I have just arrived back home after a week at youth camp. Phone service was very sporadic; rather than continually frustrate myself over a non-existent signal, I decided to not write anything until I returned home.
My new relationship with food was cast into a stark light this week. Our camp always has the most amazing meals, for a camp. I've been to camps where breakfast is cereal and toast; we serve, on various days, pancakes (not the frozen kind, but straight off the griddle), grits, biscuits and gravy, sausage, eggs, bacon, cereal, muffins, and other treats. For lunch, there's a hamburger day, a taco day, a spaghetti day, and a sandwich day (first day of camp - an easy meal). Dinners were beef stew, barbeque chicken, ham, and chicken casserole.
Almost none of these items have made their way back into my food choices yet.
Before camp, I went back and forth between "I'm going to take all my own food and be very strict", and "I'm going to eat whatever they serve, just in reasonable quantities". I'm still early in the stabilization phase at the weight loss center, so I didn't want to stray too far from that. Bottom line, I went without much of a plan at all, except to pack a few cans of tuna and a bag of apples. I had actually not really been aware of two things in years past - one, I can stroll into the kitchen at any time and get anything I want to eat; and two, we have a pretty well-stocked kitchen. One of our counselors had her husband pick up a couple packages of those thin 100-calorie wheat buns, and a bagful of Carbmaster yogurt cups. I was able to eat a lot of salads, turkey sandwiches, baked chicken, and veggies when available. I splurged a couple of times during the week - had to grab a couple of homemade chocolate chip cookies (okay, they were from pre-fab cookie dough, but still); I passed over ice cream dessert, cake, and anything that was sold in the canteen besides lowfat yogurt and diet Coke. Contrary to what I anticipated, I didn't spend my week looking longingly at all the foods I "can't" have. It was more like "ya'll can eat that, but I'm not interested." I sent our nutritionists an email midway through the week, thanking them for changing the way I look at food.
I have to let things kind of settle out for a couple of days, but I think I did lose some of that extra weight at camp this week. I had intended to run and work out; I did run Tuesday morning, but two miles in, I realized that if I got hurt, I would be useless for the rest of the week. I strapped on a pedometer, and logged over 12 miles of walking per day just in the normal course of a day at camp. One of our speakers wanted me to help him get started on his weight loss journey, and for exercise, I suggested he start by walking. You won't lose as quickly by JUST walking, but you can still lose if your nutrition is on point.
Some of you may be thinking, "Augusta's Biggest Loser is over; why are you still writing about food and weight loss?" Well, I will be writing about other topics, but there are a lot of people who are on their own weight loss journey, and when you are in the beginning or middle stages of the process, it can seem like there is no light at the end of the tunnel. I continue writing to let those folks know that they can come out on the other side successfully.
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