was out of town overnight, it was up to me what I´d do with the rest of the evening. Culinary and otherwise. So, I just opened myself a can of smoked mackerel with lots of pepper, and then I took advantage of the fact that DH was, for once, not occupying the couch in front of the TV to push said couch aside and attack the cupboards that are usually hidden behind it.
Due to their extreme inaccessibility, these are, by default, the storage place for things that are not used frequently.
So, I found my old ivory-colored opaque glassware dishes for eight people, which I bought about 25 years ago while still a student because I believed I would someday be popular and give a lot of parties.
They have been in there since I set up those cupboards, unused because I have, long ago, bought myself some pretty china that we use every day. They were taking up a whole compartment of premium storage space, so I have decided to remove them. As I am not much into having visitors, the number of occasions I´d use them is zero.
What makes me hesitate to ditch them altogether is once more sentimentality, as they were a present from my Grandma. But there´s another set of transparent glassware in an acorn leaf pattern that has even more memories attached, because they were the first dishes of my own I had, also as a present from Grandma, and which is right now stacked in the depths of a cupboard in my kitchen. Actually, these are still rather pretty, and the other, white set is a pattern that is heavily used in bistros and cafes hereabouts, because a snow-white version is always available for very little money. The ones I have, as I said, are ivory-colored and look decidedly yellowed and dingy when seen next to the snow-white ones.Besides, I found that they seem to attract some kind of greasy film when not in use that makes it feel icky to touch them.
And the latest additions to that white glassware are the 32 cm-plates that were part of the reason why I overate and gained weight. These, in any case, have a date with the trashcan. I just didn´t want to throw them in last night. The same fate awaits two giant pasta dishes. Which reminds me that I have several big serving bowls that go with them, too, somewhere in the kitchen. That I have to locate them first shows how little use I got from them. Again, I have several stainless steel bowls that I use for the purposes I´d use the bowls for, so, this is another case of clutter coming about because I did not toss the old ones when I got the others. I guess the trashcan will be quite full this week, after I put all that stuff in there.
Emotionally, I´m a bit on the fence about tossing them, because they come from a time in my life when I imagined my future a lot differently than what my reality is now. But in my present reality, I have no use for them. And that´s what should matter, not the old fantasies of being a master hostess, giving parties and making giant bowls of salad for my guests.
Besides, if ever an occasion should arise when I would need these dishes and bowls, I can always replace them for very little money. Until then, I have the use of at least one of my cupboards back. And perhaps I´ll be able to liberate another one in the kitchen by discarding those extra bowls. Not that there wouldn´t be anything to put in there yet. But the number of stacks of things that barely fit into the cupboards will be decreased, and if the things I keep are better accessible, I might get more use out of them.
Just why is it so difficult to say farewell to things that have been given as presents? I have a tea mug with a matching lid and saucer, and a porcelain sieve for loose tea, that I have never used. It was a birthday present from a friend at school, I don´t even remember which, and I have dragged it along since I-don´t-know-when because I feel absurdly guilty about tossing it. I mean, I did at the time not care who gave it, and now I am feeling bound to keep it? The same goes for a single ice cream dish and a clay pot for making baked apples in the oven. Perhaps I should make it a point to use these. If they work well, they can stay, if they don´t, they go.
For those moments when I need reminding of the time I was given them, or of the fact that I ever had them, there´s my digicam. I´ll take pictures of them before tossing them. Digitally, that costs nothing and takes up no extra space.
And with every such decluttering session, I get closer to goal: having only things I need or like.
Julia
As DH was out of town overnight, it was up to me what I´d do with the rest of the evening. Culinary and otherwise. So, I just opened myself a can of smoked mackerel with lots of pepper, and then I took advantage of the fact that DH was, for once, not occupying the couch in front of the TV to push said couch aside and attack the cupboards that are usually hidden behind it.
Due to their extreme inaccessibility, these are, by default, the storage place for things that are not used frequently.
So, I found my old ivory-colored opaque glassware dishes for eight people, which I bought about 25 years ago while still a student because I believed I would someday be popular and give a lot of parties.
They have been in there since I set up those cupboards, unused because I have, long ago, bought myself some pretty china that we use every day. They were taking up a whole compartment of premium storage space, so I have decided to remove them. As I am not much into having visitors, the number of occasions I´d use them is zero.
