Relapse and Recap

Hello Blogsville, Ok. So I ate pizza today. Yeah. You heard me right. Pizza. See it seems like I am relapsing and I have to nip this madness in the bud before it destroys my weightloss aspirations. See, I had yogurt (which unfortunately was sweetened as I like my yougurt to be greek and very tart) and plenty of fruit that I bought from costco. Its this cut up fruit salad in a bowl that has mangoes, cantaloup, honey dew and pineapples all cut up. Then I had a banana. I couldnt find any rotisserrie chicken at costco and so I have been eating tilapia fish fillet. I just cook it in a non stick pan with very little oil. And then eat it with my salad. So all last week I did well and sunday night I was to have pasta but oh my no whole grain pasta. So I had to settle for white pasta. The next morning I had white rice, vegetables and stew. Yeah and I had no lunch cause I shopped all afternoon. 4 stores and 1000 dollars of merchandise and a lot of leg and arm work. Yeah. And then I went home and my sis had cooked this devlish jollof rice. I ate some and splurged on the oven dried beef and then went to bed. Monday I continued my diet stuff and diddnt have much of an apetite due to the cold I have been battling. Tuesday I went gaga. No breakfast. Lunch was eba and vegetable soup. Now Eba is high in calories but also high in fiber. And dinner, I diddnt plan to eat cause I felt full but then after spring cleaning my room and doing a mountain of laundry, Hunger pangs hit me at 10pm and I settled for the only thing I could lay my hands on which was some indomie noodles. Was a 520 calories pack. So I broke the rule of eating most of my calories during the day and tappering off as the day advances into the night. So I need to go back to the drawing board and stick to the rules. So tommorrow is another day to start afresh. In positive news, I have a new stash of apple sauce. Ok. Now. To the recap. I am going to attempt to tell the story of how I got here. See 2006/2007 I was diagnosed with depression, anxiety, insomnia and I received a mix of drugs to deal with these. One of the drugs was Ambien and reports have shown that Ambien can lead to an onset of NSRED. I took Ambien for 2-3 years approx. In 07/08 my sister and I were housemates in Chico State and one night she stayed up to study all night. Something we call TDB (meaning till day breaks). According to her, I had gone to the fridge 3-4 times to eat withing 5 hours. She attested that I was alseep/awake during these episodes. She then asked me a question "Ozi are you this hungry" and this statement marks the first time I have an awareness that I am eating at night. Never knew I was doing something like this. 2009, I graduate from college and move home and now I know that I am really doing something really wrong. Every morning, my bed had particles of food in it and I have no recollection of eathing the food. As a rule, I am never hungry in the morning. Also, I am very strict with what I eat cause I know that at night, the strange zoombism would start and I would negate all the hard work. I also became an astute member of 24 hour fitness and would exercise 5 times a week so I became my fittest and I was healthy despite my issues. I was about 210 pounds then. 2010 I started graduate school. Increasing stress, no time for exercise and all and I started packing on the pounds. Slowly but surely. I would exercise whenever I had a chance, particularly during breaks but never enough to negate the damage I did at night. The fridge was very close to my room and I had time too cook all sorts so I ate and ate and ate (at night though). And I put up attempts to lose the weight but I gradually lost the battle. So steady weight gain. Ok. 2012 I am done with grad school and I am 226pounds. I am ashamed of it but nothing I can do. NSRED continues. Plus stress. Lots of stress with job hunting. 2014 working and schooling concurrently. Now even more stress. But something happens. August 14 I believe I hurt my back at work. Spine MD tells me arthritis, DDD, back older than body. Bottom line LOSE WEIGHT. I am helpless and cry. Tell my sister who advises me to go to my primary and ask for help. I make the appointment. I see him and attempt to tell him but shyness and shame holds me back. He then tells me to write him and email and tell him whatever I want to say. I believe this saved my life. I write him. He responds with more questions about my night eating brouhaha. I tell him. He comes up with Binge eating disorder extreme as the diagnosis. I start to research binge eating and question it because as rule I dont binge during the day. During my research I came across NSRED and then I brought it up with him. He agreed. Started me on Lamictal 25 mg and advanced to 50mg. And now I sleep through the night and wake up ravenous. So its going good. So today I had my first accupuncture appointment. And going again on friday. and I am loving it. So thats it.

Another Mile Stone.

