I doubt it’s really true that the 3rd Monday in January is the most depressing day of the year for everyone. But it sure felt like it when I went outside for my predawn coffee & saw the ridge of icebergs that the snowplough left at the end of my driveway!
Blue Monday … Grey or Great?
I was aching from the shovelling activities of the previous day & I made the mistake of “treating” myself to some starch selections for dinner last night. Followed by sugary choices for dessert! I love cramming that junk into my face but there is always a price attached to it. Indigestion, poor sleep &, for me, some sugars & starches are mind altering substances. They bring my weight up & my mood down.
Since that terrible week of eating on the road at the beginning of the year, I’ve been doing reasonably well. I wouldn’t pretend that my head has been 100% in the game, but I’ve probably been around the 80% mark. I’m not checking in with my scale, that thing is heartless, merciless, so I’m going to leave that ’til the first of the month to come.
A little later, I went for predawn coffee number two. Taking my cigarettes with me, not even a sliver of guilt attached to it, I went out to soak up some additional angst. I was trying to perk myself up with the thought of those lucky folk living in the southern hemisphere at this time of year. I bet they are enjoying the January temperatures at that end of the planet.
Imagine my elation at seeing the end of driveway clear! Good neighbours can be mind-altering too. Thank you, kind neighbour.
Bring it on Blue Monday, there are people that have my back. And I’m betting that’s true for you too.
I was going to lie my way through last month’s results, in the hope that I could correct things this month! But what would be the point of that? Sometimes, shit happens. And shit really happened, big time, this month!
I thought I had oodles of excuses but I really can’t come up with anything that justifies what I did. Other than I’m human. And, sometimes, humans suck when it comes to adherence. And I just couldn’t adhere to the plan I had in place for when I couldn’t adhere to a good weight-loss strategy. What!?! Yeah, there’s a strategy for eating bad stuff. For those times when you just have had enough of eating good stuff all the time. For those times when you just need to be wicked. But I couldn’t even do that.
August felt like the last-of-the-summer-fling kind of month. I was drinking beer, cider & wine. I was eating fish, flesh & foul. There were some green choices in there too, lots of plant based stuff. Unfortunately, too many that had their origins with grain & starchy veggies! I sampled some excellent desserts throughout the month too. All in all, I probably ate more wheat during the past month, than I had in the past year. I ate more sugar in the past month, than I consumed in the six previous months. I definitely went on a potato binge. And now, as I write this, I can’t believe that I didn’t take advantage of the opportunity to squeeze in a slice or two of pizza along the way. Okay, now that I think on that one, I really should have wolfed back a whole pizza or two, eh!?! OMG … I might have to continue this nasty streak into September!
The summary of August is this … I was out of control. And I have no idea why. I read all my little tips & tricks for such occurrences. And then totally ignored the advice they offered.
Again … why!?!
Could it be that I kinda quit smoking!!!
Almost half way through the month, one morning I awakened to a bright & beautiful sunny welcome. Leaves & plants were all more effusively green. Birds were twittering with an extra zest of joy. The air was somehow cleaner & sweeter. It was one of those days where you are just glad to be alive. And you feel more alive because of it all. Have you felt that joy before? Do you know what I mean? I thought I’d like to have more days like that & I decided it was time to quit smoking. Again. I immediately made up my mind that I’d finish my pack today, & try quitting the following day.
I did. And then I immediately wanted a cigarette. I wondered if I could treat smoking like diet? Despite my “all or nothing” approach to many things, I think abandoning the requirement for perfection made things more bearable for my weight loss efforts. And, up until this month, it generally seemed to work well as a dietary approach. I was “kinda” dieting & it was “kinda” working. Could I “kinda” quit smoking too?
I kinda am. But it’s killing my diet!
Seems like I have to stuff something in my mouth, in lieu of cigarettes, & food is the go-to alternative. I could be screwed here. I wonder if a pacifier would work!?! (Tried later, it doesn’t!)
I will always be a smoker. I may occasionally manage to not smoke for a while but I will always want to smoke. And I will probably go back to smoking again, somewhere along the way. As I have so many times in the past. Or am I just making excuses to abandon my diet? Or to just go buy a pack of cigarettes?
I’ll muddle along through September & see what happens. I deliberately avoided the scale on the first of the month … I just didn’t want to know what damage I had done last month … but I need to get my act together & decide what I’m doing now. If I were forced to choose only one, I think I feel better at a lighter weight, than I do as a non-smoker. I know, I know, both should be done but what if I could only choose one!?!
Pity this isn’t following some Hollywood script guidelines & I’d already be skinny, blissfully smoke-free & loving it, while also running marathons!!! 🙂
You have no idea how difficult my life can be sometimes. I have a lot of expertise in how to get fat. I’m lucky enough to share my life with someone who doesn’t get fat. Wait a minute, let me rephrase that: I am lucky enough to share my life with someone who is even luckier, not because she’s get to share her life with me, but simply because she doesn’t get fat! Indeed, every now & again, she’ll come to me & say something totally & utterly excruciating, like …
“I’m down a few pounds & I don’t think it suits me, what should I eat?”, with that look of total innocence on her face.
Is she just trying to torment me or what!?!
