Me (red cross shirt), my mom (aka Grammy) and Ethan. Insanity.

I married a worm (D at my mom's wedding this past weekend.)

Penis Cake!

It even had a ridge! Just like the real penises we have all come to know and love!
'Twas hard work, this penis cake.
See the veins? Wait, where are you going?
THE PROUD BAKERS, me and my sista Emily

Mmm. Behold, the penis cake! Because I am very very mature! Carefully formulated flesh-colored icing, precisely piped veins, soft strawberry innards complete with creamy white (uh, white chocolate pudding) filling. Soooo good. What shall we bake next? Heh, a boobie cake. Boobs!

Wine + Baking = Vagina Cake

These pictures are from last month when we went to visit my family in Texas. My sister Emily and I decided to bake a raspberry layer cake while we sipped (ahem, chugged) Merlot, and as we slathered on the icing one of us decided that what the cake really needed was a vagina. It was so very very delicious, that vagina cake we made. It made all the men in the house blush, and after I exclaimed This vagina is DELICIOUS! for the fifth time, my mom's fiance couldn't take it anymore and had to go upstairs. Hilarious! We're going back next week for Thanksgiving. Maybe we will make a penis cake to even the score. I'm not sure a penis cake could ever be as tasty as a vagina one.

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Isn't Ethan a DOLL? I mean, yes, I am his mother, but admit it... he's adorable. People often mistake him for a girl because I can't bring myself to cut those curls again. I don't care. His hair is golden and fine and soft and shiny and always smells great. I don't care if he looks like a homeless boy, like an orphan who has no mother to cut his hair for him. I LIKE IT. What do you expect from a mother who bakes cakes with great big icing vaginas on them? I promise not to go all Kate Hudson on him, though. Even I have my limits, believe it or not.

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I do believe that in almost every picture of myself that I post on this blog I am wearing that same damn green t-shirt. It's a threadless.com tee, and on it is a cherry saying fairy, a pear saying care, an apple saying chapel, a grape saying escape, a banana saying montana, and at the very end is an orange crying a stream of tears. Why? You would not believe how many people do not understand this shirt. BECAUSE NOTHING RHYMES WITH ORANGE, people. And that makes the orange very sad. (Poor orange.)

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The non-diet. I am still non-dieting. I can't believe I am still non-dieting. Not only that, but I've been non-dieting for nearly 2 months and have only had a panic attack over it once. About two weeks ago I decided that this was ridiculous, absolutely absurd. I need structure! I am not eating any fruit! I'm not eating very many vegetables! I cannot go on this way! And then I went to bed and woke up and ate what I wanted for breakfast, and decided that I was never, ever, ever going back to dieting again. It was just a thought, a minor freak-out, and it lasted about 30 minutes. Other than that things have been great. I'm doing other things, like working and thinking about work instead of working and thinking about eating like I used to. I read a book and let time slip away instead of reading a book and watching the clock for my next carefully timed meal. My grocery cart is looking interesting these days, with an even mix of the good and the bad. I'm finally to the point where I am not afraid of any food. Anything and everything can be consumed in moderation. I really believe that! And if I want crackers and cheese or a bowl of cereal for dinner, then that's what I have. IT IS PURE HEAVEN, this non-diet diet.

D and I had a conversation the other day about how bad my diet-binge-diet-binge cycle really was. It was bad. My husband has never known a Sara that eats what she wants. Quite frankly I haven't either. I'd been struggling with this long before he met me (long before meaning for my entire life). He knew 2 different Saras: one that would snap after eating one cookie and spend the rest of the day piling food into her mouth at the speed of light before she had to diet (punish herself) again the next day (which would often leave me feeling so full at the end of the night that I would be too sick to spend quality time with my husband), and the Sara that would carefully and miserably plan and time and measure her authorized food, deprive herself, and put herself down. Both Saras revolved everything around the size of their ass. Both Saras were bitchy and bitter and unhappy. So now this new Sara emerges, this Sara-in-the-making, and I'm so very glad to meet her. My husband is, too. It's great to be able to cook together and eat together. I like getting hungry because it is a sign of life, of living. I didn't realize before how much being hungry scared me. The tiniest rumble of my tummy would send me into this weird panic, and I don't know why. I believe it has something to do with the feeling of never having enough. So when you finally have enough, when you can finally eat 1 chocolate kiss and truly not want another one because 1 was enough (I had to check myself for fever when that happened. I actually grabbed a couple of kisses, ate one and put the rest back because that one single chocolate kiss was all I needed. THAT HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE.), it leaves room and time and interest in other non-food/diet/body related things. I notice changes in myself every day. Stopping eating before I am full is finally becoming natural, it's finally starting to take much less effort. When I get hungry I really try to tune into my body to see what I truly want to eat. I can't remember the last time I ate something because I thought I should. The struggle is gone. The desire and drive to binge has vanished completely. The last 6 weeks have been scary and unfamiliar and new and wonderful and freeing and completely necessary and, in a nutshell, the last 6 weeks have been the key to the first day of the rest of my life, if that makes any sense at all.