What makes me hesitate to ditch them altogether is once more sentimentality, as they were a present from my Grandma. But there´s another set of transparent glassware in an acorn leaf pattern that has even more memories attached, because they were the first dishes of my own I had, also as a present from Grandma, and which is right now stacked in the depths of a cupboard in my kitchen. Actually, these are still rather pretty, and the other, white set is a pattern that is heavily used in bistros and cafes hereabouts, because a snow-white version is always available for very little money. The ones I have, as I said, are ivory-colored and look decidedly yellowed and dingy when seen next to the snow-white ones.Besides, I found that they seem to attract some kind of greasy film when not in use that makes it feel icky to touch them.
And the latest additions to that white glassware are the 32 cm-plates that were part of the reason why I overate and gained weight. These, in any case, have a date with the trashcan. I just didn´t want to throw them in last night. The same fate awaits two giant pasta dishes. Which reminds me that I have several big serving bowls that go with them, too, somewhere in the kitchen. That I have to locate them first shows how little use I got from them. Again, I have several stainless steel bowls that I use for the purposes I´d use the bowls for, so, this is another case of clutter coming about because I did not toss the old ones when I got the others. I guess the trashcan will be quite full this week, after I put all that stuff in there.
Emotionally, I´m a bit on the fence about tossing them, because they come from a time in my life when I imagined my future a lot differently than what my reality is now. But in my present reality, I have no use for them. And that´s what should matter, not the old fantasies of being a master hostess, giving parties and making giant bowls of salad for my guests.
Besides, if ever an occasion should arise when I would need these dishes and bowls, I can always replace them for very little money. Until then, I have the use of at least one of my cupboards back. And perhaps I´ll be able to liberate another one in the kitchen by discarding those extra bowls. Not that there wouldn´t be anything to put in there yet. But the number of stacks of things that barely fit into the cupboards will be decreased, and if the things I keep are better accessible, I might get more use out of them.
Just why is it so difficult to say farewell to things that have been given as presents? I have a tea mug with a matching lid and saucer, and a porcelain sieve for loose tea, that I have never used. It was a birthday present from a friend at school, I don´t even remember which, and I have dragged it along since I-don´t-know-when because I feel absurdly guilty about tossing it. I mean, I did at the time not care who gave it, and now I am feeling bound to keep it? The same goes for a single ice cream dish and a clay pot for making baked apples in the oven. Perhaps I should make it a point to use these. If they work well, they can stay, if they don´t, they go.
For those moments when I need reminding of the time I was given them, or of the fact that I ever had them, there´s my digicam. I´ll take pictures of them before tossing them. Digitally, that costs nothing and takes up no extra space.
And with every such decluttering session, I get closer to goal: having only things I need or like.
Julia
2011/10/24
The wide wide vest
I must be doing something right. My weight has been steadily going down for two months in a row, and this time, there being less condensable matter left on me, the results show even more than when I was losing weight at the same rate last year but still closer to my starting weight. I guess it has something to do with percentages- if I lose five kilos off 100 kilos, that´s five percent of my weight, if I lose those same five kilos off 90 kilos, that´s five point five percent, and so on. Right now, in total, I have lost about 22 percent off my highest ever weight, which means almost a quarter of old me gone, or, the other way around, I was weighing in at about 130 percent of what I weigh now.
That´s the good news.
The bad news is that yet another of my favourite leather vests had, by now, become so wide that I decided I couldn´t wear it any more. I mean, if you try to button a vest that closes in front and it overlaps so much when you pull it close to your body that they could sew on buttons under your arms and it would still close on those, that is too big. So, another farewell, apart that this vest, like its predecessors, will go to DH on whom it fits just fine after his latest weight loss.
As the vest I got myself this spring is cut somewhat tighter, it doesn´t mean I´m growing (or shrinking?) vestless yet. And, since the present weight loss seems to go along with a disproportionately big shrinkage of my body, I´d be silly to go shopping for new clothes yet while the old ones still are fitting relatively well. Besides, what with wearing warm sweaters under my vest in winter, the extra width will be coming in usefully.
And next spring, I just might be able to fit into the next or next-to-next size down. So, I´ll bear with the wide vest for now. And look forward to shrinking into yet another size I haven´t had in years.
Julia
That´s the good news.
