A Healthy Diet

Criteria:

1) Satisfying. Each meal (or snack) should be able to keep you from feeling hungry for as long as you need it too--anywhere from three to five hours. The frequency with which you eat will depend on each person. There is an argument to be made that eating more often keeps the metabolism revved up-- and that will help with weight loss. It's an argument. Some can do this. Some want to and can eat more often than others, for others, (like me) this just leads to inappropriate eating. I prefer to eat as I did on the whole 30-- just three filling meals per day, no snacks. To my way of thinking, the less I need to eat, the less I will actually eat, and the less I prompt a rush of insulin into my bloodstream, the better.

2) Adequate calories for activity. (Slightly fewer for weight loss.)

3) Lots of vitamins and minerals (and other stuff science is only beginning to identify) found in whole foods.

4) Nothing you are intolerant towards, whether that be fat (my gallstones) or gluten (celiac disease) or lactose, for example.

5) Affordable.

6) Sustainable. This is more than just affordability, it also includes variety (if you can afford that), and whatever it requires of you to prepare the food you're eating. Some advocates of paleo diets advised their participants to "cook on the weekends" and if they meant cook all weekend (or even one day) for the week ahead, there's no way that would work for me. Not right now, anyway. For others, that might be fine, even fun.

I've left out the whole macro breakdown on purpose. (That is, what proportions of carbs/fats/protein should be in the diet). Human beings have survived on all sorts of diets--and no particular macro breakdown is appreciably better than another for weight loss.

Are there other things I should be considering? Is there anything I've left out?

August Menu Plan, Week 2

All of the meat for this week, except the salmon, will be from the freezer.

Special:
Wild Coho salmon steaks, fresh, $1.89/100 g.

Still, horribly expensive, but as Bittman says, it is Wild-Salmon Season.

Weekly Meal Plan (temperatures in parentheses):

Monday (26): Lemon and herb salmon, rice, corn on the cob
Tuesday (25): Brined, BBQ chicken, cucumber salad, broccoli
Wednesday (28): Crock pot garlic pulled pork, boiled potatoes, coleslaw
Thursday (29): Home made hamburgers, potato salad, spinach, tomato, black olive, and feta salad
Friday (26): Unstuffed cabbage, rice.
Saturday (22): Italian #3 (from Well-Fed, p. 37), oven-fried potatoes
Sunday (24): Moroccan grilled chicken, (Well-fed, p. 37) rice, fruit salad.

August Menu Plan, week 1

Yes.
I am planning my suppers a week at a time now.

I noticed a few months ago that if I bought meat when it came on sale, it was actually cheaper than buying it at full price on 10% Tuesday. As a result, I now have a freezer full of food--and we need to eat it up.

I could make up a menu plan for the month with what we have on hand, but I choose not too. I made up my menus weekly last month and I actually enjoyed it.

Advantage: I did not under buy--or over buy on produce. Because I do so much work up front planning the monthly menus when it came time to sit down on Sunday and figure out the produce we needed for what I had planned, I was slapdash and hurried about it. That led to forgetting items and sending my husband almost daily to the grocery store on his way home from work. Even though he is very good at sticking to the list and rarely goes off plan, it didn't seem the best approach, really. The less you go into the grocery store, the less you will spend. End of story.

So, now I check the weather (I don't want to use the oven on a hot day. 24 degrees is a hot day in these parts.) I look at the Safeway flyer, think about what we're doing, and then pick what to eat.

(All temperatures are in celcius)

Tuesday (21)
Ground pork with cabbage and apple on rice. (Well Fed)

Wednesday (18)
Homemade pizza with Bittman's simple pizza dough.

Thursday (20)
 Shepard's skillet with broccoli

Friday (23)
Magical Chicken legs, rice, cabbage and carrot salad

Saturday (24)
Crock pot Stroganoff, spinach salad.

Sunday (25) My daughter's 13th birthday!
Brined, BBQ chicken (Well Fed p. 69), Hash browns. Corn on the Cob. salads. Homemade chocolate cake with chocolate icing and ice cream.

A Month of Meals: March

Every month, our local grocery stores feature 10% off the total grocery bill the first Tuesday of the month. We call it ten percent Tuesday. Or terrible Tuesday, depending on who's talking.

