This is not a post about body acceptance.

It was going to be.  Trust me.  I'm down about 8 pounds (on my 5'5" frame) on this little challenge and although I think I can see changes in my body, I was still convinced that the damn jeans I posted about here would still not fit.  I was going to blame my jeans on my genes.  Women in my family don't have defined waists, I was going to tell you.  With each passing year, in fact, our torsos grow shorter until we are left with just legs and boobs.  Yep, that's it.  Can't change it, so break out the mom jeans and let's just move the hell on.

And then, well, I tried on the jeans.  And, well, shit.  Turns out, it's not about the f&%$ing genes.  It's about the FUCKING JEANS.  And now, yeah, they fit.

Listen to yo body.

So, I'm sick today.  A whopper of a cold and it's just no fun.  It's also a snowpocalype out there and the kids are home from school.  Yay all around.

This has me baffled.  I took a photo of my backyard...a still photo...and then blogger made it into a snow video.  Huh?

This morning, I woke up after 9am (super rare) and then downed some black coffee.  I wasn't hungry at all until around 10, when I made myself an awesome one-block shake.  Frozen strawberries are brilliant for this I have discovered.  I thaw them a tiny bit in the microwave but keep them cold so that they create a great consistency when blended.

But since then, I haven't really been very hungry.  Perhaps it's the cold medicine diet.  (Do cold pills even contain the good shit anymore?) But around noon I was feeling a little woozy and decided an apple was in order.  But instead of also having some protein and fat with it, I....drum roll....just ate the apple.  All by itself.  And then about an hour later I ate...an orange.  A big, wonderful orange that is spelled either naval or navel and I can't remember which.  Again, no fat and no protein.  I just felt that my body needed those sweet and nutritious fruits and, wouldn't you know it, I've perked up a bit since eating them.  And instead of feeling guilty about eating "outside the zone," I felt proud that I had listened to my body's needs and made good choices based on that.

This got me to thinking about how the rest of my day will play out.  Will I give in to the things I really "want" and that normally comfort me when I am sick?  Like pad thai.  Oh good GOD, I would love some hot, sweet pad thai right about now.  But that is not what my body needs...it's just what my mind wants.  It's not going to build me back up...it's just going to break me down.  My body, in its temporarily weekend condition, needs the best possible nutrition I can give it so that it can tell this cold to go f&%$ itself.

It's kind of like burpees or box jumps or any other of those "you can always do just one more" movements.  If you listen to your mind, it says no...but your body can do so much more than that pesky brain of yours says it can.

So, although I'm not going to be a perfect zone blocker today, I am going to tune in to my body and listen to what it needs.

In less introspective news, I saw this at the grocery store yesterday and just had to laugh:

 
PALEO-DIET SLIM! Now here are some photos of cakes and candy and chocolate cocktails.  Good luck with that paleo diet, y'all!

Sweet nothings.

So, yeah, we're not allowed any sugar on this challenge.  No sugar, no honey, no syrup, no stevia, no artificial sweeteners.  Nada.  Desperate times call for reasonable and creative measure.  I thus present you with my new favorite one-block snack (one block carb, one block fat...you're on your own to add in a protein):

Yum.

That's half a cup of cubed pineapple rolled in 1TB of unsweetened coconut flakes and toasted in the toaster oven (I put it on the little tray and just use the 2-slice toaster cycle.  Like I'm playing with the Easy Bake oven that I NEVER HAD DAMMIT.)

I used this.  And before you go thinking oh that's crap, it's not real food, blah blah blah...this is just dehydrated a bit to remove some of the oil.  Still only one ingredient (and that would be, um, coconut).  1 TB is only one block of fat and it's enough to cover 1/2 cup of pineapple.  Just be careful not to over-toast it because it does dry out and burn pretty quickly and doesn't taste good at all like that.

Happy Friday!  Tomorrow is cheat meal night out...woo-freaking-hoooooo!

Is that a food scale in your pocket or...

My food scale looks exactly like this one, except mine is a lot grimier.  Overuse, I tell ya!  It is well-loved.

 Yes, I brought a food scale to a restaurant today.  Now, in defense of my sanity...it was a pretty casual restaurant (order-at-the counter kind of place).  And, I completely do not trust my ability to gauge how much 3 ounces of grilled chicken is.  I am always SHOCKED at how little it is.  So, I pulled out the food scale, measured the chicken, and then put it away.  No big deal.  And my kid, who was a little bit aghast at the spectacle of it all (and it really wasn't a spectacle at all), was very pleased to eat the extra chicken.  So, all's well that ends well.

