Anna's Journal

[Birdy]

Anna, I've just read all your journal entries for the first time and I'm struck by, one, how much we have in common (southern girl, uncomfortable with the irony of having too much to eat in a world where half the population is starving, concern about animals and the environment, timidity about posting on a public forum but needing to get it all out there, etc.). I like your honesty and am finding the various entries on this Journal forum to be very powerful and also genuinely helpful in sorting it all out. There is also a big bonus and that is the humor. I cracked up when I read that you had grabbed a mini muffin to offset feeling hypoglycemic because you were "really nervous about feeling loaded while teaching about psych diagnosis." Good to hear about your lowered blood pressure and weight loss. Blood pressure is also one of my issues. You're gonna be in a size 18 in no time!

[Anna Green]

Bob, Hey thanks for the words. I can't tell you how much they help and how surprised and grateful I am that people such as yourself take the time to coach and advise.

Birdy, Thanks for the encouragement. Being a southern girl you know what I'm dealing with. As I say this I can hear my mother in my head screaming about my kid's brain not developing without meat. And who knew you could live without fried chicken, crawfish and ham hocks? Really! I have to say I luv me sum crawfish. But, I have been trying to be vegan for a long time. It started over 10 years ago when I started hanging with the tree huggers (not a slur, I am one too) and I was really strict for about 18 months. I then moved home from Seattle and gradually found myself sneaking a wing (breast and thigh too if I'm honest) here and there. Ever heard of a disorder around eating animal? That's one for the books. Anyway the other day when I popped the mini muffin I had actually taken a muscle relaxer that I had the day before not had a problem with and was starting to feel loaded. I figured if I was starting to get drunk I'd eat something so I did the same and ate what was available. You know life really is better than TV if you just pay attention. My friend at work has been trying to eat better. Yesterday she looked really run down so today I put a tomato, sweet potato and kiwi on her desk for her lunch. She likes all those things and I knew she'd be happy. Well she stayed home sick today and all day people who came into the office commented on the food. They laughed at the food, asked if she were a vegetarian, said it looked pretty, etc. It's amazing that real whole food gets such a response and I remember when I would have thought the lunch was odd as well. I guess we are all freaks.

I had a good day. I ate well and walked fast for about 30 minutes. I also did no coffee today. I had black tea this morn and green tea during the day. My goal is just to do green and herbal tea and the coffee like but not coffee stuff I bought the other day.

B-apple, 2 small garbanzo bean cakes-yeh the ones with the tiny spritz of non stick spray that I won't use anymore I WON'T!
S-plum
L-raw veggies with basil sauce, veggie soup with zucchini, tomatoes, broc, cauli, spinach, garbanzos, peas, corn and brown rice- no oil
S- more soup
D-collards, sweet potato and lentils- no oil
S-raw spinach w/321; more soup

[seestorcoo]

I just read over your entire journal and I can sure relate to some of the things you've said (and how you've said them )

I am the same way about the new-agey cliche stuff - I am all about change but I don't really think I need any crystals to do it. That said, I have read a few self help books that I found useful. One is called "Do one thing different" and it talks about breaking patterns. Easy read. Also, my mother was a rabid Recovery Incorporated fan and I've found that their cognitive approach (and spotting the patterns) has been very helpful to me. It sort of has a guru/followers kind of feel but the info/ideas themselves are great. Also, the book, The War of Art. It is about resistance.

When you talk about shame. As an aspiring saint , I'm well aware of how shame feels. Something that has really been instrumental in my quest for change has been dropping that nasty thing. I figure that I am re-parenting myself and treat myself accordingly. If I were the mother that I wanted, how would I respond when I screw up? I would respond gently and help myself learn from the experience - not hate me because I did something stupid. The mother we all wish we had doesn't call us an idiot or tell us that we are bad or hopeless because we were weak or ignorant. She responds with love and guidance. So, that's what I do with myself. I don't think I could have made the changes I've made (in so many areas of my life - really, I'm unrecognizeable in some ways) if I hadn't done that. I don't want to focus my energy on how I am bad but rather, in how I can do better.

And as for the food...I love food (obviously). It's important to me to enjoy it. It is getting less important to enjoy it EVERY SINGLE TIME (hmmm, maturity?). Especially when I was beginning, I found it useful to find McD things that I liked better than the SAD food and have those things always available. Faced with a pepperoni pizza or a MWL meal, the MWL meal better be pretty damn good to win. Nowadays, that is less important - but it sure helped in the beginning (middle, late middle...)

