Day 36, 7 to go..............

My doctor appt. is one week from today.  Weight today 130, it seems to be really stable right now.  My days are getting so much better, foodwise.  I don't obsess about sugar or snacks.  As Dr. Kessler would say, I turned off the cues because the option for me to eat something that is sugar filled is non-existant.  I made my decision 36 days ago and I don't have to keep making the same decision over and over again.  My brain knows this now and has started looking for different options.  Popcorn, Carb Check Bagel, or an apple are my usual snack options. 

Tonight is the Women's Christmas Celebration at church.  It's a pot luck meal that always has way too much food and the dessert table goes on and on.  I'm not worried one bit about being tempted by the desserts but what I am worried about is what I will do while everyone else at my table is eating their plateful of goodies.  Not that eating a plateful of goodies is bad, especially at Christmas because there are so many choices, who can choose just a couple?  But the questions will start which will give me an opporturnity to share my journey.  Maybe I can go back and get a plate of salad or some other dish I didn't get to try on my first way through the line, ummmm, that sounds like a plan.

I'm not making much progress on the new Jillian Michaels book, by the time Trent was done with me I was even too exhausted to read.  But what I am learning is that hormones play a much bigger part in our metabolism then I previously thought.  I will list the hormones that play an active part tomorrow and today I will blog Jillian's information on how metabolic activities work:
She states that all metabolic activities work in one of two ways:

• Catabolic activities are about destruction--they break apart larger molecules (like carbs, fats, and protein) to release the fuel that allows the body to function.  This process gives us energy and also builds body tissues in anabolic activies.
• Anabolic activities are about construction--our cells take the glucose, fatty acids, and amino acids from catabolism and turn them into body tissues like muscles, fat, and bone.

Hormones are typically put into one of these two catagories.  She explains that cortisol is considered a catabolic hormone and growth hormone is considered an anabolic hormone.  Neither catabolic or anabolics hormones are fully good or fully bad, you need both kinds for a healthy metabolism.

She states that when we give our body the foods it was built to understand, you support your hormones to do what they are meant to do and by doing that we can make our metabolism work for us and not against us.

So there it is again, we have to feed fuel our body with healthy foods.  As Michael Pollan writes in his book "Defense of Food", he breaks down our need for fuel in seven words: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants!

Wish me luck tonight on my pillaging the pot luck tables.

Sidenote:  I listed my Motorola Defy phone (gift from Oprah) on Ebay today.  What an awesome phone with so many functions, I was really impressed with it in Madison.