Hello Blog, Today is another mile stone. It is exactly 3 weeks since I started taking Lamictal 5Omg nightly. And its crazy cause it seems like I have lost 7 pounds. I just cant believe it. Its so wonderful to finally be able to lose weight and get healthy. See, I started taking Lamictal on the 13th of november, precisely one day after I had the proceedure for my back. So as expected I am joyful. Remember the sweet lemons, I hunted them down. I went to Eliat food market (seems to be a persian/jewish) market and hunted that sucker down. And boy, they were ridiculously cheap. As a matter of fact everything was ridiculously cheap and this store is in Beverly Hills. Oh my. This is so so strange. And guess what, most of the fruits/vegetables are labelled Organic. Now I smell a rat. Organic stuff is usually expensive because of the strict production guidelines. This market might be honestly dishonest (please refer to the entry titled HOnest food). Or maybe its just a miracle. Maybe its actually organic. I also found a new fruit. I bought a piece and I need to find out what exactly it is. Now I am craving. Honestly I am. This morning I had my usual starbucks run for my chai teabag. And then the madaline cookies started calling out to me. It was intense. I thank God that I had the courage to say NO. I believe that these cravings are my body's response to the new changes. See, my body has been stuck in the fat range for a long time but now I am losing weight and my body feels this is weird so its trying to crave carbohydrates that would take me back to my past. Now, fruits are sweet and soo its time to consume more fruits in order to satisfy my sweet tooth with fewer calories. I am out of food. I packed the last of my spring mix for lunch today, also my rotiseerie chicken has been eaten to the bones. I am out of carrots and all the good stuff. So its time to stock up on food. Yeah. So I will be heading to trader joes, costco and my new store. Now I have had chicken for the past two weeks and I am becoming sick and tired of it. So I will turn to starkist tuna mixed with avocado, greek yogurt, ornions and the list goes on. I will formulate new accompaniments for my salads. Also, I have been spending tons of money buying fruit mixes outside of my home. Yeah like four dollars every money. Enough of that. I will buy 1 water melon, 1 honey dew melon, 1 cantaloupe and one strange looking melon that I saw at the eliat food market. I will peel them, cut them up and store them in my fridge. This would be breakfast (with boiled eggs) with greek yogurt every morning. Yesterday morning, I did not have breakfast cause I slept in late in the morning. At 12 noon I had a large pear and then at 1pm, I had some whole grain pasta and tomato sauce (stuff that Nigerians call stew)accompanied by two boiled eggs. Was lovely. The pasta was of very little quantity so at 5pm I was expectedly ravenous. I had ewaagoyin, with garri sweetened with splenda. Afterward 1 cup of reeeses peanut butter cup at 110 calories. An hour after that I had 3 slices of bad bread (and this was the only blunder in my diet) cause I still felt hungry. The bread was 100 calories per slice totalling 300 calories. So its important not to wait till I am too hungry cause then I go overboard. I still love my sweets and I brought this up with the nutritionist yesterday. It was her advice to limit sweet consumption to 100 calories per day. She recommended a sweet for me that I can purchase at trader Joes. I will be hunting that stuff down soon. This new week stir fries and a variety of pepper soups (fish, goat, chicken, mutton) will be added to my diet. Next entry in this blog will be a recap of my journey so far. Of how I got to 236 pound and where I am on my road to recovery. Stay tuned.

Updates, Matters arising and Progress report.

