Resolutions 2012 / New Years' - Anyone Planning Any?

[slave2moonlight]

I'm half-bad. I eat plenty of them. Beats, green beans, asparagus, wax beans, mushrooms. But I mix them up into my soups, stews, etc(.) or drown them in dressings, cheese, breadstick (in the form of crutons, crackers, stuffing, crushed up toast), or other sauces (I make a mixture of barbecue sauce, sweet & sour or duck sauce, pickle juice, mayo, ketchup, mustard, ranch & Catalina - it all comes together and turns orange, I stir it and put it in a bottle for later which I used to add to salads or use on chicken fingers or french fries). From now on, I'll be trying to eat them with nothing on them.

I forgot about mushrooms, which I do like as long as they're not raw or by themselves, and I also take in some others when they are in soups and stuff like that. I do need to work on ways to "hide" them in my more preferred foods, ha. I am not as bad about sauces, though I rely on cheese a lot. It just makes EVERYTHING better. I don't like things like mustard or mayo, and I only eat ketchup on fries or sometimes when I don't have cheese in a burger. I love marinara sauce though, but I've heard that can be good for you and even count as a vegetable. I suppose that depends on how it is made, ha. With salad I have to have dressing, but not too much (too little doesn't work either), but I also have to have something else in there too. Preferably some chicken, but croutons alone can be enough, like with a really good Caesar.

Milk I could never cut off. I love it as a beverage and in other products, and there are some foods I can't imagine drinking anything else with. And, the reason it is hard for me to cut off Coke is the same. Some foods I only like with a Coke, or I like them much better with a Coke. What I NEED to do is drink more water though. This is another big problem for me. I hardly drink ANY water at all.

You've never liked onion rings? Was my favorite food.

I don't know what it is, but onions instantly get me gagging unless they are so well cooked and mixed into something that they are hard to notice.

But, oddly, my favorite "chip" is Funyuns, ha, and I also love Sour Cream and Onion potato chips with French Onion dip. It's very strange, ha.

Hey- a fellow anti-smoker / drinker. I tried a cigarette ONCE in my life just to see if I would choke / cough. I didn't. Me and my brother tried it at the same time- he became a huge smoker and I never tried it again. As for drinking, I was a kid and my parents each offered me one of their beers. I never finished either. After that, I had one of those small plastic novelty glasses of champagne and some of a Mike's Hard Lemonade in 2000. Since then, nothing. That's all the alcohol I've consumed in my life. Less than 2 cans' worth. Well, except for cough syrup. And I hear some gums have alochol in them. Dunno. But I'm insanely proud of my history with each. Of course, all the good it did me- throughout my junior high and high school years, I dabbled in bulimia, starving myself for days, pill popping, ingesting under-the-sink products, and slicing the hell out of my wrists. So, I'm the last person who can lecture anyone else about their health.

Yeah, there are always plenty of other vices around that should keep anyone from being too cocky about anything, which is probably why I really dislike overly cocky people like lots of the health/fitness pros out there. They are always doing something they shouldn't be so proud of, yet they often have these awful generalizations they spread around about people who are struggling with something that maybe they have defeated or has never been an issue for them at all.

[Goliath]

Thanks. In a way, I anticipate it'll be easy. When did you become one? Was it encouraged by your family?

The first time I tried to become a vegetarian, was at age 12, when I was in junior high. It didn't last very long and after a month or two, I caved and started eating meat again. Then at age 14, something I read somewhere triggered me to be a vegetarian after all. It was something along the lines of describing a piece of meat as "the corpse of a dead animal". That description has stuck with me ever since and it just seemed so morbid to eat meat ever after that I never bothered with it anymore. It wasn't exactly encouraged by my family, but I was supported by my mother, who cooked vegetarian 'meat replacements' for me. Of course, nowadays there's a far bigger choice in these 'replacements' and they taste a whole let better than they did 12 years ago.

Do you intake any dairy?

If you decide to try and quit- good luck. I know way too many smokers and they've all tried and all failed.

I used to drink milk, but I don't anymore. I eat cheese every day (I think that's natural for a vegetarian, as you don't want peanutbutter or jam, instead of meat, on your sandwich all the time) and I take yoghurt occasionally.

