Self-Acceptance Wake-up Call

Do any of you read Andie Mitchell's blog? I have been a fan of hers for several years, and her latest blog post really hit home with me.
Why Self-Acceptance Matters

It's such a timely topic for me. It just hit me this morning, with true intensity, that I have been punishing myself again. I am down on myself about pretty much everything right now, doubting all my life choices on an hourly basis. The past five mornings, anxiety has woken me up at 4:30am, with my heart pounding and gut-churning worry until I go ahead and get up. My self-talk has been critical and mean. Eating has sometimes been simply to fill that sinking feeling in my tummy. That, combined with Thanksgiving, has added another five pounds to my scale, rather than the 10 I planned to lose.

I could go on and on about all the mistakes I've been making, but the bottom line is: I'm blaming myself for all my daughter's problems, and I'm punishing myself for it. All the regular Weight Watchers self-talk feels false. When the shrink tells you to lock up all the knives and medicine to keep your child safe, "if hunger isn't the problem . . . blah blah" feels like a crappy platitude.

So I needed this reminder today to be kind to myself. I promise I will practice telling myself, "You're doing the best you can," and even more importantly, I will strive to believe it.

Food Truck Friday

Does your town have food truck gatherings? I find them fun once in a while, and we've even visited food trucks when we've been on vacation. This month, the St. Louis Art Museum is having a film series on Friday nights, where they have food trucks all evening, then a movie outdoors after dark. We went this past Friday, and it was a really nice time. My daughter brought a friend, and they had the best time exploring the museum all evening.
For me, the only downside to food trucks is that it's sometimes hard to find food that feels like my preferred variety of healthy. But I got so excited when I saw the Revel food truck there. I've never eaten at their cafe, but my husband said it was delicious. They actually received a write-up in the New York Times this spring.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/26/travel/restaurant-report-athlete-eats-in-st-louis.html?_r=0I had the "“caulichilada” which tasted completely amazing! Now I've been craving it all week! Then I had a paleo chocolate cookie from the coffee truck for dessert. I was completely satisfied, and it was all so delicious.
I realized I've talked a lot lately about following moderation and being more flexible with family meals as a good example. This situation was the best of both worlds - it was a rare opportunity to have it all!

Modeling Moderation

I hope everyone had a very happy July 4th weekend! Our 4th was nice, but having July 5th on a Sunday was my favorite day in a while. The weather was perfect - high 80s but not too humid. Every place we went in St. Louis had little to no crowds. This is Art Hill in Forest Park - normally it would be packed on a beautiful day like yesterday. We went to the pool, the Art Museum, did a little shopping, and tried a new-to-St. Louis ice cream parlor.

Oh, and Marlena did my face for me. I always love the way she does it, and she frequently asks if she can apply my makeup. I just ignore the wrinkles, ha! 

If you ever get a chance to try Jeni's Ice Cream, I highly recommend it! Marlena was cracking up that she somehow got hot fudge all over her arm! 

But the ice cream brings me to my topic: Modeling Moderation. 

Moderation has never come naturally to me. Honestly, I didn't lose 150 pounds by eating/exercising moderately. As the mom of a daughter, I have tried to never ever say negative things about my body, but there have been many times I've said things like, "I *have* to work out!" or eaten different meals from my family to stay On-Plan. From everything I've read, I have internalized the message that "being hardcore" is the most efficient way to maintain. I try to follow most of Dr. Barbara Berkeley's rules from "Refuse To Regain," including weighing and exercising daily and keeping gains to a bare minimum. A couple years ago, though, I made a choice to eat more treats with Marlena, solely for the purpose of modeling moderation. I'm OK with my extra 15 pounds that resulted. 

