This Brain Needs Rewiring....

I'm having mixed emtions about it being Friday....it's good cuz the work week is over, it's bad cuz when my life slows down on the weekends...well, I EAT more. Ugh. Idle time for me is not a good thing. Turns out, not only do I "emotional eat", I boredom eat too. Yay, me. I make myself so mad!!

The past two days haven't been so bad but Wednesday up until about noon...I was a force to be reckoned with. I never realized how much of a "go to" food was for me. And now that I CANT go to it? I just don't know how to handle it well. Now, that really sounds stupid. In fact, I've almost just backspaced and left that out. But it's TRUE.

"I'm cranky." (eat a snickers! chococate will help.)

"I'm PMSin'." (oh! go get some french fries!! You always feel better when ya get some salt.)

"I'm mad at Josh." (well, don't think about that....go get a Java Chiller, instead!)

"I'm bored." (omgosh...Cadbury Eggs! They'll stop sellin' em after Easter and it'll be a whole year before you can buy them again.)

"I'm a bad mom, my kids are gonna be so screwed up and it's all my fault." (What? I couldn't hear you for all the pizza.....)

If my crutch were alcohol....well, I'd just have to have it by IV pump.

I don't know how other families celebrate, but in my family, if we were all gettin' together (cousins, aunts, uncles, grammas and all), there is gonna be plenty of food. Enough for days...weeks, even. And enough to feed an army. Not a small one, either. We eat in my family when we're happy: when we graduate, for birthdays, Christmas, Thanksgiving, when babies are born... Yep, just grin and laugh and stuff our faces with things we don't normally eat cuz "Gramma's cookin'"! Gorging buffet style is NORMAL where I come from. We even eat when we grieve....after funerals, for pete's sake. I have been trained: You have an emotion??? FEED IT & feed it well! The term "soul food" used to confuse me....it doesn't anymore.

So, I wanted to scream Wednesday and several times since then because I'm having to change not only my actual eating habits, but mindsets and behaviors that have been completely normal to me all my life. I feel like I'm being stripped of my security blanket! But, I haven't thrown in the towel yet so that battle rages on....

We Girls Can Do Anything....

I failed last night. Yep, I sure did. So, I haven't had quite as much of the vicious cycle as I think I have. I was reminded of a video I watched years ago. The one phrase from it that I can quote word for word is, "Well, you haven't had enough of it yet. So go wallow in it some more." So true of so many things in my life. I say, "I'm tired of this", then, I get tired of it, then I get fed up, then I decide I've had enough, then I'm SICK and tired of it, then I'm disgusted with it, then, I just can't take it anymore. And that, is truly, when I'll begin to work to see something change. I have to have a good, long, wallow in it, get my fill of it, really wear some ruts into the side of the mountain I am going around and around and around. Yeah, I'm still in the rut wearing stage of things, I reckon.

All is not lost, however. Every day is a new day and at least, I identified a major pattern in my life. Whether it be food, alcohol, cigarettes, or some form of drug, I use it to pacify my emotions, to escape really, from what I'm feeling. To NOT deal with life. Which is why books and movies work so well for me too. I can take ANYTHING and turn it into a crutch. Just watch me. :) Josh and I had a rather heated discussion last nite that turned ugly pretty quick. He ended up mad and on the couch....I was not mad and quite confused as to why he was. That's all it took. My whole rejection issues got slammed and into the kitchen I flew. A handful of chips, some chocolate, some chocolate chips, and a flippin' tamale later....I was finally ready to sort thru my head. Too late to not have eaten the food tho and bulemia was one practice I just never mastered. I don't know WHY I can't convince myself that a carrot or a celery stalk can be an emotional consolation. No, it has to be sugar or fat and substitutions just will not be accepted. Oh, AND, I smoked two cigarettes to boot. (sigh) So, maybe next time, I'll see the cycle coming faster and only make it as far as the Pringles.

Step 1: Admitting I am powerless???? Never.

Day two and so far, so good. EVEN THO...the dang tamale man just left here AND I couldn't tell him no, SO I bought a DOZEN of my favoritest food ever...cheese and jalepeno tamales. Steaming hot too. A true test of my will first thing this morning....WHAT was I thinking? Won't be so hard to resist today...try me on day 12 or 14!