I don't really need to "quit" given I never really "started". I only smoke occasionally, when I'm with co-workers who smoke, too --and even then, not always. I smoked maybe two times the past two months, and not one time in the year before. People who fail at quitting are probably quitting for the wrong reasons. They feel they "have" to quit, because of their health (among other reasons), but it doesn't work that way. If you don't *want* to quit, if you don't *want* to step out of your addiction, quitting will never succeed. It's not a bodily process; the nicotin is out of your body within two days. It's a psychological issue and most people fail to grasp that. No patches or chewing gum will help you quit when you haven't accepted that you can't be a free person without this addiction.

[Elladorine]

I am going to try not to break anymore ornaments next year.

Ack, breaking my stuff through my own carelessness or clumsiness upsets me so much!

I've been the ultimate klutz lately, I've broken both of my pinky toes in the past few months. But at least they heal over time.

Aside from all the ways it is sneaked into other foods, probably sodas especially, I guess I mainly get it from canned corn heated on the stove (though I do add butter, salt, and pepper) or from boiling corn on the cob. I occasionally have popcorn or a cornflake based cereal, but not as a regular thing (except this month, apparently, with popcorn; been eating that a bit more since I recently learned how good it is with Parmesan cheese, which is a weakness of mine; before that, I hadn't had much popcorn in the past several years). I occasionally have cornchips at a Mexican restaurant too, but not super often (except right now, while visiting my mom in her border town), or cornbread too, which I really love but really only make a couple times a year.

After reading this last night I had to go make some popcorn! One of my old doctors actually told me I could eat as much popcorn as I wanted as long as it was air-popped. Not as tasty as microwaved or oil-popped, but it's nice to have a guilt-free snack. And I looove cornbread, but I rarely ever have it (awesome with honey). And I make a decent corn casserole, have to bake some tonight actually.

I don't too often go on extreme health kicks, though I will sometimes decide to lose weight and cut out soda for months until I'm in a stressful situation, or I need to get a lot of work done and pull all-nighters, or I just want to enjoy a holiday or vacation to the fullest. But that gets me back into drinking them long term, ha. Or I will go on an exercise kick till I just get sick of it or can't find the time. The thing about exercise is two things for me, my breathing trouble and also the fact that I find most exercise really boring and HATE sports for a million reasons. It doesn't help that I don't like to be "seen" exercising (until you're in shape, you look your worst when exercising and people seem to find it the most appropriate time to openly mock you), but I rarely have total privacy, and in addition, the bigger you are, the more stressful it is on your joints and all.

Walking is the best thing to start out with. You can build yourself up slowly, people won't have to think you're doing it just to exercise, you don't have to worry about stressing your joints, and you can take your favorite music along so it isn't boring. Even just 20 minutes a day can make a huge difference with your health. Swimming is great too, especially since it's the least stressful on your joints and keeps your body cool, making it feel like less work than it actually is (if you can't swim, water walking is still beneficial). Both of those I really need to get back into myself, exercise is really helpful with easing stress on top of everything else. I'd personally like to get back into weight lifting too, nothing major, just some small free-weights for a few minutes a day like I was doing earlier this year.

I mostly stopped worrying about the mocking; people are always gonna be judgmental, but if letting them get to me stops me, it won't help my situation.

However, last... Spring, I think, I got on my first SERIOUS health kick. This was partly because I was anticipating dating someone whom I actually had a lot in common with, which is hard for me to find, ha, and really liked (and it's also hard to find someone willing to date me; in fact, I never have before; so, to find all this in the same person...). I also liked what I was hearing about a certain program, P90X, and it was the rare occasion that I had the cash to invest in something like that, so I ordered the DVDs and started using it, and even followed the diet plan well. I dropped around 40 pounds. But, then my father's Leukemia situation really kicked into high gear, and my mother got sick too, and all these other stressful situations came up and I just ended up having to put a daily exercise program and strict but not cheap food plan on hold (incidentally, it has you eating 3 meals a day and ... I think it was 3 snacks, which is totally bizarre to me; I was spending most of my time preparing meals!). All the stuff that came up soon had me back to old habits of 1 or 2 meals a day and a lot of soda, ha. I want to get back on it though, at least the exercising and the small, spread out meals (maybe not being as strict about what I prepare and how, because I just can't afford it nor do I have the time), for the new year. It's tough though, because I'm still taking care of my mother, who likes certain meals at certain times that don't match up well with the program, ha. But, when she starts going back in for treatments, and especially when I leave (hopefully by mid-Jan.) to go back to Austin, I intend to get back with it. I know I've probably put a lot of the 40 pounds I lost back on, though not all of it. I probably need to lose a total of around 160lbs right now (incidentally, while I know it shows that I need to lose a lot of weight, a funny thing about me is that I have always weight A LOT more than I look like I weigh; I don't know what's up with that, but that's always been the case with me).

