Today I Was a Glutton

Disclaimer: This is more or less a rambling dialogue (not even a dialogue but I struggled to come up with a better word, so for now “dialogue” will have to do) of my day and how hard it was.

Definitely “hard” of my own volition…of sorts.

And believe me when I say that I realized at the time, and most assuredly realize it now, that all these struggles are very much First World Problems. I make no presumption that it is anything but…so please take this with a grain of salt.

What we have here is a failure to communicate…sorry, fell into “Cool Hand Luke” momentarily.

What we REALLY have here is a person who has had blessings upon blessings for her entire life and feels like she’s just now waking up to the reality around here.

Or waking up again.

Or finally willing to acknowledge it.

I’m still processing; please bare with me.

So with that…I give you my day:

Just to be clear, I was a glutton for punishment…because apparently I thought (for some deluded reason) that I had this “temptation thing” beat.

It’s been a week, for crying out loud…how long does it take?

Before you send me hate mail or leave comments which insinuate that I am an idiot, please know that I am totally kidding; I am well-aware that it take two weeks to conquer the grip of temptation.

Or maybe a month.

Or a year.

Probably a lifetime, if I am truthful.

I have decided that I would like to continue eating the way I am now (with the exception of adding a couple-few more foods…seven is a little more limiting than one might think)…only because I feel so good (I MAY have mentioned that once or twice already).

But let’s be realistic, shall we? I don’t know if I can and/or will maintain this.

Because here’s the real deal: I love food. I love junk food, I love fried food, I love food that isn’t really food (insert Velveeta…yes, it’s like one ingredient away from totally being plastic and I LURVE it! I craved it when I was pregnant with my 13yo…as in I would consume a 2 lb block of the stuff in a week. Or less. Don’t judge.)

But enough of THAT dirty laundry…we shall revisit that issue another time.

I was here to tell you that I clearly thought I had things under control after just a week.

I may have been deceived. Well, deceived myself...let's be completely honest here.

It began with my 11yo…look at me throwing him right under the bus.

He has his 6^th grade shots/well-child doctor appointment today. I was somewhat anxious about it because if you know him at all, you know that he is on the small end of the spectrum.

I’m always nervous before we go to the doctor that he has somehow slipped off the growth chart. True, there would be worse things in the world, but at the moment we face the doctor’s appointment, I am hard-pressed to think of one.

He’s been close to being off the chart in the past…as in 1^st-2^nd percentile in height and weight. At the age of 5, he was the size of a 2 year, 8 month old child.

We did all the testing with a pediatric endocrinologist at that point. What was the consensus? He’s a late bloomer.

To be fair, I am not the tallest woman on the planet, so it is possible that he got some of my genes (he does resemble me a bit…) but I was always on target with my growth until I turned 12. When I stopped growing up and commenced growing out. 

BTW, lest you be unaware, age 12 is a perfectly normal time and place for a girl to stop growing; fingers crossed my 70 pound, 4 ft 6 inch baby boy doesn’t top out at age 12.

In fact, a couple months ago when I told him that I stopped growing at age 12, he looked as though he’s had a stroke; fortunately, because I am so astute, I picked up on his panic and informed him that boys can continue growing up into their early 20’s.

That seemed to make him feel better. I, however, continue to stew about it. As any good parent would say, "Do as I say, not as I do."

My point in telling you all this: I’m a stress eater. But even this stress/worry/cause for concern over the doctor’s appointment did not send me off in a manic, feeding frenzy.

I was cool, calm and collected.

On the way to the appointment, I noticed that Chick-Fila-A had free 3-piece chicken minis this morning until 10:30.

So as a bribe to help my 11yo man-up during his shots today, I told him I’d take him to get chicken-minis afterwards.

He made nary a peep…except when it was over, he did say, “I feel like I’ve been shot!”

And because I know you want to know...he's hanging in there at 10th percentile. Hard to imagine that there are boys his age which are smaller than him, but God made us all different...that's what I tell him too.

So we went to Chick-Fil-A and came away with two orders of chicken minis.

Now before you go judging me, the second one was for my 13yo, who had stayed at home to do his school work.

I wasn’t even tempted to eat them…until we stopped at Walgreens to buy eggs (yes, eggs from Walgreens…don’t judge…they are only $1.29/dozen this week; I bought 6 dozen. That might last us a week, if we are lucky).

When we got back in the car, the smell of Chick-Fil-A had permeated the entire vehicle.

I rolled down the windows to disperse the scent.

It helped. Kind of. I still made my 11yo carry the “gift for his brother” into the house.

Then after we got home, I had to start prepping the meal I had offered to bring to my neighbor who is fresh off of surgery.

I made nothing which was close to being on my list…and even that was a stretch:

• Baked pasta with tomato sauce and lots of cheese
• French bread
• Brownies with chocolate icing
• And zucchini bread (to have as a snack or breakfast).

So yeah…that was hard.

I began with the pasta b/c I figured it would be easiest to deny myself.

And true…pasta in and of itself was not tempting at all.

Once I put the cheese and sauce on it…game on. My mouth was involuntarily watering.

It may or may not be watering as I record the account of my day.

But I continued…I didn’t even lick a spoon. Though I very-much wanted to. I knew it would be all over with if I did.

Then I began the bread. Yes, I cheated on making the bread; I have a bread machine. So I dumped in the ingredients and pushed start.

No temptation there, right?

Not until it was finished 3 hours and 50 minutes later…and smelled as I figure Heaven will. That is if it doesn’t smell like brownies.

Which brings me to my next point (oooo, ahhh…smooth transition): the brownies.

I thought it wouldn’t be any.big.deal. I would make them right after lunch and wouldn’t be hungry or tempted or anything.

I would even brush my teeth, which sometimes acts as a deterrent to eating an additional “bite of something sweet”.

I know that the teeth brushing theory sounds nuts, but it does, on occasion, do just the trick.

But as the day would have it (it was a Monday after all) I didn’t get to make the brownies until 5.

Which meant I was hungry…bordering on hunangry.

I didn’t realize how much I do when I make brownies which is involuntary: lick the scraper once they’re in the pan; scrape out the bowl and lick the scraper again; stick my face in the bowl to finish cleaning up what the scraper missed.

But…I maintained control and did not engage in any of those activities.

Barely.

I even went so far as to hand-wash the bowl and scraper…so as to not be tempted to pull them back out of the dishwasher and lick them.

Yeah…my sugar addition is a force to be reckoned with.

Fierce, I tell you.

I breathed a sigh of relief (yes, audibly…I am well-aware that it sounds so cliché, and it probably is, but that’s exactly what I did) that I kept on keeping on with this path God has put me on (crazy though it seems/is) and sat down at my computer to tell you about it.

I happened to look down after typing for a while, and there on my desk was a huge smear of chocolate brownie batter dough.

After a quick inspection, I discovered it was all over my left forearm.

And I started to lick it.

For real, autonomic nervous system self? You’re going to lick your dirty arm just for a little taste of some chocolate-laden preservative?

Why yes, totally calm and sometimes rational self…I am.

Clarity ensued and I didn’t do it.

Argh…this is harder than I thought it would be.

Confession: I did have 1 ½ pieces of the fresh bread at dinner instead of my whole wheat bread…and it.was.ah-mazing.

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