Public Humiliation

What to call this entry?  Here are some of the possibilities that have nibbled at the corners of my mind over the past week.  At first it started out innocuous enough: A Major McMishap.  That was when I thought that one meal was going to be all that happened, and then I'd get back on the horse.  Actually, I forget most of the ones I thought of (they were okay or pretty good though) until it started taking a marked turn for the worse.  McFailure.  The Snowball Effect.  Spiralling Out of Control.  (They're not very clever, but they get the point across.)

Pizza.  Coke. French fries.  Cheeseburgers.  Fried chicken. Ice cream. Brownie. Chocolate chip cookie. Banana-nut bread.  I have tasted of all this and more since my last blog post.

And in case you missed it, this went down last night:

I know I look really proud of myself, but I'm not.

How could this have happened?  How could I be the same person who was so motivated and so confident that I would successfully avoid junk food for three whole months, as long as I had the threat of public humiliation looming over me?  Have I no shame?  Shame is still present and accounted for.  Pride, not so much.

This is actually an interesting intellectual conundrum.  Why do we, as humans (notice how I shifted the focus away from myself, and thinly and equally dispersed the blame across all mankind?), experience a thorough and sincere intention toward one action and then carry out another, often the exact opposite? 

These are life's imponderables.  Unfortunately, I don't have all night to get this blog done.  I'm a very busy person and I need to go to sleep at some point soon.  See ya 'round, shmound!

...

Okay.  By way of explanation (not "excuse-ation"), we had to move from one residence to another and were under-prepared (I would argue through no fault of our own.)  Then on the day that movers were scheduled to take away all the furniture and big pieces, they just flat-out didn't show up.  When you're working your tail off dawn til dark and there is a hard deadline, one doesn't have time to replenish the groceries.  Pots and pans, packed away, etc.  I admit that with a little more fortitude I could have continued to make healthy choices even though the vagaries of life shunted me into restaurants.  My theory is that there is a certain stress threshold level when it comes to addictions/habits, and when circumstances exceed your emotional limit, that's it, you're out of the game.

For now.

And then you try again.  Quitting is a skill that you have to practice and practice and build on to get good at it.  Everybody knows that's how it works with cigarettes and crack. This is no different.

Since I fell off the straight and narrow path, I have definitely wondered if everyone who was reading my blog will now be bored with it and consider it a complete waste of time.  Like, if I'm not serious, why should you care?  

I can't even really answer that.

Where do we go from here?  Here are some options.  Maybe the three months starts over, and if I screw up again, the clock re-sets again.  At first I scoffed at that as beyond reason but now I think it might be a good way to go if I want to build up my ability to go without junk for a long period of time. Another option is to try to predict when I'll buckle and to plan a cheat day for that time.  That can be kind of complicated.  It's hard to stop with one meal or one day.  What if I were going along just fine, able to resist forbidden snacks, and then got re-hooked simply because I reached an allotted cheat day?

On the upside, I did go two days past my previous three-week "record" for no junk food consumed (if you don't count one small bag of chips).  Is it the three-week time period that makes me buckle, or was it simply the stressful events?  Or both?  I gotta know.  Because I know that success is all about pre-paving the road and planning ahead.

After only a couple of these illicit meals, my daughter said, "What happened to your tummy?" - I waited a beat for the inevitable follow-up, "You have a baby."  She didn't disappoint.

I've asked myself, "How can I keep people tuning into my blog if they're disgusted by my weakness and frustrated by my failure?" 

And I've answered myself:  "Share your fattest home movie. The one you swore would never see the light of day."

What I should really do is make it a cliffhanger, and tell you I'm GONNA post it next time.  But I'm just going to share it now because...pffffft.  It's not a BFD.

So here it is...and be aware that there are cute babies in it that steal the show, so please try and remain calm.  The set-up:  I am on camera, aware of the large size of my body.  Suddenly I become too self-conscious to remain in the shot, so I attempt to flee.  But that only makes matters worse!  I would have looked fine if I had just stayed put, but no.  I hoisted myself up onto my haunches, and then, it happened...the blubber jiggled.  Just for a fleeting instant.