In the past six weeks, though, we (Marlena, my husband and I, and a couple adults close to her) have become concerned about her vulnerability to eating disorders. It goes hand in hand with her other emotional issues, and it appears to be widespread among a group of her friends. At this point, her food intake hasn't changed, I don't think her weight has changed, but she's begun tracking her food on My Fitness Pal and worrying about her weight and what she eats. She's also begun running, and continues to love dance. My mama gut instinct tells me she does not have an eating disorder, but we are watching it carefully. My gut also tells me that her running is probably 50% for her mood, and 50% for her weight. 

I have always been very open with my family that the main reason I exercise daily is to maintain my mood. So I shouldn't be surprised that, from the list of 100 Ways To Self-Soothe her therapist gave her, she chose exercise. She's been watching Mama self-soothe with exercise for 8 years! 

All this is just to say that there's a reason I've been eating ice cream this summer, even when I'm not really in the mood. My kiddo and husband absolutely LOVE ice cream! It completely breaks my heart to watch Marlena talk herself out of an ice cream because she thinks it has too many calories. So when she says she wants it, I cheerfully walk her to the ice cream parlor in our neighborhood, and we enjoy the heck out of those ice creams. I enjoy the heck out of our walk & talks. And I say "f- it" to the ice cream calories, because showing her it's OK to be moderate is one of my most important jobs right now. 

Orlando Here We Come!

I am so excited to report that I booked our family vacation to Orlando! We're visiting both Disney and Universal, and I cannot wait! We've visited both before: Universal in 2012 and Disney in 2013. We're going this May, and I have so much planning to do!

One of the things I plan is vacation food. I came back from Disney last time having lost 2.4 pounds, so I need to spend some time analyzing what worked and what, if anything, to change.

We have never stayed on-property, and probably never will. We stayed at the Windsor Hills condominiums, which are 10 minutes door-to-door from all the Disney parks. Disney is not a cheap vacation, but we try to do it as cheaply as possible and save our $$$ for the priority items. We love Windsor Hills, and we're so excited to stay in the same condo this trip!

We meal-planned and grocery-shopped, and cooked quite a few meals at the condo. I love cooking, so it's not a chore I avoid on vacation. We ate breakfast at the condo every day: overnight fridge oats for me, and organic pancakes for my family. I actually packed an insulated lunch bag to the parks most days, and would eat it with my family while they got a counter service lunch. I was nervous that Security would give me a hard time, but the guard couldn't have been nicer when they searched my lunch bag. Frankly, my digestion is so finicky that I knew I needed to stick to clean food on vacation. I took things like boiled eggs, homemade power bars, string cheese, and fruit. We love turkey legs, so a couple of times, all three of us would split one for lunch.

We also took mid-afternoon breaks most days to relax in the A/C at the condo for a couple of hours. We'd throw together a salad and protein, then head back to the parks for evening activities, parades, and fireworks. Using all these strategies, we saved an absolute fortune on food: I think we came in $250 under budget for our food costs. Don't ask me how badly we blew through our merch budget, however! 

Another vacation strategy is planned treats. I really don't feel deprived on vacation - I plan at least one treat every day, but the trick is it has to be completely worth it. Usually it's the darkest chocolate treat I see!

Before our last trip, I did a ton of research on where to find healthy food at Disney. I really like this blog: http://www.disneyfoodblog.com/2010/02/04/eating-healthy-in-walt-disney-world/
and plan to do more research on any recent additions. After having been once, I feel a little more confident in my ability to find healthy choices. Honestly, the hardest thing for me was the lack of vegetables. So I really tried to cram as many veggies as possible into my condo dinners.

We had one character dinner last trip, at the Garden Grille in Epcot. It was absolutely delicious! It all tasted really fresh and homemade.


Lastly, it was during our 2013 trip that I realized how underrated walking is as an exercise. I really did not deprive myself of food, and with all the daily treats, I figured I would gain. But the lack of stress and cortisol, coupled with miles and miles of walking every day, was amazing. It was when we returned home that I tried to increase my pleasure walking.

Stay tuned, and I'll post more vacation tips/tricks as I remember them.