I was on phentermine for a short time when I was a teenager, did really well with that and got to my lowest weight as an adult until my mom was diagnosed with cancer a second time. We moved to Cali to live with my grandma and try a new treatment, and living with her, well . . . 7 course dinners every night, ice cream always in the fridge, full candy dishes on the table, etc. Plus the scary situation my mom was in didn't help any of us. We lost her about six months later, and my dad and I returned to Illinois alone. I didn't get back on track again until a few years later, but that's when I became anorexic and was a complete control freak about food. I got down to my lowest weight again but by literally starving myself. It sucks that I've always had a love-hate relationship with food, and the only times I ever got down that low I was still considered obese and had to do so by either diet pills or starvation. It's a constant struggle for me to maintain myself at 250 (at least I'm tall and carry it well), and apparently a miracle to go under that number like I did earlier this year.

I'd be so happy if I could lose just 30 more pounds (which would bring me down to my lowest point again), but ideally I'd like to lose another 100. Heh, sounds like a lot and I suppose it is, but I'm still currently down 100 pounds from highest. It's kinda mind-boggling to me actually, but when I was struggling with my finances and overall happiness a few years back, I gained a lot. I felt I'd lost everything when my dad died, had a big falling out with my brother, and soon after had a falling out with my best friend. I was in the middle of an abusive relationship and simply couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel. At some point I realized how much I'd gained and did some reading on nutrition. A lot actually. And I buckled down and got back to where I was in high school. Which took a few years, lol.

Well, that's a bit disturbing. Not that I drink Orange juice all that often either, ha, though I mainly do it for the vitamin C, as I think I get a lot of fiber from other sources. But, I hate to think that my liver is getting damaged even though I never have had a drop of alcohol! What a ripoff!

The part that sucks is that it's more than just the fructose you have to worry about, it's the HFCS and most kinds of sucrose period, including plain old table sugar. I mean, if you look at table sugar itself, what's it derived from? It's basically a stick! Our bodies are not meant to digest sugars in their purest forms, it damages the liver, it causes insulin resistance, and it makes us gain weight like crazy while only making us crave more. Some scientists are debating whether or not certain people are prone to addictions to sugar, since it can affect the same area of the brain as cocaine does. My dad suffered from cirrhosis of the liver, not because he drank alcohol (he didn't enjoy drinking) but because he consumed a lot of Pepsi and fatty foods.

One thing I worry about is that both of my parents developed diabetes. While I already said I don't like a lot of candy other than chocolate . . . well, ice cream, cookies, brownies, etc. are all a different story for me. I could eat those all day, lol. But if I do, it spikes my blood sugar and makes me extra hungry later and just turns into a vicious cycle. That's why I at least stay away from soda these days, and stick with no sugar added baked goods when I want to treat myself.

Green Beans were the torturous food from my childhood. The thing I hated but was often forced to eat. I don't usually eat iceberg lettuce myself, either. I try to stick with Romaine all that I can. In fact, my little sister has a tortoise, a vegetarian one, and I've heard you shouldn't give them iceberg lettuce either, just the greener kinds like Romaine. I didn't know there were anchovies in the Caesar dressing! Ha. I find I'm finicky about which dressings I eat, too. I bought the Caesar Paul Newman dressing, and I didn't like it at all. But, I think it was Wishbone that was really good... Baby carrots I particularly don't like, because they stay so hard when cooked. particularly don't like carrots when they're hard/raw/crunchy. Gotta have them in a stew or something. With a roast is okay, but I have to be able to hide their flavor a bit with meat and potatoes, ha.

