The Trouble With Skinny Roomies

As the post title indicates, I'm gonna start a mini-rant about my roomies. Nothing offensive, just more that I couldn't find a better word to replace 'rant'. Since moving back to school in late August, I've been trying to continue down the path of food righteousness by not buying things I deem unhealthy. While there's no hard and fast rule, and many of the so called 'healthy' foods I buy do have things like preservatives in them which can be quite unhealthy, I try to stick to under 150 calories and 5 grams of fat for things I designate for snacks or compliments to my main meal and under 500 calories and 12 (or so) grams of fat for main entrees and the like. It's been hard to skip over some of my favorite drink choices, like sodas, juices, and sugary juice like stuff (Gatorade, Hawaiian Punch, Kool Aid, etc). I've been trying to acclimate myself to diet beverages but it's much easier in theory than in practice. I've also been opting for sodium-free flavored seltzers, which have helped a little but fall short of what I really crave.

To bring this post back to it's title, I live with two other girls, who are skinny and therefore each just about whatever the hell they way. If you opened my freezer door right now, you'd see Stouffer's entrees and pizzas, Ben & Jerry's ice cream pints, TGIFriday's appetizers, Cheesy Garlic Bread and Eggo Waffles loaded to the top. The door of the freezer contains most of my stuff (minus some frozen chicken and freezepops) which is either frozen veggies or healthy frozen entrees. The fridge is slightly less of a caloric nightmare but there's still usually some incarnation of Mexican/Chinese/Italian leftovers as well as fatty salad dressings, juice or high sugar drinks, and for the moment cinnamon buns scattered in every corner. I can usually resist these temptations a bit better than a pint of 'Smores but there are even more temptations baiting me at every corner of every drawer and cabinet of the apartment. Some highlights (or would 'low' be more appropriate) include my old buddy Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, various cookies and sweets, and currently a jumbo container of tri-flavored popcorn sent to one of my roomies from her family. I admit I've dipped into the popcorn (with permission of course) and have been a fan of the 12 and 13 grams of fat buttered and cheddar cheese varieties.

Whew. Thankfully I have such a guilty conscience that I couldn't rightly scarf down someone else's grub or else I'd be even more up the creek than I already am. I just managed to choke down a Healthy Choice Pad Thai (not a favorite, don't recommend it at all) and sip on lemon-lime seltzer while ruefully dreaming of mozzarella sticks and cheeseburgers. They even had a hot dog cart outside of the dining hall today, which smelled absolutely amazing!

Now I try to adjust my attitude about my room mate's eating habits but sometimes I just want to scream 'Do you know how many calories that Banana Bread has in it?!' It sucks because I feel that for every healthy meal I have to their fat and calorie laden frozen meal, it doesn't matter at the end of the day. They seem to gain little or no weight while not even working out and here I am, dreaming of pizza and eating hummus with reduced fat crackers instead. It reminds me again that my metabolism is complete shit and that having PCOS really fucking blows.

I'm definitely only wading in the pond compared to my head first dive into dieting approach that I took in Summer 2008. I try to remind myself that I've been doing what I can and to appreciate the more modest changes (skipping a snack here, electing for Cheerios instead of Reese's Peanut Butter Puffs) but I still feel like I'm getting nowhere. I ride my bike to and from classes and can tell that already my legs are a little stronger and I struggle less going over certain hills but I estimate if I've lost any weight at all, it can't even be 5 pounds. I was at 254 pounds when I went for my last GYN exam a week before I came back to school so if I were to find a scale somewhere, I could test out my hypothesis but I honestly think that the results would just depress me more.

I'm trying to vent my frustrations right now because in about a half hour I'm heading over to my school's Crime Prevention Fair, where I will be looking to attend the Woman's Self-Defense Panel. I was planning to go to this all along, but due to joining my school's Student Senate this past Monday I am now required to attend the event as a Senator. No one wants to see a pouting politician. It's just unflattering.

In any case, I'll just have to gather myself up and 'Carry On' as Tim Gunn would say. I'll get nowhere fast with a poor attitude so I'm going to try and salvage my day and enjoy the beautiful weather! How is it that the first day of Fall is Sunny and in the mid-70's?!

P.S. The Barenaked Ladies put me in a good mood, as do the almost daily compliments on my awesome Hello Kitty Bike, so I'll be blasting the tunes as I ride over to the Fair. That should help me buck up!

Splenda: Sleeping With the Enemy

For a long time I was convinced that I could and would have the resolve of a Buddhist monk and almost completely cut out certain foods from my life. A big problem I have with losing weight is that I have a very sensitive sense of taste (and am picky as hell about a variety of other things like texture, spice, etc). I can easily distinguish 'full flavor' foods from 'lite' and low fat/calorie foods. Something that I especially hate(d) is that when you try to lose weight, you inevitably run into The Fake Sugars. Sucralose (Splenda), aspartame (Equal), saccharin (Sweet N Low), Stevia plant sugar (Truvia) and all their friends are most unwelcome in my mouth. I can immediately taste the difference and find it hard to stomach the taste. Even their smell is distinct, as blindfolded I have identified on several occasions Diet Coke from Coke on scent alone.

As I write this, the taste of aspartame sweetened Iced Tea hangs in my mouth from a glass I had over a half hour ago. Damn do these artificial sweeteners have staying power!

I finally realized that drinking water, skim milk, and 100% juice won't even satisfy me as I love the tastes of iced tea, coffee, soda, and everything else that will add about 1,000 extra calories a day. Even pure, 100% juice has a lot of calories in it and it's supposed to be 'good' for you! So I've resigned myself to start the incorporation of fake sugars in my every day life, very much to the chagrin of my taste buds. I can only stand so much water, to the point that disliking the taste of Splenda and Aspartame isn't enough to keep me from trying to enjoy iced teas and sodas sweetened with these two abominations.

While I don't think I'll be fully abandoning sugar ever, I must say that my hierarchy of fake sweeteners from most tolerable to least is as follows:
-Sucralose/Splenda
-Aspartame/Equal: actually, it's kind of tied with Splenda, but the pure texture of Aspartame is less pleasant to me
-Saccharin/Sweet N Low
-Anything ending in 'tol' (Sorbitol, Maltitol, etc): These are technically sugar alcohols used widely in diabetic friendly foods & candies, but they cause 'gastrointestinal distress' which just weirds me out. I've never eaten enough of these to have a real issue, but I don't really want to find out how much I would have to eat for the effects to become apparent...
-Stevia (Truvia, or any other plant based sweeteners): Just nasty. I hate these so much that after a few sips of the Vitamin Waters with stevia I had to pour the rest out. Usually with the rest I can stand a full bottle or cup well enough


In keeping with this theme, I highly warn anyone with acute taste such as I've described against drinking the Turkey Hill Farm Decaf Diet Orange Iced Tea. The aspartame taste hits you first, followed by a pathetic attempt at a fake orangey flavor to conceal the awfulness of it. The end result is a short wave of tolerable fake sugar followed by a wave of nasty that has a real staying power on the taste buds.

I have to run to Accounting class soon, but I'm working on making more review posts of the foods I've been using to control my calorie in take. Just FYI, Smart Ones Swedish Meatballs aren't that horrible, and that's coming from a real fan of traditional Swedish Meatballs!