Intake Adjustment

I've been at home for a few weeks now, which is where Dan and I will be living until we find jobs and a place of our own. For the first week, it was primarily Dan, my mom and I at home cooking, so a lot of the food was similar to what I'd been eating before--very veggie-centric.

Then my dad arrived.

Right now, there are a lot of special food requests in our family--I'm not eating much meat, my mom isn't eating gluten and Dan has his own food preferences (like not liking vinegar). My dad is doing his best to accommodate those requests, but he's pretty stubborn in his food ways.

A few stalwart features of my dad's cooking:
1. Animal fats (yes, plural--dishes almost all contain multiple kinds)
2. Meat
3. Glutenous carbs

Some recent examples:
- Corn chowder which contained bacon, a half stick of butter and copious amounts of half and half and milk (it would have been all half-and-half if we'd had enough)
- Dinner plans for tonight include 4 8+ oz. steaks for 5 people. If I were eating meat, that would be at least a serving and a half of meat for each person.. since I probably won't have any, that's two+ servings per person
- Several nights ago, dinner consisted of pasta lightly sauced in tomato-pepper (and bacon!) sauce. Total vegetable intake: half a tomato, 1/8th of a pepper. Plus the bowls we used easily held 8oz. of cooked pasta.

Transitioning from food where I could eat massive quantities for only a few calories with foods like roasted broccoli or steamed kale, I'm having a really hard time.

First, I feel awful all the time. It's amazing how terrible I feel from not eating enough vegetables. I'm tired all the time; I feel bloated; I don't have the energy to exercise; my stomach has been bothering me regularly; and I really have little motivation to do much of anything.

Second, I'm having trouble controlling my calories. I've managed to maintain my weight at around 134, only around 2 pounds heavier than I was during the season, but it's been a huge struggle. I've been cutting back on dessert, trying to watch my snacks, eating smaller lunches and just generally having to pay a lot more attention. It's not fun.

I'm hoping to work more vegetables into my lunches. I've been eating a lot of fruit with lunch, but it just doesn't work as well as vegetables to make me feel good. I'm also hoping to get a little bit stricter about eating meat with dinner--it really leaves me feeling kind of icky. Finally, I'm working on decreasing my portions with dinner--it's nice to wake up a little bit hungry in the mornings and that just hasn't been happening recently.

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Tomato salad
serves one

Ingredients
2 ripe summer tomatoes
1 leaf of fresh basil
1T olive oil
salt
pepper

Directions
1. Cut up the tomatoes.
2. Chop up the basil leaf.
3. Toss the tomatoes with basil, olive oil, salt and pepper.
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How do you handle eating other people's food? Have you ever stayed at somebody else's house for a long period of time? Let me know what you think by leaving a comment or emailing me at piquantprose [at] gmail [dot] com.

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