Recipe--Tomato Spinach Feta Pasta

I have a friend named Suzanne. Suzanne is my friend for many reasons: she's smart as a whip, we have the same tastes in clothes and music, and she utters phrases like "I'll cut a bitch," and "Bitch, be for real" with great frequency. But most of all, she's a great cook.

When she gave me this recipe, it cemented our friendship, and I vowed to never let her go. There's no good name for this, but it takes about 15 minutes to make, refrigerates well, is super healthy as long as you don't overdo it with the pasta (use whole grain, or at least whole wheat), and cleanup's a snap (only 2 pans, nothing sticky or burned).

You'll need (for 1 lunch or 2 sides):

• Olive Oil (enough to saute garlic)
• 1/2-1 tsp minced garlic (if you're too cool for the stuff in the jar, 1-2 cloves, minced)
• 1/2 cup chicken broth
• 1 Roma tomato, chopped OR a handful of cherry tomatoes, halved
• ~1 cup baby spinach (more if you really, really like spinach)
  
• 4 oz. whole grain pasta
• a couple of ounces of feta cheese, crumbled (I use approx. 2 oz because I love the feta)
• Some upbeat jazz music; flamenco will work nicely, too.
  

1. Put your water on to boil. Don't wait to do this or the timing won't come out magically.
   
2. In olive oil, saute your garlic.
3. When garlic is golden brown, throw in tomatoes. Let sit just a minute or so.
4. Add in chicken broth. Let it cook down for a few minutes. Your water should be boiling now, so go ahead and throw in your pasta.
   
5. When the pasta is almost ready (your tomatoes should be soft, but not mushy); add in spinach, small handfuls at a time.
   
6. Stir constantly. The aim here is to let the spinach wilt, but just a little.
   
7. Drain pasta; toss with spinach/tomato mixture (you may also want to drain the broth).
8. Sprinkle with feta; serve. This is great both hot and cold, and it's totally good the next day (but not the third...not that it will make it to the third day).

See? Delicious.

Weekly Meal Plan

I'm slowly getting back on top of my diet again. And by diet, I mean what I'm eating, not a "diet." I hate "diets," but love a healthy diet.

I read Jillian Michael's "Master Your Metabolism" when I was at my parent's house for summer break, and while it didn't open my eyes to a new way of living, it was a good refresher, and a great inspiration for me to stop poisoning my body with junk.

So this week, my goals are to eat whole foods, organic whenever possible, and drink lots of water. I'll also try to stick to Jillian's "schedule" as closely as possible--basically, eat breakfast, lunch, an afternoon snack, and dinner spaced 4 hours apart. Jillian also recommended not eating carbs after your afternoon snack, so I'll try that, too (but i LOVE my carbs, so we'll see if I feel like I'm starving myself...).

My breakfasts will look like this:

• 2 eggs and 1 cup oatmeal (both organic, eggs free range)
• 6 oz Fage greek strained yogurt + 2 oz Laughing Cow cheese and 1 cup berries (berries probably not organic, but locally grown and purchased at the farmer's market)
  

My lunches look like this:

• Leftovers from dinner. Hey, I'm cooking for 1 over here.
  

My afternoon snack will look like this:

• 1/2 cup hummus and unlimited carrot sticks (both organic)
• 1 oz cheese (I have Laughing Cow Swiss and LC Babybel) and unlimited blueberries or one apple (fruit purchased at the farmer's market, but probably not organic)
• 1 cup yogurt + fruit combo above
  

And my dinners, oh my dinners:

• Fat Bridesmaid's Fajitas and Salad (Organic Baby Spinach)
  
• Oven BBQ'd Chicken and Stir Fried Veggies (not organic, but bought at the farmer's market)
• Zesty Herb Chicken and Suzanne's Spinach/Tomato/Feta Pasta (yeah, I know it's carbs. I said I'd try)
  
• Roasted Garlic Chicken and Green Bean Amande
• Pasta Primavera with Shrimp (carbs here again, but 2 dinners a week with carbs is SUCH an improvement for me)
  

Finding the Source of Motivation

Wow, I've been gone a long time. You forgive me, right?

Clearly, I've gotten off track. I've had (I'm having?) what you'd call motivational issues. It always amazes me how I can look at my body, feel my body, carry around my body and know I'm unhealthy, and yet have no desire to change anything. 