I'm mostly over it now.  Since I'm at a pretty low point, it is actually a positive thing for me to share this, because I can be glad that my body is no longer that heavy and unwieldy.

If you are curious because you are depraved and want to see some jiggles to judge, feel free to judge away.  I know you're probably pretty supportive and nice, though.  I think well of you.

Remember that.   

Without further ado...

If you're still with me, please share in the comments section what you think I should do next.  Just keep trying to not eat any junk until August 1st?  So it would really more accurately be called, "Three Months of Giving it The Old College Try."   Or maybe try to gradually extend my powers of resistance by trying to make it to 4 weeks until I make it, then try to make it to 5 weeks until I make it, and so on?   Or let the clock re-set on the whole 3 months each time I mess up?  What is your opinion?  Do tell.

Thank you for reading this self-absorbed, narcissistic bullshit.

Too Choppy and Excessive All-Caps

Yesterday, while driving around, a lot, looking for a non-fast-food restaurant, it hit me:  I've made a terrible mistake in telling the world I won't eat junk food for three months.  What was I thinking?

This weekend we are moving.  My next post after this will likely be late next week because we will be without internet for a few days.  NO FAST FOOD WHILE MOVING???

I'll be doing a four-hour road trip in mid-June.  NO FAST FOOD DURING A FOUR-HOUR ROAD TRIP?

I'll be taking a very long international flight shortly thereafter, with long layovers.  HOW AM I GOING TO SURVIVE IN AIRPORTS AND AIRPLANES FOR 24 HOURS WITHOUT JUNK FOOD?

I'll be vacationing for about five days in a lovely South American country.  I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT THEY'LL HAVE THERE TO EAT.

It's alright. It'll be alright.  But perhaps I should start softening up my audience to prepare you for being very forgiving.

Most nights, I do eat at home.  But sometimes life requires restaurants.  Out of groceries, don't have time to buy 'em.  Out during the evening, no time to cook.  My hunger is an emergency.  Some people can go without eating for hours and hours on end and yet feel and behave like normal human beings, but not me.  So, I must accommodate my individual needs.

Which leads me to Thursday night, when we went to Cracker Barrel.  I had nothing but water to drink.  Lemon-pepper rainbow trout entree.  Steamed broccoli.  Mashed potatoes.  And macaroni and cheese.

Let me stop you right there.  Remember, this isn't about reducing calories or losing weight. This isn't about going paleo or avoiding carbs-or-fat-or-this-and-that.  Not everyone agrees, obviously, but mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese aren't junk foods.  They are just regular foods.

Some might think, "Well, shit.  If you're allowing yourself to eat all that, it should be easy for you to avoid fast food and junk food.  I thought this blog was about cutting out the stuff I personally struggle with: all refined sugar/wheat/gluten/dairy/all grains/meat/animal products/saturated fat/calories and most especially...CARBS!"

Just in case you are thinking that, let me assure you with the strongest assurances available to me:  NO.  IT IS NOT EASY FOR ME.  Maybe for you.  I don't know.  Not for me, though.

My husband hates what a picky eater I am.  (Everyone does once they get to know me.)  Once, long ago, before I was comfortable enough to shoot everything down immediately, he'd float suggestions like the following, but now he knows the answers pre-emptively:

Chinese food?
 Nope.

Seafood?
Nope.

Barbecue?
Nope.

Japanese?  Thai? Asian Fusion?
Triple nope!

Mexican?
Maybe on your birthday.

