Christmas Cookie Hell...hell...hell...hell

They are going to be the death of me people. We decided we were going to do a bit of baking. I am used to doing quite a bit of baking around this time of year, but just didn't feel strong enough and didn't want loads of cookies around to tempt any of us for weeks before Christmas. Well, I MISS the baking :( I decided that maybe I could make my least favorites and then wouldn't be as tempted but could still have a little fun so we decided to make our traditional "Bat Balls" (basically chocolate rum balls), peanut butter blossoms, and erik is making his spritz cookies.

Erik went shopping Sunday. Tanner tore into a box of nilla wafers (which is an ingredient used in the bat balls...btw, if I haven't mentioned before why they are called bat balls...tanner called them that because he didn't know the real name for them, but remembered the bottle of rum had a bat on it ;) and I happened to see it. It's that time of the month so my will power is at its weakest and my appetite at its worst so before I knew it, I had inhaled 7. Now that is MUCH less than I would have binged on in the past, but later I went back for 7 more AND had about 5 chocolate kisses ZOMG! Guess the binge eater is alive and well inside me after all :S I immediately texted erik and told him to hide them from me when he got home (which he did) and we've put off the actual baking until tomorrow.

Last night, we went to a friend's to have her color my hair, but we ended up getting side tracked making sugar cookies and decorating them. Those are Tanner's in the picture up there...I joked that it looked like a sugar cookie crime scene. It was loads of fun, we had a few gingerbread zombies, gingerbread inmates (in orange jumpsuits and numbers across their chest, as well as several very flower-looking snowflakes. Throughout the whole process, I had 2-3 unfrosted cookies and later when we got home I had two more. I knew I had to get a handle on this. Otherwise, I've been eating the way I should and I'm sure that even with the crap I've allowed, I'm still well under 2000 calories a day, but its the BEHAVIOR that worries me. I'm even questioning whether to do the baking tomorrow or leave it all until the day before Christmas so the temptation isn't around as long.

Today, I decided that I was just going to NOT allow myself to graze which is basically how I managed to consume so much crap over the last few days. I'm allowing myself three meals and two snacks and if ONE of those snacks is a cookie...that is all its going to be ONE cookie. Today I had one cookie and managed not to inhale the rest, but it wasn't easy!

I'm down to 325/327 (been going up and down between these two numbers the last week or so) and I really want to be at 317 by the end of the month so trying to keep that in mind when the cravings get horrible.

How are you guys handling all the treats? Avoidance, will power, stapling your mouth shut? Please, spill your secrets!

Cheating in the Evening

If only that were the kind of cheating I was doing...*wistful sigh* But NO, of course it isn't. Last night I cheated with another woman, a little woman although I doubt she's really all that little considering all the crap she bakes is full of calories and fat! Who and what am I talking about folks? Little Debbie of course. Read on for the rest of the story...

Ok, I've been aware of this for about a week or two, but I'm not entirely sure what to do about it at this point, so any input from you guys would be GREATLY appreciated. I seem to be losing it in the evening. I'm not exactly going berzonkers...believe me, I can do WAY more damage than I've been doing, but I'm losing control in little ways most times (too much spaghetti at one sitting even if I manage to stay within my plan for the day) or in big ways like last night. I'm noticing that if I'm going to cheat or give in, it is in the evening. Take a look at my food log from yesterday and you will see what I mean. I did just fine until that last meal and then the whole thing went to hell in a hand basket pretty fast. FOUR little debbie brownies? They weren't even all that good guys, seriously...I could have made brownies that tasted better, but I ate FOUR of them. By the way, who would have thunk those little things would pack such a fat-filled punch? Not me said the flea.