Over the past few months, I've pretty much erased any progress I'd made. It disgusts me, but at the same time, I know it will do absolutely no good telling myself I've failed. I don't need to continue this self-destructive cycle. 

I need to break it. Make improvements. Get right back on the ole' bandwagon and try again. 

Here's the thing: I'm not sure how I want to approach this. I've thought about joining Weight Watchers. I've thought about following Jillian's "plan" she puts forth in "Master Your Metabolism." I've thought about counting calories and macronutrients on SparkPeople.com. I've thought about joining a gym. I've thought about doing workout DVDs and my WiiFit. 

But I've tried all these things before, and always, I stop trying after a few months. I don't want to hit rock bottom before I finally make a permanent change, but I can't seem to muster up enough motivation to stick with a program, no matter what kind of program it is. I guess it doesn't make sense to think of "motivation" as a mystical gift I'll wake up with one day. In fact, I've got a sneaking suspicion my "motivation" is something I'll have to work for, scrounge for under the couch cushions of my mind and body. 

Some people use their kids, their spouses, the threat of cancer or heart disease, or a big, amazing goal to reach as their motivation. What's yours? (Maybe it will help me find mine.)

Bento!

A few ays ago, I ordered myself a Laptop Lunchbox, or the American version of the Japanese Bento. Mine looks something like this:
I first heard about these things about a year ago, but never wanted to pony up the money to buy one (what's pictured above costs $23, but I had a 10% coupon code).

Mine came today, and I'm pretty sure I have the coolest lunchbox ever. I've been really bad about being too lazy to put together a lunch to carry to school with me, and I've gotten into the habit of skipping breakfasts again. Combine these things, and I'm starving by the time I get home, so I eat anything (and usually a lot of it).

I have to hike around campus a lot, so my big zippered lunch bag just wasn't cutting it (carrying a backpack, purse, and giant lunchbox is just so not chic). My bento can be thrown in my bag--all liquids are packed up tight in sealed containers--and not take up much space at all.

Meet my lunch for tomorrow:

Strawberries, Chocolate syrup, Quaker Oatmeal Squares Cereal, and leftover grilled chicken. I think I'm set on the delicious lunch front.

Little Patch of Green, Day 1

So today, I started a garden. But in planters, as I don't have a yard. Seems unfair that I have to buy my dirt, doesn't it?Growing some of my own veggies and herbs has been something I've wanted to do since I moved into my first apartment. Call it nesting. Call it healthy. Call it environmentally friendly. But unfortunately, my first apartment was on the top floor, surrounded on all sides by trees, and I had a 3x4 patio for a yard. In my new apartment, I still don't have a yard, but I have a much larger patio, that gets full sun.
So now that we're past the last frost (a phrase you hear a lot when you start thinking about gardening), I went to Home Depot and bought planters, potting soil, and 10 packets of seeds. I'm now growing zucchini, yellow summer squash, carnival bell peppers, cilantro, parsley, oregano, basil, rosemary, spearmint, and catnip on my 5x6 concrete patio. (The catnip's not for me. I hope that's obvious.)To be honest, I have no idea what I'm doing. I waver between thinking I'm planting too early and much too late. I planted things too closely, too densely, and I probably covered some of my seed with too much of the wrong soil. I will inevitably forget to water and fertilize these plants. But I don't care. It's a good start, and I'm excited to watch stuff grow (or not, as the case may be). Plus, it was super fun getting my hands dirty.

Treats for People Like Me

If you're like me, you don't last very long without a sugary, usually chocolately treat. If you're even more like me, you tend to take your treats too far, and turn them into binges. And if you're exactly like me, you allow your binges to completely throw you off your game, convince me you'll never succeed, so you gain 10 pounds (or more) until you decide to star over, this time swearing off treats all together until you (inevitably) binge again.

The solution. Treat yourself. But only make enough treats to last you a couple of servings. Yes, I said make. I find that if I buy treats (say a small bag of chocolates, or a trip through Sonic's drive through for some ice cream), I don't savor it, and it's only a few days before I feel like I need another "treat," (which of course leads me to said binge).