I plan our suppers for the entire month so I can stock up on meat and pantry items. Vegetables are picked up weekly.

Here's what was on special this week:

Chicken Breast $2.99/lb
Lean Ground Pork $2.99/lb
Stewing Beef 3.99/lb
Pork Shoulder Blade Steak 2.79/lb
Bacon $4.99/500 grams (a little more than a pound)

Lean ground beef was on sale last week for $2.99/lb. We picked up 7 pounds, maybe?

Links to recipes below calendar.

Code:
chicken: yellow
pork: grey
fish: basa fillets, shrimp or salmon: light blue
ground beef: pink

March 5: Sloppy Bobs x2 on leftover mashed cauliflower
March 6: Unstuffed Cabbage*, acorn squash
March 7: Chicken, Bacon and Sweet Potato Hash, spinach salad
March 8: Veggie Beef Freezer Stew
March 9: Salmon Cakes***, carrots, spinach
March 10: Roast Chicken and vegetables (parsnips, sweet potatoes, carrots, onion)
March 11: Chocolate Chili x2, (Take to Potluck)
March 12: Captain Chicken,** mashed cauliflower, carrots
March 13: Ground Pork, Sweet Potato and Apple hash, carrots, broccoli
March 14: Artichoke Chicken, spaghetti squash
March 15: Shrimp, fish and cabbage curry, mashed cauliflower
March 16: Pork Carnitas, roasted cabbage, mashed cauliflower
March 17: Garlic Pulled Pork, roasted sweet potato, asparagus
March 18: Sloppy Bobs x2 on spaghetti squash
March 19: One Pot Chicken Drumsticks
March 20: Hot Plate** 1 1/2lbs of pork and 6-8 cups chopped veggies sauteed.
March 21: Honey Mustard Mayo Chicken, carrots and spinach
March 22: Dino Beef Stew
March 23: Broiled Whitefish, butternut squash, green beans
March 24: Pork Shoulder, butternut squash, broccoli
March 25: Cottage Flower Pie x2, broccoli
March 26: Chicken thighs with Garlic, Sweet Potato, Coleslaw
March 27: Five Spice Slow Cooker Ribs, roasted rutabaga, salad
March 28: Orange-Olive Chicken*, mashed cauliflower
March 29: Veggie Beef Freezer Stew
March 30: Herb Roasted Salmon, leftover mashed cauliflower, roasted sweet potato
March 31: (Easter Dinner) Ham and ?
April 1: leftovers
April 2:  Chicken, Bacon and Sweet Potato Hash, spinach salad


*From The Primal Blueprint, Quick and Easy Meals by Mark Sisson and Jennifer Meier
**From Well-Fed, by Melissa Joulwen
***From It Starts with Food by Dallas and Melissa Hartwig

A Month of Meals: February

It's that time of the month again!

No, no, not that time of the month! It's ten percent Tuesday. Or terrible Tuesday, depending on who's talking. Every month, our local grocery stores feature 10% off the total grocery bill the first Tuesday of the month.

I plan our suppers for the entire month so I can stock up on meat and pantry items. Vegetables are picked up weekly.

I will be doing my best to stick to eating between 50 and 100 grams of carbohydrates a day, so while not every single one of these recipes may be "paleo" (Chicken pot pie, I'm looking at you!) they will let me reach my goal.

I won't provide links to recipes which are not--or cannot be made to be whole30 compliant. Some recipes have no links because they actually come from cookbooks.

According to this week's flyer, the following cuts of meat are on sale:

Chicken Breasts 2.99/lb
Fresh Frying Chicken 2.99/lb
Basa Fillets 908g (2 lbs) for $7.77 (Whitefish)
Fresh Lean Ground Pork: 2.99/lb
Fresh Pork Side Spareribs 2.49/lb

Once again, lean ground beef was on sale last week for 2.99/lb. I picked up as much as they would let me which wasn't nearly as much as I wanted.

(Links below calendar. Click calender to enlarge. Sorry about the quality. We run everything off on paper already used at my husband's work.)

