It’s a long one…..get a coffee or somthing!

 Well, A friend of Jon’s invited us out to dinner last night.  He’s a sorta okay friend.  Not good enough to offend by telling him that the Chinese buffet that he chose has absolutely no food that we (mostly me, but Jon too if he’s feeling like low-carbing it for real)  can eat.  Unfortunately, this guy is a little bit of a loner, and to be nice we accepted.  It’s a blessing in some ways, because we are short on cash at this exact moment, and the cupboards are not as full as I’d like them to be.  No worries, we aren’t starving, yet!  I’m just hoping that the invoices we’ve sent out will start to return with little (I’d like them to be bigger than little, but anything will do at this point) cheques inside of envelopes, addressed to us.  YAH!  That would be nice!

 So, the meal was a blessing.  The thought was a blessing.  The invite was a blessing.  Just in case you’re wondering, he paid!  It was just the choice of restaurant and the selection of food that went with it, that was a mixed blessing, but a blessing still.

“Count your blessings name them one by one……”  I guess I’m in a good mood if I’m singing.  Hmmm…….good to know!

Where was I???  Oh yah, the food….so, I was really good at first.  I had a plate of lettuce from their “salad”.  Yup, only lettuce – nice salad, eh?  and 5 celery sticks.  As I waltzed down the food trough, the only other food item that I could maybe call acceptable was some pork with no sauce on it, but judging by the pink coloring on the outside, I figured it had something on it that was probably not low-carb acceptable.  I did have some of the beef and broccoli – I tried to not take any of the sauce……tons of sugar, I’m sure.  I also had some mushrooms, but again tried to strain out the sauce.  Not so good!

I ate the food, and felt really bad with him paying $10.95 for me to be eating less than my kids.  So, I went back for more.  I really didn’t want any more of the lettuce, and I had cleaned out the celery on my first time around.  I had a few more pieces of the pork, and then I was bad.  BAD BAD BAD.  I had some breaded shrimp, and you know what?  It wasn’t even that good!  If I was going to cheat, at least it could have been something freaking amazing.

Once I ate the breaded shrimp, then I basically went straight to hell and had some ice cream. 

I shouldn’t have done this.  It’s not even about the losing weight thing.  I don’t do well on sugar or flour.  I came home and felt like CRAP.  And when I feel like crap I want to make myself feel better by eating.  I recognize this.  I realize that this is an issue for me.  Usually I acknowledge it and move on.  I’ve been having a hard time just recently because I’m not dropping the weight like I’d like to, but for me, it needs to be about more than just the weight.  I was explaining to a friend the difference in how I feel when I eat things that my body is not happy to be eating.  It’s the difference between feeling like you’re chugging along all happy like a little fire engine.  Toot, Toot!  or feeling like a slug that wants to just curl upon the couch and fall asleep for about 4 hours.

With Easter being here, I’ve been unsure what to do.  A part of me wants to totally ignore it, and up until now I have.  Another part of me wants to give myself one day, and gorge myself on all the Easter chocolate I have been missing out on.  Neither is really very healthy.   Last night, I felt really bad; Physically, because I had eaten bad and my body was reacting to it, and Emotionally because I had been bad and eaten what I knew was not good for me.  So, feeling very crappy both physically and emotionally, here’s what I did.  I climbed into bed, and had a handful of the mini-Easter chocolates that we bought for the kids.  Here’s where I know that I’m doing better than I used to.  I only had a handful, and Jon helped me to eat them.  While I’m not happy about that, I went to bed, woke up this morning, and am right back on track today.  I’ve come to the place where I just have to live this “lifestyle.”  If I slip up, it has to be very infrequently, and I can’t just fall off the wagon, and stay off.  I have to get right back on, or even choose my moments, and then deal with them gracefully.

Admitting this next part is really scary and a whole lot sad for me.  I love chocolate.  It got to the point where I would secretly buy chocolate (secretly meaning that I wouldn’t tell Jon that I had bought it).  I would buy like 3 chocolate bars.  The BIG ones if I felt like the cashiers wouldn’t judge me, and then I would hide them when I got home.  Usually in the china cabinet.  I would wait until Jon went to bed, and then I would eat them, all of them.  It gets even worse because not only would I eat them in secret, but I would hide the wrappers under other garbage in the garbage can.  It was shortly after that that I realized that I had a problem, and I really needed to deal with it.  I hated it when people would say, “Oh, I can only eat a half of a chocolate bar and then I feel sick.”  I wanted to punch them in the head, in the nicest way possible of course. I only stopped at 3 chocolate bars because I felt too guilty to buy more.

I am happier stopping now.  Knowing that I have the ability to say, “I won’t do that.  I won’t go back there.”  It feels good knowing that I know that it really doesn’t make me feel better, only worse.

Well, now that I’ve completely rambled off what I had originally intended to say.  I think I’ll just finish now.   

Hope you’re having a Happy Easter.