Now, there is a long list of restaurants where I can find things that I like to eat, and I used to go to various ones, and then I could socialize without tipping anyone off that I'm impossible to please. But let me explain how fast food addiction works.  Say you go through a tough time where you eat a lot of fast food, seemingly out of necessity (such as when you are breastfeeding around the clock and have no time even for personal hygiene and never, literally never, sleep).  Much like the Colonel (Sanders), whom we all know puts an addictive chemical in his chicken that makes you crave it fortnightly, smart-ass (see So I Married an Axe Murderer), my Big Three (McDonald's, Chick-Fil-A, and Hungry Howie's) do the same.  Except I felt a burning yearning on a daily basis and it took a lot of work and sweat and teeth-gritting to pare that down to only a twice-per-week requirement. Okay, two to four times.  We'll say three on average.

When you have reached this point, every time you have the money and opportunity to eat out, it has to be one of the Big Three.  You can't go to other restaurants anymore, because they are too expensive or inconvenient to waste any time and money on when you could have had your "favorite."  In other words, you can't deal with passing up the fix.  It would be truly upsetting to miss a fix.

And this is what happened to me.

And last night, we ate at an Indian restaurant.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

This Post Contains a Selfie Photo

On Day 20 of No Junk Food, I celebrate the fact that this morning I finally felt a noticeable reduction in bloat, and improvement in my complexion.  Here I am pictured this morning wearing a shirt I have not dared wear for several years (although there have probably been brief periods when I could have pulled it off if I'd thought of it).  Once, long before my daughter was a twinkle in my eye, I wore this shirt to dinner at a friend's house, and my friend asked me if I was pregnant.  Ouch!  She was so sweet and well-meaning, I kind of feel bad that my quick reply was, "No, just fat."

You gotta stand like Daphne from Scooby-Doo.  Flared pants or bell-bottoms help.  [Note of clarification: I know Daphne didn't wear bell-bottoms.  My mama didn't raise no fool.]

This picture was taken first thing in the morning before eating or drinking anything.  I mention this because it's an astonishing thing how much different my body can look at various moments throughout any given day.

I wore those pants on Monday and my daughter's speech therapist asked me if I was trying to lose weight, and asked what I was doing.

I think I'm almost milking the system compliment-wise, because my weight fluctuates up and down quite a bit.  Thankfully, no one says, "Hey, you're gaining lots of weight lately!" when I'm on the upswing, but people do comment when it's going the other way.  But because of this, I get compliments periodically on my weight-loss efforts throughout the year, for about two or three years now.  I don't know quite how to feel about that.  I'm grateful that people are willing to speak up because it feels like a more objective gauge of progress than my own eyes.  Then again, when someone says you've lost weight, there's the unavoidable embedded reminder that they noticed that you weighed more before, and likely noticed when you were thinner before and then when you gained weight and then lost it again, etc.  

But we're getting into complete ridiculousness here, because if I go down that track, it's like I'm wishing people were blind or that they can't see me, or that when they look at me they see something other than what's there?   Or that they never comment on their impressions of me?  No, I don't really wish any of that.  I like things the way they are.

There is a big part of me that questions whether or not I should make any public comment on the size of my body or what it looks like, or post pictures of it.  I don't want to send the wrong message by emphasizing appearance.  But I am making efforts to be healthy and the fact of the matter is that in my particular current situation, healthier habits will tend to make my body visibly slimmer.

Just to cover all my bases, I will attempt to counter-balance my shallow vanity by posting the following kick-starter video.  You've probably seen this before; it's the Australian lady whose "before" and "after" pictures went viral because the "before" is the conventionally perfect body (while she was still self-critical), and the "after" is the soft, rounded, fleshy body of a woman who is happy with herself and loves her body.  The kick-starter fund is for a documentary about women embracing our bodies.  It's tragic that women almost universally say horribly negative things to themselves about their bodies, almost reflexively.  

Embrace - The Documentary Trailer

There are few things more important than caring for our physical health, but one thing that is far more important is to love yourself as you are, including your physical apparatus, no matter what condition it's in.  Simply because it is an outgrowth of who you are, and it is your precious vessel.  It springs from a perfect soul.

There, I think that's enough touch-feely empowering stuff to stave off my "shallow girl's remorse" for the moment.

Alright, let's see, what else is going on...

