Sunday August 22, 2021

Hurricane Henri has arrived! It doesn't look like it will affect much here though the storm surge may mess up the beaches and coastal homes (not mine). There is some possibility of power outages but I have a generator. The thing I am most worried about is the guys not being able to do the final coat on my floor tomorrow. I really need this to be done with and it has to happen tomorrow so my furniture can go back in place on Thursday.

So the floor refinishing forces us to be creative in food prep and makes us have to go out for food, but it cuts my snacking. I can't reach most of the carby stuff in the cabinet, LOL. I may try to make a no cook sauce from the many, many tomatoes that just ripened this week using the instant pot to boil water so I can blanch the tomatoes and remove the skin. Should be interesting.

Other than that we are just going to hang out and watch some TV assuming the one in the basement is working. The modem/router was repositioned so I am not sure the basement TV will pick up the wireless signal. Sigh...

Have a safe and healthy Sunday.

I'm glad to hear the hurricane is not impacting the Cape too significantly. Hopefully you won't need your generator. Is this equipment most people have on the cape?

I feel like its the snacking that's getting me too. As we've discussed, I can't really eat enough volume during meal time to really pack in the calories. But the snacking... If I've had a decent meal, and I'm not getting the environmental cues (for me, visual cues are huge!), I can go several hours without experiencing real hunger.

Right now, our house is full of food, I made pizzas for my son and his girlfriend's visit last night. I made banana bread. I'm not hungry yet for anything but my tea, but will I eat with them this morning?

No firm plans, I'm not sure what they will want to do today before they leave. Yesterday we had a nice visit with my parents, and then had dinner here (the pizzas) and a bonfire. (The bonfire, since it had rained the night before, otherwise it's too dry. )

Those pizzas would definitely call to me.

Some people have generators but not most. Out of perhaps 10 houses near me only 3 of us have them. We are lucky to be able to connect them to natural gas so they are ready to run for any period of time. They go on automatically when they sense a power failure. When we first owned the house we lost electricity in almost every storm. When we moved here full time I had the generator put in at the same time we had the house addition built. But it hasn't been on much because they upgraded the electrical connection for the neighborhood shortly thereafter.

DD's question the other day, to which I replied, has kept me thinking.

When I want to lose weight I immediately go into a downward spiral thinking about what needs to change in my daily diet. Traditionally, I always focused on what I needed to eliminate from my diet. Rarely, if ever, did I think about what I needed to add. Losing weight for me was all about deprivation. Since my weight issues started very early in life I experienced forced deprivation at a young age.

By 13 I already knew how to "sneak" food, consume forbidden foods away from the watchful eyes of my parents. Even though I started going to Weigh****chers in 1977 having just turned 13, I was also figuring out how many raspberry Zingers I could eat from the cafeteria and still lose weight. The Zingers were a "forbidden" food and a guilty pleasure.

One of the strategies I realize I am employing now is a focus on what I need to ADD to my regular diet, rather than what I need to eliminate. Right now having a focus on adding ounces of water to my day is a much easier focus than, say, NOT eating chocolate. Focusing on getting more protein each day takes the focus away from reducing carbs, but to ADDING protein. It's a different mindset and makes it so much easier for me.

The strategy of adding might work well for me because of my long history of deprivation that began when I was 7 or 8. Maybe it would be less effective if someone started having weight issues later in life. I don't know. Kind of thinking out loud.

That said, I've had 40 ounces of water so far today, but not nearly enough protein. So off I go to eat some protein! Here, here!!!!!

I see much value in the practice of adding than depriving. It kind of dovetails into my thoughts about eating for health, that focusing on delicious whole foods is a form of self care. Drinking more water, eating high quality protein, etc is self care. Eating tomatoes for you, not self care. But there are other whole foods that do appeal. Eating tomatoes sauted in garlic, basil and a touch of olive oil is self care for me, delicious and packed with nutrition. I would NEVER have fed my kids a steady diet of junky processed foods, that would not be nurturing. Why do I do it to myself? I'm going to focus on your point Peps, if I want to eat, I'm going to focus on adding in protein and whole foods. I deserve it.