Category: Mind games and weight loss
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Out of breath, hungry and Spring Pesto Dip
You could take away any of my many subscriptions before I’d let you touch my contract with The New Yorker. I pay a lot of money so they can deliver the world to my mailbox most weeks of the year. This is unlike our local newspaper whose mission, evidently, is to spotlight one overweight old…
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Emo eating, addiction and wellness
I broke my foot in June and quickly gained 14 pounds — faster, you might say, than a heifer on a feed lot. That was five months ago. Since September I’ve carved off nine of those pounds — as slowly as sculpting marble with a butter knife. Aaargh, that’s all I can say. (Of course,…
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#101 days a gym rat
I’m finally learning how to use Instagram. Today is day 14 of what I intend to be 101 consecutive days at the YMCA, and I also intend that people know just how hard I’m working at this. I want to be a healthy eating and exercising rock star, if not to an audience of millions,…
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A fine day for running off the rails; roasted asparagus with a college education
This would be the day for going stark-raving, nutso, bat-crap, screaming like a banshee, inhaling everything in sight, edible and non-. The air is like damp, gray wool. I’m reading William Styron, the master of depressive darkness. It’s Daughter’s Day and one daughter won’t answer the phone, the other had her daughter answer rudely. I’m afraid…
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A new decade; best marinara sauce ever!
Thank goodness I got up at dawn last Saturday or I wouldn’t have known I’ve moved into “a new decade.” That’s the expression at this 8 a.m. Weight Watchers meeting for dropping into a new set of numbers. In my case, that’s going below 200 pounds for the first time in four years. The last time I…
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Caring for ourselves and our world; two tasty hacks
The only way I can justify writing about food and healthy eating this week is to remember that eating together/cooking is a positive form of caring for others. And among those others, we must include ourselves. If I don’t take care of myself, I’m not content in this world, I’m angry, resentful, filled with negative energy.…
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Avocado BLT Pizza
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…
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Steak salad and more longhorns
Looking at 1 cup of leftover rice, getting ready to nuke my lunch the other day, I realized — anew — that I can’t eat that much rice. Ever. It felt like a little death until someone in my online fitness support group suggested I say to myself, “The new JoAnn doesn’t eat that much…
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I’m as corny as Kansas in August (insert favorite upbeat lyrics here)
I like to imagine that in happy, healthy families the children grow up to expect and focus on the positive. “Don’t you ever think things might turn out OK?” asked a heartfriend soon after getting to know me. Why, no, it’s not in my DNA. I grew up waiting for the other, much scarier,…
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Eating a stinkbug, making salad dressing
I was able to brighten the life of our dental hygenist, Helga, this winter by telling her about popping my retainer into my mouth one night in the dark and wondering why it tasted like citric acid. You can guess: One of the flock of stinkbugs living with us had perched on the retainer in…
youcanteaticecreamintheshower 