But of course, ever dutiful when called upon, I will immediately try to help her out. Yesterday, & I’m still in my flu-season-comfort-food mindset, I thought I’d marry my own desire for comfort food with her desire to add a few pounds. I’d just have to eat a bit less of whatever pound-padding creation I concocted.
It’s no surprise that our favourite comfort foods come from our younger years, but choices were limited. We were busy yesterday & didn’t have time to hit the grocery store, so the cupboards were pretty bare. There was a decent selection of healthy choices but that wasn’t what either of us was looking for. I unearthed a can of haggis and, wonder of wonders, a can of baked beans! There are always frozen fries in the freezer so that was it: the complete fattening meal. A can of fatty meaty bits, loaded with oats to soak up & disguise the sheer volume of fat. A can of potentially healthy beans that are swimming in a sugary tomato sauce. And spuds so finely slivered so as to maximise the grease-attracting surface area of a veggie that might otherwise be healthy.
Now I must admit to enjoying my combo platter of sugar, fat & starch. Unfortunately, the Skinny One wasn’t enjoying hers. She’s not a big fan of haggis. The beans weren’t like the ones she had as a child. And there were too many fries on the plate. OMG!!!
While she went off to boil an egg, to accompany the single slice of Jarlsberg cheese she placed on a small plate, I finished off her leftovers. Only about 90% of the original meal! I know, I’m weak. What can I say. Other than I enjoyed her’s too.
After that amazing little keto-friendly “dinner” she had prepared for herself, she then went to prepare dessert. It was some kind of upside-down pineapple cake. With ice cream.
“Would you like one too?”, she inquired. More of that innocence in play!!!
I should have pulled the battery out of the scale last night, but I didn’t. So this morning: I’m up, she’s not. And we might have to go through this exercise all over again today. Aaarrrrghhhh!
Good thing we’re all out of haggis & baked beans! 🙂
At the weekend, our pet store was sold out of the grain-free cat food so we picked up a small bag of the regular stuff, to tide us over. That word “regular” is potentially one of the most dangerous words in the modern North American vernacular. We talk about regularsugar, for example, as opposed to sweeteners. It lends an air of acceptability and normality to things that might not necessarily be acceptable, nor normal, given our genetic inheritance.
As kids growing up in the countryside, our pets were free to move between the house and the great outdoors. We fed them table scraps and all sorts of foods that might be frowned upon by pet lovers today. Indeed, our parents weren’t impressed with our food disposal techniques back then either! However, given freedom of choice, animals are a little smarter than humans. It wasn’t unusual to find dead birds, rabbits and mice at our back door. These pets still knew how to eat a more natural diet, and they went hunting when they’d had enough of human junk food.
Now, as city dwellers, we feed our house-confined pets from bags of processed food bits. Yes, they have pretty pictures of salmon fillets and prime cuts of chicken on the bag, but some pet foods are heavily biased towards grain. Eating such foods, our cat got fat. No, our little kitten was obese! So we switched to the grain-free foods and … wonder of wonders … out kitty slimmed down a bit. She is still overweight. But I think it’s fair to say that she’s no longer at the kitty BMI level of obese.
We typically feed our kitty twice a day, morning and evening. Like all hungry pets, she nibbles enthusiastically when her bowl is first filled. But then she saunters off to lazily perform her morning ablutions. She’ll wander back and forth to the bowl for an occasional nibble so that her morning bowl probably survives ’til about lunch time. Her evening bowl usually has some few leftover pieces that will survive ’til the following morning.
I noticed that her morning bowl of this new bag of grain-based food was gone within the first hour!
Is it possible that cats can’t have just one cookie either!?!
And isn’t it funny how we like to feed our pets a healthier diet than we sometimes feed ourselves! 🙂
It’s not as challenging to eat “well” on the road as we dieters like to imagine. I’m not talking about going the chicken salad route (hold the chicken skin, the croutons, the dressing and the dried fruit & nut pieces) … you can do that if you want but that’s not how I diet!
Yes, you have to have some dialogue with the server. And yes, they’ll probably think you’re a bit of a pain. But better that than blow the diet. Again!
On the road last week, I was led towards an Indian restaurant this particular evening. And that was just fine by me. I pretty much love all food but if you forced me to pick just one national cuisine, I might have to go with Indian. As it happened, I was on a low-carb regimen that particular day. Oh boy!
I love rice, naan, samosa & pakora but those were not going to be allowed today. Yes, there were salad options. And yes, there were vegetarian dishes aplenty. But I was drawn to the Tandoori Platter. Right away, the word platter promises a gut-busting feast of goodies. And it was. Beef, chicken, lamb, shrimp and who knows what else. There were some token veggies in there too, just to assuage any little fear I might entertain of it being an unhealthy choice. One of the key reasons for this choice was that it didn’t come with a sauce, Tandoori dishes are dry spiced. And I refused to ask about their spice recipe … just in case there were any bad ingredients in there that would have forced me to order that chicken salad! I do love those sauces, by the way, but there’s always some bad stuff hiding in them. And today was to be as sugar & starch-free as any reasonable road warrior could make it.
The bottom line was that it was delicious. I was stuffed. And I was sufficiently fortified to resisted all the starchy temptations offered by my dining companions!
But did it work?
I don’t know!
I’ll have to wait for the official end-of-month weigh-in on October 1st to see how it all plays out. Though I might have been grateful that I didn’t have my scale with me during my travels!
The Wry Eye 