I ate some potato chips.  Sorry.  See, what had happened was, I went to Subway thinking they'd have apple slices, but they were out of apple slices, and I was too hungry to just eat a sandwich without anything else.  I could have picked some baked Cheddar and Sour Cream Ruffles that were only 140 calories, but instead I picked some 220 calorie Salt and Vinegar flavored kettle chips because the Ruffles had a lot of MSG and other nasty-sounding ingredients.  I think I made a pretty good choice in a pinch.  (Trying to go with the closest thing to a "whole," "clean" food as possible.) 

These tiny slip-ups will happen.  It's no big deal.  The reason why it's no big deal is because a tiny slip-up like that is just NOTHING compared to the amount of greasy food I was eating before.  Also, making a little mistake, while doing no major damage, makes me even more determined to make better choices more consistently. (I was going to say "to be self-disciplined" but I don't like the punitive connotation of that.)

Other updates:  I now eat one little bite of dark chocolate after dinner each day.  Also, I am trying to walk for 45 minutes each day.  Yesterday I couldn't go; today I went twice!  Two 45 minute walks in one day is a great treat for me.  I love to go for walks.  

It's still difficult to endure a dearth of McDonald's treats on a night when I would have previously had a surfeit of McDonald's treats.  But my mind is getting better at reminding myself of all the benefits I will enjoy when I don't give in to the urge for instant gratification.

Thank you for reading, please comment!

The Subtle Rewards

Day 16.  Two weeks complete!  But you know what sucks?  The fact that I'm counting the days.

While I was going for a walk yesterday, I calculated out what fraction of the three months that is (about one-sixth).  That's...not...very...much.

Up front I will tell you that last night I had a very small bite of dark chocolate (85% cocoa).  I'm really thinking about changing a rule here.  Maybe one small bite of dark chocolate per day should be allowed. Or: maybe it should be allowed if it's an "emergency" (when I feel really, really bad)?

Maybe I should take a poll and you can vote on whether I'm just rationalizing or if that sounds solid.

I quit eating junk food for three months as an end in and of itself, not to lose weight.  So why am I lifting up my shirt and appraising my body in the mirror to see if I'm thinner yet?  (I'm not, of course.)  I think it's because I feel like I'm sacrificing so much by not tasting my favorite tastes, I'm continually searching for some kind of tangible compensation.  Oh.  That wasn't very hard to figure out.

I have to look a little harder for the more subtle rewards that can be harvested right now:

1. Freedom from food-related guilt-attacks
2. Freedom from anxiety and indecision at meal time (should I be good or naughty?)
3. The secure knowledge that for now, I'm not increasing my risk of heart disease or cancer
4. Being able to sleep at night instead of being wired and overstimulated
5. Knowing that I'm taking in a LOT more beneficial nutrients than before, and I'm well-hydrated.
6. Having something to blog about, getting some positive attention

Ugh, those things are stupid.  Who cares.  Those rewards are for people who can't remember what Coca-cola tastes like.

Oh, what?! Excuse me.  I didn't see you there.

So...I was hoping I'd be more zen about this.  Sorry, guys.

No, seriously though, those things are good, they're good.  Real good.  

It's also great to dream about how proud I will feel when I've gone 3 whole months without junk food.  And I feel proud right now already, because I know I'm going to make it.  I'll be like, NO WAY I'm that great.  SHUT!  UP!

Speaking of being more "zen," here is an article that caught my eye today on using meditation to help you overcome addiction.  Of course, it's not like I need any more convincing that I should be meditating.  "I should meditate more" is just another shame-inducing injunction to add onto the pile, right after "I shouldn't eat so much junk food."  But wouldn't it be great though, to do great stuff?  And be great?  It would really be much better and help a lot.  I like to converse about it.  About how cool it would be to be perfect.

Seriously though, I really believe in meditation and perhaps I will one day start a new blog to hold myself publicly accountable for maintaining a practice of daily meditation.  Not a bad idea.

