Food Junkie Note: I wrote this Friday morning before I went home sick. It is my Monday column and it relates to post I put up today.

I hate being sick.

I don’t like coughing. I don’t care for runny noses. And I can live without my face hurting.

But being sick means looking at what foods will make me feel better. If it’s flu, then I want chicken noodle soup.

When it’s just a cold, like the one I have now, I want orange juice, ginger ale and comfort foods like grilled cheese sandwiches or just a slice of bread.

Orange juice packs vitamins to fight the germs that make me feel like death slightly warmed over.

The bread is just a soft food that won’t feel like tiny shards of glass going down my throat.

But this kind of meal raises a dilemma for a food junkie. Juice is high in sugar, and I generally don’t drink a lot of it. My rule of thumb to get my vitamins is to turn to the very fruits and vegetables that make up my favorite juices. I make it a point these days to eat a piece of fruit every day.

When I’m sick, I don’t want to put that much effort in what I eat. That leaves me with high-sugar juice or ginger ale.

I’m still trying to figure out what to do. So this week, instead of a food junkie discovery, I’m asking you, what do you eat when you are sick? Go to the Misadventures of the Food Junkie and let me have it. Trust me, I need some help.

Before me was a table full of food. Good, good, good food.

It was like many Thanksgivings, and I just needed to know where I was going to start, and if my plate was big enough.

This year, it turned out that the plate was plenty big enough. For the first time ever, I got a spoonful of everything and could still see some of the plate.

It was the first time I ate Thanksgiving dinner and didn’t immediately go back for seconds. There wasn’t any pressure to eat as much as I could, or to clean my plate. No one made jokes about being a piggy. It was like any other meal.

No kidding, the only time I went back for food was a couple hours later, and then it was just for sweet potatoes, vegetable casserole and a roll.

I feel pretty proud of myself. It isn’t often during the holidays that I can say I exerted self-control over my eating.

The real test comes over the weekend when I know there are lots of leftovers that I don’t want to waste. The biggest challenge was not eating all of the leftovers.

Thanksgiving also was a chance to try new things. We made a fat-free pumpkin cheesecake, instead of making pumpkin pie. It, um, well, was OK. Frankly, I didn’t like it. Fat-free cream cheese took away some of the richness that I associate with cheesecake. It was light and almost fluffy, but it wasn’t as tasty as I had hoped.

The real success was reducing the sugar in the sweet potato casserole. The recipe calls for one cup of sugar. I used a half-cup of sugar and a half-cup of sugar substitute. It was pretty good, and I still felt like I was enjoying a family favorite.

Food Junkie Discovery

Cheese is a favorite snack, but I have two problems with it. It isn’t always calorie- and fat-friendly. Worse yet, it is easy to go over board and eat too much. So, I have started buying low-fat mozzarella string cheese. It is tasty and comes in pre-packaged serving sizes.

As I lifted the weight up, my shoulder made a loud cracking sound. When I lowered it, there were more popping sounds.

While I felt old and embarrassed, I knew I was finally taking a step in the right direction. I was actually making a serious attempt at exercise.

This effort to increase my physical movement actually started a couple of weeks ago when I was on a walk with my friend and co-worker, Meghan. She suggested getting together to workout — something a little more than a walk.

Work and out are not generally terms that I put together.

In the past, I would just say I didn’t have time between work and school. But I couldn’t use that excuse when the idea was to meet on Saturday morning.

So when we met, Meghan showed me a series of exercises that focus on the “core.” How can I describe them? Each exercise looks simple, but that is an evil, evil deception.

There is one exercise where you jump up and when you land, you land in a squat position and hold it for a minute. It sounds easy, right? It starts out easy, but later you feel pain where you aren’t supposed to feel pain.

The day after Meghan introduced torture to my life, I was in pain. As a general rule, this type of discomfort would be my reason why I shouldn’t exercise.

Oh, I thought about it. But I came to the realization that the only way to be less sore was to exercise more. I actually worked out by myself on Sunday and Wednesday. I was surprised too!

Maybe this will help me eat better and feel better.

Food Junkie Discovery

I like soup and some of the canned soups are fairly low-calorie and low-carb. Recently, I was shopping and discovered that V8 is making soups now. I tried the Southwestern Corn. It wasn’t bad. A serving (about a cup) has 150 calories and 26 grams of carbs. If you do what I did and eat the whole thing, that is just 300 calories and 52 carbs — not great but better than a cheeseburger.

All I wanted was a cup of orange cream Dippin’ Dots. I paid my $3 and started to eat the yummy little balls of ice cream.

Then I see her: Amanda, my diet buddy. She is standing to the right of my desk. She has a quizzical look on her face.

“You aren’t going to eat all of them are you?” she asks.

“Um,” gulp “Maybe,” I said with the spoon halfway back to the treat’s container. “You aren’t going to make me spit it out are you?”

The answer was no, but before I knew it, she had half of my Dippin’ Dots. She didn’t eat them (though I hope she thought about it before they melted).

“You told me to watch your back, and you didn’t need all of them,” she told me.

