Food Poisoning: An Effective Weight Loss Strategy

On Wednesday, the family and I headed off to Disneyland in Anaheim, California, for a few days during Spring Break. We flew down to LA without incident - ate a rather nice bangers and mash lunch at the fake British pub in the airport - and booked into the Disneyland Grand Californian Hotel. Wow. What a place. Not too many mouse ears, but the whole Californian Arts and Crafts look gone into overdrive. Actually pretty impressive with an enormous lobby/seating area next to the check in desks.

We spent Wednesday afternoon/evening in the Disneyland Park (following Day 2 of the two day touring plan taken from The Unauthorized Guide to Disneyland). I particularly like "It's a Small World", a gentle ride designed to bust blood vessels in the head with sensory overload. We went back to the hotel, watched the fireworks from the balcony, and went to bed (all four of us in one room, which was the only downside).

Thursday we went back into Disneyland at 8:30am (Magic Morning for multi-day pass holders) and were able to get round most of the headliner rides before 10am. The Haunted Mansion has very good effects, and The Pirates of the Caribbean ride seemed longer than at Disneyworld. Just after noon, we headed out into Downtown Disney for pizza, then back to the hotel for a few hours by the pool. About 4pm we went back into the park for round three of rides...and the big mistake.

We ate dinner at The French Market in New Orleans Land. Deep Thought and I both had clam chowder in a sour dough roll and grapes. Little Starlet and Hubby had roast beef and veggies.

All seemed well until 1:00am, when I woke up with the most appalling food poisoning. I won't go into the gory details, but suffice it to say that by 5:00am I was as empty has a person could be, had taken two showers and was in a pretty feeble condition.

On Friday, Hubby took the kids out to Disneyland's Californian Adventure - which you can enter through the hotel to avoid the gate queues - while I lay limply in bed. He provided me with a couple of bottle of Coca Cola, some ice, and some Imodium and left me to it. I pretty much didn't get out of bed all day. The vomiting had more or less stopped by Friday evening, and I managed to sleep okay on Friday night.

The journey home on Saturday was uneventful, except for the plane being faulty at LAX so that we were delayed an hour. A lot of deep breathing and additional doses of Imodium got me through it. I was a bit concerned that the bus - plane - bus - car experience might be too much, but I survived. (I did fall rather pathetically onto the sofa when we got home and had to be revived by multiple cups of tea.)

This morning I am feeling fine and may be willing to tackle some soup or something. I must be very dehydrated still. My current weight is 149.6 lbs.

Perfect End to Dinner

As forecast, we went to Country Gourmet - http:://www.country-gourmet.com - for dinner: Basmati rice with stir-fried vegetables and chicken. I'd forgotten that they serve gargantuan portions, so I only ate about half the rice, all the chicken, and half the veggies. Deep Thought had a tuna melt, which looked rather good and was clearly a better size for a regular human being. Little Starlet had a garlicky pasta dish which had an overwhelming aroma. Both the kids finished off dinner with a sundae, from which the teeniest bites were consumed by parents.

On the way home, Little Starlet threw up in the back of my car. My nice, clean, ten day old car. I have wiped the vomit off the back seat, but I guess my first stop tomorrow will be the car wash.

On the bright side, I participated in the children's dance class this afternoon, so I think that counts quite adequately as 30 minutes of vigorous exercise.

Emotional Eating

What you need, OEM, is a strategy for gaining control of your "emotional eating". I found several articles on the web about this, including this one from the Mayo Clinic. Seems to me that you are already following a number of the suggestions, such as keeping a food diary (and the no deprivation one is clearly very important).

I am also a toadal emotional eater. Eat when I'm bored, eat when I'm happy, eat when I am cross... I guess the strategy would be to reach for something that is less calorific for a start. So reach for the yoghurt not the crisps. Have a cup of cocoa instead of a chocolate bar. Plus the action of having to make something will decrease the amount of food you eat, because you have less time!

I also suffer from Lack of Willpower. Today I'm heading off to a hotel in Santa Cruz for a conference (today and tomorrow). Which means - hotel food. Large portions. Too much choice. Cooked breakfast maybe. Temptation and almost guaranteed failure. I'm thinking of going vegetarian for the couple of days, but I may have missed the boat on that one.

On the bright side, I did do my dance class last night. Any progress on that front for you? Now it's stopped snowing in good old Blighty, might a brisk walk around the park be another way to work off the annoyance?

Another Disasterous Day

I was doing so well too. We went to the diner this morning, and I elected to reject my usual Eggs Benedict (1,000,000 calories) and have two poached eggs with toast instead. All very modest, and highly approved of by WeightWatchers. Then I had an extremely Dieting Luncheon, consisting of two crisp bread, a bit of cheese, half an apple and two slices of tomato.

Then the girls got into a big grumpy mood. The only thing that would bring them round was a promise to play "restaurant". So we selected our menu, went food shopping, came back and cooked it, and then Little Starlet was the server while Hubby and Deep Thought were the customers (LS and I joined after the paying folks were served). The menu was a thoroughly British homemade deep-fried fish and chips with peas, Heinz treacle pudding with Ambrosia Devon Custard, and mugs of steaming tea. All very yummy actually - though the batter decided that it preferred to cook separately from the fish, which ruined the presentation but still tasted good - but according to WeightWatchers amounted to 19 points.

This brings my daily total to over 30 points (The injustice! After eating crispbread for lunch!) which translates into something like 3,000 calories. (Footnote: From what I can see, 1 point equals about 100 calories. It just makes the numbers smaller for the hard of thinking...? Or perhaps there's more to it than that.)

I feel nice and full, but somewhat horrified. Of course, I should have known better, and served everyone else the fish etc while I stuck with more crispbreads.

Looking on the bright side, I didn't visit a coffee shop today.

Chewy Bar Review

OEM and her family were staying with us over the holidays. On the last evening, after Little Starlet and the Boy Wonder had retired to bed, we had a taste test on several diet/chewy/granola bars. And here are the results...


Think Thin Brownie Crunch Bar: 60g, 230 cal. 2/10 Comments: "Dog laxative with added mud." "Bad breath after a hard day's night." "Dry and disgusting." "Foofy with disgusting crunchy bits." "Dry, with the aftertaste of used socks." "Stale, old chocolate with socks." "It's like there are little insects trapped in it."

Think Thin Chocoate Fudge Bar: 60g, 230 cal. 2/10. Comments: "Hints of third hand bubble gum." "Dry but chewy." "Chewy in a bad way." "Waxy chocolate coating."

Bumble Bar Chocolate Crisp: 45g, 200 cal. 3/10 "OK, in a very small quantity." "I'd be happy to put this out for the birds." "It would be better without the chocolate flavor." "Textured in a chewy sort of way." "Bitty."


Somersalts Cocoa Flavor: 30g, 150 cal. 1/10. "Aren't these dog biscuits?" "Doesn't taste of anything." "Like chewing a lump of stale bread."

A Chewy Mistake

I was late going to the supermarket and got hungry, so I picked up a chewy bar thing called "Kind Plus Protein" (in Almond, Walnut and Macadamia flavor). 40g bar, 210 calories. I just put it into my WeightWatchers "points tracker" and discovered that it is worth FIVE points - which is the same as my entire dinner last night.