Code:
chicken: yellow
pork: grey
fish: basa fillets, shrimp or salmon: light blue
ground beef: pink

February 5: Ground Beef and Sweet Potato Hash, salad.
February 6: Five Spice Slow Cooker Pork Ribs (from Melissa Joulwen) roast sweet potato, broccoli
February 7: Chicken, Bacon, and Sweet Potato Hash from Paleoperiodical, broccoli
February 8: Shrimp Stirfry, egg rolls.
February 9: Home made spaghetti sauce (with ground beef) over spaghetti squash
Febuary 10: Roasted Chicken with roasted parsnips, sweet potato, carrots and rutabaga
February 11: Chocolate Chili (from Melissa Joulwen), mashed cauliflower
February 12: Chicken Pot Pie
February 13: Pork Carnitas, (from Melissa Joulwen) mashed cauliflower, broccoli
February 14: Honey-Mustard- Mayo Chicken, momma's slaw* roasted sweet potato
February 15: Cod (or Whitefish) in Leek Sauce w/ Roasted Sweet Potatoes. From Fast Paleo. (new)
February 16:  Veggie Beef Stew adapted from Stuff I Make My Husband.
February 17: Roast Chicken with roasted root vegetables
February 18: Sloppy Bobs, (from allmeatnopotatoes), roasted spaghetti squash
February 19:  One Pot Chicken Drumsticks from Nom Nom Paleo
This was new last month and utterly awesome. It was an extraordinary amount of work: but I'm doing it again, it was that good!
February 20: Czech Meatballs** braised cabbage, peroghies (new)
February 21: Madagascar Chicken mashed cauliflower, broccoli
February 22: Herb Roasted Salmon, squash, green beans
February 23: Dino Beef Stew from Melissa Joulwen
February 24: Roast Chicken with roasted root vegetables
February 25: Cottage Flower Pie and broccoli from Melissa Joulwen
February 26: Captain Chicken,** mashed cauliflower, carrots (new)
February 27: Pork Chops Diane, Sweet Potatoes, broccoli
February 28: Artichoke Chicken Carbonara from PaleOMG
March 1: Shrimp, Tilapis (Whitefish) and Cabbage Curry from Paleomom, here. (new)
March 2: Paleo Shepard's Pie, green beans.
March 3: Roast Chicken, roasted root vegetables
March 4:  Chicken, Bacon, and Sweet Potato Hash from Paleoperiodical, broccoli

Code:
* recipe from  Paleo Comfort Foods by Julie and Charles Mayfield.
**recipe from Well Fed by Melissa Joulwen. I bought myself a copy for my birthday and it came super quick!

Hope that gives you a few ideas about what to cook!

A Month of Suppers: January

Every month, our local grocery stores feature 15% 10% off the total grocery bill the first Tuesday of the month. (This month, because That Tuesday fell on the first, Safeway decided to move up Ten Percent Tuesday to the eighth. The rest of the city's grocery stores aren't doing it at all, apparently.)

I plan our suppers for the entire month so I can stock up on meat and pantry items. Vegetables are picked up weekly. No one in the family is doing a whole30 (as far as I know) this month, and I'm still making up my mind about optional "paleo" items like yogurt, so this menu is kind of a hybrid. I can tell you this much, though, there are no grains, pasta, legumes or soy in any of the recipes.

According to this week's flyer, the following are on sale:

Chicken Breasts (2.99/lb)
Chicken Drumsticks (2.89/lb)
Chicken Thighs (2.99/lb)
Basa Fish fillets (Buy 1 get 1 free. No price given)
Pork shoulder blade steak (2.79/lb)
Ready to eat Prawns (400g for 6.99)

Lean ground beef was on sale last week, so I picked up quite a lot.

I like to use this shopping list at the bottom of this post from whole9life.com to help me figure out what veggies to buy. You know, something to help jolt me out of the carrots-broccoli-cauliflower-sweet potato-squash-zucchini-parsnips-rutabaga rut I tend to fall into.

