This year has been wonderful and crushing at the same time. There have been a lot of stressful situations and a fair amount of subconscious depression over my mother. My fix for this sort of thing is to eat my way through it.
In the last few months I have noticed that the jeans were getting tighter and tighter, and I made excuses for it because I didn't want my bag of chips ripped from my hands. I was filling holes with greasy yummies like chips and pizza and late night McDonald's. The other day I woke up and said to myself "this shit has to stop". I'm not young anymore. 41 with a thyroid problem who has worked the night shift for 12 years. I'm slicing years off my life left and right just for being a shift worker. It doesn't allow you to sleep or eat properly and exercising gets blown off pretty easily because night work is exhausting.
In high school I had an eating disorder. There were lots of reasons why, some of which are too damn personal to really get into, and it set me off on a bad path. I had a bad perception of myself; I hated everything about myself. It took a friend of mine who also had a disorder to get really sick for me to realize that I needed to cut it out. So, I ate my way through things and just suffered being overweight most of my life.
Diets and calorie counting are dangerous for me. I get obsessive and hyper-focused on the adding of calories to the point that I forget to enjoy my life. Fads are just that...fads. It has felt pretty defeating over the years. How can you eat without feeling like you are starving to death or so restricted that life is miserable, but still lose weight? This is the age old question isn't it?
Having a smart phone has its perks for sure. Anything you want is at your fingertips. So I started looking up apps that track food in hopes to find one better than the last one I had which was so tedious and difficult and made me crazy to the point where my family wanted me to delete it from my phone and eat a damn slice of pizza.
I found one called TwoGrand.
I don't generally endorse these sorts of things, but I love this app. You can track your daily intake in under 3 minutes a day, set goals for yourself, track your weight, track your water intake, and visually look back on your day. It is sort of like an Instagram food tracker. Very hipster, don't you think?
Before you eat your meal or snack or have a drink, you snap a pic of it. Boom, recorded. I love it because I can see what my portions look like, if I have eaten too many carbs that day or didn't eat enough. It is a way to be honest without feeling shameful. It is fun. Who the hell ever said dieting was fun? This girl.
I have used this app for 4 days and lost 5 pounds already. I made a commitment to eat breakfast every day, stop drinking soda, do yoga 3 times a week, and 100 crunches a day. If I miss the goal that day, it's ok. The f-ing world won't end.
I know New Year's resolution time is coming around. I think this is something you can stick with. It has taken the stress out of my life and with 3 days of crunches under my belt my shirts even fit better. It allows for realistic goal setting. Who could ask for anything more? It is available for iPhone and Android.
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