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Paul - The Wry Eye Guy 1 Comment
The Things I Sometimes Shouldn’t Do!

Oh boy, where do I begin!

Probably with an apology for being absent for the past couple or so months. I just lost my way & really, I have no idea why. I was working hard, doing what I normally do every day, & behaving normally for the most part. I made half a dozen attempts to quit smoking (all unsuccessful) during those months, something which generally hurts my dietary efforts, but that’s no excuse. Whatever the reasons, I just couldn’t hang in there this past little while.

I lost all interest in losing weight, I didn’t want to see a scale, I wanted to eat bread & cookies, I didn’t want to eat meat & fat, I certainly didn’t want to eat salad & veggies, & on it goes. I didn’t feel good about this state of mind. I was occasionally guilty, dejected, downtrodden & depressed but I couldn’t bring myself to do the right things when it came to eating well. Was it a mental thing? A physical thing? No clue!

I was at sea, without a motor, & couldn’t figure out where the paddles were. I abandoned all pretense of trying to lose weight, I gave up looking at the latest posts on forums, avoided chatting with my weight-loss friends, I stopped hunting down that latest bit of research. I just didn’t want to know.

And, of course, I gave up blogging!

But I’m back. The first post in a while. I hope this is an anchoring point for me to push forward from. And as I do, I’ll share some of the insanity of the past few months. I hope there’s something there I can learn from, as I do my rear-view mirror analysis of what might have happened along the way.

Now I’ve just got that leftover Chinese food to eat today. And that one last slice of cake. And there are those last few soft & chewy double chocolate chip cookies that nobody else likes. And was there an ice-cream sandwich in the freezer!?!

Then I’ll be back! 🙂

PS … I’d like to find the fortitude to jump on the scale come November 1st. I’m not going to like the result but … sometimes … I need a little stick along with all the carrots!

Bread Depresses Me!

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Bread Depresses Me!Nova Scotia Lobster

I still don’t know if this is real or imagined but bread definitely does something to my mood. I keep coming back to this because it’s the one thing I haven’t figured out how to integrate into my dietary regimen. Yet! I’m sure there’s a solution out there, maybe an old strain of the wheat grain will work for me. Or an alternate grain, but I haven’t bothered to chase it down yet.

Meantime, I’m faced with the fact that I pay a price for eating bread. I pay with reduced impulse control. I pay on the scale. And I pay by feeling just a little blue afterwards. And often this persists through to the following morning. After eating bread, I am tempted by other treats that, typically, don’t cross my mind. I try to buy a bar of dark chocolate in anticipation of the loss of control but even that doesn’t provide sufficient resistance sometimes. Most interestingly, I tend to have feelings of light despair, uneasy anxiety, or perhaps it’s just a hint of melancholia. None of these feelings are normal for me. Circumstances don’t change but, after eating bread, I do. It’s possible that the other items I eat, because of the lack of impulse control, are contributing but I think I’ve narrowed it down to bread.

So why do you eat it then, you idiot!

Well sometimes you just do, don’t you! The past week vacationing in Nova Scotia has been wonderful. And one of the great things about being in Nova Scotia is the wide availability of seafood, particularly lobster. Once considered nothing more than a sea bug, an ocean cockroach, it’s now a luxury dining item. Because of demand, it’s not cheap here either. But it’s a lot cheaper than back home so I’m indulging! Anything you can imagine is done with lobster here. And it’s available everywhere. Forget gourmet restaurants, you can get lobster from diners & food trucks in Nova Scotia! Sure you can eat just lobster but you can also have lobster salad, lobster Cesar salad, lobster cakes, lobster club sandwiches, even lobster mac & cheese. And a big favourite with the tourists is the lobster roll. It’s exactly what you’d imagine … a big roll of bread, stuffed to overflowing, with lobster meat. I just knew I’d have to have one. And I did. Yesterday.

So today, I’m just a little off as I write. I’m looking forward to eating far less today. And definitely no bread. I hope I didn’t do too much damage & that my scale will forgive me when I step aboard.

PS … I have to add that this is a fantastic place for a holiday. It’s just ridiculously beautiful, the air is clean, the beaches are glorious. The people are great & the food is to die for. I warn you though, don’t think you’ll accomplish all you set out to do. Maps & the internet do not provide insight into all the distractions you’ll face along the way. Everything takes longer, way longer, than you imagine because it’s impossible to resist the impulse to follow one more sign, to a place with some unpronounceable name. And then you’ll find yourself sitting on a beach, in a deserted cove, that you can call your own for an hour or two. It’s magical. I highly recommend a visit.

And yes, the lobster roll was worth the pain! 🙂