The bad news is that yet another of my favourite leather vests had, by now, become so wide that I decided I couldn´t wear it any more. I mean, if you try to button a vest that closes in front and it overlaps so much when you pull it close to your body that they could sew on buttons under your arms and it would still close on those, that is too big. So, another farewell, apart that this vest, like its predecessors, will go to DH on whom it fits just fine after his latest weight loss.
As the vest I got myself this spring is cut somewhat tighter, it doesn´t mean I´m growing (or shrinking?) vestless yet. And, since the present weight loss seems to go along with a disproportionately big shrinkage of my body, I´d be silly to go shopping for new clothes yet while the old ones still are fitting relatively well. Besides, what with wearing warm sweaters under my vest in winter, the extra width will be coming in usefully.
And next spring, I just might be able to fit into the next or next-to-next size down. So, I´ll bear with the wide vest for now. And look forward to shrinking into yet another size I haven´t had in years.
Julia
2011/10/21
Missus with a big M
This week´s been incredibly busy, as I have to carry the workload of a colleague who´s away on holiday on top of my own. That everyone seems to pick exactly this week to go bat shit about things that need doing at once is just the usual snafu.
But I did have an NSV this morning. On sale last year, I had bought a turtleneck sweater that proved to be too small when I tried it on at home- my head went through the collar alright, but the rest was impossible to pull down, so, I put that sweater into the infamous clothes box with the others. Today, I went through the pullover shelf in my wardrobe, looking for something else, actually, and chanced on that turtleneck.
It´s a nice shade of blue. It is also a size M. I haven´t been a size M since about the last millenium.
I held up that sweater, looking at how small it looked.
Still, such a nice blue.
Might it...?
I doffed the sweater I was wearing and....put it on. With no difficulty at all. It is no longer too small.
And I- am, today, one very happy Missus with a capital "M" inside the collar of my sweater and a big grin on my face.
Julia
But I did have an NSV this morning. On sale last year, I had bought a turtleneck sweater that proved to be too small when I tried it on at home- my head went through the collar alright, but the rest was impossible to pull down, so, I put that sweater into the infamous clothes box with the others. Today, I went through the pullover shelf in my wardrobe, looking for something else, actually, and chanced on that turtleneck.
It´s a nice shade of blue. It is also a size M. I haven´t been a size M since about the last millenium.
I held up that sweater, looking at how small it looked.
Still, such a nice blue.
Might it...?
I doffed the sweater I was wearing and....put it on. With no difficulty at all. It is no longer too small.
And I- am, today, one very happy Missus with a capital "M" inside the collar of my sweater and a big grin on my face.
Julia
2011/10/18
The wurst has gone...
...no, not a typo!
When I was at my top weight, I was feeling rather miserable in my skin and desperately trying to find clothes that would make me look less fat and jiggly than I was.
Enter shapewear. Those stretchy, elastic-loaden underthings that are supposed to take at least ten kilos off your looks. I became an avid fan, buying a whole drawer full of those. What they did do, in reality, was make me look as if I´d been built from a bunch of sausages. Besides, at least the bottoms were supposed to reach halfway down my thighs, which they did, but they just cut into the flesh there, causing a roll of flesh to accumulate right underneath so visibly it even shows on pictures from that time. So, no wearing pants with these. I turned to long skirts, which didn´t show that inverted muffin top but had the additional danger of being so loose that I could gain another couple of kilos. Besides, they were plain frumpy.
When I started losing, I stopped wearing those "slimming" panties, putting them into the farthest corner of my wardrobe.
This weekend, out of curiosity, I tried on a pair.
I was flabbergasted to see that the same panties that used to literally cut off the flesh on my thighs were, by now, so loose that their leg part was wider than the legs I have today to fill it with. Instead of sausage-skin tight, they were about half a hand´s width too big!
So, it really seems that the "wurst" part of the excess on my legs has gone.
What this meant, of course, was a panty raid. I went through all of my underthings, eliminating everything that has gotten too big for me. In the end, I had one plastic sack full of worn-out things that went to the trash, and the joy of having an undie drawer that finally closes again, with only things that fit me now.
Holding, while sorting them out, the old to the new was a real eye-opener, in more than one way. If I think of pictures from the time I kept wearing that stuff, one thing is very clear: they didn´t fulfill their promise to make me look slim. A stuffed sausage doesn´t look slim. And the illusion I had of looking better probably kept me in denial about my weight even longer.
