Look - I'm not bitching today!

I want to start by saying thank you to Kristen for the clothes. She was so nice to send me two pairs of pants and a shirt after hearing me belly-ache about not having any pants that fit. The things she sent fit great and are soooo cute! I took a photo of me in one of the outfits. Sorry it is not a great picture. I tried to take it 100 different ways and kept getting the blur at the bottom. BTW I still have some size 24's to send off if anyone needs that size.

I didn't eat much yesterday, but I kicked ass in the protein department thanks to the chocolate Premier Nutricion Protein shakes that I got at Costco. They have 30 grams of protein and only 160 calories which I love! They also taste pretty good for protein drinks. I have mentioned before that I'm always hesitant to drink my protein shakes because they are 220 calories. Every day that I've had one, I've logged more calories than usual. Being a vegetarian, I do have to work at getting my 50 grams of protein in. I think I am hitting that mark on average, but not every day. Like yesterday, I had 78 grams of protein. The day before I had 43. So I averaged more than 60 each day. I'm not sure if that is good enough.

One of the reasons that I am thinking so much about protein is that my typical vegetarian diet pre-band was a whole lot of carbs. I think this is a big part of the reason that I gained weight so easily, even though I exercised regular and didn't eat crazy quantities of food most of the time.

For some reason I ate less than 1,000 calories yesterday. I haven't had much interest in food lately. It really blows me away that I can go from thinking about food all the time to just eating a cup of cottage cheese because I'm hungry and it has lots of protein. I used to eat out almost every day for lunch. This was very expensive and added lots of calories to my diet since we all know that fast food and really any kind of restaurant food is typically very high cal.

My band is doing a pretty good job of telling me when I've had enough to eat. Like last night, I measured out a half cup of rice and about 1/4 cup (2 oz.) of tofu. I had five or six tofu cubes and was so full. I even got that weird neck/shoulder pain which tells me my pouch is full, I guess. Later I had a tangerine because I did not have one fruit or vegetable all day (unless tofu is a vegetable?). It was yummy, but I kind of forced myself to eat it. I wasn't too full or anything since it was a couple of hours after dinner, but I just didn't really want to eat. How did I go from being litterally OBSESSED with food to this point?

I know from past experience that part of the reason is that I am not eating much sugar. Eating sugar causes me to start craving foods of all kinds. I haven't eliminated sugar from my diet by any means, but I am not eating sweets regularily. If it happens to be in something I'm eating, then fine, but I am not eating many things that are mostly sugar. Remember that box of chocolates I got for Valentine's Day? I have had five of them. They are really decadent and almost too sweet. When I've chosen to have one, I've been prepared for the thoughts that come 30 or so minutes later about fixing a snack.

What I don't really understand is how I can be going along like I am and then completely fall off the wagon. I have done this countless times on diets before. I will follow my food plan diligently for months and months and then just say screw it and start eating whatever I want. It usually takes me years to get back to a point where I am ready to try again. I am living in fear of coming to that point again. I am hoping that since I am doing some things differently this time, it won't happen and if it does, I will be able to address it. Like I am working on the protein this time around. I also have the band, of course, which will help keep my portions small regardless of what I am eating. I can always get a fill if I need to re-focus my efforts. The mandatory post-fill liquids and mushies should kick me back into gear. I hope that these differences will be enough because compulsive overeating is a cunning and baffling disease. Good thing I'm clever and strong!