(Links below calendar. Click to enlarge.)
yellow: chicken
grey: pork
light blue: basa fillets
dark blue: shrimp or salmon
pink: ground beef

I hope you will find these links open up a whole new world of food for you


January 8: Artichoke Chicken Carbonara from PaleOMG
January 9: Five Spice Slow Cooker Pork Ribs (from Melissa Joulwen) roast sweet potato, broccoli
January 10: Turkish Chicken Thighs (from Janet is Hungry) mashed sweet potato, broccoli
January 11: Citrus Fish, asparagus, roasted yams*
January 12: Roasted Chicken with roasted parsnips, sweet potato, carrots and rutabaga
January 13: Shrimp Stir-fry w/ frozen veggie mix
January 14: Ground Beef and Sweet Potato Hash, steamed green beans
January 15: Chicken, Bacon, and Sweet Potato Hash from Paleoperiodical, broccoli
January 16: Pork Carnitas, (from Melissa Joulwen) momma's slaw*
January 17: Honey-Mustard-Mayo glazed Chicken Thighs, roasted zucchini, mashed sweet potato
January 18: Lemon-Pepper Fish with creamed spinach* and sweet potato fries
January 19: Roasted Chicken and root vegetables
January 20: Herb Roasted Salmon, roasted carrots and broccoli
January 21: Chocolate Chili (from Melissa Joulwen), spaghetti squash
January 22: Honey-Mustard- Mayo Chicken, momma's slaw* roasted sweet potato
January 23: Amethyst's Paleo Meatloaf, roasted parsnips and carrots, broccoli
January 24: One Pot Chicken Drumsticks from Nom Nom Paleo
January 25: Lemon-Pepper Fish, acorn squash and mashed cauliflower
January 26: Roasted Chicken and root veggies
January 27: Shrimp Stir fry w/ Portobella mushrooms and bok choy
January 28: Sloppy Bobs, (from allmeatnopotatoes), roasted rutabaga
January 29: Chicken w/Apple Cider Sauce, mashed cauliflower, carrots.
January 30: Paleo Shepard's Pie, green beans.
January 31: Garlic Stuffed Chicken Thighs, roasted sweet potatoes, broccoli
February 1: Lemon-Pepper Fish, roasted carrots and parsnips, sauteed greens.
February 2: Roast Chicken and root veggies
February 3: Salmon Cakes (ISWF) mashed cauliflower, carrots
February 4: Cottage Flower Pie and broccoli from Melissa Joulwen

In addition, there are my husband's lunches to consider.

Week 1: Chocolate Chili (see above for link)
(One week vacation)
Week 2: Beef Stew
Week 3: Winter Sausage Soup and Meat and Spinach muffins.

*Recipes from my brand new cookbook: Paleo Comfort Foods by Julie and Charles Mayfield.
ISWF: It Starts with Food by Dallas and Melissa Hartwig

Soft Foods Plan for a Day

I knew this day was coming...and I didn't plan for it.

Today was the first of four sessions to treat my periodontal disease. In other words, the left side of my mouth was frozen all the way up to my eyeballs while someone took sharp metal instruments and scraped away at the roots of my teeth for two hours.

Yeah. That bad.

And it will happen three more times.

I didn't have a food plan for today: and so I scrambled around to figure out what to eat. Next time, I'll be ready.

(Breakfast does not need to be a "soft" food.)

Breakfast: 1 cup Oatmeal with fruit.

Lunch:
1 cup Black bean soup, pureed
or 1 cup Brody's lentil soup, pureed
1 cup vegetable juice,
1 piece of soft, ripe fruit, or canned peaches, or applesauce.

Dinner:
1/2 medium sweet potato boiled with 1 carrot. Mash with a fork.
1 cup boiled potato (without skin). Mash with skim milk and butter.
Poached salmon. (2 oz)

Snack 1: The infamous Dr. Oz green drink: (I'll make half of it.)

Dr. Oz Green Drink Recipe

• 2 apples, cored
• 2 big handfuls of spinach
• 1/2 cup of chopped parsley
• 1 celery stick, chopped
• 1 thumbnail length of ginger root, peeled
• 1 lemon - juice only (use peel slice for zest)
• 1 medium cucumber

Place ingredients in a blender, add 4 oz. spring water or a handful of ice cubes, then puree quickly for one minute. Makes two glasses of Dr. Oz’s green drink.


