Week 5: Friday OS Confessional
We do more than bike and run, right? There are over 150 folks in here but I only see like 20 posting...would love to see some of the other peeps play along as well. Consider this the off topic thread each week and jump in as you like!
Today's Theme: Name Your Holiday Food Weakness
I am being pretty good about my eating this OS, down about 6 lbs (1 a week-ish) since the start. I try to keep things to just one big binge meal a week (think dessert at restaurant) but the holidays are out to get me. Big time. My personal kryptonite is anything covered in white chocolate with tiny bits of peppermint / candy cane in it. We have a bag of pretzels from Trader Joes that is literally talking to me at 5:15am about how I need to eat them!!! 
What's your evil epicurean enemy???
Comments
I'm down a few pounds from the beginning of the OS, but in all honesty I'm only *kind of* trying for right now w/ regards to eating. I'm busting my a$$ on workouts, figure I can use the extra food right now. I intend to really reign it in after the holidays. So I don't shy away from the occasional Jimmy John's during the week if I don't feel like cooking. But like Coach P, I try to conserve all my food rage for one good blowout a week, usually pizza or italian beef sandwiches.
All that said, my personal food kryptonite at the moment is Chex Mix Bold. I'm going to have to make sure everybody in the house stops buying that stuff sooner than later. Once a bag is opened, it has a way of disappearing by day end, one handful at a time.
Mmmmmm SALT!
My family likes baked goods. Real baked goods from scratch. My wife, Karin, and daughter, Clare, are both amazing bakers. During the Christmas season they bake a ridiculous amount of cookies. We give a lot a way but for several weeks, starting this week, we will have a variety on hand in bulk. This week they made chocolate streusel bars. Wednesday night I had 6 of them before I knew it.
My mother passed along a ridiculous sweet tooth. I love SUGAR. Sugar takes many forms and I love them all.
At work I am a contractor PM. And this place has an entire cube dedicated to treats. One of my biggest personal weaknesses is doublt-stuffed oreos. Every fricken time someone brings them in.
If I hold true to form I will get serious about dropping weight in January once the holidays are over. I suspect I'll drop 10-15lbs pretty fast like I have in previous years.
Cookies, of any type or variety. They literally talk to me when I pass them on someone's ledge or desk. They tell me that I can just do an extra half hour on the bike or 15 more minutes on the day's run, and it would be like I didn't even eat them. The problem is that one leads to two leads to three... and suddenly my workout would need to be a 100/15 brick to work off the cookies. I actually ate 3 yesterday before I even realized it.
Christmas is the worst, because everyone brings in cookies, candy and cake to the office.
Seems like it might be easier to list the foods that are not calling to me these days but I think the worst of it is the M and M dispenser machine thing [like an bum ball machine] that my mother in law gave my son recently. Thing has about a million blue M & M's in it or at least it did anyhow.
Now is the time of year that I am happy to just not be gaining weight. We used to do a gain no weight between Halloween and New Years challenge on ST a few years back and I keep that as my goal.
Salt and cheese and sour cream! I think I could live without sweets, so long as I had salt and fat!
My mother makes a corn dip that has Mexi-corn, cheese, sour cream, mayo, and jalepenos. Sounds kind of icky, but I think it's my favorite food. And it's one of those dips that doesn't do well unless everything you use is full fat. Well, maybe one thing can be low-fat. The 2T of mayo, maybe.
I know how to make it, but almost never do. It's sooooooooooooooooo good and soooooooooooooooooo bad for me! I might have to make some this weekend for the Redskins-Giants game.
On the weight front, i didn't have any real goals coming into the OS. I mean, losing weight is always a good thing, but I wanted to finish the OS healthy and strong. If that meant merely maintaining my weight, so be it. I've lost maybe 2 lbs. since the start, but that could easily be daily fluctuations. I could just as easily be up again tomorrow!
In 2008 after my first IM, nobody told me that my appetite would NOT return to normal levels. From Sept to Jan 1, I went from 163 to 192 in a very short time. Every year since then I've gained less weight but coming into the off season. It doesn't seem to get any easier though.
Now I don't have any trouble losing the weight but it would be nice to not dig such a big hole. I'm currently sitting at 168 which is 8 lbs since my IMWI weight this year.
I ate so bad over Thanksgiving ( gave myself permission to eat every sweet thing in sight) that I felt toxic, every joint hurt. So feeling like crap and gaining several pounds was just what I needed to get serious about body comp. Lost 7 pounds in a week and I feel healthy again.
The sweets will certainly be calling but I am not planning on answering, I've learned my lesson, although I will indulge in some egg nog as we get closer to Christmas. I'm not very good at the moderation thing, when the sugar hits my lips I can't stop, so I am better off just avoiding.
I need to let myself have a short period to eat what ever I want. Then I gain weight, feel like crap and get motivated again to focus on eating right.
Like others I purposely let myself slip much more than usual in the Nov-Dec time of year and get serrious again after the 1st.
Peanut Butter Cups
Buffalo Wings
Fried Calamari
Dominos Pizza
Why did I open this thread...grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
kettle chips!
My holiday food weakness, though, is that if there IS something indulgent that I really like, it takes quite a bit of restraint to only "sample" it and not eat lots and lots.
Ice cream, gelato, cheese and wine for me all year round.
My wife is also an excellent baker and usually makes about 30 doz cookies of various types for the holidays. Most of them are given away as gifts but I still manage to eat more than my fair share.
Cheers
Ian
I started a cleanse( 2nd go round this year) on Oct 25th. It lasted 4 weeks and in that time I went off coffee, dairy, gluten, soy, sugar etc. I lost a lot of weight and none of my pants fit:-)!! Had to go shopping for new clothes. Life is rough. I have maintained a very healthy eating plan since with occassional gluten and dairy. This is all being told to lead you up to what I crave RIGHT NOW!!
COFFEE!!!!!! Not the caffeine part of it but the drive to Starbuck's with Steve, ordering our yummy gingerbread latte's and having them served in the red holiday cup. I HAVE NOT HAD ONE YET:-(.
I love coffee so much that I can't go there.
So anyway, all the other treats are not pulling at me. The feeling of eating clean rocks!!
But I will tell you... All I asked for Christmas was .... A pot of Peet's French roast coffee with my hazelnut cream!!! Pure Bliss.
Carrie
Wow - what exactly did you eat?
What a thread! Now I'm on the hunt for more stuff! My personal holiday weaknesses are:
Dunkin' Donuts #1 (coffee and two donuts). Although there are no DDs here where I live, if I see it at like at the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport today, I stop and indulge. Holidays make it less guilty.
Next is eggnog - spiked at night of course.
And last, Zapps potato chips and beer during the bowl games.
Sweets in general are my weakness during the holidays. I love oatmeal raisin cookies, pecan pie, sweet potato souffle, fruitcake (yes, I am the one person that likes the stuff....) apple pie, you name it!
People bring so much homemade stuff to work and I just have to sample them. My goal is to maintain weight through the holidays and then really focus on controlling my intake after the holidays. I have been really busting it during the workouts though so at least I am not being like so many and sitting on the couch getting fat the entire holiday season.
Thanks to Patrick, I've discovered White Chocolate and peppermint! Who needs Eggnog now?
@keith - I use a pair of large cable cutters to take care of the stuff that is chained down to the counter. I need to get things under control soon or they'll have to roll me over every mountain top at ToC!
This is a funny thread
My weakness is red wine and chocolate... the French diet! I've managed to limit myself to one glass with dinner, and only a "limited" number of chocolate chips for dessert. I do better some nights than others...