This is my current favorite treat:

These are double dipped strawberries. They're more expensive than a regular Reese's Sonic Blast, but they're healthier, and way tastier. Oh, and you have to make them. But they are super easy to make.

You need: strawberries, 1 1/2 squares of semi-sweet baking chocolate, and 1 1/2 white chocolate baking squares. You'll also need a cookie pan, wax paper, two bowls, and a microwave.

Obviously, you're going to melt the chocolates (~45 seconds in the microwave) and then dip the strawberries. (Though it's helpful to let the first layer harden before your dip the second). And the pretty swirls? That happens when the semi-sweet shell melts into the white chocolately goodness.

I've estimated each strawberry to have right around 37 calories (I use Baker's Brand chocolates), so 3 of these is your 100-calorie snack 0' the day (minus the excess packaging and ridiculous ingredients).

So go ahead, treat yourself.

Feeling Like a Failure

Lately, I have been one grumpy lady. I haven't been sleeping, I miss Dustin and my family like crazy, and I can't seem to keep caught up with my schoolwork. So of course, my diet and exercise has suffered. It's not even on the back burner anymore; it's completely off the stove and stored in a Tupperware dish in the fridge behind the 24-can case of Diet Dr. Pepper. And my weight is back up to 198. Granted, that's still down from my original 214 start, but c'mon! I was at 185 before Thanksgiving, and I haven't been able to even get close to that since then!!! Needless to say, this is frustrating. I feel like even when I'm doing good work and tracking my food and exercise, I'm not losing any weight. So I go on a weekend binge, and any progress I was making went out the window. And I'm not motivated at all to work out--I've only done 3 days of 8 for my Laziness-for-Lent challenge!

I need to rearrange my mind, as I can't seem to get past seeing slow progress as a failure. How do you deal when your mind is the only obstacle? How do you convince yourself that slow progress is NOT failure?

In Defense of Food: Review and Giveaway!

A couple of posts ago, I gushed on this book:

Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food

It is one of the best books I’ve read in a while (and I’m an English major, but you don’t have to take my word for it!), and the best I’ve ever read about food. When I first saw this book in Borders, It was the tagline that caught my attention: Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants.
Well, of course! Right? I mean, I eat food, don’t I? Unfortunately, I don’t eat food as much as I thought I did. Pollan’s book is common-sensical, straightforward, and practical. He doesn’t waste your time explaining the science behind nutrition, and he would argue, I think, that too much science is what’s gotten us (by “us” I mean global Westerners eating “Westernized” food) in trouble in the first place.

In Defense of Food is organized into three main sections. The first, “The Age of Nutritionism” is a little part history, a little part science, and a lot of eye opening. He explains (in smaller chapters) how we’ve turned harvesting food into engineering nutrition, a nuance I didn’t think mattered all that much. Nutrients are nutrients, right? Get enough of some, not too much of others, and I should be fine, or so I thought. As it turns out, those diet cereals and breakfast bars and snack cakes haven’t been doing us much good. What they lack in calories and fats and sugar, they also lack in real ingredients. As it also turns out, the banana I put on my cereal isn’t even half as nutritious as a banana I would’ve eaten in 1940. The food we’re eating today are chemical concoctions with artificial flavorings that confuse us and leave us as unhealthy as ever.

In Part 2, “The Western Diet and the Diseases of Civilizations,” Pollan again takes us through a kind of history of eating, but this time on a global scale, and proves, quite effectively, that it’s not what we’re eating, but what we’re eating. (Yes, I just wrote that). Rephrased: there are low carb, high carb, high fat, vegetarian, and carnivorous diets found all over the world in all kinds of indigenous culture groups, and NONE of them exhibit the typical western health problems so many of us are afflicted with (obesity, diabetes, heart disease, stroke). Our problem is not our knowing how to diet (we do that well), it’s in our eating of non-foods—overly processed, engineered, substitute food we’ve accepted in our pantry as nutritious.

Part 3, “Getting Over Nutritionism,” is perhaps the most helpful in a practical sense. This part of the book takes all the knowledge you’ve gained in parts 1 and 2 and puts them to use in your own kitchen. In this section, he gives his readers simple tools for shopping for your food: stay on the periphery of the grocery store; if an ingredient list has more than 5 ingredients and you can’t pronounce them, it’s not healthy. It’s the “How” part of the whole book—how to, simply: Eat Food. Mostly Plants. Not Too Much.

