Eating Clean

I thought about this concept quite a bit today.  For one thing, it's fascinating to me how quickly my tastes changed and really, how little I had to do to make them do that. 

I ate my salad for lunch today. It contained:  a whole bunch of greens, from a giant box of them I bought at Sam's  (Right, I know, I didn't buy it at the local farmers' market.  It's one step at a time here), a can of tuna fish, packed in water, the remains of the barley from Sunday (and I have to be honest and say I probably ate most of that pot myself, no one else seems to have my same enthusiasm for barley), some cucumbers and I think some raw mushrooms, and definitely cherry tomatoes.  I will be honest and say that the cucumbers had been served in a Knorr salad mix, which I now buy by the box from Amazon.  It's dill and herbs and you add water and oil.  I add a third of the oil called for.  And I threw on some of Marie's Raspberry Vinaigrette.  So it probably wasn't completely clean, with the packaged dressings, but it was close.  It was certainly more filling than the sushi and made me feel better afterwards than the pizza. 

Dinner was two pork chops, broiled with BBQ sauce, divided among three people.  I also made an impromptu potato salad making a dressing of Greek yogurt, Meaux mustard, a splash of balsamic vinegar and a dash of olive oil.  I added scallions and celery.  (It was good).  No salt, by the way.  I also made a salad of hearts of palm--canned, because I have no idea how else you would get them--and cherry tomatoes, with a splash of Newman's Own sesame marinade.  I haven't looked at the label, but I'm hoping it's okay.  So there was the BBQ sauce tonight (most of which fell into the broiler pan) and the marinade.  Otherwise it was clean.  I guess.  I hope.

My Dunkin Donuts iced tea, large, with two granulated sugars (not the liquid stuff, which is awful) tasted very intensely sweet to me this morning.  The last time I tried to scale back to one, it was not good, but maybe it's time to try again. 

I must be better off for all of this.  I'd like to say I'm packed with surplus energy, but honestly, that's not quite the case--but I feel less sluggish.  I felt so strange after the pizza, and I suppose that's how I felt all the time.  So I suppose I have to agree--our food is anesthetizing us, against feeling life, and enjoying real food. 

Do I feel militant about this?  I'm not sure.  I've always been of the school of thought that said, do you want to live forever or do you just want it to feel that way?  But now I'm thinking they might be on to something. 

I know in my heart that I've made these changes for good, since my former way of eating was unsustainable, at least in good health.  However, I have to say that to a significant degree, I'm sort of standing back watching myself and wondering how well this is going to work and how well I can keep it up. 

I made the changes in my diet by playing to my strengths.  Other than McDonalds, (and Doritos.....) I'm not a huge junk food eater, or a huge candy eater.  So I stuck with the things I like that are good for me and I'm doing my best to avoid the things I like that are bad for me. 

I mentioned portion size before.  I would have to say that was probably my biggest downfall--I can eat a lot.  I like a lot.  I like, I'll confess to it, mindlessly shoveling something in...it's soothing.  But after a month of decreased portion sizes, I don't think I could stuff if I wanted to.  As for the shoveling, I did have a few fits of that, but I tried to keep it to Triscuits. 

I don't know.  I'm doing my best.  Soon I'll get on the scale again, but since I'm having such clothes success, I wake up, think, gee, I ought to weigh myself, and then forget.  As I said before, we'll see what the numbers tell us.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Yes, I know, how original. 

Anyway.

Today at work, my boss offered to buy lunch and produced a Chinese/Japanese menu.  I've been consuming uncommon amounts of sushi lately (and sashimi) because it's...okay food.  Good for me.  Clean.  I got a combo, which was, frankly, precious little food.  I wanted my salad, with the tuna and the barley and the cucumbers and the tomatoes, but I was polite and ate the sushi.  And then I was very hungry when I got home, also tired and not terribly interested in cooking.  So we ordered pizza.  I at least made it somewhat healthy, with tomatoes, spinach, mushrooms, onions and garlic, rather than all manner of meat.  I was worried it would be a trigger.  I like pizza, especially that one, and I was concerned about it being here.

Before it arrived, I ate:  2 leftover barley patties, a small piece of brownie and a piece of toast with butter and lox.  And then I had 3 slices of pizza--pretty moderate slices. 

Reader, I was stuffed.  STUFFED.  Now, at nearly 11, I'm still stuffed.  Also, I feel not quite right, as though I hadn't eaten properly, which I hadn't.

This is a change, a huge one.  I haven't been making a huge effort to eat clean, but my tiny bit of OCD finds it too hard to keep track of what's going on in packaged food, so I don't.  My meals are pretty dull, ingredient-wise.  Lean protein, a bit of a starch (mostly at dinner, and I'm trying harder and harder to make it whole-grain) and a lot of veggies.  Mixed in with the protein, on the side, all over the place, really.  Plus fruit, more than I've ever eaten in my life. 

So the result was that the pizza, which, with those toppings, from that place, is pretty much my favorite, frankly, tasted sort of icky.  I feel sort of icky.  I'll be happy to eat my salad tomorrow.  I'm looking forward to eating my salad tomorrow, believe it or not. 

I'm far from fanatic about eating clean, and I'll be honest and say that a lot of my salads come from McDonald's, and that the occasional Quarterpounder with fries still tastes good, but clearly I'm changing.  This was in just over a month.  It will be interesting to see where I am in two months, in six, in a year. 

The changes in eating have produced changes in me, as well.  I wrote briefly about the clothes.  Yesterday when I got ready for the gym, I noticed that my sport bra felt a little loose.  When I came home I dredged out the gray sports bra, which is the companion to the one I was wearing, the white sports bra.  Gray has always run a little small.  The last time I tried to wear Gray, in fact, I pulled and strained and almost in fact strained something and simply couldn't hook it.  This time Gray fit perfectly.  So I had a little fit of trying on clothes again.  The water-color print pencil skirt can now come off without my unfastening it.  I figure it has two more weeks before it's just silly.  I can wear the tuxedo jacket I just bought, which was too small when it arrived.  My other cream tuxedo jacket is still a bit tight, but not bad.  There are skirts I can wear again, or nearly wear again.  Skirts that can get cycled in when the other one gets cycled out. 

I'm pleased about all this, of course.  I went to sleep thinking about the gray sports bra and making up outfits in my head.  I think, though, that I won't let myself be really pleased till I get my blood work results.  Since the previous rather awful ones were on the heels of a whole lot of uncontrolled eating, I'm hoping that this will bring a rather dramatic improvement.  I really want to stay off meds.  So I'll go on with my salads, and I think I'll avoid pizza from now on.