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static_abyss) wrote2019-02-16 04:48 pm
static_abyss) wrote2019-02-16 04:48 pm
Lj Idol Week 16: Vodka Tonic is not Vodka Soda
I'm hanging to the edge of the world by the skin of my teeth.
Three vodka tonics and one vodka soda later, with the clear taste of soda water in sharp contrast to the weirdly bitter, metallic taste of tonic water, I realize my mistake. Vodka has anywhere from 50 to 60 calories, give or take, and I always give to avoid the panicking afterwards. Add soda water or seltzer and you get a drink that's basically vodka. And given that each is 60 calories, having four drinks for my sister's bachelorette party is well within my caloric intake for the evening. That, plus the fact that I've only eaten 450 calories for dinner, and I've averaged a total of 1200 for the whole day, means that I can splurge and have those 240 calories in drinks. My Fitness Pal says I'm supposed to have 1450 a day, so I made it with 10 calories to spare, a little extra room for anything I might have missed, or if the apple, 3 inches in diameter, I ate for breakfast was x-large and not just large.
Except, I've miscalculated. Because tonic water is not soda water, and tonic water and vodka give you one drink that's about 220 calories, give or take. And I always give.
Which, after my initial panic, is not that big of a deal. I'm over by 420 calories, so tomorrow I'll just eat more vegetables, skip the meat, skip the yogurt and aim for 1000 calories. This will put me back on the right track, and then I just have to keep counting for the days that follow, until I'm at my ideal weight. I'll, of course, have to cancel on Laurel for tomorrow evening, because there's no way I'm going to keep under 1000 calories tomorrow if we go out to eat at Korea Town.
Again, after the initial panic, it isn't that big of a deal. I am an expert at this now.
Breakfast consists of an apple, a pear or an orange. About two hours later, I eat a Chobani, with a cup of blueberries. Wait another two hours, and then I can have my bell peppers and cauliflower. At three, I can eat some chicken, boiled and seasoned, but only if it's a portion small enough to fit in my coworker's tiny hand. If I'm hungry, which I can never admit, I'll eat twenty-one carrots, and 2 mini cucumbers. If I'm really hungry, I'll just eat a bunch of cucumbers because each cucumber is 10 calories a cup. By a bunch, I mean exactly 6 cups of cucumbers, measured with the measuring cup I keep in my desk drawer at work, in the kitchen cabinet at home, and next to my bed in my bedroom. I have one in my purse in case someone offers me something on the go and I need to measure out one cup.
It never hurts to be ready, I have learned.
Mother told me she accepted me the way I was, and then she took me to three different doctors, two nutritionists, and one acupuncturist in Queens, by 90th street. The acupuncturist, who had her office on the second floor, above a tiny English school, also treated my grandfather for interstitial lung disease. My grandfather died anyway, but I lost twenty pounds.
I gained them all back once school started and mother had to work all day. But the important part was that mother loved me just the way I was.
Dinner is the only time I'm allowed to eat more than 200 calories. It's when we sit around the table, all five of us. My brothers crack jokes at dinner, and lately we've been getting into political debates that lean away from the conservatism that has characterized our family discussions for most of my life.
It helps that Mexico recently elected the equivalent of Bernie Sanders, and that there have been actual measurable changes in the country. Our dinners have, more than once, ended in loud chants of "AMLO," as my mother and oldest brother clink glasses full of iced water.
Dinners usually consist of vegetables, limited starch and chicken. Mother has taken my quiet measured eating very seriously, and since my sister is going to be married soon, my family has taken to heart losing weight for the big day. Still, our dinners average out to anywhere between 250 and 390 calories, so I always have to keep in mind that what I eat during the day doesn't exceed 1100 calories.
To tell you the truth, some days, this exhausts me.
Like Friday evening. A day after Valentine's Day, we hadn't had our usual Valentine's Day cake because I had work, then class, then bed to wake up at 5:30am the next day to start work all over again. Monday is a day off, so Friday was cake day.
We picked cookies and cream ice cream, with a thick slab of chocolate cake at the bottom, and a smooth layer of pink icing, decorated with two big red and white hearts.
