Wednesday, July 18, 2007

The Hard Part of a Diet

This is even worse than feeling guilty about splurging, even worse than thinking it's not working. I have now discovered a new part of the difficulty of keeping on a diet: feeling like it is working, but being otherwise unable to find a variety of things to eat.

The diet that I'm following now is mostly vegetarian. It's got lists of things that are really good to eat, things that are ok to eat, and things I should not touch at all. Naturally, you will want to fill your diet with the really good things, and avoid the do-not-eat list. Because of what is available to me, I seem to be eating primarily from the ok list, and most of my favorite foods are on the do-not-eat list. While I can list at least one thing that has improved since I started eating this way, and would like to continue, I just can't think of anything to bring for lunch tomorrow.

I am so very tired of salads. Mostly because it's always the same thing: lettuce, carrots, broccoli occasionally supplemented with tuna. I can have asparagus and artichoke, too. But I just don't have any in the house. Bread is do-not-eat, so an easy sandwich is out. Dinner is getting rather uniform too. Carrots and green beans and broccoli and corn, with Boca burgers or turkey dogs.

I feel rather good right now. I've been on this diet for more than two months. I haven't lost a lot of weight, but I feel good. That's the point of a lifestyle diet change, right? The thing is that it's so hard finding things to eat now. It would be so easy to just say "screw it!" and put a sandwich together for tomorrow. I just can't eat another bowl of lettuce. Or tuna mixed with a tiny bit of mustard. And I know I'm not eating enough fruit. And it's even more challenging when I'm the only one in the house with this kind of restriction.

I still don't know what I'm going to eat tomorrow. And I want to stay with my diet so much right now (especially with my vacation imminent and staying on the diet will be much more difficult while I'm away), that I'd rather not eat anything.

3 comments :

Willow Goldentree said...

Oh, Fyrecreek, I'm so sorry. I know what you're going through. Last night, I dreamt about eating french fries! I want carbs!!! If you don't mind, I'd like to share with you some of our lunch time meals since it sounds like you and I are on similar diets.

Tuna stuffed avocados (if you can't eat avocados, tuna stuffed tomatoes). Add some Old Bay seasoning, feta cheese (if you're allowed cheese - it's only a little) some lettuce, and voila, a new delicious meal! It's quite satisfying too.

I like to add low carb guacamole to my salads for a little extra flavor.

Yummy turkey bacon on a salad - I know it's a salad but it gives you something new. Or pepperoni.

I know there's more, but I can't think of them right now.

Would you mind telling me what's an absolute no, so that I can remember while you're here? We have some great recipe books that we can look through and make all sorts of new and yummy treats for us! Or, if you'd rather just say forget it, to your diet, :D we can make some other yummy treats.

Unknown said...

You know, my mother pointed something out to me this morning. She said she hadn't heard me complaining of migraines for a while at all. She's right. In fact, the last one that I had was after the car accident on the 2nd, and that was because of my metal barrette (and the stress of being in a car accident). Other than that, I really can't remember the last time I had an actual migraine. I remember there was a time when I got headaches the frequency of weekly or more. All the more reason to keep this up!

I have an extensive do-not-eat list that includes things like tomatoes and cabbages and potatoes and bananas and oranges and cow and pig and wheat and dairy. I've personally switched to decaf coffee and started using Splenda or stevia instead of sugar. I'll try to get you a more comprehensive list a little later, then.

And I don't care what's on the list, I'm still making a cheesecake!

Unknown said...

Oh, hey, does anyone else think it's odd that Willow, who lives in Boise, is giving me a recipe involving Old Bay Seasoning, a product of Maryland? :)