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10 pounds down 32 pounds to go!

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Resolve, isn't that a carpet cleaner?

One of my unwritten resolutions for this year, next to keeping my house tidy and not buying thirty bottles of face wash just because I have coupons, is to use my favorite things. When I was a kid I had a stockpile of perfect un-used boxes of crayons, which I coveted. I would use the stubby and gross hand-me-down crayons for actual coloring while my pretty ones stayed safely in the drawer. One of the things I will ask my mother, when I die or when we go on John Edwards Crossing Over, is why she, a trained child psychologist, never questioned my insane OCD. But anyway, I still have a lot of those tendencies.

I buy myself adorable little notebooks, never very expensive, and they get put in a drawer. I collect plates and dishes and tea cups and never, ever use them. I can't think of a third thing that I'm obsessive about so that must be progress. In the vein of keeping my house tidy and keeping up with the small things, I've been making myself lists...in one of my notebooks. I've been carrying this one notebook around for ages and therefor it looks like crap and maybe that's why I'm actually able to sully the pages with ink and not have to gouge my eyes out. Anything I have to write down, I write down in there. Notes, grocery lists, meal plans...all the little bits of paper that used to fill my purse, and my counter, and my table and drive me insane are now gone! I have a to do list for every day and I actually refer to it and cross things off. Imagine!

The dish thing is a little more difficult. I'm trying to use more of the pretty things I've bought, at home and at work. I simply can't buy anymore pretty dishes, deal or no deal, until I make some use of the ones I have. We are a simple people at home, we don't use serving dishes as a rule and for most of the fall we used paper to save water. Washing an extra dish for every, uhm, dish doesn't make much sense on an environmentally friendly level. But I do take pride in the food I cook and for one dinner a week I'm going to try and present it nicely and on nice tableware. There is no reason not to enjoy things, why buy them to put them in a cupboard forever? If something is really too nice to use, there's no place for it in my house.

I'm bored of pretending to be a grown up. That is the soul of my resolutions this year. There is to be no more waiting until whenever to do things the way I want to do them. Do it now or give it up. There in lies the crux of my problem with this Spark diet thing. I really wanted it to work for me. I think we all believe in some way that what we're doing isn't the best, or isn't good enough, when we aren't swimsuit models in a week. I'm curious now as to why I thought someone else's diet plan, even a reasonable one with food involved, would work for me. The entire point was to take me out of my comfort zone of sneaking too many cookies and I really think it made things worse. Maybe it was comfort eating, maybe I should consider that possibility.

It was a lot of work to translate their foods into my foods and part of me thinks I'll have wasted the effort if I give up. I've been thinking though that the amount of effort I put in to add organic foods and remove the chemically sweetened and mass produced products is important in another way. It proves that my values are different than theirs. Not all of the foods Spark used in their menus was crappy chemical food, but a lot of it was weird and or very commercial. Eggo waffles and two kinds of Cheerios and I think the yogurt was Dannon. I don't have a problem with any of those things but none of them are things I normally eat.

It could be me but I don't look at an Eggo waffle and syrup and think that's the way a healthy person starts their day. I also don't look at three meals of peanut butter and jelly and think it's a well rounded day (literally, one whole day on their plan was peanut butter and jelly three ways...I wish I was making it up). I have two more days of portioned food and plans and then I'm calling it quits. I'm still hovering around 175 and I guess that's where I'll start from, again, on my own, this weekend.

9 comments:

Rebecca said...

i think it's great your calling it quits. I mean to comment yesterday and somehow just never got around to it.

do what works for you! seriously..if anything just use spark people as a tool to help you track the info you eat.

Amy said...

Me too. It sucked. I wish I could look back on January and not think "sick, desperate, foolish" but I guess I'll have to hold out for February.

Lisa said...

I can soooooo relate to the hoarding things issue. I have recently come to realize that if something is very nice/pretty/etc., I put it in a draw & admire it. I have gained alot of weight over the past few years & I blame "saving" things in certain sizes on that, but truth be told, I've always kept my nice things neatly tucked away. I will actually wear the same few sweaters (holes/fuzz/...) & leave brand new ones (THAT FIT) in the draw. Thanks for reminding me that I have to enjoy my nice things right now. As far as Spark goes, you don't need them. You will do far better if you are comfortable with your meal plans. Keep up the good work (I lurk here alot, since I am 175 pounds just like you & trying to get back down to where I used to be)!

Lisa

Amy said...

Hi Lisa! Man, I wish I could remember weighing less than 175 but I think even here I'm at my lowest since junior high. I definitely had a closet full of too small things two years ago that emptied before I started writing here, I gave it all away and it hurt but it was good for me in a fish or cut bait way. Throwing away old expectations. I definitely don't have the same body I did the last time I wore a twelve.

Thanks for stopping by and goodluck enjoying your nice things! Of all things that shouldn't be work, and yet, it's hard to let go. le sigh..

Janine said...

You're using paper plates because you have environmental concerns? Err.. save water, kill trees?

Shannon said...

Hey Amy! Totally get the 'nice stuff' thing. Strangely, I also have nice things but I'm drawn to use the crappy, well-worn stuff. My coffee cup, for instance. I have beautiful coffee cups that I bought because of their rooster motif (I'm crazy for roosters). They are lovely. And the cup that makes the coffee taste best (in my head, anyway) is a two tone brown one that I painted and glazed myself. Ugly as sin and as comfortable as an well-worn sweatshirt! So the roosters stay in the cupboard.

You're right about not following someon else's plan. You have to do something that is sustainable for you so you need to figure out a reasonable food plan that fits in to YOUR life.

Keep up the good work though!

Lauren said...

I love your honest healthy mindset.

Amy said...

Thanks Lauren, I can't believe you're going to be home so soon...January's flying.

LS, my aunt collects roosters too! I just tossed one of my most used mugs because using it all the damn time has made it gross and chipped and then stained in the chips and ew, it had to go. Somehow I'm now as interested in tea as much without it though.

Janine, you obviously don't read here or you'd know that there was a severe drought in the eastern US this fall. Not washing extra dishes saved water for the hundreds of acres of trees we own and to help prevent forest fire so you can take your computer chair activism and eat it.

Amy said...

Sorry about the doubles if you got them, I don't always love my first reactions.