Too Geeky to Diet?

I understand that the way to lose weight is to simply burn more calories than you take in.  Running is my primary form of exercise now that I'm not playing roller derby anymore.  I've been spending a bit of time on the stationary bike too.  But food is my downfall.  I like food too much.

I've been trying for years to find the best way to track my diet.  I've tried meticulous calorie counting at SparkPeople, not counting anything at all, the Hacker's Diet, and most recently simple food journaling.

Calorie counting is such a drag.  I used to not mind it but now that I've got a child occupying a good chunk of my active brain it's become unrealistic for me to continue researching the caloric content of every bite.

Food journaling is supposed to work because it's supposed to make you think about what you're eating.  It's supposed to make you go, "If I eat this doughnut I'll have to put it in my food journal and then I'll look back on that entry and feel really horrible about myself and the next time I see a doughnut I won't eat it because I don't want to feel bad anymore."  But because I'm not a normal person with emotional ties to journal entries, when I look back at my food journal I just see pure data.  Ones and zeroes.  I can say, "Yep, should have made a better choice at 12:47 PM on Thursday the 19th of August."  But the emotional connection just isn't there.  Maybe if there was a shock collar involved....

The Hacker's Diet should have worked for me, but it's more data entry than I'd like.

You know what's been working for me?  Slim Fast.  Fucking Slim Fast.  Slim Fast!  Me!  The Eat Real Whole Foods girl!  I'm absolutely disgusted with myself.

But fuck if it isn't getting the job done.  I see the numbers on the scale go down every day and my mind goes, "Target approaching.  Continue current trajectory."

Foodblogging: Cold Soba, Sesame, and Carrot Salad with Baked Sesame Teriyaki Tofu

Dinner last night:

Cold Soba, Sesame, and Carrot Salad with Baked Sesame Teriyaki Tofu

On Studio Photography

I've been thinking about taking Lily in to get professional photos done.

Specifically, I've been thinking about not taking Lily in to get professional photos done.

I'm not a fan.  There is no way for studio photos to ever not look cheesy.  There is only a spiraling ladder of cheese, with JC Penney's grey-background-and-big-white-letters at the top, moving down toward Glamour Shots' soft, filtered lens; and ending down at Olan Mills' epic laser backdrop.

The only way I'll ever set foot in a portrait studio is to go in a completely opposite direction, such as a Tim and Eric-style family portrait with closed eyes, awkward grimaces, and bad holiday sweatervests.  Then we'll put it on a Christmas card and send it to our families.

Call me old fashioned, but I much prefer the candid shots of yesteryear.  Back when we didn't have the option of instantly deleting any imperfect photos.  Before people were carrying around pocket tripods and worrying about light levels and SLRs or whatever.  I love my family's crackly old photo albums.  The greenish shade of the 60s.  The brownish shade of the 70s.  The orangey shade of the 80s.  People caught mid-bite or mid-laugh or mid-speech.  The textured matte and rounded corners of old photos.  That smell, the smell of vinyl and extended family.

Raising a kid, not grass

We're entering the hell season for allergies.  Late spring and late summer are an orgy of Claritin and Kleenex for me.  Though I can hardly wait to sniffle my way around the State Fair, I will do it it a sleepwalk-like state due to my stacking of Claritin and Benadryl.  I'm going to start chugging local honey like it's a bottle of Jag at a frathouse and bringing my neti pot to bed with me.

Our front yard is a total wreck of weeds.  I can only pull them for about five minutes while wearing a bandana over my nose and mouth like an anarchist outside of an RNC ralley.  Only my bandana is bright orange and I've got tears streaming down my face not from tear gas, but from the pollen and dust and whatever other evil particles these things that are taking over our yard throw off.  After five minutes of furious plucking and twine-bundling I race inside, peel off my clothes directly into the washer, and run into the shower where I scrub every inch of myself like a rabid cokehead.  Then flush each side of my sinuses three times each with my neti pot, drink a gallon of water, slam another Claritin, and collapse my puffy body onto the couch.  I can only two this once every couple of days.

So, neighbors, that is why our yard looks like it does.  I wish we had some teenagers in our neighborhood who would weed our yard for twenty bucks and a pizza.

The silence

I go in cycles of almost-depression.  If I get stressed out I start dwelling on the fact that I have at most a flimsy and tenuous social circle.  I have many acquaintances, but no friends.  I haven't found a group activity of any kind where I fit in.  Blah blah blah, I've been over this before.

So I'm sure I'll find another group to try and wedge myself into (D&D Encounters at a local shop, more than likely), get frustrated because my social anxiety is crippling my ability to act like a normal fucking human being in public, then quit and slink back home again.  And the circle will be complete.

I'm usually a very positive person.  Lately it's been hard to keep this up.  Again.  I feel miserable about the state of my body despite my efforts to exercise and not eat everything I see.  I have had a very short fuse lately and I'm finding it hard to cope with things going on in current events. 

