Mindful Choices: Day 1

1. Blossoms!, 2. Dinner at Harry's restuarant, 3. The long walkway to parking garage, 4. Winter debris, 5. Looking up at Enderis Hall, 6. Looks like a tack in the tire..., 7. Reflecting, 8. Pita and hummus, 9. Verboten, 10. Steep stairway to the lake -- off limits., 11. UWM Alumni House, 12. Cereal and scone, 13. Gorgeous exterior

Created with fd's Flickr Toys.

Movement:

• Walked the full block (don't laugh, I'm trying) from Maryland and Hartford to work (rather than John dropping me at the door).


• Walked for over an hour at lunchtime! Went toward the lake, saw garden sculptures and blossoming spring flowers, lots of sunshine, and enjoyed every minute of it, despite a little briskness in the air. Lovely!

• Enjoyed waiting outside for John after work, and walking to the parking garage.
  

Fuel:

• At my desk: vitamins, cereal and skim milk, low fat cranberry/orange scone, Spicy Mountain Peach Tea = breakfast


• At my desk: 7 tiny pitas with about 5 oz. of plain hummus = lunch (oops! 2.5 hours later, and the hummus isn't sitting very well ... glad I have Tums. I think there was too much garlic. "Too much garlic?!? No such thing!!" I'd love to say. But, in reality .... Well, on second thought, perhaps it was the hummus with the Peach Tea chaser. In any case, here come the Tums.)

• At Harry's restaurant: pan-seared scallops with angel-hair pasta, sun-dried tomatoes, and white wine sauce and bread.
  

• At the Last Drop Coffee Shop: August Vanilla Bean Steamer. Truly delicious.

Spirit:

• Photography. It felt so great to take pictures of something besides food!

• Took a different direction and different route for my lunchtime walk than I ever have before, and saw lots of wonderful things I hadn't seen before. And having my camera with me means I could also record some of them. Even wiating for John was enjoyable with my camera to keep me company.
  

• Sunshine! What more do I need to say!?!

• Lovely dinner and companionable evening with my wonderful husband!
  

No photo journal = heartburn? Really?

I admit that I ate mindlessly, for the most part, yesterday. Not badly, necessarily, just mindlessly.


No photo journal, no accountability?


Well, not quite.


But when I reached what would have been (during a photo-journal day) the end of eating (partly because of mindfulness, partly because it's a pain to pull the camera out and modify the photo journal for a handful of candy!), I kept going. Not a "binge," in the sense of "out of control." But definitely more than I've been indulging for the past 3+ weeks.


And, for that, I suffered. Heartburn. The trigger? Innocent-looking pink and while candies.


I knew better. I did it anyway. This is how we learn.













Photo is used under the creative commons license.

"oh, my...." re: me from the outside

This is definitely a good direction for me to go, if my goal is to be mindful and bring my body image into alignment with reality. I'm not exactly sure whether that's a good idea, overall, though.

I looked at my last blog posting this morning, again. I can't express to you how hard it is for me to absorb the fact that those are images of how I really look.

I have LONG wished that mirrors had never been invented, because I could then believe I was absolutely beautiful, based on how other people respond to me -- honest, it's good! But when I see 'me' I know it's something besides my appearance they're responding to -- which is also good -- but feels incongruent.

ANYWAY ... my only worry in this expedition is that there are things that are irreconcilable. I may be able to lose weight and pare down my overall mass ... but there's nothing I will reasonably do about the overbite, the broken nose, the ... age. Sigh.

I am I.

Onward.

Food Choices: Photo Journal - Day 26

3/10/09

Breakfast 8:30 a.m.

Raspberries, cereal, milk -- at my desk.

Lunch 11:30 a.m.

I don't know why ... when I saw the smoked oysters at Trader Joe's, I just wanted them. When I didn't have something ready to take for lunch today, they seemed a logical choice. They were really good with the pita.

But I gotta tell you ... the flavor of smoky-too-salty oysters stays in my mouth LONG after the desire for them has been satisfied.

Girl Scout cookies - a little too many, but I was trying to kill the salty smoky flavor, unsuccessfully.

Dinner 6:30

Baked potato leftover from last night's dinner at the Glen Cafe, Dove bites, and two triangles of TJ pastry crust with a sprinkling of shredded cheddar.

Food Choices: Photo Journal - Day 25

Food Choices: Photo Journal - Day 24

Food Choices: Photo Journal - Day 23

Food Choices: Photo Journal - Day 22

Food Choices: Photo Journal - Day 21

Food Choices: Photo Journal - Day 20

3/4/09 - Breakfast 6:30 a.m.
Originally uploaded by shrnmc

3/4/09 - Lunch 11 a.m.
Originally uploaded by shrnmc

3/4/09 - Early dinner? 3 p.m.
Originally uploaded by shrnmc

3/4/09 - Snack 7:30 p.m.
Originally uploaded by shrnmc

Food Choices: Photo Journal - Day 19

Food Choices: Photo Journal - Day 18

Breakfast - you can always tell when I sleep in: no oatmeal. :-) This was served with milk: Heart to Heart cereal, strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries (commercially-frozen), and vanilla yogurt. Also had green tea and vitamins. I'm just bursting with healthy!



Lunch at my desk again ... but I brought something better than last week's bran muffin (NEVER doing the bran muffin again!). Whole wheat pita, hummus, and tomato - tasty and good for me.



Dinner in two parts: Salad and mushroom/truffle flatbread. The salad was so good (click for details).





The mushroom flatbread was too rich. Half of it is waiting to be lunch or dinner tomorrow, but the flavors are so intense, I may stretch it over a couple more days.

Reflections: To be honest, I usually hold off eating in the evening longer when I'm recording my visual food diary ... and I refrain from eating later ... especially when I've already updated everything. This helps me meet two of my goals, because I feel better overall when I don't eat too late in the evening; and I eat "better" when I refrain from munching when I'm preparing dinner. All-in-all, the experience of logging my food visually continues to have a positive influence on my mindfulness and on my choices.

Dessert: shoulda hada clementine.