If you are even slightly interested in healthful eating (and I’m assuming most of us are), you must read this book. I’m serious. Go now, and leave your life of food ignorance. To help feed the masses (ahem. Pun intended) I’m giving away one copy of Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food to a reader. To be eligible to win, just leave a comment on this post, answering this: What’s the one food you refuse to give up, no matter how unhealthy you know it to be (mine’s delivery pizza)?

All comments must be entered by Friday, January 30th, at 9:00 PM (Eastern). Please, one entry per person. I’ll pick a random entry over the weekend. Tell all your friends!

Note: I am in no way supported by Michael Pollan or The Penguin Press. Neither of these groups know who I am, and I’ve never communicated with either of them. Neither are providing this prize, and neither are receiving any direct revenue from the giveaway (Neither am I). I just happen to love this book, and think other people should, too.

Confession

I'll go head and admit it; I'm pretty proud of myself today.

I got back in Oxford last night, with my car absolutely loaded with stuff, and my fridge completely empty. But no more.

I came home from the grocery today with no fewer than 11 different kinds of produce: salad, bananas, tangerines, an avocado, a mango, green peppers, zucchini, squash, onions, sweet potatoes, and a russet.

I've made my meal plan for this week, there is absolutely no junk food in the house. And tonight? Craving pizza after organizing my schoolwork, setting up my desk so I'll actually use it, putting together a bookshelf (this makes three, now, and I need a fourth), I didn't order a pizza. I made an omelet out of all those fresh veggies I bought.

And tomorrow? Inauguration day. It's gonna be a good week.

Isn't It Amazing?

It really should be simple by now: eating healthy foods makes me feel good! I mean, that's not a hard lesson, but it seems I forget it every time I let myself eat tons of junk before eating a good, fresh cooked meal.

Also, check out these beauties:

These are dinner plates. Obvious, no? But get this: see that big flower? That's where your veggies go. The medium? You put your starch there. And that scrumptious cutie of a small dandy? Your meat. They're made by SlimWare, and although they are far too rich for my blood ($39.99 for 4 plastic plates!!!), it would be pretty easy to paint some simple white (or yellow or red or cerulean) plates you pick up at Goodwill or Target. I'm thinking this is an amazing idea, because I think we all know by now what we should be eating, it's the how much part that always gets me. (I'd want to fill the big flower with potatoes...).

Also, have you heard of this book?
It's Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food, I'm reading it now, and it's blowing my mind in a big way. I'm right at the halfway mark, and when I finish it, I'll definitely be reviewing it (read: gushing my food obsessed little heart out about it).

Hope everyone is having a great week so far! (P.S. Thanks for reading. Seriously. I mean it.)

Road Trippin'

Okay, the paper is almost done, the novel is being read, and all I have left to do this week is turn in said paper and teach said novel. Friday morning almost here! Travel day. I get to go home to my family, to my boyfriend, to a beautifully brined Turkey and delicious stuffing. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, especially when I haven't seen my boyfriend in a little over a month, and my parents and brother in over three!

The downside? The drive. Oxford is about 8 hours (480-something miles) away from Augusta, and I have to go through both Birmingham and Atlanta. Pretty much the rest of the way is farmland.

But I cope. I've got my road trip music (satellite radio is the *best!*), I'll have my cats in the front seat next to me (in their carrier), I'll be wearing comfy road clothes, gas is back down to the $2 range across the southeast, and I've got a few quarters saved for a diet coke.

One problem. Road food. I'm pretty good about not stopping for fast food. The fact that I try to hit the road before 7 helps curb that temptation a lot! By the time I get to Birmingham, it's still to early for lunch, and when I hit Atlanta, I've only got two hours before Augusta, so I might as well wait for the meal Moms cooked for me. But here's my downfall: when I stop for gas (I drive a Japanese economy car, so I only have to stop 2 or 3 times--I can get to Augusta on just a little more than a tank), but at each stop, I tend to buy chips, a candy bar, maybe an ice cream cone, and a diet soda. Whoah! That is far too many bad calories in one completely inactive day. Plus, it leaves me feeling more groggy than driving past 8 hours of farmland does!