The cutting of any particular cakes goes like this. My oldest brother gets the biggest slice by virtue of age, and because he has lost twenty pounds. My mother gets the second biggest slice because she enjoys cake, but doesn't love it. My diabetic father gets a thin slice, enough to taste, but not to mess with his carefully controlled insulin levels. And then, there's me.
I cut my cake slice so thin, I can almost see my hand on the other side. The slide of the knife and the way the cake droops over onto my plate reminds me too much of how I felt when I first started my weight loss journey. Like a wilted flower, with too many numbers in her brain and not enough sunlight. Like if I could just hold out for the next month, the numbers on the scale would magically change to what I wanted them to be. Like the frustration of seeing the unchanging scale wouldn't cause me to just throw everything away.
I eat the cake.
I go back and serve myself some ice cream, because I've decided, that at least for today, I am not counting calories.
It's coffee ice cream, and when I put the spoon in my mouth, part of me wants to cry. I haven't had ice cream in exactly five months and three days. The crying is because I'm hormonal, and stressed, and a little overwhelmed by the fact that I've lost forty pounds over six months, and it's not enough.
I'm not counting calories tonight, though. I'm just eating ice cream, and the taste of coffee on my mouth is both fulfilling and a little scary. I refuse to look at the calories, but something must show on my face, because my mother looks at me and laughs.
"What is it?" I ask.
And she says, smile on her face and sympathetic eyes, "I saw you counting those calories."
What can I say?
She's not wrong.
Three vodka tonics and one vodka soda later, with the clear taste of soda water in sharp contrast to the weirdly bitter, metallic taste of tonic water, I realize my mistake. Vodka has anywhere from 50 to 60 calories, give or take, and I always give to avoid the panicking afterwards. Add soda water or seltzer and you get a drink that's basically vodka. And given that each is 60 calories, having four drinks for my sister's bachelorette party is well within my caloric intake for the evening. That, plus the fact that I've only eaten 450 calories for dinner, and I've averaged a total of 1200 for the whole day, means that I can splurge and have those 240 calories in drinks. My Fitness Pal says I'm supposed to have 1450 a day, so I made it with 10 calories to spare, a little extra room for anything I might have missed, or if the apple, 3 inches in diameter, I ate for breakfast was x-large and not just large.
Except, I've miscalculated. Because tonic water is not soda water, and tonic water and vodka give you one drink that's about 220 calories, give or take. And I always give.
Which, after my initial panic, is not that big of a deal. I'm over by 420 calories, so tomorrow I'll just eat more vegetables, skip the meat, skip the yogurt and aim for 1000 calories. This will put me back on the right track, and then I just have to keep counting for the days that follow, until I'm at my ideal weight. I'll, of course, have to cancel on Laurel for tomorrow evening, because there's no way I'm going to keep under 1000 calories tomorrow if we go out to eat at Korea Town.
Again, after the initial panic, it isn't that big of a deal. I am an expert at this now.
Breakfast consists of an apple, a pear or an orange. About two hours later, I eat a Chobani, with a cup of blueberries. Wait another two hours, and then I can have my bell peppers and cauliflower. At three, I can eat some chicken, boiled and seasoned, but only if it's a portion small enough to fit in my coworker's tiny hand. If I'm hungry, which I can never admit, I'll eat twenty-one carrots, and 2 mini cucumbers. If I'm really hungry, I'll just eat a bunch of cucumbers because each cucumber is 10 calories a cup. By a bunch, I mean exactly 6 cups of cucumbers, measured with the measuring cup I keep in my desk drawer at work, in the kitchen cabinet at home, and next to my bed in my bedroom. I have one in my purse in case someone offers me something on the go and I need to measure out one cup.
It never hurts to be ready, I have learned.
Mother told me she accepted me the way I was, and then she took me to three different doctors, two nutritionists, and one acupuncturist in Queens, by 90th street. The acupuncturist, who had her office on the second floor, above a tiny English school, also treated my grandfather for interstitial lung disease. My grandfather died anyway, but I lost twenty pounds.