Although she didn’t really appreciate my little food misadventure, she reminded me that we make mistakes. We have bad weeks. More importantly, she pointed out that she was there to help me get back on track.

The exchange with Amanda, as well as some kind words from bloggers and readers, underscore how important a little bit of support is when we make life changes.

For me, it comes from Amanda, Mr. X and readers. I’m lucky, they all keep me going, and are kind enough to forgive mistakes. Readers offer suggestions and encouragement, even forced me to face the scale.

The lesson? Doing it alone is not fun and having people to help you along the way is OK.

The plug? Well, there is the blog (I’ll be your support and you can be mine). There are also a number of groups around the community: Taking Off Pounds Sensibly and Overeaters Anonymous are just two. You might want to search around for the one that is right for you.

Food Junkie Discovery

I have to say thanks to reporter Meghan Walsh for this one: Candy. With Halloween coming, we in the newsroom have been debating whether the Chocolate Jar should make a comeback. Meghan found low-calorie candy treats, like Butterfingers, M&Ms, York bars and Twix. The calories range from 90 to 100 calories. She has a bowl filled with these gems. I’m planning on treating myself a little later — to one, only one.

Sometimes, I feel like the only thing I do is eat — especially at work.

It is kind of weird to say that, since I am trying to watch how much I eat to lose a little weight. But it may be working out in the long run.

When I start feeling a ping of hunger, I eat.

I snack.

I keep rice cakes and tortillas at my desk, or I bring some fruit from home. If I am really desperate, I might buy a packet of peanuts from the vending machine.

Needless to say my lunch sack is pretty full after I pack my lunch and snacks.

It struck me the other day that maybe I am eating too much and I was on track to put back any weight that I have lost. Bummer thoughts.

Then I decided I would pay close attention to what was going in my mouth. In one day, I ate mini rice cakes as a morning snack, a peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich for lunch, a pudding cup for dessert and string cheese. Later in the day I had a tortilla with some leftover guacamole.

OK, it sounds like a lot but I eat small portions and they seem to keep me from getting really hungry during the day. I can honestly say that when I go home and cook dinner, I am not starving and not gorging on the food I’m preparing.

Snacking also seems to cut down on cravings and the trips to the vending machine — even the ones where I just go to look at the candy I shouldn’t have and cry.

Food Junkie Discovery

Quaker’s mini rice cakes are a nice quick, low-calorie snack that comes in a variety of flavors. The cakes are about the size of an average potato chip. At my house, the cheddar and caramel varieties are very popular. The caramel cakes have about 60 calories for a serving of six mini cakes. They are tasty and easy to pack in a lunch. As good as the cakes are, there is a drawback: It is easy to get carried away and end up eating half of the bag.

I live nearly 2,000 miles away from my free source of fresh tomatoes.

Two-thousand miles from free vine-ripe goodies from mama’s garden. I’m pretty sure a trip through the postal system — or related shipping company — would wiggle Okie-grown tomatoes into mush. At least that is what my mom tells me when I beg her to send me tomatoes.

So what is a food junkie with a craving for fresh tomatoes to do?

I found the answer a couple of weeks ago at the farmers market as more and more produce sellers appeared. There is one vendor — and I don’t know his name — that said he planted 10 acres of tomatoes.

That’s a lot of ‘maters. So my new goal is to help him get rid of some those vine-ripe fruits. And they aren’t too expensive. I bought two smallish tomatoes for 90 cents, which doesn’t sound a lot unless you are the person who used to get FREE produce.

I really can’t complain too much. The farmers market makes it a little cheaper to get good, and fairly local, food.

Oh, yeah, and it is healthy. To date, the farmers market has helped me consume more green beans, squash and fruit without breaking the bank.

Food Junkie Discovery

While my favorite way to eat tomatoes is simply sliced with a little cottage cheese, I like to chop ’em up, add a little olive oil, a bit of choice vinegar (red wine is good) and a few onion slices. Simple salads make me happy.

I hate food.

OK, that isn’t true.

We all know that I love food; and this love is proving fatal to my weight loss plans.

I have fallen off the wagon — a couple of times — this month. I can run down a laundry list of reasons why: Work, stress, school, fatigue, etc., etc.

And I am finding it hard to get back on the wagon. Each day I think I do better, I find where I failed.

Take Tuesday for instance. I got home kind of late.

I was feeling tired and down. I needed a pick-me-up. Specifically I wanted sugar — and lots of it — to give me a burst of energy.

Solution: Ice cream.

Wait, not just ice cream, but a blizzard with peanut butter-chocolate cookies. A guaranteed rush.

Of course it was followed by a crash and me falling asleep at my computer.

It has been the same pattern all week. I am ready to throw my hands up in the air and be done with.

But … I don’t like the way I feel right now. Despite the sugar rushes, I feel tired, strung out. The food I love? Lately it hasn’t tasted as good as I remember.

I miss my carrots.

So, starting today, I’m back on the wagon. The focus is making the right food choices and not eating too much.

Food Junkie Discovery:

I have noticed I don’t eat as well when I feel really pushed for time. I think in order for me to have better success I need to do more planning and make better use of my time.