Monday, January 14, 2008

An Odd Moment

One thing about this 'lifestyle change' is that it's eating into my (pardon the pun, it wasn't intentional) leisure time. Generally speaking, I cooked dinner 3 - 4 times a week and the rest of the days, Thomas and Darcy were "on their own" for food. Which is to say, generally fast food, eating out of a can, or heating leftovers.

Since we joined Weight Watchers, I have cooked dinner Every Single Night except for the one night we ate out. I have also cooked breakfast and lunch on weekends for Thomas. Now, sometimes cooking lunch doesn't mean anything more than making a tuna wrap and prepping some soup and salad... but still, these things take time. And I'm also calculating point values for my meals and his. I know, I know. I should make him do his own calculations. Except that he's not preparing his own lunch, so how the heck is he going to know what the point value is unless I tell him? And I'm NOT letting him in my kitchen... since we've been married, he's torched one perfectly good stock pot, three frying pans, broken the top of the crisper tray in the fridge, busted two blenders and nearly set the kitchen on fire. You see why I worry? Good.

I've also done the dishes Every Single Day. And gone for a walk three times this week.

On the weekends, that's Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner fixing, one load of dishes done. For a total of one hour, twenty minutes of activity per day added to my schedule. On weekdays, that's sixty-five minutes of added activity. That's eight hours a week, plus the hour of the meeting itself. (As a note, Thomas took it on himself last week to complain that the housework wasn't getting done. ... )

That wasn't exactly what I wanted to talk about today, though.

I have been less hungry this week. Since I complained about it last week, I thought it only fair to admit that it was getting better. Sort of. I can be not-hungry when I'm not eating, although eating often makes things worse. I'll eat all my dinner or lunch and for the next hour or so after I'm done, I'm still hungry. Or at least, I feel hungry. Like 'that wasn't enough.' Sometimes it's actually more painful hungry than the 'I don't really need a snack right now' hungry. My various sources tell me that this is normal, and that I'll gradually be able to read my actual food intake needs a little better. Sigh. Yeah, whatever. It's still annoying and sometimes downright painful... and I understand why people quit dieting after the first few weeks.

Remember what I said a few days back about the "I had more energy after a few days..." Well, I'm not sure this counts, exactly, but my lord, has our marital activities stepped up quite a bit. Not that we were ever in a rut (yes, ok, that pun was intended. Sorry, move along.) mind you, but I'd say that has increased by at least 50%. We'll see if that keeps up (yes, yes, pun. I know...) because you know, I'm not complaining...

Which is still not what I meant to talk about. I'm sort of rambling a bit here...

The moment I had was last night.

You know the Crisper, right? That drawer in your refrigerator into which you put things specifically for them to rot? Does a crisper actually do anything? Aside from give you a closed place to let your fruits and vegetables rot peacefully? I've never noticed that it saves fruits and veggies for any longer than leaving them on a shelf. But then, I've always lived in an apartment and had shitty appliances. My friend Leigh has a gloriously expensive fridge and I'm willing to believe that her little hermetically sealed drawers might actually do something, but mine... nah... just puts a solid lid over the garden mulch I'm cultivating in cold storage.

In any case, I'd put out a fruit bowl on the countertop - a nice arrangement of apples, pears, peaches, lime and avocado - on Thursday because the crisper was a little overfull. Yesterday, there was one apple, a lime, and the avocado left in it. I bent down to pull out some more fruit for the bowl... and the crisper was almost empty.

There were two roma tomatoes, a half an onion in a little ziplock bag, and half a bag of baby carrots.

Nothing was turning into a suspiciously watery black lump. There were no shapeless grocery bags full of splotchy tomatoes, or sprouting onions. The bottom of the crisper was clean.

Well... how about them apples?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

For the record, I've always wondered... how many Activity Points can you count for "marital activities"?

But I've never had the nerve to ask at the meetings ;)

Unknown said...

Thanks for the link. I will do the same.

Summer said...

Leigh, I'm sorry to say that I've heard that "marital activities" burn surprisingly few calories. Unless, of course, you're very creative and come up with activities that don't involve lying down!

Speaking of the same, I've found that every time I've started working to improve my body and health, I start feeling sexier long before any results are actually visible on my body. And if I feel sexy, I'm more interested in the activities, which means more activities, because is the husband going to say no? Of course not.

Lynn, hooray on emptying the fruit basket and crisper! And this is probably a really stupid/obvious suggestion, but have you stocked up on frozen meals or other nearly-instant meals for those times when you don't have the time or desire to cook? I know that a lot of them are pretty grim, but some of them have to be decent... I bet if you asked at your next meeting, the other members would be able to tell you which frozen dinners were palatable. And there's always soup... I tend to buy lots of Progresso soup when it's on sale. One of my favorite quick, healthy meals is Progresso lentil soup mixed with frozen spinach and curry powder. It's delicious, and surprisingly filling. I can't finish the whole can, only about half, which is odd because the other soups tend to leave me still hungry even after eating the whole "2 serving" can.