A bought two bunches of bananas at exactly the same level of green-yellowness, so they were all perfect to eat at the same time and only 3/5ths of us eat bananas. C, E, and I made a valiant effort, but I had three too brown ones and made a breakfast cookie someone posted on Fbook:
2 smashed up bananas, 1 cup of quick oats, and a handful of chocolate chips and/or nuts. Form into 16 cookies and bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes.
I don't know HOW she got 16 cookies, but whatever. They are not bad fresh out of the oven. I'll see how they are in the morning.
I stopped my food diary for a week and then came back to it. I don't think I'll continue more than another month or so - logging on My Fitness Pal is going well and I'm still losing weight - but I'll do it for a while yet. I've been doing a better job with portion size when I pause before eating my meal and really look at the food instead of just shoveling it in. I used to be planning how to get seconds before even finishing firsts. Now I do a kind of cheesy visualization of the food in my stomach and how that is enough to fill me up. It helps.
I had an epiphany the other day that I wrote about on my food diary. Basically, I was unable to resist the Costco cake in the break room, but instead of feeling guilty about it, I enjoyed the hell out of it and then went back to eating mindfully. I didn't figure "Oh, today is worthless now. I may as well eat this whole gallon of ice cream!" This is a huge step forward for me, because, frankly, I don't want to live in a cake-less world and I have to fight that all-or-nothing mentality.
We went to a school Valentine's Dance last night. E and L are on the cusp of ditching us for their friends - next year for sure. This year they still wanted to dance with us and be near. There were enough parents willing to cut a rug that it was good, clean fun.
Today I ran six miles and then L and I went out for lunch. A and I have been talking about doing regular one-on-one things with the kids now that we have less tag team parenting, but it wasn't until Moxie and I were arguing about using the word "date" in this situation that I finally decided to do it.
(For the record, I think date can be a nonromantic time - like a movie date with a friend or a lunch date with my daughter - and she thinks it's weird/creepy to use the word date when it's not romantic and insinuated that it's incestuous to use it re: parent-child time. We decided we have a different connotation of the word date. If I said, "I had a lunch date with L today!" it would be no different to me than if I said, "I went out to lunch with L today!" or "I hung out with L today! We got lunch together." Usually I am on the side of creepy/inappropriate, so it's odd to be on the other side.)
Anyway, L and I discussed how weird it is that urinals aren't in stalls and played a zillion games of tic tac toe while waiting for our food. Then we wandered around a craft/fabric store and finished by getting frozen yogurt.
I totally hear you on the cake. I used to just throw in the towel and eat crap all day after doing something like eat a piece of cake. Now, I maybe feel a little guilty, but then I try to eat well the rest of the day. No more feeling terrible!! It's a great feeling! I honestly have to log every day to keep myself in check, but it isn't really very time consuming and it has worked.
Posted by: jen w | February 17, 2013 at 07:30 PM
I'm on the side of thinking you can have 'dates' that are non-romantic. I often say that I have a date with one of my daughters and think nothing of it. It just means we're spending some one-on-one time together. It sounds like you and L had a great time on your 'date.'
Posted by: Tommie | February 18, 2013 at 03:23 PM
Did you ever try freezing your over-ripe bananas and using them to make banana bread? Just pop them in the freezer, peel and all. They can be frozen for quite a while. When you want to make banana bread, thaw out 3-4 bananas and follow your favorite recipe.
Posted by: Patsy | February 19, 2013 at 10:00 PM