I Want To Know: Is There Food In Heaven?

Lealonnie1

“I want to lose weight by eating nothing but moon pies, which have significantly less gravity than earthier foods such as fruits and vegetables.”
― Jarod Kintz

I’ve always told my children that when I get too old to live independently, I’m going to live on a cruise ship rather than in a nursing home. Why not? Not only is it cheaper to live on a cruise ship, but it’s a whole lot more fun. A cruise ship has it all: a doctor for when you get sick, a dining room that feeds you, plenty of activities, and its wheelchair & walker accessible to boot. When I die, I can have a burial at sea, which seems a whole lot easier & less fussy than a formal funeral, doesn’t it?

My plan is to sell off all of my belongings & buy myself 7 muumuu’s; one for each day of the week. Then I can park myself at the all-you-can-eat buffets & eat myself into a coma 24/7. Now that’s my idea of heaven, especially after yo-yo dieting since the age of 12 & torturing myself with numerous get-thin-quick schemes for the majority of my life.

“In two decades I've lost a total of 789 pounds. I should be hanging from a charm bracelet.”
― Erma Bombeck

But this is supposed to be an “Introduction” blog, so I guess I’d better introduce myself. I’m Chris, and I call myself Lealonnie, because that’s my birth name. When I decided to lose 100 lbs 6-1/2 years ago, I reinvented myself entirely, choosing to use the name given to me at birth as my screen name on another website where I once blogged. Extensively. That’s when I became Lealonnie, and shed the weight that had been plaguing me forever & a day.
So I’m using that screen name once again, with the intent of blogging about my journey & sharing my life with a new set of strangers who will, hopefully, become friends. I’m 57 years old, and live in a suburb of Denver Colorado. I’ve been in Maintenance for 6 years as of New Years Eve, and this time, I’ve somehow managed to stop yo yo dieting, thank God, and I’m still working on finding a balance with my food intake. I’m a work in progress, actually, and I won’t be ‘finished’ until I’m buried in my size 6 jeans. Or a muumuu, if I decide to go the cruise-ship route.

Although I restrict my food intake & avoid sugar entirely because of my addict personality, I still THINK about food quite often. I’m not sure there will be a need for food in heaven, however, because a soul doesn’t have a body to nourish……………so I came up with the cruise ship eating-orgy idea when (and if) I get very old, just in case. After decades of calorie budgets & a no-sugar-period way of life, I’m gonna wanna pig out before I check out.

Big time.

“She'd even violated the only sensible rule of dieting she'd ever run across, the sage advice of the Muppets' Miss Piggy, who recommended never eating anything bigger than your head.”
― Susan Donovan

That’s the nature of people who love love LOVE to eat, don’t you think? Constantly trying to figure out how to have our cake & eat it too. How to stuff ourselves senseless, and still maintain a lovely & healthy physique. And how to sit around like slugs instead of killing ourselves at the gym, or worse yet, on the much hated Elliptical or exercise bike in the basement.

I will never be a gym rat. In fact, Gym is a guy I know, not a place I go. I did have a gym membership for several months last year, and burned myself out on the whole gig in short order. It didn’t help that I hired a Personal Trainer who was the devil in lime-green Nikes. Because of my all-or-nothing personality, I took the gym workout too far, and aggravated my sciatica to the point where I couldn’t walk without excruciating pain. But my all-or-nothing personality is a subject for another day, and another blog.

I just wanted to tell you a little bit about me, and about my passion for food, travel, junk collecting, and for life itself. (The cruise ship idea, by the way, kills TWO birds with one stone: it satisfies my desire to eat gluttonously, AND it allows me to pursue my passion for travel.) Although I have a slim and healthy body right now, and for the past 6 years, I still have brain of a Fat Girl. In fact, I shall ALWAYS have the brain of a Fat Girl, which leads me to thoughts of living on a cruise ship, wearing garishly colored muumuus, and eating myself into absolute oblivion every day. Since I cannot be certain of all-you-can-eat buffets in heaven, the Fat Girl who lives inside my mind conjures up thoughts of having lots & LOTS of ‘last suppers’ before she makes her final exit.

And that’s all she wrote, folks, at least for today. I’m glad to be here on My Fitness Pal & look forward to reading & commenting on LOTs of blogs.

Let me leave you with a final thought. Namaste: The Divine in me recognizes the Divine in you. And because of this, I will never leave you a snarky comment, no matter which program you use (or don’t use) to lose weight, and no matter which method you choose to maintain your weight. There is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ in this arena, there is only Commitment, Patience & Diligence, one day at a time.