Hello. Its about 8.00 on Tuesday morning and I am spanking. Yeah. Am good. So I am having some anxiety. See I was supposed to weigh myself sunday or monday but I did not because I am anxious. I dont know what I would find and I dont want to know cause I fed up of having fluctuations in self esteem that is tied to fluctuations on the scale. So I wont check it. But I might have to check it when I get to the doctors office today and tommorrow. I dont know how that would go. Lets see. So something strange happened to me yesterday. I went clothes shopping at nordstrom and all the clothes I bought were 1X. Strange. Really strange. I dont know what this means. I really dont know but I dont want to obsesses about it some I am just going to let it be. Ok. I went to see the spine doctor yesterday and I would still be on light duty and the next step in my treatment would be accupuncture. The facet injections really helped but did not take all my pain away. I still have pain when I stand for a duration greater than 1 hour and when I sit for a duration greater than 1 hour. One of my greatest wishes now is to get better so that I can go back to vigorous exercise. That would accelerate my weightloss. But for now I have to be content with the rate of my progress. Ok so saturday and sunday I went bananas. I ate and ate. I had rice, I had cheese cake and I had apple pies. The difference is that I had smaller portions of these calorie bombs. You see I followed the 80/20 rule. 80% of the time you eat clean and then 20% of the time you go bananas. So that is what I did. I am still dealing with my sweet tooth and the nutritionist replied and gave me tips on how to deal with it. The plan I have chosen is called controlled indulgence. You see I cant just say I wont eat sweets. That is not feasible by me. So I will plan for it. I will have a controlled amount of it and I wont starve myself cause when we do that, we eat just too much. Yesterday for breakfast I had 2 fried eggs that was fried with very minimal oil in a nonstick pan. Then I had a banana at 12 noon. At 1pm I had a super salad (I will explain what I mean by super salad) and at 5pm I helped my niece to finish her icecream (but it was very little in quantity). For dinner I had a handfull of pounded yam with egusi soup. The only problem with my diet yesterday is that I at late (but that was because I was very busy). I wanted to make a stirfry but I was just too busy to do it. I will do it soon. Also Yesterday I made my chicken and avocado stuff. Now thinking about it I realize I made a glorified chicken salad with avocado instead of mayonaise which is a healthier option. I used avocado with onions and then the chiken from the 2 rotiserrie chicken that I bought at costco two weeks ago. It came out delish, however my magic bullet dulled my game. It did not hold up to chopping the onions and mixing the stuff properly. So to continue my experiments I would have to invest in a food processor. This morning, I just had some fruit and two boiled eggs. The fruit was a medley of melons (watermelon, cantelope and honey dew melons). The boss gave me a handfull of almonds (So generous of him) and I have my chai tea and am sipping away cause the nonsense URI has come again (courtsey of my adorable niece). Okidoki. See you later.

Chopplate.

Hello, blog Ok so its a brand new morning and I feel rested. Got some work done yesterday and it was great. Now yesterday I at an American Thanksgiving menu for lunch. I did this at work. Let me explain. You see a colleague brought in leftovers from her thanksgiving dinner. She said that she didnt cook it but bought it from a high end restaurant. So before the feast (for breakfast) I had a banana and chai tea (flavored with vanilla and chocolate essence,splenda and half and half).So I will call that about 150 calories. Now to the feast. You see my palate is primarily Nigerian, although I am very adventourous. I have eaten thai, chinese, japanese, persian, columbian, malaysian and the list goes on. I actually like to try new stuff. But, I HAVE NEVER TRIED STUFFING. I guess I have been ethnocentric about it. How can someone mash some bread and vegetables and call it food. Serious.I have been derogatory when it comes to that. But mehn, by error I had a bite and then I was hooked. That stuff was AHAMAZING. OH MY GOODNESS. I actually finished all the stuffing. Then there was this amazing turkey. (Remember I said in previous post that we had beef instead). The turkey was so good. But the best of all was this devilish chocolate cake. That stuff was deadly. See I have a sweet tooth so I had little control. It was extremely moist, decadent, not too sweet and not bitter either, with some mouse that would just melt in your mouth and glide down your throat. I saw several visions of heaven while eating that stuff. If there is anything called a food orgasm, I had it. In nigerian lingo I would say THIS NA TEMPTATION. So I would say I ate like 1000 calories there or maybe 1200. Then I got home a bit hungery. Had the last of my mutton pepper soup and then went straight to bed. Now something bad happened. I still dont have my phone up and working so I have NO reminders to take my darling lamictal. And so I did not take it and I did not wake up to eat. I actually slept through the night and had difficutly waking up from sleep cause I wanted to sleep some more. I would say I had between 1300 and 1800 calories yesterday. Now I have several appointments next week. 1. With the doctor. I will like to ask him for a definitive diagnosis. I am not a binge eater. I am a nocturnal binge eater. Nocturnal binging and day time binging are not the same thing. So we need a definition. I will also ask him about how to continue to get well. I dont want to relapse. I also need to know the clinical course and the road to recovery. 2. For the dietitican I need help with my sweet tooth. How do I deal with cravings? Alternatives to the regular sugar and general times on healing. 3. Spine doctor. I want to get back to the gym full time. How do I do it. So thats it for now.

