Cheese

"Cheese is the devil's plaything." House, M.D.

Going to the gym after breakfast today. Wanted to seriously pig out last night, but didn't. I did have a sugar-free slurpee and a little extra wine, but I don't care because I could have seriously binged.

My dieting tip of the day: If I'm eating pizza (which I generally don't because I think bread is pretty bad for you, but sometimes I get stuck eating it at someone's house), rip off the cheese. Most people don't just top their pizza with veggies, they add cheese, fatty meats, and sometimes more cheese. If I rip the toppings off and limit myself to a slice or two, I'll save a ton of calories.

Sometimes people think this is a little strange, but I usually just tell them I'm sensitive to dairy if they ask. Most pizza is loaded up with way too many calories.

(4 out of 5 skinny alcoholics agree that you can eliminate around a bajllion calories by ripping the toppings off of this mofo)

10 Tips to Avoid Binge Eating

I would like to note that I when I refer to binge-eating and my own issues with binge-eating, I’m only talking about binge-eating, not bingeing and purging.

This is a list of some ways I deal with fighting the urge to binge and I plan to refer back to it when I need motivation (I considered tacking it up on my wall, but I don’t really want anyone seeing it and making assumptions).

Some ways to avoid binge-eating:

1. Ask yourself: Am I actually hungry? If the answer is no, wouldn’t you rather save those calories for when you actually are hungry? I don’t know about anyone else, but scarfing 2,000 calories for breakfast doesn’t keep me full for the rest of the day. It just makes me hate myself for the rest of the day.
   
2. Ask yourself: Am I fixated on one particular food? If you’re fixated on eating a particular food (say, getting a spoon and attacking a jar of Nutella), you’re in binge-mode. If you’re actually hungry, you’ll be open to eating different things.
    
3. Tell yourself: It’s not too late to stop. It doesn’t matter if you ate half a bag of Oreos (which, by the way is 1,575 calories). Finishing the bag is only digging you deeper. This is a big one for me. I’ll eat and eat and eat and then hate myself. But hey, the day is ruined, so why not enjoy it and eat the rest of the bag and some whipped cream while I’m at it? Wrong. It’s never too late to stop the damage.
    
4. Go online and read a weight loss article. Read someone’s blog. Read some inspiration diet quotes. 3 Fat Chicks has some good ones, whether you’re overweight or not.
    
5. Eating too much of anything isn’t good, but if you just need to eat something and you’re about to snap, fill up on any kind of lettuce, spinach, green beans, broccoli, or any other very low-cal, low-carb veggie. Even if you eat the whole bag it’s a far better option than a lot of other things.
    
6. Throw out whatever it is you’re bingeing on. Just throw it in the trash. Squirt dish soap on it if you have to. Just get rid of it. I know it’s a waste, but it’s also wasting your body if you’re going to eat it all.
    
7. Identify what triggers you and don’t keep it in the house. This can be really hard if you live with other people. My roommates keep peanut butter in the cupboard and it drives me fucking nuts because I know as long as I replace it, I can totally eat it. There are other things that I just do not buy (regular nuts, for instance) because I will eat the entire container in one day.**
    
8. Everyone knows this one: Water. I try to drink a full glass of water before    every meal. I don’t as often as I should, but when I do make myself it helps a lot. If I’m thinking about pigging out, I suck down a couple glasses of ice water and it makes me feel full and sloshy and less in the mood to binge.
    
9. Sometimes being way, way too hungry is what leads to a binge. Lately, if I feel like I’ve just waited too long to eat in a reasonably manner, I have something fast like a can of veggies (green beans only have something like 65 cals in a can). Then I drink a glass of water and wait 15 minutes. After that I’m not starving and I can make something with a reasonable portion & calorie count.
    
10. Remember: You’re going to be happier and have more motivation to keep eating correctly tomorrow if you make yourself proud today.

**This is why it really irritates me when people get on me about watching my weight. The only reason they think I’m perfectly fine and need to pig out is because I’m thinner than they are. There are around 800 calories in just one cup of peanuts. If they admitted it’s not healthy for me to eat an entire jar of nuts, they’d have to take a closer look at their own eating habits (which they don’t want to do). 

Ways to Fight Chocolate Cravings

Chocolate cravings can be BRUTAL. I get bad ones, but I don’t even think mine really compare to a lot of people’s. Chocolate in general, if we’re talking about bars/m&ms/ice cream/etc. can be a horrible calorie sink. Some stats:

• (80 calories/8 grams of sugar) in 1 fun-sized Snickers (and personally I don’t know why they call it the “fun” size when it’s like an inch long, but whatever)

• (220 calories/19 g sugar) in a Rich Dark Chocolate Dove Bar

• (200 calories/23 g sugar) in 9 Milk Chocolate Hershey’s Kisses  

One of the ways I nip chocolate cravings in the bud is with unsweetened cocoa powder. Unsweetened cocoa powder is cheap, has only 10 calories per table spoon, and just 1.5 grams of fat. It’s also a good antioxidant, which is awesome.


One recipe I’ve come up with is sort of a chocolate faux-milkshake:

I take about a cup of skim milk, a big handful of ice cubes, 4 tablespoons of cocoa powder, and 2 packets of Equal (or whatever artificial sweetener you prefer) and blend it all up until it’s smooth. That’s it.

You can kind of play with the ingredient amounts to your preference, but the cup of milk (90 cals) and the cocoa powder (40) adds up to 130 calories in all. It’s sweet, cold, and after I eat this I usually feel all chocolated-out and full from the liquid/protein in the milk. You could try just having a fun-sized candy bar and be done with it for fewer calories, I just never feel satisfied after only one. Maybe it’s because candy bars are generally more sugar and fat than actual chocolate?