Things I Miss, Things I Don’t

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I want to first start off by proclaiming that I tried my eight-mile loop again on Saturday, and this time, I was able to complete it!

I got up earlier this time, about 7 AM, and was out on the road by about 730. It was windy once again, but not quite as bad as last week. I got pretty much the same pictures I did the previous week at the creek…

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And then, I saw some swans in the creek, and since it’s called Swan Creek, I had to get a picture.

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I know, you can’t really see them, but those white dots are swans.

When I turned the corner and headed back north, I did have a bit of a wind at my back. It felt pretty good, and as I started the last mile, I did a selfie while running.

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Can you see by the look on my face that I was saying to myself, “Is it working?” I was running straight into the sun, so I couldn’t see very well.

When I was done, my pace was slower than it had been last week, but I felt accomplished at having finally finished the route that I had planned on doing the week before. It only added an extra quarter mile, but just the mental barrier of running a full loop, and not yet another out and back, really made a difference.

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Afterwards, we had hockey. A shock, I know. The boys played against a team that is a year older than them, whom we had beaten pretty soundly earlier in the month. But…they came and beat us 6-4. 😮 As they always say in sports, that’s why you play the game. However, our boys were in a pretty good winning streak, so it didn’t hurt to have a little humility.

When the game was done, I had to do my biweekly grocery shopping. Ughhhh. Does anyone else hate grocery shopping as much as I do? I do mine two weeks at a time, with a menu plan, but it’s still a chore.

When I was getting close to the end of my trip around the store, I rounded the corner down the frozen food aisle, where I had the craziest feeling. I was in the “snack” part of the frozen food area, and I was suddenly struck by a longing, one I haven’t had in a long time.

Back when I was at my heaviest, I lived off frozen food. A big reason for that was because I hate to cook, and my husband worked nights, so I was often left to my own devices for dinner. Stuff from the freezer is just so easy, you know?

I used to love to eat all the bad stuff that they make and freeze: tater tots, French bread pizza, lasagna, chicken nuggets, chicken tenders, waffles, pizza rolls, burritos, every kind of fried appetizer, all the ice cream and dessert treats…dude. You name it, and if it was frozen, I probably ate it. And a lot of it.

However, since I started eating better about four years ago, I came to realize that the frozen foods weren’t helping me in my quest for a thinner, healthier me. So, I stopped buying those things. I had a few holdouts for a while, like tater tots (I’m famous in my family for my love of those), but when I came to realize how few of them I could eat and still stay within my plan, I stopped buying those, too. I won’t say I was delighted to give up all the frozen goodies, but it was a choice I made, and I know it was the right one for me.

But, in that instant of time, as I rounded the corner with my cart full of food and stared down the aisle of frozen yumminess, I won’t lie…I missed it. I missed it with a longing I haven’t felt in close to four years. It was almost like I could taste the French bread pizza and tater tots, along with the chicken tenders and Sweet Baby Ray’s Barbecue Sauce.

I was surprised by the feeling. I haven’t really thought about those foods in a long time. Even though I pass by them every two weeks on my way to the sugar free ice cream, I don’t really pay attention to it all. On Saturday, though, I did, and it really made me stop and think.

As I stood in line, waiting to check out, I thought about why I was feeling so nostalgic for those foods, and I realized that they were a big part of my life for a long time, and a time that I look back on rather fondly. I was younger and had many less responsibilities (no kids! no hockey! no school projects!). They’re the epitome of comfort food for me; I used to sit and watch TV on Friday nights when Jason was working and eat to my heart’s content. And I liked them. I’m sure they were full of all kinds of awful preservatives and such, but boy, they sure tasted good.