I lived in N.O. when I was 19 for a bit...in the Lakeview/old Lakeview area. Still have family there (tho we haven't had contact for many many years). Talk more about it so I can walk down memory lane, please...

Thanks for your comments in my journal - I didn't mean to write a novel in yours...just got carried away. Have a great day!

[Anna Green]

Seestorcoo, Are you kidding? I oughta be paying you for that post. Thanks. I am thinking about going to Lafayette Square for the free Wed concerts. Remember that? Might take the streetcar from our other office on Canal to St Charles and walk from there. Then again I might just go home but I thought I'd give you that for your walk down memory lane. Also, if you did not know we now have a completely all vegetarian and almost totally vegan restaurant on Esplanade next to Tomatillos. And we have a few other spots that are really veggie friendly. In fact I could get tofu on pizza delivered to my house now in Midcity. (well, not now that I don't eat that anymore ) Amazing huh? Hell has frozen over.

You know it helps me too to have food available that I really like as motivation not to eat fried chicken. I am still eating the stuff I made this weekend that I do not really like because it is healthy and I am grateful to have it but I made something I enjoy on Monday to get a break. Had a hard day. Need to exercise and release some stress. Honestly, when I feel like this I am afraid I won't stay on plan so I decided to post before I left work and read some journals and take a moment to remember why I am doing this.

B-Mango
then a little while later 3 small red potatoes, plain and yummy
L-small salad, big bowl of soup with lots of veggies and garbanzos, corn, peas, brown rice
S-raw carrots and zucchini
D-big spinach/arugula salad with nutr yeast, sesame ginger ff dress, red onion-the bomb!
4 small red pot with bowl of soup on top
S-2 sm corn tortillas nuked and salsa
kombucha

Exercise- dancing in front of the tv during that dance show. About 20 minutes-sweating heart rate up, goofy and fun.

[f1jim]

Please give me a couple reasons to visit N.O. again. In previous years we would go every year and do the usual foodie haunts. Emerils, Commanders Palace, Dickey Brennans, etc. So if you have vegetarian haunts give 'em up!!! I haven't been back since Katrina, and I'm overdue for a visit.
f1jim

[Shackwacky]

Anna what a brilliant journal! I have been playing with the idea of journalling and you may have just decided me.

You rock. Keep it up.

[Anna Green]

Jim, After Katrina so many houses had blue tarps on top. The Christmas after when many of us were just coming home there was a Christmas display at a local mall with little houses, etc., and some beautiful wise-guy put little blue tarps on them. They were taken off and someone went and put them back on. Definitely more representative of our beat up city and funny. Also as we went about trying to put our lives back together we were constantly treated to someone's sense of humor displayed on the sides of the refrigerators wrapped in chains and outside waiting to be picked up. For example people were angry at the Saints' Coach and would write that he was inside the frig and to please not open the door! I still remember how I felt the first time I saw the bumper sticker that said "New Orleans, proud to swim home", a spoof on the common sticker "New Orleans, proud to call home." I laughed till I cried and then just cried and then laughed some more. This is the reason I love New Orleans the most, the sense of humor even come hell or high water. I have lived elsewhere and appreciated those places but have never found the kind of humor one finds here. Come and feast on the people is what I say and the music of course.
We are getting better with the vegan/veggie fare however one would have to work some to get the McDougall version. I do think most places would give it a go and in fact there is a vegetarian/vegan guide being put together by this fairly new veggie meetup group that has formed. As soon as I have it I will send your way. One place that has been very accommodating is Garage Pizza that has so much more than pizza, like polenta with red pepper sauce (they so generously brought it to the wake for me when my husband died), beautiful (literally) salads, brown rice bowls, calzones stuffed with marinara and veggies, etc. Cafe Bamboo has red beans and rice with veg. sausage and collard greens. I may start asking for a McDougall version of some things to get them thinking about it. Anyway if all else fails come on over to my house for my Sunday dinners. Many Sundays I have friends over and we have a good time- never know who will come. Sometimes its a few, sometimes 15. I'll attempt a veggie gumbo. I'm not the best cook, so it's hit or miss. If I could get my mother to cook that would be something.

Shackwacky, Do it! I don't regret one moment. I am still a little mortified when I think about some of the stuff I say but it can't be worse than carrying around my addiction on my body for the world to see. It's all good. I have received such great support. If you want it I'll support you in any way I can.

