Avocado BLT Pizza

These sweet little Roma tomatoes are so tender that Stoic the Vast didn't even need to peel them. — These sweet little Roma tomatoes are so tender that Stoic the Vast didn’t even need to peel them.

Lately, I’ve been a real Eeyore about my weight loss. Nothing’s changed for almost a month.

Well, technically, I did get rid of the 4 pounds I slapped on as a non-exercising, two-glasses-of-wine-a-night-drinking tourist in Virginia. Then there was my birthday and Annie P’s first-ever shadow cake. Then… nothing.

Nothing while I went back to work for two months, faithfully counted lunchbox calories and went to the Y after work. Nothing, ninguno, nada….

Last Sunday’s Drs. Oz and Roizen column said my chances as an obese female person of reaching a normal body weight are 1 in 124. They also said “a new study in JAMA Oncology suggests that postmenopausal women who get 300 minutes a week of moderate or vigorous exercise can lose a substantial amount of body fat and significantly improve their hip-to-waist ratio.”

Since I’d gone back to an office, I’d got nowhere near 5 hours a week of real exercise. I had to change that. So this week I put in 2 hours in the yard and then 3 at the Y. Still nothing.

“But how do you feel?” asked the financial adviser I worked with yesterday. Well, stronger, more awake, more alive. “Isn’t that what’s important?” he asked. Jeez, how I feel more important than what the scales or the tape measure say? How I feel more important than what anyone else says about my size or my weight loss?

Yeah, I like that idea. So I went to the Y and did 30 minutes on the elliptical machine. I came home to avocado-ricotta-BLT pizza (recipe below) and a glass of red wine. I ate one slice of pizza (about 300 calories). I had my usual dessert of 1/2 cup pistachios in the shell (150) and a fruit popsicle (80).

Then I thought about the 240-calorie candy bar another financial adviser had brought me on Thursday. Since it was frozen, I had to eat it slowly to protect all my crowns (I know, right?). I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed any candy as much as I did that. I savored it, and I’ve always been known more for my wolfing than my savoring.

I went to bed soon after and got up this morning 2 pounds lighter and 1/2 inch smaller in the hips.

Which just shows to go you that my online fitness support group friends are so right when they say, learn to listen to your body and feed it what it needs. Obviously, I needed that maple-pecan chocolate. This job is very stressful and frustrating; I ache every time I move from all the exercise and it was Friday night. I needed a treat.

“Build the habit,” said Nancy E., a member of this group who’s also a personal trainer and a killer cyclist. “Soon, the movement will make you feel amazing. And that counts so much more than movement on the scale. That will come…”

Come to think of it, the last time I felt amazing was 3 years ago, just about this time of year, when I was even lighter for my 50th high school reunion. And we biked a lot that summer!

This pizza, adapted from the August issue of Prevention magazine, is a

You have to admire a sunflower too stubborn to turn with the sun!

treat, too. Especially cold for breakfast. Be sure and use the salt and pepper, maybe even a little red pepper because the avocado and ricotta combination is bland. Next time I might try basil since we have enough to bale.