So, yes, I do miss those foods. But you know what I don’t miss? Being overweight. Because I definitely was overweight in the height of my “frozen food frenzy.” (This would have been about 1998-2001.) I can’t even tell you how much I don’t miss that. There are other things I don’t miss, as well. Here’s a partial list:

  • My clothes being uncomfortable. Yesterday morning before church, I pulled out my size 6 slacks and size Small blue shirt, hoping that they still fit (I don’t wear slacks much anymore since we have jeans day every day at work). Not only did they fit, they were actually loose! I absolutely love having clothes that fit and aren’t uncomfortably tight.
  • Being unhappy every time I pass a mirror. When I caught myself in the bathroom mirror at church yesterday, I was a little surprised to see that I looked pretty darn good—thin, even! I honestly think that one of the best results of being healthy is looking in the mirror and liking what I see. I spent most of my life assuming I would always want to turn away when I passed by a mirror, so I still find that novel. A part of me feels a little vain when I stop before a mirror and admire the way I look nowadays. But then another part of me reminds myself that I spent the first 40 or so years of my life doing exactly the opposite, so I have a lot of catching up to do in the “feeling good in your own skin” department! 🙂
  • The “Thanksgiving feeling”, i.e., being over-stuffed after a meal. For me, that feeling occurred way more often than just on Thanksgiving. It usually occurred at least weekly, after every Frozen Food Friday night. :/ I could eat pizza and tater tots until I was almost sick.
  • Being unaware of what I was eating. I’ve really started to pay more attention to the ingredients of what I eat nowadays, especially since I began using My Fitness Pal and can track things like sugar, carbs, and sodium more easily. Don’t get me wrong, I still eat some crap, but I do try hard to limit some of the things that aren’t good for me, and I just feel better for doing it. And I know the results are reflected in my body and on the scale.
  • The ugly side of being overweight. I might get flack for this, but I believe in being honest, so here it goes: before I got healthy, I used to have feelings of not only guilt at my poor health, but also jealousy of those who were healthier (read: skinnier) than me. And in my mind, I wasn’t very kind toward those people. Like, maybe I might kind of wish they’d get fat so that then I could feel less guilty about being so big myself. That is a very ugly place to be, and I’m ashamed that I felt that way, but I did. Now, however, I’m kind of like a born-again-thin-girl. :p I love to see people get healthy and I do my best to cheer them on, because I want everyone to know the joy of being saved…from being overweight, I mean. (I’d like everyone to join me at church on Sundays, too, but that’s for a different post. 😉 )

Okay, I could go on, but that’s enough introspection for the week! I was feeling kind of thoughtful, though, after my moment of weakness in Aisle 14, so I thought it would be good therapy to share. 🙂
After my eight-mile run, I had one of my favorites for dinner (Spicy Chicken Rigatoni—pasta-heavy and yuuuuuuumy), but I still had calories leftover. Sunday, we had another game in Fraser, then a group of us went to lunch, where I had a delicious oriental chicken salad. A bit heavy on the mandarin oranges though. I’m not really a fan of them, but I figured I could choke down one or two for the Vitamin C benefits. But holy crap!

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Next time, I’ll just tell them to leave them off. :p

We had South of the Border soup with tortilla chips for dinner, which was kind of on the salty side, but I’m happy to say that I still had a good weigh-in this morning.

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Exactly the same as last week, and under 120 for five out of the last six weeks—holy crap! That’s a pretty good streak, I think. 🙂 Oh, and I almost forgot my other big news—I weighed in at Weight Watchers last week for the month, and I was shocked with my results:

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Down almost 4 pounds from January…say whaaaaaaaat?! Not sure if that’s real or just a fluke, but I’ll take it! 🙂

That’s it for now. Jamie and I are running a race tonight, so I’ll report on that later in the week. Thank you SO much for reading!!

1 thought on “Things I Miss, Things I Don’t

  1. Meg B

    I cannot stand fruit in salads, for me I just don’t dig on that combo so I feel you on the oranges.

    Thanks for sharing your thoughts on why you were feeling the frozen foods. I’m glad you are in a better head space.

    Reply

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