Crack Coated Tortilla Chips

   Today has been a remarkably interesting food day. Apparently there is no end to the many ways one can prepare chicken. Do eggs count as chicken? I think they do in a sideways sort of way.  At any rate, I had eggs for breakfast, chicken (grilled, no skin) for lunch, and buffalo chicken wings (mild, with skin) for dinner. I know that is the most depressing line up of meals you may have ever heard, but you know, I did say I was going to have a better attitude about my meals.  So I ate the chicken with a smile on my face!  

  The wings were consumed at a local Mexican restaurant that we regularly grace with our presence. The problem with these sorts of establishments is that they plop down that bowl of FREE chips just as you begin to peruse the menu.  Let's just park here for a moment, and discuss these chips.  They are not normal chips. They are some sort of crack coated chip from the planet Melmac! Wait, I think Melmac is where Alf ate cats. If this makes no sense to you, you may need to Google “Alf”.  As I was saying, once you start eating them, you cannot stop!  I don’t do this with any other chip, or any other snack for that  matter! I just know there is some sort of secret ingredient that they put in them or sprinkle on them.  There simply is no other explanation!!!  And don’t try to trick me with the false advertising you see on other tortilla chips at the grocery store. You know the ones I’m talking about, they say “Restaurant Style”.  LIES, LIES, LIES!!!! There is no way this is true. If it were, I wouldn’t even make it to the check out line without eating the whole bag! There should be a law that punishes companies to the fullest extent of the law when they brazenly lie about something so important!   Ok, it’s time for me to count to 10 and take a deep breath, or I may blow out an artery in my brain. 

  Tomorrow we are having a family reunion in Monteagle, Tennessee.  This will be a test of super human strength for me.  Tables lined with the home made fare of 80 years of recipes passed down from one daughter to the next. YUMMY!!!! May God have mercy on my soul.  I will let you know how it goes.

Guilt Wrapped Up in White Bread

   Guilt. We all wrestle with it. I’ve spent half my life pinned to the wrestling mat of life by its strong grip.  I’m exhausted emotionally like you wouldn’t believe! In fact, sometimes I think I look for things to feel guilty about. Occasionally when I’m having a good day I find myself feeling a little more carefree than I really am. Then, before you know it, I’ve eaten something I shouldn’t or said something I shouldn’t and then boom, I’m back on the mat…face first.   The worst part about it is that I am not only the victim, but more importantly, I’m the perpetrator! 

  My diet approved food list feels like it is growing smaller every day.  It really isn’t, it’s that I’m growing weary of many of the choices, one bite at a time. Today, I took 2 oranges and 3 ounces of turkey for my lunch. Boring, boring, and boring (especially since I’ve eaten that about 24 times already).  Slowly but surely I am beginning to hate many of the foods I once loved, much the way the Accelerated Reading programs in our primary and middle schools have turned book loving children into kids who would rather have their heads nailed to the wall than read another book! I don’t want to eat from a list any more that they want to read from a list.  I have foods I love and the thought of never eating them again (as this diet suggest) is simply too much to bare.   Today as I nibbled on my 3 ounces of carefully measured turkey I thought “This would be so much better if it was surrounded by miracle whip and white bread”.  I really thought I had moved past this thought until I started my drive home tonight and this whole crazy idea of eating white bread popped back into my head.  After a small personal battle, I decided one slice of bread with a little MW would be just what I needed to find my happy place.  Well, as I am sure you can guess, the happiness lasted about 28.4 seconds and then guilt had me on the mat in a half nelson.  

  Why do I do this to myself? Why? In reality, I ate so little today, that lousy slice of bread couldn’t possibly have done any harm. However, the mental battle that I allowed myself to be dragged into can be harmful. Pardon me while I get a little serious for moment.  God did not design us to wallow around in a pit of guilt!   Jesus says in John 10:10 “The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.”  A full life as Jesus would have it, does not include a daily guilt fest!  I need to make the necessary changes with my eating tomorrow so that I don’t find myself overly hungry, putting myself in a position to make a poor food choice, which in turn spirals me into needless guilt. I can have foods I love as long as I plan carefully.  

Satan would keep me in that circle of madness if I allowed it.  But I will not allow it! Not this girl!

Lessons on How to Behave Around Food

   I have noticed that there may be a relative amount of truth to the saying "attitude is everything".  My attitude about this diet -  is - not - good. It's not even on the same planet as "good". I have done a bit of soul searching this evening and I have come to the realization that if my mind set doesn't change for the good, I may find myself completely friendless.  I am fortune to work with some amazing folks who love me unconditionally (for the most part) and have been kind enough to be my own personal diet cheer leaders over the past couple of weeks. However, the most tolerant human being can only take so much. I realized that I have not sat down to one lunch with a good attitude since this adventure in horror began. If you work with me and you happen to be reading this, you have my profound apologies. I'm embarrassed to say that I have elevated whining to Olympic levels. So starting tomorrow I am going to have a good attitude about food even if I have lie through my teeth!

