Sloth + Gluttony = Sluttony

(In our family, cake doesn't have a chance.  There are scavengers everywhere.)

In the old days (last month), there would be treats or candy or ‘fun’ food in the house, because there was always something to celebrate around here.  Take the 6-month-long ConFest (Festival of the Confections) which you and I just survived: the season from Halloween to Easter where society opens its Fructose Floodgates and hitches ‘candy’ to the caboose of every holiday.  To make matters worse, I knew I was hooked when my husband would announce to the family that the dessert was ready, and the voices in my head would hiss at him to say, “Shhhh, don’t tell the kids.  Then there will be more for US.”  Perhaps I did say it out loud.  The treats and snacks, even just sitting quietly on the counter, had a presence about them; a siren’s call of happiness.  “Join us,” they’d whisper.  Sometimes, they had a French accent, and I’m a sucker for the French. 

And yes, there was also plenty of healthy food and comfort food.  My husband and our kitchen are in love, madly, and the results of their unions are known all over our friendship circles.  He loves the science of inventing things that romp on one’s taste buds, and has been known to make sauces from a vidalia onion, peanut butter and bag of nails.  When I invite people over to eat, their polite faces silently hold their breath, bracing for the beige meal sure to come from my efforts, but when they hear my husband is cooking, they give silent thanks, for Mardi Gras has arrived again and another angel has gotten their wings.  

Perhaps many of you can relate to similar temptations in your life.  Well, pair that with the impossible list of Necessary Things That Experts Tell You To Do In Order To Live Correctly.  “Floss; pluck eyebrows; sunscreen; do a breast self-examination in the shower; donate to 401k again; call parents; take a look at any worrisome moles and lock in their exact dimensions so as to remember changes in eight months; shave; take vitamins; say brief prayers for family and friends who are suffering today; breakfast and lunch the kids; fret about their spiritual life; remember to call the plumber; pull spoon (with dried yogurt) off the carpet; I think I smell a gas leak; what stinks in the car?”  You name it.  You could all insert 345 things on this list that burns you up before you leave for work.   

What’s the casualty, over and over and over? One’s health.  It gets Last Place, last thought, crumbs, the sound of crickets.  Is it any wonder I’ve been grabbing the easiest food, blasting it in my mouth and not even tasting, using it for fuel so I could keep moving through my 18-hour day?  Most days, it’s like triage in a war zone.  

Knowing this bleak picture, I walked into the fire: the first five days of my weight loss.  They were really hard.  Those are the days where one is motivated with the crisp promises to oneself, but also the days where it is so easy to backslide.  Why?  Well, I still had my feet touching both worlds… the “Eating With Poor Choices” and the “Ready To Eat Better” worlds.  I was still so close to the starting gate, so that I could streeeeeeeeeeetch and reeeeeeeeach and sliiiiiiiiiiiiiide my foot back and still touch it, able to take a rear lunge into the wicked regions of gluttony from where I had just left.   I mean, it’s right there for the picking.   Right there. 

“Just start over tomorrow," whispers Sluttony.

Suddenly, when you hit Day Five, you’ve got some distance from the starting line, and Day One can’t touch you anymore. 

So, anyway, here I am, Day Twenty.   Here is how my weight loss has gone:

2-4 pounds lost, depending on the humidity in the house and the tilt of the earth.  There’s no denying it; my body is hoarding it, socking it away in the basement and behind the fireplace, like the old European way of saving money.  She’s not ready to give it up yet.

I can wait her out. 

But, I DID yell at her last night as I measured my waist quietly, so my notebook wouldn’t know.  My waist had gained an inch.  Sigh.  Note to self: don’t do that again for a while. 

“Beans.”  That must be it, I said to no one in particular. “I’m just a little more puffy because of the ‘air’, like a potato chip bag at high altitudes.”  I looked in the mirror, finger pointed with betrayal and blame for five minutes (allow me that luxury; I'm not a saint), then we kissed and made up. 