I gained them all back once school started and mother had to work all day. But the important part was that mother loved me just the way I was.
Dinner is the only time I'm allowed to eat more than 200 calories. It's when we sit around the table, all five of us. My brothers crack jokes at dinner, and lately we've been getting into political debates that lean away from the conservatism that has characterized our family discussions for most of my life.
It helps that Mexico recently elected the equivalent of Bernie Sanders, and that there have been actual measurable changes in the country. Our dinners have, more than once, ended in loud chants of "AMLO," as my mother and oldest brother clink glasses full of iced water.
Dinners usually consist of vegetables, limited starch and chicken. Mother has taken my quiet measured eating very seriously, and since my sister is going to be married soon, my family has taken to heart losing weight for the big day. Still, our dinners average out to anywhere between 250 and 390 calories, so I always have to keep in mind that what I eat during the day doesn't exceed 1100 calories.
To tell you the truth, some days, this exhausts me.
Like Friday evening. A day after Valentine's Day, we hadn't had our usual Valentine's Day cake because I had work, then class, then bed to wake up at 5:30am the next day to start work all over again. Monday is a day off, so Friday was cake day.
We picked cookies and cream ice cream, with a thick slab of chocolate cake at the bottom, and a smooth layer of pink icing, decorated with two big red and white hearts.
The cutting of any particular cakes goes like this. My oldest brother gets the biggest slice by virtue of age, and because he has lost twenty pounds. My mother gets the second biggest slice because she enjoys cake, but doesn't love it. My diabetic father gets a thin slice, enough to taste, but not to mess with his carefully controlled insulin levels. And then, there's me.
I cut my cake slice so thin, I can almost see my hand on the other side. The slide of the knife and the way the cake droops over onto my plate reminds me too much of how I felt when I first started my weight loss journey. Like a wilted flower, with too many numbers in her brain and not enough sunlight. Like if I could just hold out for the next month, the numbers on the scale would magically change to what I wanted them to be. Like the frustration of seeing the unchanging scale wouldn't cause me to just throw everything away.
I eat the cake.
I go back and serve myself some ice cream, because I've decided, that at least for today, I am not counting calories.
It's coffee ice cream, and when I put the spoon in my mouth, part of me wants to cry. I haven't had ice cream in exactly five months and three days. The crying is because I'm hormonal, and stressed, and a little overwhelmed by the fact that I've lost forty pounds over six months, and it's not enough.
I'm not counting calories tonight, though. I'm just eating ice cream, and the taste of coffee on my mouth is both fulfilling and a little scary. I refuse to look at the calories, but something must show on my face, because my mother looks at me and laughs.
"What is it?" I ask.
And she says, smile on her face and sympathetic eyes, "I saw you counting those calories."
What can I say?
She's not wrong.
no subject
While I can't eat cake (Celiac disease), that image of that thin slice was perfect. I saw that. I tasted the pleasure and the shame, too.
It never feels like enough, even when it is. Even with a tube in my nose, my collarbones sharp like a knife, it never was.
But I hope YOU know you are enough, and that is my honest truth for you. <3
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I had a pretty good stretch for about 8 years until having my first child, and almost had it licked again after my second child when they took my diet pills off the market.
The pills that pushed away that relentless hunger. :(
So many decades of yo-yoing, when I think I've finally on the right track for _good_, and then stress or sugar-laden holidays undoes it. I know the whole process, the exhaustion of it, the shame at 'falling off the wagon.'
And yet... with a family battling weight problems, you know how it happens, and with a diabetic father you know why you have to try. :(
But not having cake to celebrate at a time when you're expected to be there... it would sure, help, wouldn't it? But this is the box family forces you into again and again. :(
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That last twenty pounds of the sixty I gained with Alicia, took me two years to lose and when I did - I was pregnant with my son; Who made so ill, I lived on pizza and pizzelles.
On top of everything in my life, I couldn't imagine having the (mental) strength of doing this! ***hugg***
Thanks for sharing your struggle. 🐭🐞✌🎀🐁
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