Today, I´m glad I managed to turn back my weight in time. And I´m glad to be rid of my sausage casings.
Julia
When I was at my top weight, I was feeling rather miserable in my skin and desperately trying to find clothes that would make me look less fat and jiggly than I was.
Enter shapewear. Those stretchy, elastic-loaden underthings that are supposed to take at least ten kilos off your looks. I became an avid fan, buying a whole drawer full of those. What they did do, in reality, was make me look as if I´d been built from a bunch of sausages. Besides, at least the bottoms were supposed to reach halfway down my thighs, which they did, but they just cut into the flesh there, causing a roll of flesh to accumulate right underneath so visibly it even shows on pictures from that time. So, no wearing pants with these. I turned to long skirts, which didn´t show that inverted muffin top but had the additional danger of being so loose that I could gain another couple of kilos. Besides, they were plain frumpy.
When I started losing, I stopped wearing those "slimming" panties, putting them into the farthest corner of my wardrobe.
This weekend, out of curiosity, I tried on a pair.
I was flabbergasted to see that the same panties that used to literally cut off the flesh on my thighs were, by now, so loose that their leg part was wider than the legs I have today to fill it with. Instead of sausage-skin tight, they were about half a hand´s width too big!
So, it really seems that the "wurst" part of the excess on my legs has gone.
What this meant, of course, was a panty raid. I went through all of my underthings, eliminating everything that has gotten too big for me. In the end, I had one plastic sack full of worn-out things that went to the trash, and the joy of having an undie drawer that finally closes again, with only things that fit me now.
Holding, while sorting them out, the old to the new was a real eye-opener, in more than one way. If I think of pictures from the time I kept wearing that stuff, one thing is very clear: they didn´t fulfill their promise to make me look slim. A stuffed sausage doesn´t look slim. And the illusion I had of looking better probably kept me in denial about my weight even longer.
Today, I´m glad I managed to turn back my weight in time. And I´m glad to be rid of my sausage casings.
Julia
2011/10/17
Sending those rolls on a roll
Autumn is here, with an abundance of golden leaves and, unfortunately, the first chilly nights with temperatures just above freezing.
So, this weekend marked the end of the balcony season. I put the spice plants into smaller containers and removed them inside, where they are now decorating the windowsills. Either they make it through winter, then I can put them back outside next year, or if they don´t, they will at least have prettied up our flat for another while instead of wilting outside. The oleander bushes are on the landing inside in front of our flat, where there´s at least some light from the staircase, and the rest (buxus and cherry laurels) is supposed to be winter-hardy and stays outside.
Talking of plants, did you know magnolia trees bear fruit? I didn´t, so, when I noticed something reddish-pink between the leaves of the big magnolia tree in our park, I thought it might be blooming for the second time this year. Only on closer inspection did the supposed blossoms reveal themselves as fruits. They are actually quite funny-looking, a bit like aliens in pink, and they contain bright red seeds which burst out when ripe. From what Wikipedia tells on the subject, it´s extremely rare for Magnolias in our climate to bear fruit, so this had not happened in the last few years. I did, of course, pick up some of the seeds that lay on the grass and am trying to get them to grow into my own little magnolia tree. Maybe there´ll be another green houseguest on my balcony next year.
The cold mornings did require another activity this weekend, namely, taking out my warm clothes for winter. In the process, I happened on the last pair of my all-time-big pants. Holding them up and imagining in three dimensions the posterior that shaped the stretched-out seat on them is a great way of visualizing just how far I have come.
Those pants, thus, remain in storage, if only as a deterrent to gaining again. Five other pants that I had kept last spring in a bigger-than-now size are awaiting to be shipped to Goodwill in a big blue bag, along with one very scratchy sweater that gave me a rash on my neck every time I wore it, but which was still kept "just in case".
The other sweaters did, for the first time in a long while, fit into the shelves in my closet. I may still have to go through them and sort out the ones that are too big, but for now, I´m satisfied to have just one zippered storage box left on top of my closet, and that one holds not clothes but blankets.