I think night time is the hardest for me. I'm such a night owl and sometimes I don't eat dinner until 10 or later...when all the laundry, homework, kidstuff, etc is taken care of and I can actually sit, RELAX, and enjoy dinner, and some silence. Last nite, I was in bed by 8:30 just to keep from pokin' something mindlessly into my mouth. I never realized just how much I don't think about what I'm putting into my mouth. Yesterday morning, I was half a reach into a bundt cake before I remembered, "NO!!" I just had a vision of my fighting off my own arm. :) Did the same thing about six more times with various "snack" type things that lie on my kitchen counters before I even left the house for work! This journey is a lot about food and more about discipline for me.

It would be nice to make a quick run-thru my kitchen cabinets and throw away every single thing that would even tempt me to screw up, to run the tamale man right out of this parking lot, to blow up McDonald's and Taco Bell, for the FDA to make a sudden discovery that guacamole and cheese dip are hazardous and outlaw them completely..... But, I just don't think the world is gonna stop for me and my food issues, nor is it going to cater to them. And my kids wouldn't appreciate me "de-snacking" their house. They don't buy the "rice cake = GOOD!" thing....they'd just as soon eat cardboard.

It's crazy...I think about the recovering alcoholics and drug addicts out there and I KNOW that as much as one can self-medicate with booze or pills, I have chosen food. Maybe it seemed like the lesser of the "evils" but as time rocks on....I am realizing...it's no lesser. I don't know how many people I see everyday with tons of health issues that mainly stem from being overweight. It's like an in-your-face-wake-up-call screaming at me. We're all living in a world designed to feed our addictions. Whatever addiction you've got, and THEN, there's a multi-step program, or a miracle prescription with only 95 or so side effects to help you when you've had enough of your addiction. It's a vicious cycle and I'm tired of this ride.

Here's to new beginnings...I guess.

Well, our basketball season came to a screeching halt on Saturday. We lost by three measley points. I got my hopes up so many times during the last 30 seconds of that game, kept hoping that somehow, someway we'd either go into overtime with a three point shot or somehow get two shots in before that buzzer went off. It didn't happen. I was disappointed for the boys, I wanted to see them go at least as far as they did at state last year. Oh well. There are some refs out there who are safe from my opinions about the way they do or most likely DON'T do their jobs for the rest of this season. :) On to baseball season....

Today was D day for me.
I'm refusing to type the entire word as my body tends to go into an abject rebellion when I use the "d" word. Last week, I met with a nutrition counselor and have made a pretty serious committment (financially, if nothing more) to retraining this brain of mine about the "f" word. All weekend long, I knew today would be THE DAY and of course, I wasn't hungry at all. However, my stomach began protesting this day from the moment I opened my eyes this morning. My body is bound and determined to fail me...I am at war with myself. :) Hope I win.

I'm hoping by posting my day to day struggles on the world wide web, I'm shamed into doing my best. I tend to cheat, I don't know what I think I'm gettin away with! And, of course, this go round, my skinny husband knows what's up so he will, no doubt, hound me 24/7 which, hopefully, will be to my benefit and not my detriment (or his death). We shall see.

Life in General

Yesterday was Josh's 31st birthday. Hard to believe I've known him for 16 years. He disallowed papparazzi access last nite so I have no pictures to share of his HIGHLY lit up cake. :) He spent the better part of his evening hanging a ceiling fan for me. The one hanging in my living room had been subject to much abuse. Taylor had broken one of the blades off. How? We have NO idea. Then Josh took another one off so that it was balanced...sort of a propeller type contraption. I just left it ON all the time so no one saw my mangy fan. Then, the motor went so I HAD to leave it off. After that, Matthew was playin air guitar...only with the broom, I guess, and rammed it into the fan and broke one of the lights. You'd THINK, at this point, a new fan would be implemented. But no. Life stops for no fan at my house. Heck, it'd been that way for so long, I didn't even notice anymore. I quit griping about it ages ago. My mother in law sent one home with Josh Monday nite. I guess he was shamed into hanging it. I think it's funny.

These sort of events at my house usually lead to someone throwing a fit and a stream of cuss words. The man of the house does NOT like instructions and sure doesn't like to follow them. Then, when things don't go together properly, he gets a little agitated and he most definately doesn't like it when I say, "Well, if you'd followed the directions...." Makes for some really good times! So, when he called me and told me what he was doing, I cringed a little. it bein' his birthday and all, I just really didn't wanna have to get mad at him. When he called me the second time, I almost didn't answer. I just knew the fit had already begun. He did sound somewhat edgy but simply requested a roll of electrical tape. Dollar General & I were happy to accomodate him. I am pleased to say, no fits were thrown. My new fan, however, is still lacking four blades (yes, all of them) and three light assemblies. It may well stay that way for the next 8 months too. This is my life.... :)