A friend of mine, who shall remain nameless unless e chooses to identify emself, posted recently about spending money on food and then throwing it away. My friend said that wasting money, but saving calories/fat, was still a waste.
I have a very different approach. I have been dieting, in various forms, for a few years; this approach is something I came up with very early on. For me, money is no object if it keeps me eating well. This probably also stems from my dozen-plus years as a vegetarian; it is often more expensive to live as a vegetarian than to eat meat. So maintaining my chosen dietary lifestyle has been expensive for a long time. As a dieter trying to lose weight, though, I am spending even more money, and I am okay with that.
Currently, I spend about $450/month on food. This is because I am on Diet to Go, which provides all of my food for me. It’s a good plan, and it’s successful: I have lost almost 30 pounds since January. Because it is successful, I don’t mind paying for it, even though it is about $150 more per month than fending for myself. Money is much easier to come by than weight loss, and if something costs money but allows me to lose weight, then I prefer to take the easier, more expensive route rather than struggling to lose weight - and being unhappy as a result - just to save some money.
I feel the same way about going to a restaurant. I am paying to be satisfied. If I don’t eat everything on my plate and I don’t want to bring the leftovers home, then I don’t. I paid for the meal, not the food - if I have enjoyed the meal, then I have gotten my money’s worth. Sometimes I will bring leftovers home, but only if I’m really going to eat them. Alternatively, I will deliberately only eat half and then have the rest at a later time, thereby getting two meals for the price of one.
If you are poor, or you otherwise need to watch every penny, then my approach is not for you. I’m not saying my feelings about food and money work for everyone, but they work for me, and I am happy this way. I manage both food and money in a way that I am satisfied with. It’s
become a way of life for me.
I was rather surprised by the following news bite from the Washington Post:
A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit that called for milk sold in the District to carry a warning label for people who are lactose intolerant.
The suit, filed by an organization that promotes vegetarian diets, asserted that Giant, Safeway and other local distributors of dairy products had been negligent in not warning consumers of the potential effects of dairy products on people who are lactose intolerant.
The suit was filed in D.C. Superior Court last fall by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and was subsequently transferred to U.S. District Court.
U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr. ruled that federal law on food labeling would preclude the action that the plaintiffs were seeking in the District.
Wait a minute. They failed to label milk so the lactose-intolerant could avoid it? Milk? Um, it’s milk. Even if someone with a sensitivity has no idea what lactose is or what other products it might be in, they know it’s in milk. Am I missing something here? Why should there be a warning on milk? The name of the group is misleading too, because PCRM sure seems to focus a lot on food and animal testing ethics - it’s like a kinder, gentler PETA that’s pretending to be a medical organization. I’m sure they have doctors on staff, and I’m sure their tactics are much more sane than PETA’s methods, but…they’re not really focusing on what they purport to be about. But anyway…milk? We have to tell the lactose-intolerant to avoid milk?
Bulleted update, with the help of little mushrooms from binkybeads!
Today is my 25th birthday, and I am fretting about whether or not to go out to dinner. I have done extremely well with my diet, and I haven’t eaten anything inappropriate even in the face of emotional adversity. But it’s my birthday, and I want to go out to dinner. My plans are very specific: tonight, go to Sunflower and get my favorite dish, which is soy protein chunks done up kind of like Chinese food. At home, maybe a little bit of alcohol - like a little bit of kahlua, maybe, if I have any at all. This weekend, one piece of cake. (It will be ginger spice cake because that’s what my sister-in-law wanted, and her birthday is also today - she’s exactly two years younger than me.)
It sounds to me like I’m being pretty reasonable. One meal out, possibly a small drink, and one piece of cake. But I have been so rigid on the Diet to Go menu for two weeks that I’m scared to go off. I’m losing weight very well. Is this going to kill my diet? Will I only lose half a pound this week instead of a pound and a half? (Or whatever.) I’m just not sure what to do! Part of me is tempted to just eat tonight’s bean burritos at home, but I know A was also looking forward to going out to dinner with me. I’m scared of breaking the rules.
Just a brief update. The diet is going reasonably well; tonight right after dinner I had some milk and a pear and felt like I’d eaten too much, which is probably a good thing. The food continues to be tasty; the breakfasts have not been too interesting but the lunches and dinners have been quite good. I saw my first fake meat in tonight’s Tamale Veggie Pie, and the Black Bean & Feta Wrap I had for lunch was really good, as was the little wild rice dish that went with it, which had chopped pecans and cranberries. Yummy stuff, I’m enjoying the food on this diet. Still get hungry though; hopefully that will change.
This morning I signed up for Diet to Go, a frighteningly expensive diet plan. At about $435/month, it’s more than a Weight Watchers membership and probably more than Jenny Craig or anybody else. So why am I doing it? Well, I’m tired of seeing the scale go up instead of down. I feel quite frustrated because as far as I can tell, I have been eating pretty well, and it’s not working, which just makes me want to throw up my hands altogether. So on Tuesday and Friday evenings for the entire month of January, I am going to stop at their office near my work and pick up the meals for the next few days.
I signed up for the 1200-calorie/day vegetarian plan, for three meals a day. Someone who works for my company also uses Diet to Go and he said he started on the three meal plan but soon realized he could put together his own breakfasts more cheaply; I have decided to start with three meals anyway because I want to see if it really works. This does depend, of course, on not eating anything but what they supply to me. That’s how I’m going to look at it mentally: NO cheating. There will still be other food in the house, of course - I don’t live alone - but I think I can mentally handle the concept of “no, you can’t have that, it’s not on your plan.” But that has to apply to everything - I think my weakness has been the “eat what you want” attitude of simple calorie counting and Weight Watchers. So I’m going to try the approach of not eating anything I want.
I’m still sedentary, and I need to change that too, but meanwhile I’m going to start Diet to Go and see how that goes for a month.
I was up for a while last night with a headache so bad I had to wake A to get me some Advil because I couldn’t move enough to get it myself. She also called the emergency on-call number my doctor has, and the doctor who responded said if it was really bad I could go to the emergency room. I’ve never had a migraine before, so I wasn’t sure what was causing this, but I finally managed to fall back asleep with the help of A and some TV to distract me. (I was kind of torn - focusing my eyes on the TV was painful, but it was also distracting.)
But this morning I am exhausted. I had a silly little slim-fast shake and some grapes for breakfast, and a diet soda with caffeine when I got to work, but I am falling asleep at my desk. If my client hadn’t been here today I probably would have gone home, but I do need to be here all day for him. So I’m contemplating having something with sugar to help wake me up, but I don’t know what to have. I don’t want something that’s high in calories, but that’s what happens when you have sugar. I guess I’ll head down to the snack bar and see what I can find…I better do that before I fall asleep.
Added: Hooray for Cracker Jack! Only 150 calories but 19g sugar. I feel a bit more perky now. I also bought my lunch salad ahead of time, because every time I wait until I am ready for lunch, they’re all gone. My salad. Mine.