Your cheating heart.

Confession: If I have time, I wear makeup to the gym. It makes me feel better. Less gym-androgynous.

Last night was Saturday and a planned cheat meal out.  A week ago Saturday was also a cheat meal out, but that was with a gaggle of second graders at Acapulco's to celebrate my girl's 8th birthday. Hardly a culinary extravaganza. This week, we planned on Legal Sea Foods (not a typo...that is how they write it - very hard when we had our rehearsal dinner there and my mother-in-law and I couldn't figure out if the invitations should read that way, with people maybe thinking we didn't know that "seafoods" is one word). We were meeting my parents there for a belated family birthday dinner for La Lucy and my mom together.  Jeff and I really looked forward to this...it sounds silly, but I dressed nicely and did my hair and makeup to make it really feel like an event.  Although I had a roll and butter before dinner as well as one glass of wine, for dinner I had grilled scallops plus mushrooms and squash. Totally healthy even though my proportions were off.  I did have dessert...bananas foster that was a bit like banana ice cream soup when it was put together.  But eat it? Yes I did, along with a chocolate bar when I got home (which is what I should have just had for dessert in the first place).

Lucy and the world's most incredible 67-year-old man.  Who's your daddy?  Because this one is MINE!

Did this cheat bonanza set me off the rails?  Nope, not at all.  Zoning gives you an awesome safety net to land into. You get up, you weigh, you measure, you move on. You spend your week eating clean, eating correctly, thinking carefully about your food, and then you go out on occasion and truly enjoy the experience for what it is. Not a bad way to live.

Wanna get stuffed?

Did you know that this is a rude expression in the U.K.?  It totally is...look it up.

 Any-hoo...if you are suffering from the hungry horrors during this little zone experiment, here is the BEST (IMHO) way to fill up on 3 blocks:

(1) Egg salad made with one whole egg plus four egg whites and some chopped pickle: 3 protein
(2) One tsp mayo: 3 fat
(3) One head of iceberg lettuce to wrap the egg salad in: 1 carb (you won't finish all of it!)
(4) Four cups of roasted broccoli (no oil): 2 carb

SO much better than, say, 3 slices of deli turkey + 9 almonds + 6 dates or other ways you could make up 3 blocks and still be totally starvarino after you eat.

In other news, I was down SIX POUNDS as of this morning!  And as Jerry Seinfeld once said: "How about six? Six is good. You got a problem with six?"

Whistle while you work.

Many kinds of tea!  And granola bars which are NOT MINE.

OMG, it's totally spring in my kitchen.

So, I hate the winter.  It's cold and snowy and dark and just downright depressing to me.  I don't ski.  I don't do anything that makes winter "fun."  Except hot tubbing.  I love hot tubbing and, wouldn't you know it, I just so happen to own one:

Hey, baby.  I'll see YOU later.

I also am not super fond of cooking or of cleaning the kitchen.  Or of being hungry.  So right about now, things are kind of bleak in my world what with all the excessive cooking, cleaning and hungriness.  Except not really...my energy is great, I'm at the gym constantly (a happy place!), I am in this challenge with my husband and some friends (hi, Megan!), etc.  It snowed last night but the snow gods decided to have it start at 6pm and end by 11pm so school was ON like Donkey Kong today.  And, well, I decide to be proactive by force-starting spring in my kitchen.  While at Trader Joe's yesterday stocking up on delectable (cough) items such as shredded cabbage, I tossed four bouquets of flowers into my cart.  I just couldn't help it...I knew they would look awesome together and make me happy.  Yellow tulips and purple hyacinth were both at my wedding, which was in early April (almost 9 years ago).  It was a hard winter that year and the snow had melted just two weeks before, so I wanted people to walk in and feel like spring had just totally sprung on them. Sort of a forced "you shall be happy and feel springy."  Nothing like imposing one's own feelings onto others.

And then there was the tea.  I had wanted to get some from Teavana at the mall...you know, the place where you go in intending to buy whatever is in the delicious sample out front and you leave scratching your head wondering how in f&%$ you just spent $80 on tea?  And it TOTALLY would have gone down that way had my kid (the strawberry thief one) not spilled a sample down her dress and started screaming at the top of her lungs right there in the middle of the damn Natick Mall, thus forcing me to put on my "Its all ok!  We are ok!" face and exit the mall as quickly as possible.  So I bought a bunch of boxes at TJ's instead and though not as tasty, I'm still digging them. 

But I still kind of want to sneak back to the mall to spend $80 on tea.