Snack 2: 1/2 cup yogurt with soft fruit, blended if necessary.

All I'm missing from this food plan is 1 serving (about 60 calories) of carbohydrates/starch/grains. I could use 1/2 cup of oatmeal, or 1/2 cup of mashed potatoes, possibly another 1/2 cup of bean soup (though my plan, unlike others, counts beans primarily as a protein and not a starch).

Here's a site I found with some great whole-food options: Soft Food Diet. Here's another from diettriffic

My next appointment is a couple of weeks away. Too soon for me.

In Relationship

When my son was yound and in distress, my first thought was always, "He's hungry." I would sit down and nurse him. He would calm and nurse for a while.

I did the same for my daughter. But, sometimes, she wouldn't take my breast. Eating did not calm her.

Later, when the kids would hurt themselves, I found myself offerring a cookie to them. My son would take it. My daughter would look at me as if I were nuts with that clarity only a three year old has. That was when I realised I was perpetuating my family's cycle of using food for comfort.

Comfort: It is only one aspect of my relationship with food. Our relationship needs to be redefined and renegotiated in order for me to lose weight--and for it to stay lost.

The Weekly Menu Plan

I am no stranger to planning my menus: in fact, I usually do it monthly to take advantage of what Safeway calls 10% Tuesday. I try and get everything I need for the freezer (including meat) and the pantry for the whole month on the first Tuesday. Safeway offers 10% off the entire grocery bill, including sales and coupons.

This month, however, we were away for 10% Tuesday, so I need to create a menu plan--and use up what we have in the freezer.

I also want to include two vegetables with each evening meal.

Here are our dinner plans for this week:

Monday:
Balsamic Chicken with cabbage and carrot salad.
boiled potato, cooked spinach and acorn squash

Tuesday:
Pork with apple and onion
steamed green and yellow beans
carrots
brown rice

Wednesday:
Honey-Mustard Chicken
steamed broccoli, beets
corn (it's a grain (or starch), not a vegetable)

Thursday:
Citrus Fish
roasted sweet potato and zucchini
brown rice

Friday:
Chicken and Peppers
Spinach and Tomato Salad

Saturday:
Basil Burgers
Cucumber and Tomato salad
grilled zucchini

Sunday:
Rotisserie Chicken (from the grocery store)
Homemade potato salad
Red Barn Corn and Bean Salad

From these plans I'll be able to plan the rest of my eating day. Let's take Tuesday as an example.

These are the daily servings recommended by the Mayo Clinic Diet for 1400 calories:

Fruit: 4
Vegetables: 4
Grains (and Starches): 5
Protein and Dairy: 4
Fat: 3

Firstly, 3 ounces of pork, trimmed of fat = 1 "protein and dairy" portion.
apples = 1 fruit
Onion, carrots, green and yellow beans = 3 portions of vegetables
It's all browned in olive oil (finished with braising in chicken broth) = 1 fat.

So, for lunch and breakfast I'm left with
Fruit: 3
Vegetables: 1
Grains: 4
P&D: 3
Fat: 2

Lunch will be a whole wheat wrap with 2 oz of Montreal Smoked meat with shredded carrots, mushroom and tomato with and 1 tablespoon of hummus for a spread: 2 grain, 1 veg, 1 fat and 1 P&D leaving me with

Fruit: 3
Vegetable: 0
Grain: 2
P&D: 2
Fat: 1

Breakfast will be Oatmeal with 1/2 a diced apple and 2 tablespoons of raisins and 1/4 cup of yogurt. (1 grain, 1 1/2 fruit, 1/2 P&D.)

Left for snacks:
Fruit: 1 1/2
Veg: 0
Grain: 1
P&D: 1 1/2
Fat: 1

Snack 1:
1 1/2 oz of cheese with crackers (4 Dar Vida = 1 grain)

Snack 2:
1/4 cantaloupe with either 1/3 cup cottage cheese or 1/4 cup yogurt.

Now, that will be a good eatin' day!

I'm really not sure I'll be able to plan in this much detail for a whole month. On second thought, it's not really necessary as breakfast and lunch will consist mostly of fresh produce, anyway. I can still plan and shop for that weekly--as I do now.

