RRARF day 1: How am I going to eat all this food?

Things started out pretty well here in RRARFland. The day dawned cold and snowy and slept straight through to 9 am. Upon rising I made the traditional breakfast of champions, you know the one: eggs, bacon, potatoes, buttery toast. I ate until I really didn't want anymore. That left some toast on the plate. As soon as I thought of eating again I ate the toast and some salad.

This continued throughout the day. Although I probably spent a little more time hungry than advisable. It is hard to eat so much in a sitting every time. I have spent practically my whole life eating most meals until I was no longer hungry- not necessarily full. The transition to eating past full all the time is weird, and a little uncomfortable.

We took a great little walk in the snow mid-afternoon. Our house is right on some town conservation land with some nice trails. I thought about bringing my snowshoes but  decided that I would rather trudge though in the knee deep snow. Our landlord and his family go cross-country skiing back there often. I would love to do that. I'm so happy we had a proper snow storm, we have more snow due next week. Yippie!

Ready Set GO!

I am READY!

Tomorrow I will start the day eating as much a possible within 30 minutes of rising. It probably won't be all that much to begin with, as I am accustomed to eating only a slice of Ezekiel Bread with cheddar cheese on it for breakfast. Or, barring a lot of time- just a few ounces of cheddar. Yeah, I know its weird, but it really keeps me going.

Other fun things tomorrow is that its supposed to snow. Seriously snow (FINALLY)- they are predicting a foot, but I hope we get more. Sometime tomorrow I will be tromping around in the woods enjoying the quiet. I may even get a chance to snowshoe this winter!

While go RRARF for the next 30 days I will weigh myself twice a week. I know a lot of people advocate against doing this. Letting go of the scale is a freeing thing for many women. However, I've never been concerned about my weight. My general indicator that I need to shape up has always been when I suddenly start bumping into things with my hips and butt and I need to loosen my bra straps. With that in mind I am interested in any weight fluctuations that occur for the next several weeks. I weighed in just now at 123.5 which is lower then I have for a while- probably because I have actually been eating for the last half week. Since I have one of those fancy shmancy scales with a body fat % meter (which is I am sure woefully incaurate) I will also track that. Today I had 29% body fat which is totally usual for me.

Re-Thinking Moderation

I have decided to start doing the full RRARF diet on Wednesday, instead of easing in for two weeks. The reason for this is my current unemployment. I hope to not be unemployed for long; beyond the three zillion jobs I have applied to, I also can go back to the massage job I left seven weeks ago if need be. In light of that I may be unemployed for a month, but probably no more then that. A fantastic use of that month would be RRARF, since rehabilitative rest is a vital part of the program. Now that I have "more time on my hands" I can sleep as much as I want (score!). I have already napped twice in the last 3 days. Plus working on my health will hopefully keep me occupied instead of getting depressed. Normally, when I get depressed I stop eating.

Another thing I am planning on doing is going through some of the stuff I have accumulated. I tend to attract things, lots of things, and then hold on to them. It would be great make more space to attract money instead.

Hog Death

Today I went to Old Sturbridge Village to witness the butchering of the hog they slaughtered yesterday. I had a blast, and not completely because one of my best friends works there. I learned some great things about how much bacon it is possible to get from one pig. Bacon is any meat that has striations of fat and muscle that is brined and smoked. That means that you get bacon from not only from the belly, but also from the jowles, legs, sides, and back. Especially if the hog is a high fat breed such as the Large English Black pigs they raise at OSV. In ye olden times they would use pork fat for cooking as well as making soap and candles so a high fat to meat ratio was highly prized.

I snuck away for a bit to walk along the river and swish my way through the downtown area in my very large coat. I found my way over to The Small House where two older women sat knitting by the hearth. We had a lovely conversation about various topics.

I have spent many hours at Old Sturbridge Village in the last few years, but its been a long time since I thought about what a treasure it is.

Saturday food success

I am very proud of myself. In one day I had both my Achilles heels (one for each ankle) for proper food consumption working against me. 1) I was upset about losing my job and 2) I was only in charge of feeding myself. However, I managed to eat three meals today plus two snacks. Dinner was my favorite, I had salad, sweet potato, and shrimp cocktail.

Hip Hip Hooray!

Tomorrow I am going to Old Sturbridge Village to watch some people butcher a hog.

And now...

So today was a bad news day. I lost my job. This was unexpected to an extent, my remaining time there was limited. I was cut down to part time before the holidays and was looking for work before my eventual departure. But things happened a lot more suddenly. Now I have no job. . . crap. (I'm mostly upset because I am going to miss my co-workers a great deal)

I am hoping to find something really cool soon, one of the ideas I'm kicking around is going to practice massage somewhere warm for a few months. I love the winter, but I could totally dig an adventure right about now.

Food-wise I feel great. I ate breakfast successfully, I came home from work at 1:30 and made myself a sweet potato, two slices of sourdough toast, and lamb's lettuce with lime juice. It was really delicious. Then I went out to hang with my now former co-workers at Packard's, where I succeeded in eating a lot of fried potatoes. When I get hungry again I think a spinach salad will be in order.

Once again I feel better then usual- even with the emotional turbulence of the day.

Easing into things

I tend to be a jump in feet first kind of person. Sometimes I try to temper myself a bit. Matt Stone, of 180degreehealth.com and the inventor of my newest food adventure RRARF, suggests starting small. Eating until full when hungry and starting to remove the nasties (caffeine, sugar, alcohol) for a good space of time before going full RRARF. I'm planning on doing this phase for two weeks, as my main dietary problem is habitual under-eating and I might just explode if I start eating past full so often.

Today I woke up early enough to make breakfast (it is laughable that this is an accomplishment, as I don't leave for work until 9:30) I prepped some scrambled eggs and cheese grits, threw some lamb's lettuce on my plate and called it a success. Although I didn't eat much while I was at work I still felt like a functioning human being when I got home at 3:30. I steamed up some pork dumplings, and when those didn't fill me up I ate a piece of toast- this is a huge accomplishment. We are about to eat dinner. Yes, it is 9pm, but that is normal around here. What isn't is that at this point in the day I am usually starving and cranky, but today, I still feel like a human being.