Sat-ur-day...

I did our grocery shopping at Whole Foods today for the very first time ever. I usually buy a few items from Whole Foods and do the majority of the shopping at Super Target or Wal-Mart. Today I convinced myself that it wouldn't be that much more expensive, especially when armed with a half-assed grocery list and a very general idea of things we would need for a week's worth of food.

I did pretty well, if I do say so myself. The damage: $101.73. We budget $100/week for groceries, is that excessive? Be honest, is it? We're a family of 3. And that includes things like toilet paper and diapers and deodorant. Whatev, I think $100 is right on, give or take, ya know? On the menu this week: Kashi lemongrass coconut chicken (a frozen meal, yes, but it looked goooooooooood and cost me almost FOUR DOLLARS, and FOUR DOLLARS is delicious, right?), bacon, egg and cheese breakfast burritos made with cage free eggs (happy chickens taste better!) and uncured, center cut smokehouse bacon, baked chicken with "all natural" roasted chicken gravy and olive oil and garlic roasted red potatoes (add a side salad for me, please), high-fiber, high-protein spaghetti with lean ground round and Napa Valley Cabernet marinara made with plum tomatoes and extra virgin olive oil (it's true, I could have just said spaghetti, but doesn't that sound so much better, almost virtuous?), and buffalo burgers on wheat buns with salt and pepper crinkle-cut fries. Oh, and I got an uncured pepperoni pizza for my husband. I'm sure he will just LOVE IT. He'll probably take one bite, make a sour face and declare that this pizza needs nitrates, dammit!

I just googled pepperoni and uncured and nitrates and came across this site. Interesting! Because you're too lazy to make a sandwich, heh. *yawn*

We took Ethan to see Bee Movie tonight. Well, this afternoon... the movie started at ten till 5 p.m. Ethan thew a fit for about 30 seconds about 5 minutes into the movie. For the most part he was amazingly well behaved. He snarfed popcorn (for the love of GAWD, 1 medium diet coke + 1 medium cherry coke + 1 medium popcorn = $14.50? Really? REALLY? Because we rarely go to the movies and that is certainly not going to bring us back for more...) (Oh, and we ate MAYBE 1/3 of the medium popcorn, with Ethan eating the majority. I saw some chicks order a large and it was massive, ginormous, insanely big. OINK FUCKING OINK, AMERICA. Christ.) (Yes, we are Parents O' The Year because we fed our toddler popcorn and soda for dinner one night. PARENTS O' THE YEAR, I say!)

Anyway, my question to you is: Do you cringe when people take their youngins to the movies? It was a pretty good experience but I can't say we'll make a regular habit of taking E to the movies. Our next one will probably be in another year or so, unless a straight-up kid-friendly movie comes out sometime soon. But I mentioned to D on our drive to the theater that I used to HATE when parents would bring their annoying little kids to the theater. Now I am THAT PARENT. But E isn't annoying! He's... opinionated. And brilliant. And, and... outspoken. Right? Fuck me.

Gah!

I have SO MUCH to say but there's just never enough tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiime. I'm having lots of ah HA! moments that end with well, I have to blog about THAT!, but then time ticks by and I forget and actually feel guilty, because I really want to get all of these thoughts and observations and revelations in writing as they come. I don't get a ton of comments on here, but a few of you have talked about being able to relate to what I'm going through, and some of you WANT to go through what I'm going through but are too afraid or don't quite know where to begin. I was there 1 month ago. I can't believe how much has changed in 1 month.



I'm going out of town for business tomorrow morning, and not once have I felt that old pang of fear and anxiety that my eating is sure to spin out of control. Not once have I considered packing tins of tuna and barfy protein bars to choke down while everyone else enjoys good, wholesome, satisfying food. Not once have I stressed about missing a workout, because I know the world won't end if I go two days without exercising. For the love of God, why couldn't I flip the crazy switch to OFF years ago? I'm trying hard not to sulk about the first two decades of my life having been wasted by dieting, and I have to conclude that I just wasn't ready before. I couldn't wrap my head around anything but 6 small protein and carb balanced meals each day, couldn't fathom going more than a day without working out, because of everything I'd read and heard and sworn as TRUTH for years and years and years. I also didn't see very many Saturday nights that weren't spent binging on all the things I thought I wanted throughout the week but would never actually give myself permission to eat. I ate all those things behind my own back.

