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!