Eat This Not That

I haven't blogged in eons.  It's not that I didn't want to - I did.  It's not that nothing was happening - it was.  I was just remiss.  I realized that the last time I wrote was in September!! So, what happened between then and now? Well, dfhldkuhaoi7eyrieutyauir tryuhfsdafui.  There you go, that was the compressed version of the last 10 months or so.

So, what's up today?  I'm going to turn 51 in less then a month.  Oh joy. I am now, what I have always called "an older lady."  I was obviously heartless during those times when I said that.

If you can read the compressed 10 month event history above, you know that I've been through radiation that began the day after I started a new job.  How's that for really bad timing?  I went from zero to zoom in 1.5 seconds and haven't slowed down since. The job thing has been interesting and probably exactly what I needed to blow all the chemo out of my brain.  Although, I will be writing another blog about what it's like to start a job wearing a wig...then another wig....and then no wig.  Not a pleasant experience at all.  On the other hand, I have lots of new work friends and I like them a lot.  More on all that in another blog.

So back to the same old complaint.  Weight.  sheesh.  What is up with that anyway??  My husband changed his eating habits about 7 months ago and lost 65 pounds.  I changed my eating habits a month ago (my eating habits weren't all that bad to begin with, by the way) and I gained 2 pounds.  That just proves that age matures a man's appearance, but it makes women fat.  That's just not right.

Eat this not that.  So, apparently the trick is to eat the calories you need to maintain the weight you want to be.  Okay - that sounds easy, right?  Do you know that 2 Twizzlers are 150 calories??? There is something so wrong with that - I can't begin to list the degree to which that is just awful.

I should consume 1320 calories per day. That sounds like a lot to me.  Well, it did until I started to discover how many calories there are in food.  Take 1/2 cup of Maggie Moo's ice cream...there's 180 calories in that.  By 1/2 cup, I don't mean half the volume of the over sized coffee mug you have in kitchen cabinet.  I mean a real, measured, actual 1/2 cup.  You don't even have the opportunity to order a 1/2 cup of ice cream from Maggie Moo's! In the smallest container, I know they serve at least 1 cup - which, by the way, is 360 calories - over 1/4 of the calories I get for a whole day! They don't even list the calories for the hot fudge that you know you are going to put on that ice cream.  Oh, and there are 130 calories in 1 serving of hot fudge. Want to know what a serving is?  It's 1 tablespoon.  How many tablespoons do you think it takes to make that hot fudge coat the ice cream and drip down the sides? I'm thinking it's over 1 serving.  Okay so let's say that you order Maggie Moo's ice cream with hot fudge on top.  That could easily cost 620 calories! It's too painful to contemplate.  There is bliss in ignorance....but there's also body fat in ignorance.

What to eat instead of ice cream with hot fudge? Well, there's a little sugar free Jello mousse dessert that I use as a substitute for real desserts.  It's good and it's only 60 calories.  Okay so it's not Maggie Moo's - but I don't have to spend an 1- 2 hours on the elliptical machine after eating it.  Yes, that's right - in order to eat Maggie Moo's ice cream with hot fudge, I would have to endure a 120 minute workout on the eliptical. Have you ever spent more than 30 minutes on one of those things?  Boring is an understatement.  Let's face it, I don't have enough patience or time in the day to eat Maggie Moo's ice cream!