A thankful thanksgiving: Diet review

This Thanksgiving, I have so so much to be thankful for. For the first time in a very long time, thanksgiving is significant to me. You see Thanksgiving day 27th of November, marks exactly 14 days (2 weeks) since I started taking Lamictial. It was 1 day after I had the outpatient proceedure for my back. On the 13th I started taking 25mg of Lamictal and started to notice results immediately. On thursday the 20th I moved from 25mg to 50mg and I feel even better. I am thankful for sleep. For restful sleep. For being able to sleep through the night without getting up severally to eat. I am thankful that I am able to deal with the shame, the hurt, the dissapointment in myself and the low self esteem. Its a wonderful thing to sleep through the night. In addition my relationship with my sister is getting even better. We are talking about our issues with weight. We are communicating in a way that we have never done before. I used to see her as superhuman and flawless. Used to fear her wisdom. But now I realize that just like me, she has her fears and failures. Ok. So it was a new type of thanksgiving for us because for the first time ever we decided against turkey. We opted for beef instead. Dinner was Ewaagoyin, yam pottage, obe ata (pepper stew) and nkwobi (goat meat in a spicy sauce). It was a huge shift from the usual rice (fried, jollof and coconut), fried plantains, turkey, cake and soda. We had soda but it was diet soda. Now the African yams are high in calories but they are also super high in fiber. So I can expect increased intestinal activity. So yesterday morning my mom, sister and I went on an hour walk. We burned about 400 cals as per fitness pal. For breakfast I had one string cheese 50 cals and a boiled egg 70cals totalling about 120. Now for lunch, I had some leftover pepper soup. But the meat had too much fat on it. However I was to hungry to care and so I ate it all. Now after dinner my sister and SIL went for a walk. I wanted to go but my back was killing me. So I just stayed pu. We ended the day by watching a nice movie together and we laughed the night away. So I need to up my game with my diet because I cannot exercise like I want to. I am going to do so by cutting down on meat and more fruits and vegetables. I wanna incoporate fruits into my breakfasts. Instead of having only salads, I also want stirfries. So thats going to be a new thing in my diet. I am also on the rampage for new fruits and vegetables. Recently, someone introduced me to something called sweet lemons. I am in hot pursuit of this stuff and I will tell you more when I catch it. I am off now. Wish me well.

HOnest Food

Ok so for 9 years I had always bought peanut butter at Walmart. I was used to the low price of the great value brand.  No eyebrows raised, I believed it was peanut butter no questions asked. One sunny day I went to trader Joes and my roving eyes caught a sight. It was a jar, with some brown pasty stuff and oil on top. Hmmmmmm. What was this I had to take a look. So I picked it up and looo and behold it said trader Joes peanut butter. Whatttt? Peanut butter. Why the liquid oil at room temperature on top of the brown pasty stuff. I read the ingredients. It said peanut and salt.... So my mind started racing. Whats going on here. Why is this different from the one I am accustomed to???? So I bought a jar and took it home and decided to do a side by side comparison.

When I got home I looked at the gv brand. The ingredients included peanut salt, sugar, hydrogenated vegetable oil.... REALLY? HYDROGENATED VEGETABLE oil.  Why would someone take something as wholesome and nutritious as the peanut and HYDROGENATE IT. Seriously. Converting an unsaturated fat to saturated fat. BUT WHYYYYYYYYYY. Then whats the point of adding sugar to it? After this experience, I became an avid food label reader.

Yesterday at clinicals, my coursemates decided that we pool money together and buy some food. Even though I was armed with my salad, apple, trader joes peanut butter and apple sauce, I decided to indulge them. And then they said it was $30 per plate. Thirty whattt. Please what am I eating? GOLD........ I swallowed the lump in my throat and paid the money. When the food came it was a spread of different sauces and dips and grilled chicken breast and beef and salads and chopped cucumber salad and a flat bread.

I was determined to eat $30 worth of the food so I proceeded with a flat bread, piled the salad up on it, and then beef (as I don't like chicken breast) and then I wrapped it. As soon as I took a bite, I understood why the food cost so much. It was wholesome. The cucumbers tasted like they had just been harvested. The beef was the best cut. Tender and juicy. During the meal, my coursemate mentioned that all the food was organic. So finally it made sense. I was paying for the wholesomeness and thus $30 did not seem so bad for this meal.

