Foodie Calls and Other Wins

So, a string of victories to report lately. Things aren't going 100% better (still counting calories, exercising more than I should, etc) but I think I'm making significant progress in some important areas.

Two very basic ones:
1. More calories
2. Less exercise

Granted both changes have been made at a pretty (very) modest scale at this point, but I can feel that sort of loosening in my mind that will let them become increments in bigger changes rather than token concessions that lead nowhere.

A few other wins that have made me feel successful lately:

Answering a "foodie call." 
Everyone has experienced this.
It's similar to a booty call, in that most people see it as a spontaneous invite to a pleasurable experience. Except instead of bedroom fun, a "foodie" call comes in the form of random dinner invites, unexpected baked goods being dropped off at your desk, pressure to go out for a lunch you hadn't planned for, etc. Things that some people without food hangups would definitely find fun, but not if you're uptight about everything that goes into your mouth.
So last week we had a summer thunderstorm that knocked out power to our house one evening. Cue panic that I won't have electricity to cook my planned dinner. Cue self-shaming and reminding myself that I just came from a place where most people NEVER have power, and even my relatively privileged lodgings only had electricity for 1/3 of the day. Cue improvised plans for a dinner that required not external heat.
Cue a call from my mom telling me she was on her way to swing by the house after work and did I want to go out for dinner. Cue about 30 seconds of extreme turmoil, then a decision to just do it. Scrapped my plans, went out for dinner with my mom and one of her colleagues, even had extra calories, and enjoyed the evening.

Actually cooking meals WITH my boyfriend
I arrived in Match City on Saturday morning, and so far the visit has been awesome. One of my favorite wins so far this trip was that yesterday at lunch we cooked and ate the SAME things for our meal. This almost never happens. We've had a lot of temporary co-habitation periods over the course of our 3.75 year relationship (has it really been that long???), but usually when we cook at home it just involves him cooking his food and me cooking mine, and then sitting down to eat it together. Yesterday we made a meal where both of our main dishes (we picked different sides based on taste preference) came out of the same ingredients boxes and were cooked together, no alternative Cammy version made separately with lower-cal substitutions. This may not seem like a big deal, but it felt like a huge victory for both of us.

Ordering a challenge food in a restaurant
Ihop chocolate chocolate chip pancakes. Win. Enough said.

I haven't been weighing myself, so I don't know if the weight I'd lost is coming back yet, but I'm trying to keep reminding myself that it's okay when (not letting myself frame it as "if") it does.

So, baby steps. I'm really enjoying this Match visit and I want to stay calm/nourished enough to continue. The only spat we've had was yesterday morning when my blood sugar was WAY too low for me to be rational. That's a preventable situation that I want to try to be more vigilant about. I still have fucked up hunger signals, which means that usually I don't feel hungry at all until my brain/body are feeling unwell. Trying to stay on top of it better from now on.

I hope everyone is having a good week; love y'all.

Readjusting

Hey y'all. I'm working on getting settled in; jetlag is still kicking my ass, but I'm starting to feel more human. I hate that I've done NOTHING productive (in terms of school and other writing work) since I've been back, but I just haven't felt up to it. I have caught up on a lot of HBO, though . . . *cringe*

I'm staying with my family for a week before I fly up to visit Match, and it's been so nice to get time with people I love again. Not to mention my beloved G.! I am really lucky to have such an awesome family that I like to spend time with.

I was at pretty high elevation in Tropical Research Country (although not quite as high as where I live in PhD Town during the fall semester), and once again I'm realizing just how much elevation affects my appetite and seems to numb me to energy deficits. I've actually boosted my calories a bit since I've been back, relative to what I was eating last week in TRC, and I am still FAMISHED all of the time. I'm in that mode where I am somehow hungrier after dinner than I was before. It happens every time I come down in elevation from TRC or PhD Town, but it's always weird and frustrating.

I'm trying to listen to it, though...the first day I was back, my mom mentioned that she could tell I'd lost a significant amount of weight in TRC, and I kind of blew her off. I have a hard time seeing gradual changes, and I figured I'd dropped a tiny bit (judging by belt/pants fit) but nothing serious. Then I weighed myself and realized she was right. I'm not sure how much it shows in photos, but I lost more than I'd expected, and really do need to work on gaining it back.

So of course now there's that jump from realizing that intellectually and putting it into practice. I've shaved down my exercise time (still a lot of room for progress on that front, though...) and boosted my calories a bit. I'm doing those mind games with trying to rationalize everything (freaking out about a weeklong road trip with Mom next month and somehow telling myself I need to "save up" energy surplus for that), when really I just need to suck it up and do it.  Anyway, work in progress. If I had a dollar for every time I'd said that on this blog . . .

But this time I'm 100% aware and accepting of what I need to do, and am motivated to get myself restored a bit so that I can enjoy the rest of the summer with Match and my family and be in a position to rock the next semester. I leave to visit Match on Saturday, and his city has tons of cool restaurants, grocery stores like Trader Joe's, and other stuff that will hopefully help. I'm honestly just not that into food, but I like novelty and trying new things, so having options around like that is a way to boost motivation to be liberal with my eating.

I'm also just readjusting to culture. Americans are loud, man. LOUD and entitled. And the first time I walked into a grocery store it was WAY overwhelming. Do you realize how much FOOD we have? Not just that things are always in stock (a constant problem at the market in TRC) but that we have not just everything, but twelve different varieties of everything???

It's still blowing my mind. I have to wonder: with all the intellectual, economic, and infrastructural resources at our disposal in this country, surely there could have been something more productive and consequential than developing the sixth variety of Cap'n Crunch cereal? Really, five wasn't enough? There was absolutely nothing more important to invest in?  Okay I'm going to stop preaching, but things like that have really been weighing on my mind since I've been back.

Still wrapping up some interpersonal stuff that happened in TRC . . . people are complicated, man.

Anyway, that's the update to cover the past few days. I love TRC but it's nice to be back. Have I mentioned that I have the best most awesome dog in the world? I'm in awe of G. all over again every time I return to him.