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.
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OK, you need to work on your spices. No reason for stew to be boring, add chili powder, a pinch of cayenne and cumin = Mexican stew that tastes really really good! Have a tortilla handy if you want. OR Italian seasoning, a pinch of fennel and a can of whole peeled tomatoes for ITALIAN stew! One of the reasons I have so many spices is that we tend to make the same thing, over and over again, I HAVE to change the spices up to keep from getting bored..... You can DO THIS!
ReplyDeletePat, I'm sure you have great advice here, but you possess a talent for cooking that I lack. I mean, OK, point taken, I do need to spice it up and work on flavorings. I will endeavor to be less lazy and give more of a shit.
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