Cooking for One with Katy

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Katy the cook...

My most recent session with J was spent talking mostly about cooking. Eating out is a habit... a bad habit.

My goals for the next few weeks include:

• buy a cookbook with meals for one or two people
• go grocery shopping AT LEAST once a week - maybe more stops for certain ingredients (I need to remember that a quick trip to the grocery store will take as much time as going through the drive-thru)
• eat in for dinner at least 3X a week
• take a lunch to work unless I have a lunch date

Ideas/suggestions from people about cooking for one:

• hot ham and cheese (grilled)
• chicken salad sandwiches/wraps
• left-0vers for lunch the next day
• sides
• yummy breads
• add veges to things you know you like already
• allrecipes.com and change the serving size to one
• buy a rotisserie chicken and use bits and pieces of it throughout the week
• My friend Megan has sent me multiple emails with loads of ideas and she is willing to help me at each step - I'm not going to post all of her ideas here but I might post about what I cook as I try new things - no promises (the whole reason I have a hard time with cooking is that it takes too much time so if I promise to blog about everything I cook, it'll become an excuse not to)
• Cooking group - get 3 other people in my same situation (cooking for one) and we each cook something that can be refrigerated or freezed and we swap once a week - gotta find three people that are single, good cooks and willing ---- anyone?
  

Eating out vs. Eating in

Eating Out:

• Takes less time - busy lifestyle (PRO)
  
• More likely to stop if I'm with someone (PRO)
  
• More likely to stop if I order less/lighter things (PRO)
• Costs more money (CON)
• Probably eat more processed foods (CON)
  

Eating In:

• Takes more time (CON)
• Easier to binge if I'm alone (CON)
  
• Easier to be mindful when I'm cooking for myself (PRO)
• Costs less money (PRO)

Both are easier if I'm in a good place emotionally when I eat. But I think eating in more often would help me in my journey of becoming an intuitive eater.

Goals

I had a good session with J on Friday.

We talked about the progress I have made in the last year + and while I am probably still the same size (I'm not sure cause I haven't weighed myself for a long time), I have started to catch on to this Intuitive Eating thing.

I still have lots to learn. Here are some of the things I've noticed in myself:

• I enjoy exercise and I have been more willing lately to try new types of exercise
  
• More and more often I crave lighter foods with fruits and vegetables, rather than heavier type foods
  
• I think more and more about how what I eat will make me feel emotionally and physically
• I use food less and less to take care of my emotions especially for comfort

It could be years before I get down to my "natural body size" as the book talks about but I'm am still convinced that this is the ONLY way to get there.

OK - so here are my goals for this week:

1. Plan my meals using the peace sign
2. Eat in more (only eat out 3X a week - by the way that is cutting back a ton!)
3. Be mindful when I eat Sunday dinner at Sam's house
4. Swim 3X a week
5. Bike 1X a week
6. Look at my goals every day (post them on my blog - check)
   

Do I still believe?

Oh yes I do.

I thought maybe my trip across the country would be really hard to eat intuitively.

Because I was driving so much, I was very conscious about what I was eating because I didn't want to feel sick or have my legs cramp up while I was driving.

I didn't over eat while I was driving and for the most part I could stop at a 7 or 7.5 when I ate dinner with my friends.

The only time I over ate on my trip was when I was waiting for my car a the dealership in Gainesville, FL. You can read about it here. After I finally got my car back in the afternoon, I stopped at McDonalds and I ate until the biggie sized meal was gone.

New kinds of goals

So my meetings with J have changed a bit and although it is clear that I still have some body image issues, we have started to talk more about nutrition and health.

I'm going to:

1. cook once a week
2. read the exercise chapter again
3. Watch one episode of the food network - either Rachel Ray or Robin Miller
4. Try more whole grain foods - try to find some that I actually like
   

WARNING - do not read this post if...

you do not have a healthy relationship with food. After more than a year of meeting with J at least every other week, she finally said I was ready to read chapter 14, "Honor Your Health - Gentle Nutrition." While I feel I still have a long way to go to really make peace with food, I have come a long way. This chapter was important for me to read now because I can experiment with different kinds of food to find healthy foods that are still easy to swallow.

Before I get into the things I learned in chapter 14 - I want summarize some of points that came from my discussion with J about making goals. Goals should be "SMART."

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Realistic
• Timely

We also talked about the four "p"s which are:

• purpose
• personality
• principles
• passions
  

For my next meeting with J, I am going to make a "bucket list" for my life and reasonable goals for this summer and read chapter 14. I'll post my bucket list in another post. Here are some of the important points from chapter 14:

• Honor your health and taste buds at the same time, always remembering to focus on how it makes you FEEL
• Consistency over time - progress not perfection is what matters
• BE CAREFUL - nutrition guidelines could be embraced as a diet
• Healthy eating = eating primarily healthy foods and having a healthy relationship with food
  
• Remember:
• variety - try new a new kind of bread or cereal or whatever
  
• balance = to be achieved over time, not every day or every meal
  
• moderation = does not mean elimination, not too much or too little of anything
• Build muscles - raise your metabolic rate
• FOOD PYRAMID
• Grains
• best kind of food to fuel your body
• carbohydrates are your friends
• whole grains provide vitamins and minerals
• Fiber is really good for your GI tract
  
• Fruits and vegetables
• 5 servings a day (think volume - this is easier to get than you think)
• loaded with antioxidants and fiber
• fruit tastes better when they are eaten in a non-diet manner (I'm starting to believe this one)
• Protein
• Beans are a good source of protein
• high protein diets are not good - if you aren't eating other kinds of foods, it doesn't matter how much protein you eat, your body will take energy from your muscles
• It's easy to get the protein needed - men need 63 grams a day and women need 50
• Dairy
• we need calcium even if we've stopped growing because if you don't consume the calcium our body needs, it will be leached from our bones
• Water - duh
• Fat
• fat is a nutrient. Come on you "fatty acids."
• be careful of the "fat-trap" - if you eat non-fat foods, you think you can eat all you want and you might not listen to your satiety clues plus non-fat foods are usually filled with sugar. If you eat the regular foods you are more likely to be satisfied earlier (without eating as much)
  
• Learn to balance fat in your diet by
• cutting the fat without losing taste or feeling deprived (applesauce instead of oil in cooking)
• choose healthy fats (low in saturated fats - those from animals)
• canola, corn, safflower, sunflower, salmon, avocado, nuts and seeds
• when you eat fat, make sure its worth it - ask yourself how it tastes - savor it@
• Ask yourselves these four questions
1. Do I really like the taste of these foods?
2. How does this food or type of food make my body feel?
3. How do I feel when eating consistently in this manner?
4. Am I experiencing differences in my energy level?
• REMEMBER DEPRIVATION DOES NOT WORK!!!
• REMEMBER WE ARE ALL HUMAN AND WE ARE NOT EXPECTED TO BE PERFECT!