I'm trying not to fall into despair about whales, dolphins, and seals being cruelly slaughtered by bullying assholes.  I've avoided any mention of the flooding in Pakistan.  I can't read anything about the gulf oil spill.

I feel helpless and more than a little angry and bitter at myself for not joining the Peace Corps or something like the Sea Shepherds when I was younger, before I got tied down by a house, marriage, and a child.  I wouldn't trade those things in for anything right now, but I just can't…….do anything about anything right now.

Personal betterment and enrichment for dummies

I'm learning how to play the ukulele.  On one hand it's easy.  On the other hand it's very, very hard.
I never quite got the hang of the guitar because I have weak girly hands and am almost completely unable to perform a barre, which is pretty much a requirement.  I can sorta barre on my uke because the strings are a great deal easier to push down.  I'm getting better.  Now I need to drill chords over and over and over again.

I'm also learning how to play the tinwhistle.  It is just as easy/hard as the uke.
I've wanted a tinwhistle for years now.  Every time we'd go to the Irish Fair I'd look at them but never pull the trigger.  Dan got me one at the last minute this year.  It's a cheap one so it doesn't really do the higher register notes but it's enough to learn on.


I'm an idiot so I'm drinking Slim Fast for lunch.  I'm desperate.
I've been eating poorly lately.  I've also been eating meat and I'm not happy about it.  So it's time to reboot the system with a liquid diet for lunch.  My self-image is so not good right now.

I'm on week 8 of the Couch to 5K program.  Yeehaw!
I may be fat but at least I can run 2 miles.


The State Fair is looming on the horizon and we've got our tickets ready.  OMG YAY!

Wednesday's Food

I'm asking for a do-over today, because yesterday was horrible.

Breakfast started out OK: oatmeal with raisins, almonds, and a Coffeemate creamer.

Lunch wasn't the greatest.  I didn't touch my salad.  I ate the whole giant piece of leftover spanakopita.

Things really went off the rails when it came to my snacking throughout the day.  It was someone's birthday so there was a bunch of free food.  I had this peanut butter cereal bar...

...and these crackers...

...and this piece of cake.

Dinner was monochromatic.  Spaghetti and cheese bread with a side of more spaghetti with butter, salt, and pepper.  Because that's how I roll when it comes to spaghetti.

Sigh.  I need to do better today.

Tuesday's Food

I need to start keeping track of what I eat on a day to day basis.  I keep gaining back the weight I lose from running because I'm an emotional eater.

For breakfast I had muesli with 1/2 cup old fashioned oats, walnuts, almonds, dried fruit, coconut, raisins, honey, and milk to cover.  It was deeeeelish.  Even Husband said he liked it.  I will have to pick up some more dried fruit because this might be a breakfast staple for me.

Lunch was a salad with Morningstar Chik'n Strips and strawberries.

I also ate many, many grapes.

And a granola bar.

I also had probably 6-7 mini 3 Muskateers.  Um.

Dinner was cheater's spanakopita-type-stuff and a greek salad with tofu.  I didn't take a picture last night but I'm having it for lunch today.  The heirloom tomatoes, one of the cucumbers, the lettuce, and the red onion were all from the farmer's market.  One big cucumber was pulled out of my garden yesterday, as was the dill for the spanakopita.

I hope the two salads sort of almost balanced out the rest of the calories.  Probably not, though.

Much muches

Busy, busy, busy.

Our new niece was born last week.  I'm trying to get someone to pay us to tow our dead car.  Still trying to learn Korean.  House is a disaster.  Hormones are crazy.  Baby is a hurricane.  New kiddie pool.  Baking bread.  Got fruit to make into cobbler.  Couch to 5K.  Shopping.  FAFSA.  ARGH.

ISP bullshittery

Back in 1999-2000 or so I got my first 56k ISP account with a local company called MNInter.Net.  Eventually I graduated to DSL.  Then the company got sold.
Then it got sold again.
And again.
And again.
And again.

And then today I get a call from whoever last bought our account saying that they turned our Internet connection off because they received a notice from the Entertainment Software Association that claimed that we had pirated software.

...which is funny because the only thing I have torrented in the past year is Ubuntu.  You know, Linux.  Freeware Linux.

Fuck you, USFamily.Net.  Fuck you right in the teeth.  Fuck your spammy-looking homepage.  Fuck your rude customer service rep.  Fuck your jumping to conclusions and fuck your false accusations.

And also, fuck the Entertainment Software Association and your phone guy who didn't want to believe that wardriving is a real thing or that perhaps one of our neighbors was using our wifi while I didn't have our router locked down (while setting up the PS3 on the network), or even when it was (it's really not that hard to hack a router).

I'm going with ipHouse, a local company just around the corner from me at work and the only ISP in town that has a favorable review on Yelp.