Adding Veggies

I have no real progress to report in terms of weight loss.  I’ve had a lot of difficulty sticking with any sort of plan for any length of time.  Nothing new there.  Sigh.  I will have a couple of “good days” where I feel motivated to try, where I remember to make good choices, where I try to just stay in the moment and not allow myself to fixate on using food for entertainment.  But then when that initial bout of extreme hunger hits, and an idea for complete indulgence enters my thoughts, I will find Crazed Addict Fatgirl almost giddy with excitement.

Oddly enough, the excitement is for how I will (supposedly) resume my restrictions the next day, after the indulgence.  Like somehow my resolve won’t be wiped away by pigging out on pizza or eating an entire entree of 3 crispy chicken tacos from Chili’s…or facing the 2-pound weight gain that will inevitably follow the next morning.

I can’t even remember anymore what it was that kept me on the straight and narrow long enough four years ago to get some momentum going and keep my motivation so that I actually took off weight.  I think it was the novelty of this blog, of starting something and knowing that a few people were looking and observing and would know what a loser I was if I just threw it all away.  I also had felt sort of desperate, where I knew I was on the edge of being obese, with no normal-sized clothes that would fit me.  So I stuck with it, and suddenly, after a week or two, it got a lot easier.

I’ve been focusing over the past week on adding more vegetables into my food choices.  Despite my vows to the contrary, this has been one of those habits that too easily has fallen by the wayside, and once I ditch the veggies, I find that I have also ditched anything resembling portion control, restraint, and balance.

I did this on Monday, when my husband made the most awesome pulled-pork sandwiches EVER.  I ate a full plate of carrots and cauliflower and then managed to restrain myself and have only ONE sandwich rather than two (which is what I had last time).  I also ate none of the chips that were available.  And it didn’t seem that difficult.

Yesterday I had veggies, but then I came home from a meeting and had to fix a steak dinner for the family, complete with my favorite garlic bread and Caesar salad.  Yes, it was foolishness, but honestly, in that moment, any shred of resolve left my mind.  I forgot completely that I even cared about trying to lose some pounds and get back into my good skinny clothes.

I actually prayed yesterday that God would take the little bit of resolve I do have and work with it.  And something of a miracle did occur today.

My husband was going to a baseball game this evening, so I knew that the kids and I were on our own for dinner.  I had it in my thoughts to go out and get something really indulgent for “linner” for us…something like Five Guys burgers and fries, or maybe my favorite tacos from Chipotle (and unfortunately, I’ve gotten in the habit of overloading them with ingredients and eating all three tacos rather than just two and some broccoli as I’d done before).

Yet oddly enough, as I contemplated the possibilities, it suddenly seemed to me like I wanted to have vegetables and a Lean Cuisine for dinner instead of some big non-restricted meal.  So that’s what I did.  The kids had their own favorite choices, but I had a Lean Cuisine and a plate of broccoli and tomatoes.

I haven’t been hungry tonight, despite finishing my food at 5 p.m.  I haven’t obsessed about the chips I know are in the pantry, or how good they’d be with a glass of wine while we watch TV.

I’m praying this mentality will continue.  I can vaguely remember that it relatively quickly becomes not-so-hard to think like this…to add veggies…to exercise restraint…

And I really do want to fit into my good clothes again.  A little more than 10 pounds would do it.  I can do that.  I had this moment of thinking that I’d like to lose 10 pounds by my birthday, which is a little less than a month away.  I’ve done that before in that time frame.  If I focus, I could do it again, or at least start myself on the way, getting pretty close to that goal.  I think I’m going to try.