Watch out for Flying Dishes

-
There are some days when you just want a cookie.

Then there are some days when you just want six cookies.

Yesterday was one of those days.

I heard it said in Weight Watchers one time that if you drop a plate in your kitchen, and it breaks, you don't open up the cabinets and proceed to break all of the rest of the plates because you'd already broken the one.

Well, I do. Except that the plates are cookies. And I'm not breaking them, I'm shoving them in my mouth. My brain actually justifies: "Well, since you've already had the one, may as well have that one too. And that one. And now would be a good time to try that one. Who knows when you'll give yourself this chance again? Grab that one while you're at it."

I don't know how to explain this phenomenon other than to say that it is an addiction. In the same way that a person can be addicted to anything else. My relationship with food, and/or eating, has all the symptoms of an addiction. Secret binging. Massive guilt over relapse. Fear of situations presenting me with the temptations of delicious treats.

So yesterday, in spite of having had cottage cheese and strawberries for breakfast and a grilled chicken sandwich (from which I scraped the mayo and replaced with mustard) and water for lunch...in spite of not touching Chloe's fries or tasting her ice cream sundae - I caved. First, I decided that I was being pretty hard on myself. Then I convinced myself that I would never be happy if I couldn't eat a little cookie every now and then. Then, somehow, I concluded that the key to my weight loss would actually be to relax and have that cookie. So I ate the cookie. And then another one, and another one. Moderation be darned, frantically, my hands searched for something else sweet to follow the last thing...until I calculated and thought, "oh goodness, what if someone - one of my supportive friends - walked in and saw me right now?" So I stopped, but the dishes were already in pieces all over the floor. At dinner, I ordered fried instead of grilled (Crash!) and grabbed a cookie on my way out. (Crash, crash!)

But were they good? Sort of. The first one was. The last few were just calories - the addict in me trying to take advantage of the window of opportunity I'd opened.

I don't know where this leaves me. I would like to get to a point where I really can have just one cookie. Or whatever the treat of the day is. Maybe I should just keep stuff around that's REALLY worth it, so that if i blow it, at least I've blown it on the good stuff, rather than old shortbread cookies. Or maybe, like a person in recovery, I really can't have a taste. Or maybe I just can't have a taste alone.

Having said all of that, today was the first time that someone who hadn't seen me for awhile said I was looking skinny. I almost bear-hugged her. Maybe the cookie-binge diet IS actually the secret.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Where is Mister Rogers When You Need Him?

-
Image
It has been said that I am easily amused. Little things fascinate me. I like to know how things work. I like factory tours and behind-the-scenes stuff and those specials on Discovery Channel. I was definitely brought up this way: I remember my brother telling me about a conversation he'd recently had about "Jet Puffed Marshmallows." Topics covered were: What does "Jet-Puffed" mean? How big-a-jet are we talkin? What keeps the marshmallows from exploding when "jet puffed"? Several weeks ago, the girls and I caught an episode of the rarely aired Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. In that one episode, the inimitable Mr. R shed light on two very interesting processes when he visited a sleeping bag factory and a dollmaker's workshop. Have you ever thought about how a sleeping bag is assembled? Me neither, but now I know, and I am a better person for it. So here are a few jobs I would like to shadow for a day (or watch Mister Rogers shadow them), because ev...
Read more

An Open Letter to Everyone's Favorite Morning Radio Host

-
Image
Dear Mr. Morning Radio Host, How dare you, Mr. Morning Radio Host , while thinking out loud on air, suggest that we all turn around and give our tax refund checks to Compassion International? It's an economic stimulus package! Didn't you think of that? How will sending our money to poor people out of the country stimulate the US economy? Huh? That's just an un-American suggestion! You are proposing that we send our economy into further tumult, just to satisfy your whim of feeding orphans! If we don't use our money to consume more stuff, or go on little vacations or invest wisely, then, well, the package will be all for naught, and we will all be guilty of treason, or something. What are you trying to do? Save the world or something? Start a movement? You are a danger to this economy, sir. Sincerely, Amy Wright, who is thinking that there may be something to this, and will soon be investigating ways to encourage people to do it, provided the Senate approves the plan.
Read more

Ask me what I did last night.

-
A few of us have been wrestling a little bit lately with what it means to live in the grace of God. What does it mean to live fully covered by the Gospel? To embrace the freedom Christ secured for us on the cross? For me, last night, it meant big hair and hard rock. See, over the summer, I'd started to get a little self-conscious about my holiness. I was part of a study at church that consisted of mainly older, wiser, more conservative and traditional women. While I still felt largely like a voice of dissent - a raging postmodern compared to this crowd - there was a certain feeling starting to set in. An old nemesis. I can't believe I didn't recognize it, as we' spent so much time together in the past. Guilt. Guilt that I wasn't the teetotaling, perfect homemaking, gentle-speaking mother that I was being mentored to be in this class. I used my powers of wit and sarcasm to mask and suppress it, but with each chapter and interaction the guilt seeped deeper...wit...
Read more