So what do I pack? What do you guys rely on for healthy, energizing road food?

Family Ties

I just got off the phone with my mother. Who was slightly inebriated. After drinking half of a margarita. The other half she spilled on my dad's lap. It was a 20-minute conversation that I spent listening to her laugh hysterically. About what? I have no idea. But it was funny.

We do a lot of things like our mothers. I, thank goodness, require just a few more drinks (read: one full margarita, instead of half) to be slap-happy drunk, but once I get there, I, too, laugh like a moron at everything I see. If I can't be a happy drunk, I don't want to be a drunk at all. My mom and I are fabulous together on the rare occasion we drink together (a shared bottle of muscadine wine and you've got yourself a show).

But I'm not just a happy drunk like my mother, I clean like my mother. I cook dinner like my mother, and wash the dishes like her. I argue like my mother, I laugh at the same jokes my mother laughs at. But I eat like my father. That is to say, mindlessly. Anything in front of me is fair game, unless of course, it's healthy.

We all gain weight pretty much the same way--slowly, consistently, and with little notice until one of us points at each other's asses and says, "Hey, your ass is HUGE!" Well, my dad and I get our bellies pointed at; my mother, her ass. We're apples, she's a pear. Together, we're a veritable fruit salad. (And my brother? He's the toothpick we all hate.)

There came a time when I decided that I didn't want to do everything the way my dad does. I stopped going to his church in favor of finding my own. Dad still pretends to be disgruntled when I announce that I'm one of the bleeding heart feminist liberals he hates so much (even though he's voting for Obama next Tuesday!), and he can't understand why on earth I gave up my biology major in favor of studying American Literature (we won't even get into how amazed he is I'm going to Ole Miss when he graduated from Mississippi State--the rivalry is FIERCE, and their game the Saturday after Thanksgiving is going to be funny as hell).

So, if I'm okay with voting, worshiping, and thinking very differently from my parents, why do I insist on keeping up their unhealthy habits? My dad eats because food is there--for this reason, I don't keep unhealthy foods in the house. When I do, they're gone within days. My mom eats because she's stressed or upset. I'm breaking this habit, but I need to learn to work off my emotions with some other constructive activity. Neither exercise, and I quit working out about a month before I moved to Oxford. And why? Because I'm busy, or I can't afford it, or ice cream tastes really good. The same reasons my parents give. It's time to break the chain.

10%, Gone. Forever. Amen.

If I were a Weight Watchers member, I'd be getting a token of some sort. Since January 1st of this year, I've lost a total of 21.6 pounds, or just a tad bit more than 10% of my original body weight of 214 pounds.

I'll never forget that day I visited my doctor in December. It was for my yearly ladies' exam, and as much as we all hate those, I've got a really awesome OB/GYN. She's non-judgmental, honest, and is always open to listening to my health needs. It had been a long, hard semester. I'd be graduating in the spring, and I was busy trying to put together all my grad school applications, write my honor's thesis, keep my apartment from falling apart, trying to keep my job together (I was the secretary for a small church that had a terrible pastor for only 6 months. I got all the reverb from those miserable 6 months). I'd been gaining weight steadily since my last bout with Weight Watchers in 2006. I'd been with Dustin for about 8 months, and the evidence of our many restaurant dates hung uncomfortably on my middle. And more, I was feeling, emotionally, miserable. I was happy with school, and head over heels in love with Dustin, but I was beginning to let my self-esteem slip back to middle-school levels, which is to say, really, really bad. I was irritable, easily frustrated, and completely dependent on others (mainly Dustin) to keep me happy and thinking positively about myself.

I shouldn't have been suprised when April (my ob/gyn) told me, rather frankly, I needed to watch my weight. She asked me how I'd been eating, how I was handling my stress, and after I told her how I was doing pretty miserably with both, she matter-of-factly told me what kinds of foods I should be eating and that it would help me both physically and emotionally to find an outlet for my stress. I cried as I left her office, feeling like I'd completely failed myself. I kept replaying the nurse's face as she scribbled my weight on my chart. She didn't grimace or scoff, but I was horrified, more at myself than what she thought. 214 was the heaviest I'd ever been, and I realized how quickly that number could continue to rise.