Despite all this, the last three weeks have taught me something which may hold the key to my personal success.  The five to six times a day where I have been placing food in my mouth, I have been forced to be mindful.   It’s been the act of taking the time, of thinking about what I’m putting in my body and WHY.  It’s not the counting of each calorie, servings or points that will help me lose the weight.  It’s the ACT of stopping six times a day among the sparking wires in the train station of my mind, and putting myself first for just a few minutes.  It's ignoring obligations and having a purpose to eating.  Because I'm forcing myself to focus on that one thing, I have time to adjust the portion, swap out better options, respect the fuel.  I have time to plan my food and write the proper things on the grocery list.  I figure I have been given six chances a day to do the right thing, and I’m shooting for 90%.  I’m going to give myself a high-five. I trust that my body will follow shortly and lose what it needs to lose, especially when I crank up the exercise.  And family, prepare yourselves.  If this works for me, I'm going to convert you.

So, next time my husband displays another dessert masterpiece, I will not hiss and hoard.  Now, it’s time to share. 

Next up…my continuing epiphany on 'calendar clutter' and weight.  It's kept me up a few nights.

Evolution

(pictured here…the very moment I came up with my blog idea. Captured forever on celluloid.)

This morning, I had a wide gulch of possible ideas for my blog post.  But during a short walk, I felt the pleasant sting of a good blog topic, much like a satisfying sunburn.  It happened when something triggered it during a mundane moment.  This always happens.  A key phrase, a funky smell or sound gives me a 950-word essay.  Today, my trigger was a rock.  Don’t ask.  So gather by the fire, friends.  I have stuff to tell you.   

During the enormous energy it took setting up a blog about how I’m going to live healthier, it hit me that I had to spend the rest of the time actually living healthier.  But I knew I needed to start the blog first, to give me a launch point in my mind.  However, I’m hampered by technology; we have scorn and contempt for each other.  Everyone who knows me, would agree.  I just want to write, even if it’s with lipstick.   My brain likes to run free with the unicorns and squirrels, but my husband is the guy who builds the barn that holds all the critters in a safe place.  We can make a good team, provided we’ve had sleep.  So, after two days of labor and some choice words together, we had the beginnings of the blog.   

I looked at him through bloodshot eyes, and said, “Well, we birthed it.  Now, what do we name it?”  I knew we needed a good site name, one that I could yell out of a car to a friend so they could easily remember it when they got home.  Here’s how the ancient, time-tested Naming Ceremony went. 

Me:  “How about Egg?  That’s an easy name to remember.”

Him: “Egg?  You want to call your site Egg?”  (type, type, search search.)  “Sorry.  It’s taken!”

Me: “Sunshine?”

Him: “TAKEN!”

Ten more great words, all Taken!

Suddenly there appeared a twitch on the left side of my face.  I narrowed my eyes at him, because it was somehow his fault.  All of this.  I get like this when I start slamming the door on treats during the first few days of ‘eating healthier.’ 

Me: “How about Bastard?” as I looked right into his face.  He knew it was nothing personal.

Him: “Taken.  And besides, it could be spelled many different ways, like Basturd, Basterd or Bastird. So, it’s probably not a good choice.” 

This is why I love him.  Did you see how he stepped right over it and kept moving?  Then, he tossed this little gem back to me in all its foul glory:

Him: “Oh, here’s one that’s not been taken.  'BigEffingComplainer.'” 

This is why I really REALLY love him.  And it’s an available name!  I mean, that was a bonus afternoon. 

But somehow, we got trapped into “freddiesmom50x50.”   This is because we littered the blogosphere carelessly and unknowingly, and the blog fairies clamped their jaws shut on it.  After all that work, we still ended up with a confusing name to yell from the car window.  That’s been my only regret so far. Oh, and the fact that I spelled ‘scurvy’ wrong on my last post.  I don’t know how that got by me, but I may have blown a spark plug during the proofread.  

And for my next act…

Like most of you, I like to be busy.  But I’ve had a year-long epiphany on clutter and weight and how I am finding them to be strange bedfellows who are actually cousins.  By clutter, I include the huge, but underestimated culprit: “Calendar Clutter.”  Give me a few more days to firm up my thoughts…I’m almost there.  Thanks for stopping by for a quick sip.

(yes, when you get this via email, my words are run-on in some places.  I abhor technology.)