I have learned that the gluten-free pizza crust mix from Aldi does not result in a delicious pizza, and it isn't really any easier than just making your own crust from scratch, which in my experience tastes at least slightly better.  I'm unlikely to do that again soon.  I used to do that in the before time of long long ago, but it's too labor-intensive for me now that I have a child.  I did try to involve my child in the pizza-making process, but it did not enthrall or enrich her for more than a few seconds at a time, which was long enough for her to make it even more time-consuming and labor-intensive than it already was.

Please comment and feel free to weigh in on the question of whether or not I should allow myself a little dark chocolate.  Please know that your comments are important to me and I will take all your advice into account and weigh it carefully before rejecting it as irrelevant to me.

Thanks for reading!

Psyched to Be Getting Fatter More Slowly Now

So far, so good, peeps.  There have been a couple of moments of (tiny) cheats, which I will go into detail about in true confessional style.  But all in all, I'm doing great and I'm impressed with myself.

Something I've been meaning to write about for a while is the lag time it takes for your body to reflect your lifestyle habits.  It's to be expected that it takes at least several weeks before a body begins to look and feel lighter and leaner after improving eating habits and getting some regular exercise.  What's a bit weirder is when you can still feel yourself getting fatter and fatter a couple of weeks into a stint of healthy behavior, because of the terrible things you did (and the great things you didn't do) in the "before time."

That "fat" side of the lag can be motivating, I suppose.  If you don't like the way you look and/or you're uncomfortable, there are so many built-in reminders to shape up.  The "thin" side of the lag is the one that's been tripping me up, though.  I've had several sustained periods of steady weight loss over the past couple of years, through lots of conscientious, yet temporary, effort.  Each time, I've been bowled over by how long I still get compliments on my weight loss after I've stopped exercising and watching what I eat.  I swear it goes on for like two months, all while I'm shoveling pizza and french fries in my mouth all weekend every weekend.  And even when I look at myself in the mirror, I still see all the good results of previous efforts, and I kinda think, Wow, I am tooootally getting away with this.  I know!  Maybe I have a high metabolism. Maybe I just have great genes.

It goes on and on like that for quite some time, maybe months.  Gradually (but not that gradually) I backslide and become just a little more addicted to my "trouble" foods.  Then suddenly, over the course of maybe a week or two, I get slammed by a freight train of back-ordered fat.  It's as if while I lay sleeping, little elves are sneaking into the bed at night to stuff tractor-trailers full of subcutaneous lipids under my skin.

I feel like that's kind of a raw deal.  But it's really not.  It just takes a lot of awareness and focused attention to notice the pattern and anticipate it without being fooled by what's happening before my own eyes ("I can eat and stay thin!  Yay!  More ice cream!")  Even up to this very moment though, what I really want is to have this pattern studied and recorded so accurately, that I can have the *maximum* amount of high-pleasure food without exceeding my "fatness comfort zone."

That's really not a very healthy way of looking at it, I grant you.  Those are maybe just my worse moments.  I think I'm mostly concerned about the right things - health and nutrition - but it's obviously an incomplete transition in attitude.

All this stuff is far more important than appearances.

Ideally, I'd prefer to have enough time to update this blog more often (my last post was four days ago).  It wouldn't necessarily be that interesting, but for my own purposes of coping, when I feel like I need a "sponsor," in those nail-biting moments in which nails are not enough to bite, I want some kind of therapeutic escape valve, short of gnashing my teeth on a leather strap.  

There was a bad time in between this post and the one immediately previous.  Had I done a post then, the title would have probably just been "GIVE ME SOME FUCKING CHOCOLATE."  Then the body of the entry would have gone something like, "I'd murder someone for some motherfucking chocolate.  Maybe you."   

