Days 85-89: Ups and Downs

First, I'll just report that last week when I weighed in, I did drop 1 lb. I kind of "felt" a little lighter that day, so it was nice to see that my sense of my own body was accurately reflected on the scale. We all have days where we feel fatter or thinner, but sometimes I think that's more in our heads than the reality. Body awareness is important.

I've been reading Valerie Frankel's 2008 memoir, "Thin is the New Happy", about her challenges with what I think could safely be called an addiction to dieting (more than simply calling it "struggles with losing weight". Her fat-phobic mother started her on a diet when she was something like 11 years old because she was a little bit pudgier than her siblings. The woman monitored her food intake and berated her beyond belief for years. Then, as an adult in her early 40s, Valerie realized she'd spent her entire adult life being Valedictorian of Dieting... and she decided to STOP. I'm only about 1/4 of the way through the book so I can't tell you how it turns out, but I must admit I see glimpses of myself within the pages (although unlike Valerie, I could not tell you the precise calorie count of any food other than a 1-calorie Tic-Tac).

I spent the weekend with my husband and young step-son, visiting my step-daughter in the French city of Lille. It was my first time there, and I love going anywhere new in Europe for the first time. I found the city delightful, and my step-daughter and her boyfriend found a great new apartment just at the center of the city, where there are many pedestrian shopping areas, a huge square, beautiful architecture (that seemed more Belgian than French, but as Lille is on the border with Belgium I can understand the influences must overlap).

Food traditions in France vary greatly from region to region, and in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region, you can forget about that heart-healthy Mediterranean stuff. (Georges says there is an invisible border that separates the north of France from the south, and that border is the dividing line between butter and olive oil.) There was cheese and great beer and bread everywhere you looked (I had one meal that contained all three in one bowl). However, we did try and eat most of our meals at the apartment, and since my step-daughter is also on Weight Watchers and doing quite well (I could definitely see a difference although she has more she wants to lose), she made an effort to prepare lots of salads and things that were a bit better for all of us.

Still, we had a birthday to celebrate: my step-son's 11th! So, there was a cake on the table for lunch yesterday, one that had lots of meringues in it so it SEEMED lighter, although I'm sure it was very high in sugar if not in fat. It was delicious, though. (What? You didn't think I was going to turn down birthday cake did you? I did ask for a smaller slice, though.)

I gave up trying to track points after Saturday's restaurant lunch where I tried a local specialty that was swimming in cheese, oil and salt. It was very good, but I don't think I'd order it again unless I was trying to warm up on a very frigid day; Lille has lots of those in the winter, but this weekend it was like summer! And after that meal, all I wanted to do was sleep.

The good news is, there was lots of walking if not a lot of actual sleeping (we slept on an air mattress, and every time one of us moved, the other bounced around too). Plus on Friday I got in my usual rental apartment-cleaning workout, and today I had to hike up to the rental apartment and back again, deliberately NOT taking the bus. So hopefully I managed to mitigate some of the calorie-intake damage.

On the balance, though, I had a great weekend. It was fun to see what a nice apartment our girl and her beau have found, fun to see them with their first real home (instead of the tiny studio she'd been renting before, and he was living at home with his family until they moved in together last month), and fun to experience a new part of France. It's only an hour away on the fast train, so I'm thinking I could run up there once in awhile and spend the day with her, shopping, when she doesn't have a lot of school work to do. Lille is a lovely city and we've only explored a small portion of it. I can see why she likes living there (lousy winter weather notwithstanding - but I'm from New Jersey and I'm used to bad winters).

We'll see how the scale reads this Thursday when I weigh in again. Meantime I can do some more walking and eat more moderately this week, and that's all I can do.