Still, I think that, for now, I will make my food plan for the day the night before--and not do it for a whole week all at once. Maybe in time.

The Plan

First, I have to say that my breakfast this morning--
1/2 cup of Rogers Porridge Oats, cooked
1/2 a Delicious apple diced,
2 Tablespoons of raisins,
4 pecan halves chopped and
a sprinkle of cinnamon felt like eating candy for breakfast. It was wonderful: and I wondered if it would satisfy my sweet tooth after supper.

All that food is allowed (and encouraged) by the Diet Plan I have chosen -- the Mayo Clinic Diet. It is a portion control/food exchange program based on the food pyramid. (The servings in the diagram below are a range--at the calorie level proscribed, the servings for me are all at the lowest end!)They recommend I consume about 1400 calories a day (which actually seems low to me) and exercise 30 to 60 minutes (which I will work up to). I'm using Leslie Sansone's "Walk Away the Pounds" videos for now. I plan to add weight lifting and yoga (for flexibility and relaxation) to the mix.

In addition, I'm using the cognitive therapy techniques outlined by Judith Beck in The Beck Diet Solution. Train Your Brain to Think Like a Thin Person.

This approach is conventional. On the face of it, this approach does not "fire" food as the *Star* of my life. It does not help me towards the goal of making my issues with food into "non-issues." Not in the short term, anyway.

Yet I have a couple of reasons for approaching things this way. If it all blows up in my face and I end up regaining whatever I lose, then I guess I'll start again with a different approach.

I'm thinking of the paradigm of psychotherapy. When you hire a therapist, you agrees to focus, fairly intensely, on whatever it is which is disturbing you and holding you back from living your life fully. There comes a point, (at least in therapy that works for me) when the therapy --or rather-- the focus is over. At that point, you have tools to deal with the things which disturb you and you have had enough practice implementing them that you don't have to pay someone to hold your hand any longer.

So with that in mind, these are the reasons I'm using a diet plan to address some of my issues with food.

#1. I know how to eat. In the past I chose a whole foods portion controlled diet plan in order to learn how to eat. I know how, so that's not the reason this time. This time, I need to establish the habit of eating a variety of whole foods once again. I get into a rut of eating mostly carbs, protein and fat when left without a plan. Beck exhorts me to plan what I will eat the next day every night. I've done it for two nights now and it's a struggle to come up with enough fruit and veggies. But that's obviously what I need--so it's great.

#2. If I have an imposed limit of what I can eat, I am forced to find non-food ways to handle my emotions. I'm afraid that if I continue to rely on my hunger cues alone to manage my food intake --they'll be overridden by the urge to eat when I'm upset like the land is flooded when the rain swells the river. I need sandbags on those banks--and a food plan with a caloric limit gives me the boundaries I need around how I eat.

#3. I need to learn not to be scared of being hungry. With a food plan written out and in place, I can reassure myself at a glance that there is food available to me, I will eat again, and that I don't need to stand in front of the fridge (or the baking cupboard) for reassurance.

This plan in particular encourages eating a lot of fruit (four servings of about 60 calories each)--and I must remember that fruit is as plentiful as candy bars whenever I'm out running errands.

Reducing hunger is a worthy goal, though, too. Food has volume. Energy dense foods, like raisins, provide a lot of calories in a very small amount. That's why they're great snacks to pack while hiking.

But, if I want to feel full, I need to eat foods with a lot of volume for the number of calories they have. Veggies are great for this. I was shocked to learn that 2 cups of spinach is equal to one serving of veggies. Two whole cups! Yikes. I had a huge spinach and tomato salad for "dessert" last night (dressed with a teaspoon of olive oil and two teaspoons of red wine vinegar and salt--the fat is important too) and I was full right up until bed-time. I didn't need a sleeve of crackers and a hunk of cheese to satisfy my hunger before bed.

I was grateful.

So, this approach, should help me manage my food issues as well as help me lose weight. I have resisted "going on a diet" for months and months simply because I did not want to focus on food. It felt like taking many steps backwards. I don't want food to be an "issue" in my life--but it is, whether I deal with it up front or try my best to deny it and sweep it under the rug. A "diet" directs my focus onto food, yes. And I make better choices that way--not just about food, but about how to handle those other things I use food to (inappropriately) manage, too.