So, today the thought ran through my head that the vegan kid would not be home till tomorrow and it would be a good night to eat bad without being a bad example. I did not do so. I am home now and have enjoyed my new addictive but healthy salad and this wonderful soup I made earlier in the week. I am doing this! Part of me is waiting for the mess up, but I am also hopeful. If I don't do this now then when? Wait till an MI, or I have 3 months to live with the Pancreatic Cancer that killed my brother? Already if I eat too much fat I have a great deal of pain from my gall bladder I think. So now is it. This is the time. I want to just enjoy it and shed the old lifestyle. This is what I can do today.

B-2 kiwi, 4 small red potatoes throughout the morning.
L-Soup-lots of veggies, garbanzos, corn, peas, brown rice
D-Huge Salad-Spinach,Arugula,red onion, ff sesame/ginger dressing,nutritional yeast. YUM! Big bowl of soup.
S- not so much a snack but 2 more not so big bowls of soup-oh yeah!
3 cups of black tea- a little back sliding as I had been drinking 1 black, a few green to gradually wean off caffeine. Tonight more sleep so tom will be easier to resist the black tea. I did however resist coffee today which I really really wanted.

Cooking up some lentil and veggie soup, using about even I think the amount of starchy stuff and non-starchy veggies to help me with weight loss.

[SandraK]

Anna - you are the funniest thing! Your writing is so colorful. (I have never even been to New Orleans, but now I wanna go suck a crawfish head!)

[Anna Green]

Hey SandraK, I can't encourage it here. I am afraid.

Just goofin. Really. Don't worry, there are great things about this place other than the food. And the food is killing us. It is so sad.
So today I did well. And I am giving myself kudos because I am in the fat city trying not to be fat. Really, I am just a freak here. People always want to see what I am eating and I sometimes suspect my friends who I know really love me come to dinner just like one would go to that tent at the circus. You know the one- the lady with the beard one. Or maybe it's like how you can't stop looking at a car wreck. They eat it, say it's good and keep coming back. But I'm telling the truth here, they think I'm a freak. And then I found this site and I have found my people, my community. where I fit in. kind of like being an ugly duckling... you know the story. So anyone reading this, you know what that makes you. A swan? Oh no. YOU are a freak too. (set you up for that one didn't I, you goofy optimist) Just accept it, in my world you are a freak just like me.
At my sister's this eve. She brought this out in me I swear.
She let me go into her kitchen and cook us dinner but did not have brown rice. White rice- not so tasty anymore. I did pretty good though. NO OIL. I really like eating this way at this moment. It just doesn't seem all that hard. I am saying this softly and with much fear so the old ways don't hear me.

B-2 kiwi
L-3-yes 3-bowls of veggie soup - lots of veggies and some beans and br. rice and peas and corn- awesome
S-4 spelt sour dough pretzels
D-big salad w/nut yeast and lemon; white rice, lima beans, brussel sprouts

[f1jim]

There is a time when everything just seems to fall into place. I think it's a combination of education, experience, and motivation, that suddenly happens and the next thing you know, it's all downhill pedaling. I don't remember a particular day on the calendar, or a flash of light, or anything so dramatic. i just remember thinking to myself, "I'm in a rhythm with my eating and it now seems perfectly natural. Certainly as natural as all the crap I was ingesting before as a fat and salt junkie. Does it mean youdon't think about an old favorite longingly? Nope, good tastes are still good tastes and that stuff, by design, will always have it's draw. But it loses it's power to overwhelm our better judgment. If you are on your way there, and I think you are, you will know it when it's history, not in the moment.
I continue to be impressed with your progress. It's all over the lines of your messages. What you write is good for us all.
f1jim

[Mrs. Doodlepunk]

My gosh, Anna, I finally read through your whole journal and it's incredible. You say the things I was thinking but didn't know it.

I used to be an ER nurse in a former life, did some stuff with addicts but not enough to learn things about addiction. It is very interesting for me to read that addiction to drugs is similar to addiction to food.

I have never been to NO but would love to see it sometime. When we drove to Houston in February, Mr. D wanted to route us far away because he was afraid of NO being a high crime area. So we went through Memphis instead. Hack, cough. That was the day of the snow storm that had people stranded on the road between Memphis and Nashville. Luckily, the older Doodlekid had woke us up that morning at 4:30 because he was itching all over. Note to self: never allow a germ-fearing kid to check the ratings for the hotel you're sleeping in that night on the TripAdvisor website. The reviewer's advice was to "bring your own sheets and a can of roach spray" so he was convinced he had bugs crawling all over him. We had him take a shower, then decided we might as well just stay up and not let him lie down on those sheets again. SO that morning we were on the road by 7 and well past Memphis by the time the roads got slippery. SOME DAY I'm going to see New Orleans!