Apart from that, I´ve taken advantage of the cold weather to defrost my freezer. While it was warm, I had no way of storing the contents, but yesterday it stayed cold enough that the goods , when wrapped into an insulated bag and put outside, kept cold enough to prevent thawing. The amount of ice that came off the freezer was quite impressive, so I´ll definitely have to do this more often.
The added advantage of being able to take an inventory of what we have in there isn´t something to sneeze on, either. Perhaps I´ll make a list to hang on the outside, laminated, to cross off what I use up. That way I´ll save myself any double purchases (like the two opened bags of leeks that I discovered) and make sure nothing gets spoiled.
Oh, and today- I am officially a full 25 kilos down from my heighest ever weight. The trying on of those too-big pants revealed that a lot of the fat rolls I still had last winter have gone. Never to return, I hope.
And on the ones that are still there, I keep working.
Julia
So, this weekend marked the end of the balcony season. I put the spice plants into smaller containers and removed them inside, where they are now decorating the windowsills. Either they make it through winter, then I can put them back outside next year, or if they don´t, they will at least have prettied up our flat for another while instead of wilting outside. The oleander bushes are on the landing inside in front of our flat, where there´s at least some light from the staircase, and the rest (buxus and cherry laurels) is supposed to be winter-hardy and stays outside.
Talking of plants, did you know magnolia trees bear fruit? I didn´t, so, when I noticed something reddish-pink between the leaves of the big magnolia tree in our park, I thought it might be blooming for the second time this year. Only on closer inspection did the supposed blossoms reveal themselves as fruits. They are actually quite funny-looking, a bit like aliens in pink, and they contain bright red seeds which burst out when ripe. From what Wikipedia tells on the subject, it´s extremely rare for Magnolias in our climate to bear fruit, so this had not happened in the last few years. I did, of course, pick up some of the seeds that lay on the grass and am trying to get them to grow into my own little magnolia tree. Maybe there´ll be another green houseguest on my balcony next year.
The cold mornings did require another activity this weekend, namely, taking out my warm clothes for winter. In the process, I happened on the last pair of my all-time-big pants. Holding them up and imagining in three dimensions the posterior that shaped the stretched-out seat on them is a great way of visualizing just how far I have come.
Those pants, thus, remain in storage, if only as a deterrent to gaining again. Five other pants that I had kept last spring in a bigger-than-now size are awaiting to be shipped to Goodwill in a big blue bag, along with one very scratchy sweater that gave me a rash on my neck every time I wore it, but which was still kept "just in case".
The other sweaters did, for the first time in a long while, fit into the shelves in my closet. I may still have to go through them and sort out the ones that are too big, but for now, I´m satisfied to have just one zippered storage box left on top of my closet, and that one holds not clothes but blankets.
Apart from that, I´ve taken advantage of the cold weather to defrost my freezer. While it was warm, I had no way of storing the contents, but yesterday it stayed cold enough that the goods , when wrapped into an insulated bag and put outside, kept cold enough to prevent thawing. The amount of ice that came off the freezer was quite impressive, so I´ll definitely have to do this more often.
The added advantage of being able to take an inventory of what we have in there isn´t something to sneeze on, either. Perhaps I´ll make a list to hang on the outside, laminated, to cross off what I use up. That way I´ll save myself any double purchases (like the two opened bags of leeks that I discovered) and make sure nothing gets spoiled.
Oh, and today- I am officially a full 25 kilos down from my heighest ever weight. The trying on of those too-big pants revealed that a lot of the fat rolls I still had last winter have gone. Never to return, I hope.
And on the ones that are still there, I keep working.
Julia
2011/10/12
How much is enough?
For some weeks now, I have been faithfully journalling every bite of food that crossed my lips. I´m trying to stay below 1500 calories and 30 percent carbs a day, as I still have plenty of condensable weight to work on. Now, the journalling software I use not only allows me to write down what I ate, it also gives me an immediate running total of how much I have already eaten on that day.
And it shows me immediately which are the culprits should I go over my limits. Which considerably dampens the appeal of my old favorite, peanuts, and helps me to stick to small portions of anything carby.
You know what the kicker is? After sticking to that plan for awhile, I find myself less hungry than before. I did, actually, have to have another protein shake in the evening several times because I was too far under my calories (don´t want to go into starvation mode).
As I am the one who cooks, I have been preparing the same meals for both of us, except DH got slightly bigger portions. Guess what, he, too, has been condensing himself by a two-digit number, and he claims that he has not at all felt hungry. Besides, he keeps pointing out how good it feels not to be stuffed after dinner.
