Cooking in a Closet

At the beginning of the school year, I challenged myself to work on getting healthy again.  Before my move to Arizona, I had lost a lot of weight, and I lost even more while there (with a little help from the flu), before I started gaining weight back.  Finding out your dad has cancer will do that.  Oh, and the stress of students testing (when their ability to graduate was dependent on the test, and I taught 2 classes full of kids who hadn’t passed on their previous attempts).  Oh, and deciding to move back to Michigan…yeah, I started gaining weight back.  2 1/2 years later, and I had finished my masters and am at an amazing teaching job, but I have also put all that weight back on.

At my lowest weight, in AZ

Joe’s HS graduation, June 2014

With the masters done and the vertigo of the summer gone (it was a long summer), I decided to take control of my health again.  I rejoined weight watchers, joined a friend’s facebook page for support, and started dragging my butt to the high school gym after school.  Yep, I workout with the kids.  At first, it was really uncomfortable, but after getting over myself a little bit, I like the accountability.  The kids cheer me on, and are happy to show me how to use equipment.  They also ask where I was when I skip my workouts.

Losing weight the second time around has been much more difficult.  I’m 4 years older than I was the last time I started this.  I have more responsibility and more stress.  Making healthy changes is harder than it was, and it’s easier to slip up.  I’m trying to be kind and understanding of my frustrations, while also pushing myself.  I’m realizing that just because something worked 4 years ago doesn’t mean it will now.  I also realized that last time I did this I used a lot of frozen meals to control my portions.  It saved time, and forced me to be careful, but it wasn’t healthy and didn’t last; it was also expensive.  I decided to start learning to cook.

Yes, I am 30 and have never really learned to cook.  I blame my mom, who is very protective of her kitchen…and only knows how to make about 10 dishes (she’s more of a baker).  During my master’s classes, one of my professors pointed out that “if you can read, you can cook”, and I’ve found that wisdom to be true.  Thanks to pinterest, I’ve been finding all kinds of healthy recipes to try.  My first investment was a crock-pot (and some freezable containers).  That has worked out really well so far.  I have an awesome healthy recipe for chicken and dumplings and another for chicken tortilla soup.  I’ve had some not-so-great recipes too, but I take them in stride.

This week I decided to take another step and cook something a little more complicated, so I made a lasagna that I found here:  http://www.skinnymom.com/2013/05/21/lean-turkey-and-spinach-lasagna/.  This is when I remembered why I don’t cook multi-step meals regularly…my kitchen is a closet.  No seriously, my kitchen is smaller than my parents’ bedroom closet.

My closet of a kitchen.

I have a full-size oven, but that is the only thing that is the normal size in my kitchen.  I have a mini dishwasher (which means my crock pot won’t fit in there) and almost no counter or cabinet space.  So after a struggle (including having to cook the meat in two separate batches because I don’t own a pan large enough for the meat and sauce together), I cooked a delicious, healthy lasagna.

Waiting to go in the oven.

I really doubt I’m ever going to enjoy cooking in my little closet, but I am happy that I’ve learned several dishes (and my brother will tell you the chicken and dumplings is great).  I’m going to keep attempting to cook in my little closet, but I can’t wait until I have a kitchen larger than a small walk-in closet…maybe it will even have a window.  One can only dream.

14 days later

I started Weight Watchers two weeks ago.  It feels like it’s been longer; I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.  I’ve lost 8.2 lbs so far on weight watchers and have lost a total of 15 lbs this year.  That’s amazing for me.  The last time I lost this much weight was after I moved home after college graduation.  It’s amazing what the combination of summer, home cooked meals versus frozen, and a need to get out of the house can do for a person.

Although I’m really proud of how I’m doing, I’m frustrated by the fact that I can’t see or feel more of a change.  A few of my pants seem to be fitting looser, but not too significantly.  It seems like there should be a bigger difference.  I’ve lost inches off my waist, my hips, everything…not a ton, but it’s a start.  I guess patience never was my virtue.  I wish I could fast forward a year to see how I’m doing to make sure it’s worth it.  Now I know that sounds crazy.  Duh it’s worth it.  Hello, 15 lbs.  But in my head I’m already wondering if I’ll be down a size by the high school graduation.  I’m checking gap.com to see when I can start buying my pants at trendier locations.  Jumping the gun much…uh I think so.  This is how my brain works though.  Because of this need for results, I can’t help but wonder if I’m sabotaging myself a little bit.  I’m not using all my daily points, which is fine, but some days I have almost 20 left.  That’s like half of what I get.  This is not the way the program was meant to work- you can use all your points and at least maintain, but mostly likely lose.  I need to calm down and go with the flow.  I was happy to see a 5 lb weight loss this week, but it was a little scary too.  There’s no way to keep that up.  I can’t set my standards that high.  I know that about 2 lbs a week is a healthy loss, much more than that and you’re losing muscle mass.  Not good.  If I could just convince my overly competitive ego of this, my life would be a little calmer.

So what are my plans.  My goals for this week are to actually try to cook one of the weight watcher recipes (I’ll be keeping it simple since I can’t cook) and to go to the gym at least 3 times.  I have been neglecting my “activity”; it hasn’t mattered so far, but it will soon.  Plus, no one wants to pay for a gym membership they aren’t using.  I also need to just allow myself to relax and get used to this.  This isn’t a quickie diet; it’s a life style shift.  At least that’s my goal.

Starting Up Again…

Since the first of this year, I have been working hard trying to be healthier.  I have been watching what I eat to figure out where I’m going wrong, watching my proportion sizes, and trying to work out.  All that went down hill about two weeks ago.  I was starting to feel sick.  In fact, I was wheezing (like asthma) during workouts.  It wasn’t so bad that I couldn’t actually breathe, but it was uncomfortable.  I went to the doctor and got an inhaler (my old one had gone bad- I really don’t need it unless I’m sick).  The doctor looked at me like I was crazy when I explained why I was in to see her.  She told me that I really didn’t have any symptoms but filled the prescription anyway.  About a day and a half later I was developing a chest cold.  Take that doctor.  Anyway, so I thought I would take a short break from working out…well that was the plan.  Between not feeling great, snowpocolyse 2011, and just being a bit down thanks to too many grey, cold, nasty days in a row, I ended up taking 12 days off of the gym.

So here I am now, trying to get started again.  12 days seems like such a short time, but it was enough for me to lose what I had been working for.  Don’t get me wrong.  I was still eating healthy, so I haven’t gained any weight back, but at the same time, I wasn’t dramatically losing anything either.  Plus I have all the fun of being sore again.  My first day back, I was so happy to see that I could get close to my previous pace on the treadmill.  I walked 2.5 miles in 45 minutes (not super impressive, but I’m really out of shape).  Then I went shopping with my sister.  It was hard to walk.  I was sore already the same day.  The next day, Saturday, I didn’t go to the gym because I was so sore.  I did do pilates at home, but still.  So then today I went to the gym again.  And here I am again, sore from my 45 minute walk.

Hopefully I’ve learned my lesson.  I cannot take this many days off and expect to just be okay.  I’m going to have to work hard to get back to where I was.  That’s okay; I’m going to do it.  I just wish I didn’t have to go through being sore again.