My torturous food from my childhood would be meat. I can remember sitting at the table struggling to chew my whatever meat we were having that night enough in order to swallow it. There were a few times my mom got sick of watching me chew and let me go to the bathroom to spit it out. To this day I still don't like steak, pork chops, ribs, etc. . . anything that's stringy with bones and fat just grosses me out. If it doesn't resemble an animal anymore, I'm good with it.

Ah, I have all the same problems. I haven't dealt with being an asthmatic since I quit taking the medication when I was a kid, so maybe I have outgrown that, but there are all these aftereffects from having that as a kid which you brought up when you mentioned the steroid medications, but more on that in a minute...

I thought I'd outgrown mine, but it came back at my highest weight with a vengeance. I ended up in the hospital without insurance . . . ah, good times, lol. It's much more under control now, but still hits me some in the winters.

Yeah, I'm a chocoholic. I am less into the other stuff you mentioned, though I CAN enjoy lollipops/hard candy or sweet tarts; they are a last resort though. My preference is something with chocolate and, if at all possible, nuts. But my sweet tooth craves cookies, pies, and cake more than anything. Even ice cream (cookies 'n' cream is my mainstay), which I ate a lot for dessert in Austin. I'm a pretty finicky guy though with tastes and brands, I guess. I mean, especially with chocolate. For example, I HATE the chocolate used in most Easter candy! Ugh! My main candy choices are M&Ms, Hershey's with Almonds, Reese's (love Reese's Pieces too), and I love Starbucks hot chocolate and Nestle Quick powder for cold chocolate milk. Almond Joys, Snickers, Mr. Goodbar, and Butterfinger are also faves, and the occasional Baby Ruth. I'm terrible, I will enjoy those things with a Coca Cola half the time, ha. Coke is one of the big weight problems I have, and probably also played a big role in my tons of fillings/root canals. Honestly though, I don't eat candy all that often outside of holidays, but I do like those more desserty desserts as regularly as possible these days. Oh, and I do have the problem of still preferring kids' cereals, ha. Though I usually end up getting Honey Bunches of Oats, I will get Cap'n Crunch, Pebbles, Lucky Charms, or Monster Cereals whenever I can.

Funny, my mom used to buy us all sorts of junk food when we were kids but she refused to buy sugar cereals because they were unhealthy, lol. My favorite would be Lucky Charms, but I haven't had it in years. I usually get Shredded Wheat. My teeth aren't exactly in great shape either, had a root canal a couple of years ago and am waiting to go back sometime after I have the baby.

I suppose I have abused Coca Cola in a very similar way in my life, and still do, ha. Though I might be somewhat addicted.

I used to be a Mountain Dew addict back when I worked at the mall . . . free refills for mall employees. When I decided to quit drinking it I got awful headaches from the caffeine and sugar withdrawals.

Hear it is. I gotta admit, it is nice to hear someone else bring this up. As a kid, I was diagnosed with asthma and put on steroid treatments too, and this was actually the original source of my weight struggles. I was an average kid before that, but that was when I was very, VERY young. This is why I get so frustrated that so many (skinny) people assume that if you're overweight, it's because you are always thinking about food and eat every chance you get, which can often be the opposite of the truth. As a kid, I was put on those steroids and it caused me to put on weight, largely because my ability to exercise was very limited due to my difficulty breathing, which was only partly the asthma, and largely sinus problems I've always had (in college, I had surgery to remove polyps, but that was only slightly effective at improving my breathing, and by now I supposedly should need polyp removal again, but I don't think I could go through that brutal/gory surgery aftermath again). So, being a kinda chubby little kid because of the steroids (not very chubby, just kinda, but when all the other kids are skin and bones as they were...), I got picked on a bit (actually, probably more by the doctor than anyone else, which resulted in my mother always making a big deal about my weight too) and developed a complex. Eventually, around when I was leaving elementary, I quit taking the asthma treatments. I lost weight (also partly because I got taller), but I never got over feeling unattractive and thinking I was overweight. When girls liked me in junior high, I always thought they were just making fun of me (hindsight is 20/20, of course). And by high school I had developed zero skills at flirting or recognizing flirting, or being social at all with others. Those steroid treatments pretty much ruined my life. I still couldn't exercise well as I got older, and I still had a complex, and then I started putting a little weight on out of depression from being lonely. But then, in college, just after college actually, a girl I really liked rejected me in a brutal way due to my weight, which was still not much over at the time (but she apparently was one of those who hated any chub at all on a guy), but this caused me to get into a heavy depression that lasted several years and caused me to gain a lot of weight very quickly, which is what I'm still struggling to take off now. That was around 2000. I was in a depression and putting on a lot of weight for around 6 or 7 years after that (never being able to find a good job after college hasn't helped).