See there is a lot of dishonesty in our world today AND IN OUR FOOD.  Pink slime, fillers, difficult to pronounce chemicals and the list goes on. Have you ever wondered how Mac Donalds is able to sell a cheese burger for $1?? My guess is that if the beef is real and wholesome, then it could not be $1.   Last Sunday I went to Costco and saw a sample of some stuff. So I decided to try it and oh it was so delicious. It was an intense medley of dried fruits, nuts and berries. Believe me the flavor was absolutely wonderful. And then I looked at the package, it said all natural, wholesome. I quickly grabbed a pack. I was going to enjoy this miracle. But the foodist in me decided to read the ingredient list. Chief of which was sugar and then other difficult to pronounce ingredients. I quickly returned the bag to its rightful place because this deception does not belong in my body.

Seasoning bullion is ingrained in Nigerian cusine. I don't know where we learnt this from but there is almost no Nigerian home where "maggi" as we affectionately call it is not resident. It goes into every dish. But what exactly is maggi? And why do we insist that our food is not tasty and flavorful enough without this chemical compound. Honestly I don't know when maggi came into  Nigerian cuisine and why we have embraced it with such fervor.  But I do know that it is deceitful because we use it to get the umami taste that our assorted meats, fish and spices should give us. My guess that maggi is a response to poverty and urban life. You see in the rural areas meat is fresh and absolutely tasty. Fresh herbs and other things make food so so delicious. However, these are missing in urban areas and so we resort to maggi to achieve this goal.

I once had an apple that stayed in my car for 6 weeks and yet did not spoil. Now this is a modern day miracle because fruits and vegetable are fragile and should spoil if not consumed within a time frame. It was a curious site. Now the apple was wrinkled no doubt but still edible. Later I learnt that most fruits and vegetables in the United States are coated with a waxy substance (which is a derivative of petroleum) in order to inhibit oxidation that causes spoilage. So the apple is not honest. And we no not what the wax does in ourbodies. I bought a box of tomatoes in downtown los angeles and the carton stated the tomatoes had the same compound.

So there it is deception everywhere. Now its a broken world and there is no absolute truth. We can only aim to be persons of truth and integrity and constantly and consistently work towards it.Its a process. Wont happen in one day. Now I pledge my alligience to honesty, integrity and righteousness and regards food. I will do everything within my power to ensure that I eat truthful food. But you know that many things I cant control. But what I can, I will because it will all ensure that I am healthy.

Ok. So. The conclusion of the matter is that I will never buy store brand peanut butter. QED.

Happy Thanksgiving. Sweet Temptations and Updates.

OK so tomorrow is thanksgiving and I have so so much to be thankful for. So much. Chief on this list is that I have some control of the madness that has afflicted me all these years. I am now able to deal with the shame, the anxiety and the unhappiness that it has caused me. This is something I am extremely thankful about. Thankful for school, for a job and for the promise of a bright future.

So yesterday I had some tummy ache because I had taken my pain pills without food. (and by the way I am still dealing with my back issue). So I didn't have breakfast until 1030am. Breakfast was an 80 calories greek yogurt with 2 50calories pack of original apple sauce. At 12 noon, I had a pack of 130 calories baked lays potato chips and 3 saltine crackers. I will put that as 200 calories.

At 4pm I was hungry so I dived into my decadent salad of spring mix, shredded coconut, raisen, sliced sweetened almonds and my Nigerian style hummus. Yummylicious. Then I began to crave goat meat pepper soup. Oh my I could even smell it. It was etched deeply into my conciouness. So I stopped at the grocery store and searched for goat meat and al I could find was mutton which is lamb meat. I cooked the meat and then went to my sisters house to take the spices for the pepper soup. My soup was success. Now to the temptation aspect. While at the store my spirit began to crave sweets. Seriously. There is a small sweet section just by the checkout and my roving eyes stopped at a 7 member pack of tootsie roll that went for 50cents and totaled 150 calories. It was automatic. I don't know how it happened. My body just magnetized the tootsie and I ate the whole thing. Then in my fridge my BIL left some sugar wafers and again the automatic movements happened. I found myself eating approximately 300 cals of this. I need help with my sweet tooth and please don't tell me not to eat sweets because YESS I love sweets. I just need help with how to manage sweets. HEEEELLLLLLPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP.

Ok. So the foodist in me is thinking up a recipie. You see I have some rotiseerie chicken in the fridge and I bought some avocado yesterday. I am dreaming up a dip of chicken, avocado, maybe some beans and whatever my mind tell me is just right. I will tell you all about it soon. Also coming up is something I call "HOnest Food". Yeah. Too much dishonesty in the world today. We need some truth and I will be exposing a lot of the deception out there today. Ave gatta run now. Its time for clinicals. Wish me well.