Did I mention he´s my greatest supporter?
What really starts me thinking with all this is the amount of food we have to buy these days. Or rather, the amount we don´t have to buy.
Grocery shopping for a week used to mean having at least four to five big reusable bags filled with foodstuffs to carry upstairs afterwards. Sometimes there was so much stuff that it became difficult to put all of it plus the two of us into the car.
Sadly, most of that stuff was also eaten.
Nowadays, I usually take one insulated bag for refrigerated goods, plus one normal for the things that don´t need cooling. Even when having to stock up because some things have run out, there´s rarely more to carry than these bags would hold.
And what is in there- is enough! Enough to take us through another week, or sometimes two, without feeling deprived at all.
What the other bags used to hold, then, were the things that were too much. The things which we ate, and felt stuffed afterwards. The things whose calories are now residing in those rolls of extra flesh that I am trying to recondense.
Even if I do try to make a projection of how much more food I´d need to eat in order to just maintain my present weight, the resulting difference wouldn´t fill another of those grocery bags by a long way.
While my weight gain was happening, I never even realized just how much I ate, even though I was almost constantly chewing on one thing or another. Coming home meant making a beeline for the kitchen and the refrigerator, for a big bowl of pudding or big chunks of cheese and sausage "to stave off the worst hunger". I had no idea that what I thought was just a tiny snack had in reality the calories of a full meal. Actually, I didn´t want to know. The calorie listings were there, after all. Right on the packages. I avoided looking at them in those days. And I avoided measuring my portions. A portion was the amount in a package.
Of course, seeing the sky-high grocery bills we had, I blamed them on rising prices and went on to tell myself it was thrifty to buy the bigger packages. And then I downed a big package of pudding in one sitting instead of a smaller one, and since two pounds of pure vanilla cream pudding were likely to make even me feel queasy, I topped the soft stuff with chocolate drops, granola and chopped almonds for a bit of crunch, adding even more calories.
What I had lost was the feeling of "enough". That queasy feeling was really my body trying to tell me it had enough, my stomach trying to tell me it was full.
But I had long ago stopped listening to them. I just ate and ate. And gained and gained.
For a long time I avoided weighing myself. I knew, of course, that I was getting fatter. I knew I couldn´t walk without a crutch, I knew I could no longer reach my own feet to put on stockings.I knew that I had had to replace my clothes in a bigger size more that once. But I didn´t want to know how many kilos that meant.
When I finally revved myself up to face the music, I was devastated.
The worst part of it was not believing that I had eaten too much. I blamed the gain on quitting smoking, on an accident I had around that time that kept me from walking for several months, on medication I was on during that time. I blamed it on anything except eating too much, to the point of kicking loose a family quarrel with a relative who flat out told me I couldn´t have gained that much from the other reasons alone.
I know today that the medication was probably inhibiting my self-control when it came to food, and that quitting smoking can lower one´s metabolism. But that doesn´t mean that I had to grow all that fat in such a short time. It took another ingredient for that, namely, the amounts of food I kept ingesting.
As long as I was in denial about that crucial fact, I was absolutely helpless when it came to getting rid of that weight again. I was feeling like someone trapped on the back of an elephant that is running amok. My body kept getting fatter, I was ever more handicapped by my weight, and I was, after some time, simply scared that this weight gaining thing would never stop, that I would end up as one of those people who couldn´t leave their house any more, or who couldn´t leave their beds because their legs couldn´t support them any more.
I told the story before of how my husband kept me from that fate.
Still, it was a long way before I started to think about how much food my body really needs. And then, only then, did the pounds start to come off.
And today? I still have to weigh and measure my food, then journal it, to convince my interior glutton that these are really sufficient portions. There´s still that slight twinge of disbelief that that amount of food would be enough whenever I look at the portions I serve myself.
And after eating, the comfortable feeling of satiety. Not stuffed, not queasy, just comfortably filled.
The feeling of having had enough.
Julia
And it shows me immediately which are the culprits should I go over my limits. Which considerably dampens the appeal of my old favorite, peanuts, and helps me to stick to small portions of anything carby.