Honestly, it's something that's taken me years to sort out in my head, let alone be able to talk about. Junior high was hell for me and unfortunately shaped many aspects of my social anxieties for years to come. I was a shy kid as it was and didn't know how to handle being in and out of the hospital so much and what it was doing to me. I had doctors' notes that kept me from not only participating in gym class, I wasn't even allowed to use the stairs! The medications and depression made me gain, and the gain started the teasing and bullying. I didn't get any relief from it until my middle brother was killed in a car accident. It made me extraordiarily bitter realizing that's what it took for the other kids to treat me like a human being once again.

I was also struggling with sexual abuse at home (not an immediate family member at least) throughout grade school and I was pretty scarred over it for most of my life. It's caused me all sorts of body image issues and the occasional eating disorder. Things did get better by high school but I had trouble making friends and relating to others. I felt ugly and hopeless of ever fitting in, and still was the butt of jokes because I wasn't a size 6.

So yeah, I'm so used to people making assumptions about me because of my weight. I'm not the lazy, gluttonous pig, and being a smaller size wouldn't magically make me a better person on the inside. It's frustrating. I know how to eat right and actually do so 90% of the time. I eat much better than Rey in fact and literally half as much, yet I still weigh more than him. It's not fair, really. It's hard to find decent clothes that fit properly (let alone are remotely flattering), I'm not afraid to work hard yet somehow it barely pays off if at all.

I understand that. When I put on the most weight really quickly, it played games with my continence. I haven't really shared that with anyone before. I had a few bad accidents during my depression and rapid weight gain in the early or mid 2000's. Anyway, I have had some luck with the P90X thing, so like I said, I'm going to get back on it very soon if I can. I don't usually put on weight unless I am in a depression, which I usually only get into because I get so lonely or treated badly. My natural disposition is very cheerful, but I'm also a romantic and have never had anyone to be with in that respect. Feeling alone and lonely can instantly turn me into a psychic vampire, but otherwise I am just the opposite. It's a bit of a vicious cycle though, as I am constantly rejected for being overweight, ha. And that isn't an assumption. Even when I was only slightly overweight, I was often told that was why I was being rejected...

My curse was being seen as one of the guys. Guys complain about being put in the friend zone, but it happens to girls when they're not conventionally attractive. In fact I did a lot of stupid things trying to get the attention of some guy I used to work with but it did me no real good . . . I used to party with them every week and the atmosphere always changed when a pretty girl walked in; which made me feel even worse since no one there ever had reason to try to impress me. I also spent several years just being afraid to date period due to my history of being abused, so it's no surprise that my very first relationship became serious (I was desperate to not be alone) yet ended up turning out very bad.

I dunno, I've just got a lot of emotional baggage. Maybe that's what I should resolve to lose this year.

[Sky Syndrome]

My resolution is decluttering. I have to figure out possessions I can let go of and get them out. I have so much stuff and it's taking over. It's hard for me to part with things. My dad died 11 years ago and he's the only death (besides pets) I've experienced in my family. I think the loss of him and the fact my family is just me, my mom, my brother, and my sister are a couple of reasons I'm clingy to things.

My mom is trying to find chia seeds to eat because she heard about them being good for weight loss. They puff up in your stomach and make you feel on the full side.

[Elladorine]

My mom is trying to find chia seeds to eat because she heard about them being good for weight loss. They puff up in your stomach and make you feel on the full side.

If it helps at all, I've been able to find them at a lot of hispanic grocery stores in the dried seasoning packets section; Whole Foods and some other health stores also carry them in canisters near the protein powders. They're also very nutritious and contain omega 3 fatty acids.

[UmbrellaFish]

Happy New Year everyone!

Hope everyone has a safe holiday and a wonderful 2012.

[slave2moonlight]

Happy New Year! (even if it is not in my time zone yet, ha)

[TheValentineBros]

Happy 2012-mas.

Yeah, that's the best I can come up with.