Days 12-15, Jan.23-26, 2010

Oh good gracious! No one really cares about the boring aspects of this diet. I don't either except that it needs to be said what a horrible job for the most part I am doing at this way of life. (:
I've been busy so I haven't entered data or feelings in awhile. Let me just get this out of the way. So I can remember and document.
On day 12 I had my first totally meatless day. Wahoo! My son in law brought home a Pizza Hut pizza for dinner which reminded me, sadly I admit, just how good life can be. It is my favorite brand of pizza due to its flaky but greasy yummy crust. Boy do I love that stuff. It was a mushroom pizza and it was fantastic. My mouth waters and I want to run right out and get another one.
The 13th day was a Sunday and after church I grabbed my three granddaughters and rushed to the airport to pick up their mommy. Oh course, about 5 minutes on the road, Maddie said she had to go to the bathroom reeeeeeeaaaaaaally badly but I couldn't stop and so after we picked up Megan we just had to stop at the golden arches so she could go. Meg hadn't eaten all day and was starved along with the rest of us. I had a cheeseburger. Again, my downfall. I love that fried value-less stuff that is NOT good for you. Guilt, deep abiding guilt and oh, how I have to repent about spending money on Sunday! But more about that later.
On the 14th day, I headed toward home stopping at another daughter's house so I could babysit for them and check in. You know, break up the long 2.5 hr. drive home. Ha! She made chili for dinner. I ended up fasting all day until that meal. I had the chili and a grilled cheese sandwich. I don't know how dangerous it is to have such emotional attachments to foods. Mmmm, grilled cheese and soup of any kind are definitely comfort foods for me. I just don't have the same feelings toward bananas and grapefruit, try as I may. Well, the chili didn't have a lot of meat in it so I feel like that wasn't too bad and to be honest the chili was spicy, just right and so good! I loved it.
That leaves the 15th day. I wrestled all day with the impulse to go out to eat. I wanted another hamburger so badly. I was traveling home and had to stop and shop for food (healthy) and so I wasn't home until after the dinner hour. I ate a late breakfast which consisted of salad and 1/2 a peanut butter sandwich (whole wheat bread and natural peanut butter - the only kind I'll eat, just so you know). So I felt like I had done well for the day and deserved to eat out...just one more time. It is always "just one more time."

Then as I was driving and thinking, I realized that as much as my head tells me this is the right thing to do and my heart is pretty close to backing it up, I haven't really committed to this lifestyle. Not really. Still, after all the studying and praying and pondering, it is difficult to do this 100%. I am sorry to say that I have not been totally honest with myself. What is obvious now to see is that I still long for the other foods and don't really want to live this lifestyle. What I want is an easy fix and to be able to do whatever I want to do with no consequences at all. I want to eat chocolate and hamburgers and pie and cookies and meat and potatoes and look skinny and feel fine and be healthy. I'm just not wanting to do what it takes to make a real difference here. So sad, but so true.
And yet, I see a woman standing just over there. She is the person I want to be. She IS healthy and she DOES eat what is good for her body. She DOES exercise and she is happy, really happy.
So what I realized, as I was driving yesterday, is that in so many aspects of our lives we have no control. Eating whatever I want seems to give me control and lets me do whatever I want but in reality eating and binging and letting my emotions take control of my eating habits is not having control but is chaos. Having control over my emotional eating and setting boundaries for myself in this regard will give me the freedom and liberation I am really after. Does that make sense?
I have fooled myself into believing that doing whatever I want is real freedom, but it isn't, not really, no way.
Getting control over my emotional eating is freedom because it will lead me to my best self, the person standing just over there that I really want to be and she is unstoppable. She can do anything. She can withstand all the foods that make her sick to death!
So...after I thought about that I realized how disappointed I would be if I caved into those cravings. I thought about the setback of one more day unrealized. Then I started thinking about what I could replace those cravings with. I thought about all the alternatives. Macaroni and cheese, another comfort food for me, sounded so good and it was meatless, although not particularly healthy but better than a hamburger, fries and all the other fast food choices. I told myself to hang on and when I got home I would let myself have macaroni and cheese. I continued my travels confident that I had at least fought this battle and won, that today I could count myself one more day closer to becoming "her."