It's just as well I didn't write that, but I wouldn't have had the energy or the levity for that.  What my intense chocolate craving was actually like was just me moaning and groaning and rocking in the fetal position (really).  I suffered, not knowing what to do.  And then, with a face as grim as death, I trudged into the kitchen and made myself a cup of hot cocoa with about seven packets of stevia (instead of sugar).  I wanted to put a lot of spice in it for some reason, so I put ginger and then nutmeg in, and then while shaking cinnamon, I forgot what I was doing (I was practically brain-dead) and because the cinnamon was brown and I thought it was cocoa, I just kept shaking and shaking it in until there was way too much cinnamon.  Then I put the actual cocoa in, and hot milk.  With resignation and self-loathing, I sipped it and savored the sweetness and chocolatey-ness, even though it had way too much cinnamon and stevia tastes like ass.  I experienced almost immediate relief.  I stopped feeling like I was being crushed in a vise and blinded by a black curtain.  So I just took a few sips.  I drank less than half of the mug and dumped the rest out.

The other time I cheated, it was with one-third of a chocolate chip Clif energy bar (off-brand). It was  the same post-dinner chocolate craving situation.  I feel like both of these cheats were a good compromise in an emergency situation.  (A compromise between doing it right and suffering unreasonably).

This blog is getting a lot more hits than I expected.  So, who are all of you people?  And why won't you leave comments?  Come on!    I realize some people can't tell how to leave comments (my own mom included).  Sometimes there is no text field displayed.  If that's the case, here's a quick tutorial:  Look for the word "comments" at the bottom of the post.  Click on it, even though you don't care about reading comments and/or there are none.  Only if you click on the word "comments" will you be taken to a page where you are invited to leave a comment of your own.  It isn't very user-friendly.  If you couldn't figure it out, it doesn't mean you're dumb.  It's really not very obvious.  But now I've taken you through it, so you have no reason not to comment away!

Feel free to subscribe!  Subscribe!  Someday I might want to start another more serious or personal blog, and it occurred to me that I can use this blog (which seems to be getting hits) to build a "platform." 

Beginning to Get a Little Twitchy

I had a nightmare about McDonald's food.  It wasn't about "pink slime" or GMOs.  Theme of dream:  I'm starving and trying to get some McDonald's food, obstacles and villains thwart me.

But that's the only night I've had food craving dreams since I began this abstention from crap.  It occurred on the fifth night.  Nine days are now complete.  My experience tells me it won't be long before I'm plagued nightly with visions of eating stacks and stacks of pizzas and chocolate cakes.

I want to be like:

But instead I be like:

Nevertheless, mainly thanks to "going public" with this blog, I'm towing the line.  Or is it toeing the line?  I don't even know what that means. I'm just trying to use a wide variety of phrases because that's writing.

I mean that I am successfully abstaining from junk food.  

I am feeling a little sheepish because I had a Coke Zero today at Subway (but apples instead of chips).  I said "no soda" and okay, technically Coke Zero is a soda.  And I understand that aspartame is the devil or something, but the thing is I'm not addicted to diet drinks.  I don't really care for them.  Having one doesn't make me more likely to have another.  I don't have any around the house or anything.  And I'm not going to do it again.  After I got the Coke Zero, I realized they had unsweetened iced tea.  I should have gotten that.  I will  next time.  OH MY GOD, GET OFF MY BACK.

After a hard day of work cleaning the house we're going to move into at the end of the month, the hunger problem reared its ugly head.  We tried going to the store for a rotisserie chicken.  Out of luck!  Searched the store for other healthy, and convenient-quick-easy options.  There weren't any.  That was wasted time. Time I didn't have.  We went home and had salmon filets and baked potatoes. Some might think this is a splendid meal, but what some might be forgetting is that, A), salmon and potato is not Hungry Howie's pizza and B), salmon and potato required prep work and was slightly inconvenient.   Now, maybe in YOUR world, that doesn't mean much, friend.  But in MY world?  Woe.  Woe.  Woe is me.  

This is serious.  You think this is a joke? I feel like I'm not getting through to you.  These events are very upsetting.  The food was dry and bland!  So dry!  And oh so bland!  Sticking in my throat.  Not getting me high.  Was there anything left to live for?