Catlover771

Love it love it love it! GO, Lealonnie1!!!

lorib642

Nice to meet you

gothchiq

There better be... lol... and it will not make us fat? 'cause here on earth, SO many freaking restrictions. high blood sugar this, high cholesterol that, here gothchiq take some nice Lipitor with your big handful of other meds, never mind the muscle pain, now go back to the gym and lose just 5 more pounds attagirl SCREAMMMM lol

Lealonnie1

Thanks Catlover, u r the best~ Nice to meet you Lori! LOL @ Gothchiq........there better be is RIGHT!

usmcmp

Welcome to MFP.

Just wanted to take a moment to encourage you to read over the community guidelines. I know you are part of medifast and you are involved in "health coaching". This community is against people trying to sell to others on the forums and by private message. Hope you enjoy the community.

myfitnesspal.com/welcome/guidelines

14. No Advertising, Self-Promotion, or Fund-Raising

a) You may not post any links or mentions of other services, websites, or businesses from which you or an associate might benefit financially or otherwise. This includes, but is not limited to; posts that contain links to offsite blog posts and social media. You also may not solicit off-Forum contact from which you might benefit, e.g. "message me for more info", “I can get you free samples”, etc.

Lealonnie1

I am aware of the community guidelines here usmcmp.........and my blog offers nothing but a good read, in my opinion anyway, along with some observations about the difficulties we all face with weight loss & maintenance. My intent is to continue blogging here & to be encouraging to others who are on the same journey as I. I have nothing to sell, and no samples to offer anyone, but thanks for the reminder.

Patttience

I've long ago given up my fantasies of all you can eat situations. With the recognition and acceptance that sugar had to go out of my life and vegetables and healthy eating had to come in and stay put, and a committed practice of doing that for nearly 11 months this year so far, I have only noticed an increase in my commitment to consuming very little sugar and junk food and eating plenty of nutritious foods.

Like you i am an all or nothing sort of person but i found a way to have the odd sweet treat in a safe way. On average, i guess i get to eat sweets about once a month. Though this past weekend i actually had sweets two days in a row!. That's because my rule about sweets says that i can have sweets when they are offered to me and then only one serving. So i actually could have it every day if i got offered it that often. But it has to be outside my home.

To compensate for the lack of sugar in my diet i eat lots of fruit and dessert for me is mostly fresh or stewed fruit with natural yoghurt and sometimes seeds or nuts, but not many. I can eat dried fruit but only in moderation. Too much sugar and i go into binge mode. btu i have found that even a binge on dried fruit or even nuts, does no where near as much damage as refined sugar sweet foods. But anyway i try not to eat too much of those foods and to keep that going, i need to keep on satisfying myself with vegetables, beans lentils and chickpeas and other healthy savoury foods. I tend to keep all white carbs low in quantity. the more risky, the smaller the portion and less the frequency has to be.

So i haven't quite made it to goal and i am not sure i'm going to make it but i am damn sure i am never going to be fat again. I am so over fatness.

Calorie counting is tedious. but i weigh every day.

Exercise for me, like you, gets old pretty quickly, so its not an essential part of my regular routine.

This is the easy way i've chosen to look after my weight and health.

We all have to find our own way but maybe we can learn from each other too.

angelamb1970

what is medifast?

Lealonnie1

I'm with you Pattience...........in that I substitute fruit for sugar laden junk food. I can't handle an occasional sweet indulgence, so that's why I abstain completely. Otherwise, I'd be in binge mode in a New York minute. Once I made the decision to abstain from sugar, I found myself NOT craving sweets (miraculously). And, like you, I've been known to overindulge in nuts from time to time, so I keep them out of the house, but I do eat them at parties or elsewhere; as long as I don't have a 1 lb bag of them in the pantry calling my name.......LOL. We have to do what we have to do to stay the course, right?

Lealonnie1

angelamb1970 wrote: »

what is medifast?

It's a weight loss program that I am NOT here to promote, angelamb. Our website was dismantled, for the most part, and I'm looking for a new support group & place to blog *which I love doing*

KellyGettingHealthy

Great sense of humor, nice to meet you.

usmcmp

Lealonnie1 wrote: »

I am aware of the community guidelines here usmcmp.........and my blog offers nothing but a good read, in my opinion anyway, along with some observations about the difficulties we all face with weight loss & maintenance. My intent is to continue blogging here & to be encouraging to others who are on the same journey as I. I have nothing to sell, and no samples to offer anyone, but thanks for the reminder.

I'm glad that you have read them. There is actually a blog area here where you can blog instead of posting them to the main forums. You can create a blog from your main page.

myfitnesspal.com/blog/popular

Flab2fitfi

Wow that is one amazing post. Well written and very witty. Might have to join you on that cruise.