The last 8 (maybe even more) Halloweens have ended with me completely sick to my stomach from gorging on all that damn candy. I would eat and eat and eat and eat and EAT it, storing up for when I couldn't eat it, for the times when I wouldn't let myself eat it. This Halloween was completely different. I wasn't excited about the candy. I had 3 fun size treats and then forgot that we even had all that candy in the house. I'll grab a piece every once in awhile, but the candy sits on our counter in a big bowl, unnoticed for the most part. That is nice. A great feeling. That old internal struggle is gone. It's not me vs. the chocolate anymore. We're friends now, actually.

Don't get me wrong, I don't have it completely together. I expect that this will be a long process. The Breaking Free book is broken down into steps that you can take to "break free" from dieting, and I'm taking it one step at a time, one meal at a time. I still overeat sometimes. Last night, on our way home from a long party where the wine flowed nonstop, we decided to do a good old-fashioned drunken fast food run. Taco Bell. I ordered a big burrito and ate the entire thing, and then had a few bites of my husband's leftover gordita. When we got home I ate the remaining four bites from my weeks old carton of Ben & Jerry's, and several pieces of Halloween candy. That sounds like a lot of food and I was pretty full afterwards, but this wasn't a binge. It was different in a lot of ways. True, it was more calories than my body needed. I could have stopped 3/4 of the way through the burrito and been satisfied. I chose to continue snacking. I wasn't eating out of fear that I could never have Taco Bell again. There was no eating behind my own back. I was fully aware of what I was doing. I ate my food calmly, sitting down, not frantically stomping around the kitchen rummaging for the next bingeable. Another difference is that I stopped myself, told myself that hello, I can eat Halloween candy or Taco Bell for breakfast if that's what I really want, so there's no need to eat it all now. I grabbed a bottle of water, brushed my teeth and went to bed. The final and most important difference was that I knew there would be no deprivation tomorrow. No "punishment" for eating too much, no "death by eggwhites". I got up this morning, did some cardio, showered, and then ate a bowl of granola when I got hungry. I'll learn from last night. I'll remember it for next time, if that makes any sense. It makes sense to me.

There are 3 main steps to "breaking free" (I hate saying that, hate typing it, it sounds so touchy-feely and lame, but it's really the only way to put it): eat when you're hungry, eat only what you want (which means that nothing is off-limits), and stop eating when your body has had enough. I've started eating when I am hungry, instead of by the clock. I have that one down. I thought I'd NEVER break that habit. I love eating and then moving on to the next thing, and then being reminded to eat again by my growling belly, not because it's 2 p.m. and time for my cup of cottage cheese and carefully measured tablespoon of peanut butter. Ick. I can't imagine ever going back to that. I've also started eating only what I truly want to eat. This can be tricky but it's fun. Nothing is off limits and I'm sort of rediscovering what foods I love and which I don't. Right now I'm focusing on a sort of mental hunger scale, trying to find the perfect point at which to stop eating. I don't like leaving the table feeling too full, but I don't like to still be hungry, either. I think that the "perfect point" is different for everyone, so I'm exploring that. I'm working on stopping when my body has had enough, instead of when my taste buds have had enough. I think natural weight loss occurs when you get this part down. Of course it's probably going to be the most difficult part of this whole deal, but that's ok. Since I'm not doing this to lose weight, there's no pressure. I just want to feel good and enjoy food.

This all probably sounds incredibly basic to most people, to people who haven't suffered from eating disorders or struggled with their weight. But I'm telling you that for me, for someone who has suffered from multiple eating disorders and has struggled with her weight her entire life, this is necessary. It's therapy. It's self-discovery. I'm enjoying the journey very much. I feel like myself again. I'm happier all around. I haven't binged in 1 month. THAT is amazing.

Above all of this, above everything I have said here, the absolute most important thing to work on and to remember is that your self-worth, your success and happiness in life, they are not determined by your weight or your body fat percentage or your clothing size. I had to make peace with my body, every last inch of it, even the jiggly bits and saggy bits and dimpled bits, to get my head in gear and not be miserable anymore. That has been an ongoing process and I still have fat days, I'll probably always have fat days. But I get over it and I don't let those days drive me to start planning yet another diet. Instead I'll paint my toes or go for a walk or read and sip a cup of coffee or take a nap. It's all about self love and taking care of yourself.