When the going gets tough...

Photo courtesy jules:stonesoup, licenced CC BY SA

... the tough go back to basics.

I have to admit that this has been a difficult week for me.  I have been snacking.  A lot.  And not in a reasonable way, with healthy almonds or apples - - this week I have been snacking on chocolate.  Lots of it. 

I keep a candy machine full of peanut butter M&Ms on my desk, and on special chocolate occasions like Easter, Valentine's Day or Halloween I also put out a candy dish with special chocolates and candy.  Mini eggs at Easter, mini chocolate bars at Halloween, chocolate caramel hearts at Valentine's day - - the people in my office love 'em. 

I am generally a woman of stone when it comes to eating the chocolates.  I typically just don't do it.  I know that chocolate is one of my trigger foods, so I tend not to eat it, because if I eat one piece, I want to go back and eat 10 more pieces.  The peanut butter M&Ms do not tempt me at all - - they never have - - but I have to be on my guard with the other chocolates. 

In the last few weeks I have been sorely tempted by the candy dish, to the point where I finally crossed the line and started to eat the sweets myself.  Most days I would be diligent and track what I ate, but a couple of days I went completely and utterly off the reservation and ate chocolate after chocolate after chocolate.  Mini peanut butter cups?  Sure thing.  Hershey's Kisses?  Absolutely.  Mini Peppermint Patties?  Bring 'em on.  And on.  And on.  After a few minutes it was easy to lose track of how many little chocolates I had actually eaten.  Enough to have lost count, which is too many, when you think about it. 

Once I began the rationalization process involved with having the first little chocolate (so tiny, so few calories, I'm still way under on my calories, I worked out today), eating the next 10 or 15 chocolates was easy.  Except for looking at myself and owning up to what I just did - - that was difficult. 

I knew that this week I was in danger of sliding completely off the rails.  So I did what I should have done last week, and went back to basics. 

Yesterday I tried to make it through just one day without illicit snacking.  No little chocolates.  No mini caramels.  No shredded cheese.  No bread with margarine.  Just three balanced nutritious meals with proper sensible snacks.  If I could make it through one day, I thought, I would be able to begin taking back control over my eating.

I made it.  Every time I felt tempted to pop a chocolate into my mouth, I took a new piece of gum, or a took a sip of water.  Anything to deal with the oral fixation I have been feeding with sweets.  And when I got home, I went straight to bed and didn't hang out in the kitchen, looking for snacking ideas.

This morning I felt great.  Full of energy for my weights + elliptical day, and a million pounds lighter - - mentally, at least.  I had beaten down my impulsive eating and had stuck to my plan, for one day at least.  But that one day was a complete win, and I feel great for having that win under my belt.  It showed me that I could do it - - I could be in control again.

Today is a new day, of course, and another day to try and hit the plan.  Having mastered my impulsive eating once, though, now I know that if I take it just a day at a time and if I keep my focus on the fundamentals I can push past this and return to my healthy eating habits. Today already feels easier than yesterday - - it is requiring less of a physical act of will to resist the siren call of the chocolates. 

Tomorrow when the chocolates run out the jar will go away until Back to School season.  This little habit is too expensive - - in many ways.  Aside from the money I spend subsidizing my co-workers' snacking habits (which is not insignificant - - these guys can put 'em away!), I have fought too hard to develop healthy eating habits to piss them all away on a handful of candy now.  I work too hard every day, sweating it out on that damn elliptical, to give it up now with stupid mindless emotional eating. 

I am better than this.  I can be better than this.  One day at a time.  

Whew - back into the routine!

Photo courtesy Shelly Munkberg, licensed CC-BY-NC-ND

I managed to eke out a workout last night after working late-ish and going to the grocery store for the usual mid-week provisions (fresh fruit, vanilla non-fat yogurt, cheese, olive oil).

After all the sturm und drang of yesterday's blown schedule, I decided to change my workout to a simple fat burning program just using the music on my iPod.  In trying this I discovered that the BeatBurn Elliptical Training app really does make workouts go much quicker.  Last night I spent the entire time on the machine looking at the countdown, and waiting until I could get off.  Time seemed to stretch forever, which I know is just not scientifically possible (at the speed I was going, at any rate).

This morning, working out for 40 minutes felt long, but the time was no real problem using the BeatBurn app.  I like that the app constantly mixes up the intensity, speed and songs with different time intervals so that it is almost impossible to get bored with the workout.  Don't like something?  Wait a minute or two - - it will be different soon.  Straight pedalling, in contrast, is tedious as hell.  I don't know how my mother does 60 minutes twice a day, I honestly don't.

It took me what felt like forever to get out of the house this morning.  I did sleep in to 6.30 am (from my usual 5-5.30 am), but it was putting together the lunch and dinner to take to work that killed me.  Sure, the main courses were all pre-packed, but I still had to cut stawberries, measure yogurt, measure peas and corn, measure sunflower seeds and salad dressing, and get everything together.  I am glad that I planned everything out last night, so I had a plan of attack this morning.

But you know what really slowed me down?  Ants. On. A. Log.  Those suckers take some craftsmanship to make, that's for sure.  Craftsmanship that I do not possess.  I ended up looking like a small child on her first birthday, with peanut butter all over the counter, the spoon, my suit, in my hair ... everywhere, in fact, but on the damn celery, where it was supposed to go.  It turns out that wet celery does not hold peanut butter.  A marvel of physics under our very nose.  Lesson learned - - I will leave the Nerd to make Ants on a Log from now on.  He has the patience of Job!

Perhaps in the spirit of learning from my mistakes I will try and prep my lunch/dinner tonight, rather than in the morning.  The tricky thing about that is that I need a lot more tupperware to pull it off - - I am pretty much using all the tupperware I have each day for lunch, and it doesn't work to put food into wet containers, fresh from the wash.  At least based on my learnings from the celery this morning. 

My weight bottomed out this week on Tuesday, and has now started to come back up.  I am strangely reassured by this because I was actually concerned that my weight was too low.  I know, it sounds crazy when I say it like that (!).  But the new program of 40 minutes on the elliptical was, I think, causing me to shed more water than before, and the weight I reached was not a true weight.  I just am keeping my fingers crossed that I don't go too far back up - - let's hope equilibrium is 2 pounds down versus last week.  Fingers crossed!