You know what the kicker is? After sticking to that plan for awhile, I find myself less hungry than before. I did, actually, have to have another protein shake in the evening several times because I was too far under my calories (don´t want to go into starvation mode).
As I am the one who cooks, I have been preparing the same meals for both of us, except DH got slightly bigger portions. Guess what, he, too, has been condensing himself by a two-digit number, and he claims that he has not at all felt hungry. Besides, he keeps pointing out how good it feels not to be stuffed after dinner.
Did I mention he´s my greatest supporter?
What really starts me thinking with all this is the amount of food we have to buy these days. Or rather, the amount we don´t have to buy.
Grocery shopping for a week used to mean having at least four to five big reusable bags filled with foodstuffs to carry upstairs afterwards. Sometimes there was so much stuff that it became difficult to put all of it plus the two of us into the car.
Sadly, most of that stuff was also eaten.
Nowadays, I usually take one insulated bag for refrigerated goods, plus one normal for the things that don´t need cooling. Even when having to stock up because some things have run out, there´s rarely more to carry than these bags would hold.
And what is in there- is enough! Enough to take us through another week, or sometimes two, without feeling deprived at all.
What the other bags used to hold, then, were the things that were too much. The things which we ate, and felt stuffed afterwards. The things whose calories are now residing in those rolls of extra flesh that I am trying to recondense.
Even if I do try to make a projection of how much more food I´d need to eat in order to just maintain my present weight, the resulting difference wouldn´t fill another of those grocery bags by a long way.
While my weight gain was happening, I never even realized just how much I ate, even though I was almost constantly chewing on one thing or another. Coming home meant making a beeline for the kitchen and the refrigerator, for a big bowl of pudding or big chunks of cheese and sausage "to stave off the worst hunger". I had no idea that what I thought was just a tiny snack had in reality the calories of a full meal. Actually, I didn´t want to know. The calorie listings were there, after all. Right on the packages. I avoided looking at them in those days. And I avoided measuring my portions. A portion was the amount in a package.
Of course, seeing the sky-high grocery bills we had, I blamed them on rising prices and went on to tell myself it was thrifty to buy the bigger packages. And then I downed a big package of pudding in one sitting instead of a smaller one, and since two pounds of pure vanilla cream pudding were likely to make even me feel queasy, I topped the soft stuff with chocolate drops, granola and chopped almonds for a bit of crunch, adding even more calories.
What I had lost was the feeling of "enough". That queasy feeling was really my body trying to tell me it had enough, my stomach trying to tell me it was full.
But I had long ago stopped listening to them. I just ate and ate. And gained and gained.
For a long time I avoided weighing myself. I knew, of course, that I was getting fatter. I knew I couldn´t walk without a crutch, I knew I could no longer reach my own feet to put on stockings.I knew that I had had to replace my clothes in a bigger size more that once. But I didn´t want to know how many kilos that meant.
When I finally revved myself up to face the music, I was devastated.
The worst part of it was not believing that I had eaten too much. I blamed the gain on quitting smoking, on an accident I had around that time that kept me from walking for several months, on medication I was on during that time. I blamed it on anything except eating too much, to the point of kicking loose a family quarrel with a relative who flat out told me I couldn´t have gained that much from the other reasons alone.
I know today that the medication was probably inhibiting my self-control when it came to food, and that quitting smoking can lower one´s metabolism. But that doesn´t mean that I had to grow all that fat in such a short time. It took another ingredient for that, namely, the amounts of food I kept ingesting.
As long as I was in denial about that crucial fact, I was absolutely helpless when it came to getting rid of that weight again. I was feeling like someone trapped on the back of an elephant that is running amok. My body kept getting fatter, I was ever more handicapped by my weight, and I was, after some time, simply scared that this weight gaining thing would never stop, that I would end up as one of those people who couldn´t leave their house any more, or who couldn´t leave their beds because their legs couldn´t support them any more.
I told the story before of how my husband kept me from that fate.
Still, it was a long way before I started to think about how much food my body really needs. And then, only then, did the pounds start to come off.
And today? I still have to weigh and measure my food, then journal it, to convince my interior glutton that these are really sufficient portions. There´s still that slight twinge of disbelief that that amount of food would be enough whenever I look at the portions I serve myself.
And after eating, the comfortable feeling of satiety. Not stuffed, not queasy, just comfortably filled.
The feeling of having had enough.
Julia
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