At least, that's the plan.

I Can't Lose Weight with a Messy Desk.

The Many Roles of Food

It's practically a one-man show! Food is the Star of my life--driving any others right off the stage. But it's time to turn the tables. It's time to yank the overblown blowsey actress with her hoarse ageing voice and dropped lines, time to give her a smaller, more dignified role and and start looking for better supporting players.

In Beyond Metabolism; Understanding Your Modern Diet Dilemma, Scott Abel suggests my goal shouldn't be to lose weight, necessarily, but, among other things, to make eating and food issues into non-issues. Food has two legitimate roles in our lives, he writes. The first is personal: it provides the body with nourishment for renewal and growth, and fuel for activities. The other is social: it offers opportunities for celebration and interaction with others.

If food is being used outside of these two roles, it is being used inappropriately. The thing to do is not diet, per se, but to discover what it is food is doing for you other than these two things--and find something else instead, something appropriate to take over from food. Hard to explain, but the cliched example is "eating to calm emotions." There's lots written about that--and it is fairly clear that something else, say exercise or meditation or prayer may be more appropriate responses to being upset.

I can certainly do a lot to reduce the inappropriate roles food plays in my life. But I don't know it is reasonable to assume that I can make food into a non-issue for the rest of my life. For example, no one would ever suggest to a recovering alcoholic that his or her goal should be for alcohol to become a non-issue. As far as I understand, it's always an issue. To say otherwise is to dangerously underestimate the power of the beast. So, too, in my case, perhaps.

Nonetheless, food plays an inappropriate role in many areas of my life. Let's see, I use food:

1) yes, as cliched as it is, to calm myself when I am upset--especially when I'm upset with my husband. It is inadvisable for me to speak with him when I am upset--I need to be calm in order for him to hear me. So, I'll use food to "buy some time" to calm myself. Plus, I really do think that some food just calms me down physiologically. This behaviour is new, by the way. I used to use cigarettes to do this in the past.

2) to reduce stress. I get so overwhelmed. I get anxious when I'm overwhelmed. I'm overwhelmed a lot. I don't quite understand it. It seems I live at the threshold of being overwhelmed and the smallest things pile up and push me over.

3) to stay awake. My children have poor sleep hygiene. One can barely get to sleep at all, (and never before midnight) the other needs me to sit with her until she falls asleep. Every night. It can take a couple of hours, sometimes and often goes far past the time I want to be in her room rather than my own settling myself for sleep.

I have developed a habit of eating protein and carbs before bed--and often, a lot of it! My favourite for a while was an entire sleeve of crackers with cheese thinly sliced into perfect squares to fit on top of each one.

That's just off the top of my head. Perhaps that's enough to work on for the moment.

Auditions: Things to Try.

I need to fire food and hire something else to take on these roles. And, eventually, I need to re-write the play.

1) It is probably a good idea to find another way to calm myself when I'm upset with my husband (and my kids, and my mom, and anyone else for that matter!) Writing comes to mind. That's quite confrontational, though, and sometimes I'm not ready to process whatever is causing me to be upset. What I want is a better delay tactic. Is that a googlable phrase? "How do I delay responding when I am angry or upset?"

2) This is going to sound very weird, but I can reduce my feelings of being overwhelmed if I stay on top of my clutter. This is tough, though, as it often means I'm cleaning up after other people, too, and I find that that makes me angry.

Right now, I am overwhelmed by the fact that we are leaving for our annual camping trip in four or five days. When we get back, I have only a week to get my kids ready to leave on yet another camping trip: my son is leaving with his Scout troop to go to Newfoundland and my daughter is going to a Girl Guide camp in B.C. To say I am panicky is to put it mildly. You know what? I need to make lists. But first, I need to clear off my desk.

3) I have no clue how to keep myself awake. I need to figure it out, though, as tonight will be one of those nights. My daughter started summer vacation today: so she slept in. I have no idea how I am going to get to bed at a decent hour. I'll look things up on-line later.

Right now, I need to clean off my desk.

Just looking at it makes me want to hyperventilate.

Cue chocolate.