I see forbidden foods everywhere I go and I want them all, every time.   Thanks to this blog, I won't do that.

I started trying to figure out a way I could have hot cocoa tonight (use blackstrap molasses instead of the coconut palm sugar I'd been using?) But then I remembered that even though it really doesn't seem all that bad for me, I'm doing this as much for my emotional health as for my physical health.  And I don't want to be reliant on a crutch of chocolate to prop me up.

To sum it up:  IT'S TOUGH.  But.  I'M TOUGHER.

Five Days In -- Puzzled By My Continuing Fatness

Five days without junk food are complete!  (I don't count today until tomorrow.)

It's difficult.  Five days without fast food isn't all that uncommon for me.  Don't get me wrong, it's uncommon. It's just not all THAT uncommon.  But even one day without chocolate is very weird.  It's hard to describe a frustrated craving.  "Insects crawling inside your arms" comes to mind.  

I feel sad while eating dinner.  I think that typically during a weekday dinner, there is a script running somewhere in the back of my mind that says, "It's okay that this meal is just stupid and boring and unsatisfying.  I will have chocolate afterward."  And that's how I typically manage to avoid fast food during the week.  

On the weekend, I normally will eat out at Firehouse Subs, McDonald's, Chick-Fil-A, Panera Bread, Subway, or Hungry Howie's two to four times.  I guess three times on average.  God, it looks so dirty when I type it out.

I will still eat at Panera Bread once on the weekend (without soda or chips).  I get a 1/2 roast turkey and avocado BLT sandwich and a bowl of broccoli cheddar soup.  I'm not going to look up the calories -- calories are irrelevant right now.  This three-month period is a very delicate time of de-toxing from the "hard stuff" --  those over-the-top foods that juuuust get me where I need to be: high.

Yesterday I vaulted over a significant hurdle by cooking dinner (beef stew) ahead of time on a night when I knew we would have to go out during the evening.  Normally such an outing would inevitably lead to a McDonald's run.  But not this night, sirs.  Added benefit:  I could have a bowl of stew before going out, which meant I wasn't suffering from hunger while out doing stuff.  I have a tendency to sort of accidentally-on-purpose starve myself when I know there's a delectable fast food meal on the horizon, because fellas, it makes it taste that much better.  But that's bad.  BAD!

Adam found the stew to be delicious and was glad there was more to be had once we got home.  He reminded me of it when I made a comment about how hard it is to skip McDonald's.  I said, "I don't like the stew."  He said it was really yummy and asked what I don't like about it.  I said, "Because it's just plain old boring stupid stew."  He said, "Wow, you have a lot of deep-seated issues about food, don't you?"  

Anyway, tonight in lieu of my chocolate fix, I'm partaking of some blueberry superfruit herbal tea.  Tea helps curb cravings, because I mentally associate it with my morning caffeine fix (green tea).  Of course, because I'm an insomniac, I have to be sure not to have any caffeine at night, and I better come up with something else fast because I'm almost out of these herbal teas.

Today I went for not one, but TWO 45-minute walks through our neighborhood.  It's almost unheard of for me to have time to do that twice in one day.  For months I haven't been able to find time to do it at all.  Since the weather is nicer and the days are longer, it gives me a chance to pop out after dinner while Adam is around to watch Gwen.

My cousin-in-law Laura Beth has challenged me to join her in a "May Fit Challenge" - to work out 5 days a week throughout the month of May.  Aieeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!  I really want to walk anyway, so hopefully it will work out to being at least 5 times a week.  However, I don't think I can consistently document it with videos this time (we did the same challenge in February), since I lost my iPhone.  

It's Wednesday, so that means the weekend is coming up.  I anticipate this weekend to be particularly hard to endure without junk food.  It will be the first weekend since I swore off junk food for three months.  Well, technically, it's the second weekend, but my first day (May 1) was on a Friday, and I had just eaten a bunch of junk the day before.  Now it will have been more than a full week since my last naughty indulgence, but still early enough on in my journey that my cravings are still full-strength.