For a month or so, I continued to beat myself up, aware that I needed to change my habits, but not ready to do anything about it. I don't even know what snapped in my mind, but Dustin and I started going to the gym at our school together. I began using the Weight Watchers system as a rough guide for my diet. I started this blog, and reading others. I joined SparkPeople.com. And the weight started coming off. More importantly, I was feeling so much better. So much healthier. So much more alive.

Towards the end of the spring semester, my upcoming graduation (and all the stress entailed) consumed my energies, and I let myself slowly slip away from all my progress. The 15 pounds or so I'd lost since January were slowly adding back on. I was preparing to move to Oxford, Miss (to go to Ole Miss for my Masters), and I just didn't think I could handle both trying to lose weight and preparing for grad school. In these three or four months, I continued to read blogs and I usually cooked healthily at home, so I only gained 5 or 6 pounds back.

Slowly, I'm learning that my goal is not to lose weight. It's not be a size 10, or to be skinny, or to even look sexy in a swimsuit (although those things must be very, very nice). I want to be healthy. I want to be vibrant and alive throughout all of my life, and I want my life to be long. I want to enjoy all the days I get to spend with Dustin and my family and friends. I want to feel confident in my body; I want it to reflect the beautiful and spunky person I truly am. I feel held back by the condition I've let my body come to, and I want to let myself grow out of it. So really, although I typically talk about this blog as a weight-loss blog, it's really not that. It's about letting myself grow.

You Better Not Pout, You Better Not Cry!

I love Christmas. I'm with Shanna on this one. I can't help it! I listen to Christmas music sporadically throughout the year. The ENTIRE year. I don't know what's wrong with me.

Funny story. I started working at Hallmark the summer before my sophomore year in college. I know everyone makes fun of Hallmark for producing mass sentimentalist sap, I know; I used to be one of them. When I started there in July (right before their huge yearly ornament debut) all my friends and family made fun of me for working in a store so often frequented by overly hormonal women and men looking for last minute gifts for their girlfriends and wives. I think it took only a month for my coworkers to dub me "The Scrooge." And I was. I worked at Hallmark for just short of 4 years, and I hated every Christmas and Easter and Valentine's Day (Oh, Valentine's Day, How I Still Loathe Thee!) I had to suffer through. Then, a year a half ago, I started dating this guy:

And my hatred for Christmas dissolved away into a big soppy love mess on the floor. Seriously. It was, and still is, completely pathetic and goopy and sugarysweetieloviebunchie of me. I can't help it. Something about being in love with the best guy in the universe does that to me. (See? I told you something about him makes me completely bonkers.)

So, imagine my delight when I started seeing festive little badges for Chubby Chick's Christmas Challenge! They look like this----->

And as I looked over the Challenge, which is oh-so-adorably-decorated, I really considered adding my name to the list of participants. I really did! But then I remembered how I not-so-gracefully kept forgetting to check into ThinkingThin's Summer Challenge (I'm so sorry!), and I realized that official group challenges are probably not the best for me. Personal goals? Oh yeah. I think it's the remembering to check in that gets me. I so rarely remember to weigh-in regularly that the organization factor (and it's totally necessary for challenges) gets me every time.

So here's what I'm doing. I'm supporting all the cool people at Chubby Chick's Christmas Challenge in full on Christmas spirit. And I'm following along on my own, when I remember to weigh-in. My Goal? 15 lbs lost by Christmas. There are 15 weeks left until then, so it's not completely undoable. Based on my weight loss trends, a pound a week is high for me (I usually lose about a half-pound in a week), but why not shoot for the Christmas Star Tree Topper here? If I lose 15 pounds by Christmas, that will put me at 30 pounds lost for the year, which is pretty good, in my book (but yeah, there's been a total gap in my weight loss this year!!!). When I make my goal (not if, not IF!), I'm going to look super-fab in all those early-early-morning Christmas pictures. I'm determined. And totally listening to Christmas music right now.

What Day Is It, Again?

I hopped on the scale today, and weighed in at 198, even though I have no idea when my actual 'weigh-in' day is anymore. And you know what? I don't even care. I'm up a pound from whenever I last weighed in, but condidering I had a binge weekend at home in Augusta, I'm okay with that. I went home on Labor Day weekend to celebrate my boyfriend's 25th birthday, and we had a wonderful weekend togther, so that's all that matters.

