Sweet Yet Sour

Yep, it’s been ages since I blogged! My new goal for this year is one blog post a week, even if it is infinitesimally small…

Also, that particular title is appropriate for today’s topic, my visit with the nutritionist at my doctor’s office yesterday.  Months ago I made an appointment for a physical with my doctor, with an appointment with the nutritionist a week later.  After months of working out 3-4 times a week, reducing my portion sizes and increasing my vegetables and fruits, I had absolutely 0 lbs of weight loss to show for it – so I decided a physical and nutrition overhaul needed to be next.

The physical had to be rescheduled to mid-December, due to an extended stay in New York City (thanks Sandy!) and with the holidays, etc. the appointment with the nutritionist was moved to yesterday.  I was excited to see what she had to say, in the hopes that she would assess what I eat, make valuable suggestions as to portion size and how to change my diet and help me on the road to weight loss success.

The meeting was instead a disheartening, depressing episode, after which I cried in the car, then came home and snipped at Mike and the kids and then mulled over the whole thing for hours in the middle of the night.  After listening briefly to my weight concerns, but never weighing me or measuring me, the nutritionist launched full force into a lecture I’ll title, “My Way or the Fat Way”, full of tidbits like, “Everything the FDA tell us is lies and they are full of crap.”  I’ll shorten the 45 minute lecture into what seems to be the main points of her theory: 1) Eliminate all dairy from my diet (”No one in your house should be drinking milk! It’s toxic!”); 2) Eliminate all gluten from my diet (”The FDA tells us to eat grains, but they are all bad for us and cause brain fog and inflammation.”); 3) 75% of my meals should be vegetables; 4) Everything I eat should be organic; 5) Cook only with coconut oil and palm oil; 6) Portions of carbs (brown rice and brown pasta or gluten free bread) and low-fat organic protein can be no bigger than the size of my cupped palm.

Meanwhile, I was trying to imagine a life without cheese or milk, a difficult thing for me and almost impossible for the kids (I was told that all of our calcium we should be getting from kale, collard greens and spinach), thinking of how I could still keep my great-grandmother’s sourdough culture and yet not allow anyone in our house to eat the finished product, and trying to shove kale into every one of our meals.

The nutritionist, when told I was unwilling to give up my sourdough start, told me “You can have one piece of sourdough bread the size of your cupped palm a week”.  Whohoo!

After reiterating all those points, and telling me that my kids were picky-eaters because they don’t eat kale, she ended the session with an offer of two bottles of supplements, one for digestion costing $52 and one for PMS costing $44.  I was told to make an appointment when I felt I could tell her about my success…

I left, muttering about how I would have to think about the $52 and $44 supplements (a one month supply of each), grumped and cried all the way to pick up the kids from day care, grumped at Mike when we got home and proceeded to eat a salad without dressing and acorn squash soup that tasted for all the world like split-pea soup (which I hate) for dinner.

In the end after talking with a friend, my mom and Mike, I have decided that what the nutritionist knows about me, my diet and the best way for me to lose weight could fit in the shape of my cupped palm.  I am still committed to losing weight, but not with such an extreme diet that I have no hope of maintaining and would seem to be to the death of all of my taste buds.  I love food, perhaps a bit too much, but I’d rather love it than have an adversarial relationship with it where I am constantly denying myself any and all pleasure from food.

I have resolved to try to work more water and vegetables into my diet, not eat anything after 8 p.m., no longer have seconds, and find another, less extreme nutritionist.  I’ll get there, just not her way…