So anyway, I'm so glad you started a journal. It is really fun to read other people's stories, it helps me so much.

[Anna Green]

Thanks Jim/Ms. Doodlepunk. I said I was going to be honest with this journal so here it is. Not so good today. Started off well enough and even did aerobics with Gilad The smile is for Gilad. Wow. I saw him for the first time in about 20 years and he looked the same to me. So I got up off the couch with my sister's encouragement and did Gilad while she cheered. We were both highly amused at the sight of me and enjoyed his encouragement. oh yeah. Thank goodness I get easily distracted with stuff like this or I would sit the rest of the evening feeling bad. Dinner-the worst SAD food you can imagine. Well, not veal, but bad. It's funny how I list every little thing I eat when it is good and I don't want to write what I eat when it is wrong. I was doing so well yesterday. Clothes fitting loose, a few more lbs lost, etc.

This is why I am not so judgmental with the crack addicts I work with. I know if I tried it I would be out there hookin' for a hit before too long. Not too sure how I escaped drug and alcohol addiction and not sure why I am not one of those people who have to have a wall cut out to get out of the house. I hate how I feel right now. I am just sabotaging. It was no bad situation or bad planning. I just felt a sense of rebellion almost and also I kind of missed my weekend routine. Change is hard. This past week I felt much more comfortable with the change. Today was different. Felt edgy. All that said, I am going to do what I did last week when I digressed for a couple of meals. I am going to get back on it. The good thing is the consequence of the crap is that I feel like crap. I was getting used to feeling energetic. I want that again. This is what I ought to list, how I feel, so that I can remember the next time I feel like hurting myself with food. So here it is... the bad feelings: My forehead is hot and prickly, I am queasy, tired, and sad. The aftertaste was disgusting and I feel sad for the animals and the environment. If I don't do the right thing knowing what I do, then I can't ask anyone else to. Ok I hear how that sounds but I mean it. I just want to do it different next time. Maybe I won't do this again. I went back and read some of the recommendations that have been given to me and I realized I never got Roth's book. So my goal for the week is to get and read the book. If I find I have too many slips I'll get into counseling and address the eating issues. Happy Anna is so much more fun.

B- yukon gold potatoes, garbanzos, spinach
S- spelt pretzels-
L-veggie and lentil soup, garbanzo and veggie soup
D-meat and other crud

[Mrs. Doodlepunk]

Anna, it was just one meal. It will not change your life unless you LET it. Get back on the wagon, like you said, and go on with Healthy!

Sometimes the hardest person to forgive is yourself.

[Anna Green]

Ms. Doodlepunk, thanks. You are so right, I am much more forgiving with others. I do find that writing all this stuff is helping me not do the self-flagellation. When I go back and read my stuff I just realize I want to treat myself as well as I treat others. I read some of Roth last night on her website and that too was helpful. Back on track today. I ran into a former teacher and counselor today. She told me how good I look and I remembered how far I have come since during and after counseling in dealing with stress, parenting my boy, his dad's death, and in eating. Put a few things in perspective. So I am off to see my family with a bag of veggies for the grill and a ff marinade. Exercised this morn, legs still a little shaky but it feels good.

B-apple, veggie and lentil soup
S- more soup
L- a beer, grilled portabello w/o oil on white bun with the fixings but no added fat, grilled corn on the cob. Arugula salad with grilled tomatoes and red onion. Raw veggies and baked pot chips w/tbsp of onion dip made with soy. A frozen fruit bar. Resisted mama's cookin and it was no big deal cause the food was awesome.
D- veggie and lentil soup/salad.

[Melinda]

Very few people are able to set a path for themselves like this and follow it with perfection the first time. If you do read Geneen Roth, just remember that she has changed one of her guidelines to "Eat what your BODY wants', from the previous guideline "Eat what you want". She explains on one of her Dvd's that too many people were eating cheesecake for breakfast! Because one's mind is always wanting - that is the nature of our untrained minds, but we have to listen to our body. I have found that the healthier I eat, the more clearly my body speaks out wanting healthy foods. You are doing amazing work in your career - good for you. Have a good weekend!