I'm trying to become more intuitive when it comes to my life, especially with my eating (perhaps that's given me the liberties I've taken with the scale?). I feel like I've got a pretty good handle on what's good for me and what's not (I'm not saying I listen to myself all the time, but I do usually know whether or not something is healthy). I never do well when I feel like I have to force myself to eat at a certain time, or certain foods when I don't necessarily want them, so it's a liberating feeling to try my hand at listening to my body's needs.

That being said, I don't want to slide back into my old habits. So stay on me if you sense I'm being a slacker. That tends to happen.

Note: I've *finally* updated my link lists, so if you've left me a comment recently and don't see your name to the right, PLEASE let me know. I don't want to leave anyone out and I'm all for the building of a happy community here. I've also added the RSS-thinger-ma-jigger, so if that's how you read blogs, that will make it easier on you. I think. Truthfully, I'm not entirely sure how that whole process works.

Those of you who don't use blogger, what do you use and how do you like it? I've been tossing around the idea of setting up a .Mac account and moving this blog around a bit, but I don't have the cash to swing the subscription fee. I'm not entirely satisfied with Blogger right now.

More than a fan. We're involved.

Yes, that was a random throwback to 10 Things I Hate About You, which I love, in spite of myself. But Mandella was referring to Shakespeare, and I'm talking about food.

I've become more and more aware lately that I literally am involved with food. And I'm not sure it's a healthy relationship. I literally think about food all day long. Well, not every waking moment, but there's a good portion of my day when, if I'm not thinking about eating food, I'm thinking about how to prepare it, or if I need to buy it, or how to make it healthy, or wondering if it is already healthy, or whether or not I've eaten balanced portions throughout the day. I can't stop thinking about it.

And I'm not sure why. It's like the focus of this journey / project / goal for myself--being a healthy, vivacious woman--has morphed into something entirely different, and completely counterproductive to what I need to be a full, satiated person.

I really admire and aspire to Sally's approach to food: it's a vital and important part of life, and meals deserve our attention and care, yet the energies we pour into the foods we eat should never outweigh the joy we get from eating healthful foods that ultimately, were designed to help us lead happy and satisfied lives (forgive me and correct me if I've totally misinterpreted your thinking here, Sally).

There have been so many times when I've taken so much of my time and energy into creating a meal. I poured through cookbooks and websites searching for recipes, I researched or tested all the ways I could alter it to make it more healthful or more to my liking, I've spent money on buying the ingredients I need, taking care not to buy in excess, taking care to use wisely and conserve my resources. Then there's the time I've spent cooking the meal, nudging a recipe along in it's development. And then, I eat. Sometimes I don't stop working to eat. Usually, I worry about portion size or whether or not I'm getting enough fiber or protein. Sure, the meal (usually) tastes good, but I'm not enjoying it the way I deserve to. Something else always pulls my attention away, and all the energy I've invested in the meal seems wasted.

I feel like I'm dissolving all the wholesomeness out of my food when I fail to enjoy it for what it simply is: nutritive, pleasurable, and healthy.

Alone

Question: Do y'all do better with your diets and exercise alone, or with a partner (be it your spouse, best friend, or Weight Watchers meeting cohorts)?

I've been alone in Oxford (Mississippi, not the cool one in England) for a little over a week now, and I can't decide if I'm doing better or not. I cook healthier foods, and I have the luxury of cooking vegetarian meals now that will actually get eaten (Dustin has a toddler-like disdain for most vegetables). On the other hand, I've been considerably less active without him. Dustin was my fitness partner--we got each other to go to they gym, we took walks together, and when we were living together, we both tended to be more active with the other person there. Unfortunately, he's still in Augusta, finishing up his degree (16 months and counting!), and we've both noticed that neither of us are ready to get off our rear ends and go to the gym without the other one to go with us.

There's supposed to be a park close to my house (I haven't found it yet), but I'm reticent to go by myself. I don't know anyone in this city yet, and if I were to go missing, no one would notice. And also, I'm used to working out with a partner. It's hard for me to get motivated without someone there, sweating up a storm with me. (Excuses? Maybe. But I'm sticking with them, for now.)

So what do you guys do when you're alone and need motivation to be healthy?