I really get something out of over-dramatizing this, but I guess it's not as bad as I thought it would be.  However, without the over-dramatizing, I just couldn't cope, I tell you!  

Please make me aware of your existence by commenting below!  I'd love to know if anyone is reading this who doesn't know me personally.  But people who know me are of course more than welcome to chime in.  Thanks for reading.

Saturday. No Pizza. No Coke. House of Cards? TBD.

It's day two, and everything is copacetic so far.  This may be a boring post, so I'll make it short.

Even though it hasn't been long, I did start on a Friday, and weekends are tougher.  Often, I eat pretty healthy during the week and then on the weekend go hog-wild.

I'd like to record my starting weight, but I don't have a scale that works, so instead I'll take my measurements and list: bust 37, waist 36, hips 43, thigh 23.5, upper arm 11.5, calf 13.5 (in inches).

Here is a graphic to add visual interest and be like a real blogger:

As you can plainly see, these foods are a no-no. I know, a picture is worth a thousand words.

Last night I went without my customary night-time chocolate fix. (A few chunks of dark chocolate, and/or some hot cocoa).  Having no treat to look forward to, at the end of the day I just wanted to be unconscious.  I don't want to be awake and aware for this "no-chocolate" bullshit.  There was definitely a pang of sadness and (emotional) emptiness inside, that made it feel like my exhaustion was somewhat depressive.  On the other hand, this is probably just what my body is supposed to feel like when it's time to go to sleep.  I have been suffering horrendous insomnia lately, which is part of what spawned this idea to give up the junk foods. 

My mind sure drifted a lot today to how many wonderful nutrients are in cocoa.  Of course, today this handy article on the amazing health benefits of chocolate shows up in my Facebook newsfeed.  The only reason I'm not allowing myself to have it is because I seem to be emotionally reliant on it.  It may be that I can add it back in before the three months are up.  First I need to get used to having none, and then perhaps at some point when I do start again, I will be satisfied with much less of it.  I can put cacao powder in my smoothies, because that's not my trigger.  I'm not addicted to having cacao powder in my smoothie.  I'll still get chocolate nutrients without the emotional crutch.

Today we walked through the food court at Northlake Mall.  It was an aromatic smorgasboard of "no."  I didn't feel very tempted because I'd just had a filling lunch at Panera Bread.  Still, GO ME!  I almost forgot to mention I did NOT eat potato chips at Panera Bread.  Not because I consider the calories or ingredients in their nice kettle chips to be that bad, but because I said "no chips" and I mean "no chips." I had what I'm sure was a high calorie soup and sandwich. But that's not the point for me.  My point here is to to avoid my pattern of self-medicating with food-gasms.

Here is a recent picture of me:

Not a full length shot, but still enough to show I'm in no immediate danger of starving to death.

Tonight being Saturday night makes it tough to go without junk.  Of late, we'd taken to ordering pizza to enjoy with our episodes of House of Cards.  Going without junk on a Saturday is almost unprecedented.  

It's my assumption that I'm handling all of this just fine because I just started.  I think it hasn't been long enough for me to be in real pain yet.  I do continue to be apprehensive about what's to come.

I recently saw an ad for shrinkyourself.com, an online tool that supposedly helps emotional eaters to "zap" their specific cravings.  I haven't looked into it thoroughly yet, but thought I'd mention it in case anyone else is interested.

I had great success with sparkpeople.com a couple of years ago and highly recommend it.  I'm just not doing it this time because its most valuable tool is food tracking, and I need to be more laid back than that right now.  Eliminating junk food is going to be enough of a challenge and really a lot more simple to mentally track.  I've counted calories while trying to indulge in treats moderately, and that's a good way to go, too.  However, I'm after the bigger challenge and the bigger health benefits that should result.  

One last side note:  Being lazy, I can see I'm going to have to eat nuts and dried fruits every day - and I don't like them.  I wonder how that's going to play out.

This post really didn't turn out to be that short.  

Let me hear from you in the comments below!