FullaBella's Journal, 11 Dec 12

I've decided to TRY to stop burying the lead in my journals so the headline today is: I managed to open up my mind again and break another spoke on that cycle of insanity that has been driving my entire life to H*ll in a Handbasket.

For breakfast this morning I tried 1/4 cup serving of Bob's Red Mill Old Country Style Muesli instead of my same old 1/2 cup Quaker Old fashioned oats and loved it. I mixed frozen blueberries and Yogurt and it was great.

Oh, but here's my typical teaser. At the end of this journal entry I have yet another (of many) little confession about being a big idiot for nearly a half a century. Stay tuned.

When I first started this journey of a new life on 8/25/12 in effort to lower my cholesterol and blood sugar I dubbed it "Operation Oatmeal".

Shifting from (frozen breakfast crap) to a cooked cup of Quaker Old Fashioned Oats was a challenge. Even with cinnamon and two splendas it was five days before I stopped gagging at the thought of it or stuffing it down followed by a 24oz bottle of water.

When the 'I just can't do this' voice started echoing in my head the 'Yes you CAN' voice yelled back even louder so I began mixing all of the dry ingredients (adding in flax seed w/the oats, cinnamon & splenda) at night and placing in the microwave. No excuses ala 'ugh... this frozen crap thing is faster.'

By mixing it the night before I found myself 'thinking' about breakfast and more importantly the oatmeal. I began looking forward to it and imagining how great that cinnamon would taste in the morning.

One Spoke on the Cycle of Insanity Broken.

So that continued for a couple of months and even though I had read the label reflecting that a single 'serving' was actually half a cup instead of a whole cup of oats my reaction was (cue the voice) 'I am NOT about to cut my volume of intake, by golly, I need a lot of food for breakfast if I'm going to make it through the day on track!'

However, the 'Yes you Can' voice said 'Fine, don't cut quantity but WHATIF you replaced that second 'serving' with something containing fewer carbs and more protein like...an egg? Or Yogurt? Hmm... what say you give it a try? Besides, with the sugar in the yogurt you won't need to add the splenda either.'

And I did, and I liked it. Another spoke gone.

Last week (a little over 100 days into Operation Oatmeal) at my doc visit I was commenting on the carbs in oatmeal period and she suggested 'steel cut oats' may be lower in carbs.

I looked it up on the interweb and within seconds that 'NoWay' voice started screeching, "Are you freaking kidding me? It's the SAME amount of calories and carbs for HALF the quantity of food. What...are you NUTS? Just how much do you plan to do to me?"

But fortunately the 'Yes, you CAN' voice in my head spoke up again and said 'Hey, it may be less food to shovel in your mouth but the research indicates it has been processed less, has more texture and may taste better. What have you got to lose?"

So this weekend I looked for the steel cut oats but the grocer did not have any. They did have the Muesli and that looked fairly interesting with the raisins and nuts mixed in with the grains.

It too considers 1/4 cup a single serving but before the negative voice started whining my 'Yes, you CAN' voice said 'Hey! Try the single serving with a cup of frozen blueberries and a whole serving of yogurt. You've been cutting that in half anyway with the other Oats. Try something new because AFTER ALL you KNOW you HAVE to continue to find GOOD FOOD you can eat for the REST of your life without GETTING BORED and any of the other traps you've set for yourself your whole life! Do something before your breakfast, the meal you consider the most important, becomes boring!'

Sometimes my 'Yes, you CAN' voice speaks in run on sentences and poor grammer. Most of the time. What the heck. It gets the job done even though I'm sure this battle of the voices was a little scary for that other lady on the cereal aisle with me that day as I stood there adding, removing, adding, removing and finally adding that Muesli to the cart and leaving it there with one very definitive SHOVE as if I were trying to shove the "NoWAY" gal out of my path.

And once again, that "Yes, you CAN" voice was right. I loved it. I did not feel deprived. I think I over cooked it in the microwave because it was actually a little crunchy but I'll confess to me it was like eating 'brickle' or some other sweet crunchy candy-nut like thing. With the yogurt and berries I had MORE than enough food and was very satisfied. I still am.

Another spoke broken. My Cycle of Insanity has over 50 years of spokes firmly lodged in it so it will be quite a journey to break them all and walk through this to a brand new me but right now, What a trip!

So here's my confession of idiocy. I don't know about you but for me, there are some things I learned early in life and NEVER challenged them at all. On reflection of my poor upbringing I've decided to challenge everything now. The journal above, as with most of them, are expressions of doing THAT very thing.

Nonetheless, as a CHILD I witnessed OATMEAL COOKED in the following manner: Pour Oats into a pan. Add water until it covers the oats about 1/8 inch. Cook until it achieves a gravel like consistency. Shovel it down. And throughout my life, despite having shifted to microwave, it was still the same ratio and consistency.

MH had started eating oatmeal instead of eggs shortly before I initiated my Operation Oatmeal. But no matter WHAT I did or HOW much WATER I added it was 'too thick, too thin, tasted raw.' He doesn't like Old Fashioned Oats; he prefers the 'Quick Oats' and I just could NOT figure out how to get past breakfast without him being disappointed and complaining. AFTER all, I was making MY Old Fashioned Oats the same way and they were FINE.

Or so I thought. When I finally decided short of throwing in the towel on the morning Oatmeal fiasco, when I finally decided to look at the PREPARATION INSTRUCTIONS I discovered I have been cooking oatmeal WRONG my WHOLE life.

I'm surprised MH hasn't divorced me before now!!

Wow - so for every cup of oats I'm supposed to add an equal amount of WATER? And even though the Big Label on Front reads 'Quick One Minute Oats' I'm supposed to allow it 2-3 minutes in the microwave???

WHAT????? How could I have been so STUPID SO LONG??

But I was. And you know what? I followed the flipping instructions that morning and MH has been one happy camper ever since. He's started leaving nearly half of his Oats in the bowl now but when I asked 'am I cooking you too much' and he said 'seems so but DONT CHANGE because I'm afraid you'll mess it up AGAIN.'

Oh, in case your wondering, no WAY I'm telling HIM this confession. I will just let him think I've discovered the Oatmeal Genie.

And you know what else?? That SINGLE serving (1/2 cup) of Old Fashioned Oats with an equal 1/2 cup of water, wowza, it IS enough!

So the point of this confession? Well, heck, we always say we learn from our mistakes. Maybe, just maybe, someone can learn from mine. If something seems amiss ~ rather than doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result, break that cycle of insanity by trying something different like... reading the instructions!

As always, thank you for your patience and for reading my journal.

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1260 kcal

Fat: 27.52g | Prot: 70.72g | Carbs: 194.99g.   Breakfast: Creamer, Coffee, Schwans Blueberries, Dannon Light & Fit Greek, Muesli. Lunch: Diced Tomatos, Spinach, Schwans Tortellin, Schwan Oven Roasted Chicken Bites. Dinner: Mushrooms, Schwan Oven Roasted Chicken Bites, Schwans Tortellini, Spinach, Diced Tomatos. Snacks/Other: Stacys Bagel Chips, Weight Watcher String Cheese, Wholly Guacamole, Apple. more...

2346 kcal

Exercise: Sleeping - 24 hours. more...