I think that it may have something to do with it just being more difficult to hold on at the end of the day when I'm tired and just want to relax. Lately I get off at 3pm, have an hour to myself before the Tanman gets home, then its dinner time and around 7pm I have a few hours of work to do. I've noticed that when I have work in the evening I'm more likely to go off program. I think its because I'm stressed about having to work two more hours when I just want to be able to veg a bit before bedtime :( Lately, logging in for this other job hasn't even really been worth it. I had talked to a friend of mine about cutting back my work schedule so that I could focus more on my health and saving my energy for the gym, but then I worry about how I'm going to pay the rent next month lol. I probably could make ends meet with just my one job, but I don't want to lose this other one just in case.

So, any way to battle temptation when you are at your weakest? I'm all eyes.

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Dealing with Diet Sabotage

If you have ever been on a diet, you have probably experienced the interesting phenomena known to many as the “diet saboteur.” Maybe it’s your mom who insists that “you can have a piece of my pie…you should reward yourself…you’ve done so good.” It could be your best friend who brings a bag of chocolates to your scrapbooking crop even though she knows you are committed to your new way of life. Many times it’s our husband or significant other bringing home a little treat for the two of you, buying you chocolates for Valentine’s day, or filling up your pantry with foods he knows are triggers for you. Whatever package they come in, they can spell disaster for someone who is trying to make healthy changes in their life.

For me, my prime saboteur has been my husband. Over the years I think I’ve been in denial about it. Why would he want to sabotage me? He can’t like me this way right? Later in our marriage it did make more sense, but at the time I don’t think it was something he did intentionally. I say that, but I don’t know that I believe it. There have been times when he’s admitted to feeling awful for not supporting me in the past so some part of him must have been aware of what he was doing. Since we have “separated” (we still live together for the sake of our son and remain good friends) I have a little distance and I can see that, intentional or not, the subtle sabotage continues.

A few months ago when I injured my knee, I realized just how close to completely disabled I was. My activity level plummeted even more and I became seriously weak. I’m still just now getting my strength back. When I realized how close I was to being bedridden, I told him that I was going to go back on my fasting diet until I lost enough weight to stand on my own without any pain. About 2 hours later, he baked a cake. I’ve had my first week of CHEAT FREE dieting in a long damn time and I come down to find he bought an extra supreme croissant at Jack in the Box waiting for me. I use my new found willpower and head to the pantry for cheerios and find Cocoa bloody Pebbles; the heroin of morning breakfast cereals!!! He NEVER buys stuff like that and THIS week I find it in the pantry? It can’t be a coincidence. But seriously, what the hell? Does he want me to end up bed bound, with a lifetime of wiping my ass to look forward to? (Just for the record, he has NEVER had to wipe my ass and I will take a bottle full of valium before I ever get that bad.)

I don’t know, maybe he’s torn himself. I know he cares about me. He worries about me and I know he’s also concerned about being “saddled” with me or even faced with the challenge of raising our son without me should I die. On one hand, I think he does want me to lose weight. We’ve talked and he’s told me that he misses the person I was when we were dating. I was cute and funny and loved being out and doing things. I often had to drag him out of the house. However, part of him must still feel threatened by my weight loss. Maybe it’s because he knows that if I lose the weight it might be harder to explain to his family why we are still getting divorced at some point? I think right now, they all assume it was my weight that killed our marriage and while that may have had something to do with it, it wasn’t the main reason. The truth is, I was never enough for him, thin or fat, and losing weight isn’t going to change that.

Who knows? All I know is that I finally seem to have enough of my own strength, at least for today, to resist temptation no matter where it comes from. I made my bowl of cheerios this morning, watched him eat that last supreme croissant followed by a bowl of cocoa pebbles right in front of me. I felt victorious!

As an aside: I want to say that my ex is a great guy. At the moment he is cleaning up the breakfast dishes because he knows I can’t really stand there and do it myself just yet, but he’s flawed just like I am; like we all are I suppose. This fact just makes dealing with the obvious diet sabotage even more difficult because I don’t want to “attack” him about it.

How do you handle the diet saboteurs in your life?

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