   When I came home from work today my cat, "Snakes" came running in the house and sat on top of her food bin. Yes, I have a cat named "Snakes".  I would like to say that it is a good thing that my neighbors know enough about me to know they are better off ignoring me. Otherwise, when I stand on my front porch and scream "Snakes, Snakes, Snakes!" over and over, they know that I'm not sounding some kind of crazy reptile alarm!  Sorry, I digress. But in fact, bin lid sitting is what she does when she is hungry.  If she sat next to her empty bowl, she would accomplish the same task, but she chooses to perch on top of the bin and stare a hole through my skull.  For a quick moment  I entertained the idea of what that would look like if I did that every time I was hungry.  The truth is you wouldn’t be able to blast me off the top of that fridge with a 1/2 ton truck of napalm! 

So, I am choosing to have a better attitude. But not tonight. Tomorrow.

Birthday Cake and Blue Bell Ice-Cream

                 My diet over the past two weeks has consisted of VERY LOW carbs, no dairy, very lean proteins, all the vegetables I hate and none of the ones I love. Absolutely NO breads or cereals (more food that I love)!  Jesus said it all in a nut shell “Man cannot live on bread alone.”(Matthew 4:4)  When I read this I hear, “I know bread is your favorite! But for cryin’ out loud, you cannot survive on it forever. You will get fat and die.” This personal translation may be a tad over the line (ok, it’s so far over the line than I can no longer see the line.) But I’m fairly sure you get the gist.  If not reined in, my love affair with simple carbs will be the reason I have to dig a hole and stay close to it.

                I have days where I simply cannot eat another salad, and on those days I begin my previously mentioned (check last blog) rationalization wrestling match.  For instance, my birthday was this past Saturday and my husband, who is the beacon of hope and light for all things birthday, asked me what flavor of cake I wanted. My first instinct was to say “Thanks babe, but let’s not do birthday cake this year.” But what I heard myself say was “White cake with almond icing!” I suddenly felt like Charlie McCarthy with someone’s hand shoved up my back controlling my every word! Well, I quickly surmised that with a house full of birthday guest (my cake loving family) one must consider their needs and not my own. I can just hear someone saying, “Hey! How about you get off the cross, we need the wood!”

                Later that day I called the afore mentioned husband and requested Blue Bell Dutch Chocolate ice-cream (to go with the cake). To what sort of sick level had I sunk?  In my defense I will tell you that I was VERY careful with what I ate that day and was counting every calorie so that I would have “left over” calories to spend on cake and ice –cream.  With all that said, I can report that I still lost a pound that day! Hooray!  Allison 1 – Cake 0.

                Before we all begin to celebrate my small victory, let me remind you of one small birthday cake detail….there is almost always leftovers. I had managed to avoid being tempted by that simple white bakery box sitting on the counter, until yesterday. The event that ultimately brought about my knee buckling down fall was twofold.  I had just finished laundering two sets of 1000 thread count pillow cases (That I had purchased CHEAP from Tuesday Mornings. Insert sound of joy and mirth.) and it was way past my lunch time. Now, if you know anything at all about high thread count textiles, then you know that when you pull them out of the dryer, they look as if you have balled them up and carried them around in your purse for a week!  I would like to stop here for a second and say that I am by no stretch of the imagination an “uppity” person. I don’t feel that I deserve or need high thread count sheets and pillow cases….I just want them. I love them.  However, I hate to iron them!   Combine my hatred of ironing with feeling incredibly hungry and you get diet disaster!!!!  Ironing pillow cases for 15 minutes had somehow earned me the right to eat cake and ice-cream for lunch. Is it just me or did you just hear the sound of the needle being dragged across the record?  Yes, I did it. I admit it.

                I must accept that I will have days where I crash and burn, but I’m going to go ahead and let myself off the hook. It’s not worth wasting time on. 

                I drove past a church marquee today. Usually these little boogers are so cheesy and stupid that they are downright embarrassing. But this one summed it all up for me today. It read, “Jesus understands how you feel.” Yes He does understand! There is nothing that I might suffer that He hasn’t already suffered. He knows how I feel. He is with me on this crazy journey and for that, I am grateful beyond measure. “He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken.” (Psalm 62:6)

My Diet, or as my doctor likes to call it "MyLife Style Change". Whatever.

   I have decided to blog about my "weight loss journey" (I hear people call it that all the time, so it must be the correct thing to do).  Honestly, I really don't know why I'm doing this other than I'm at home with nothing to do except laundry, and this seems exponentially more interesting.

   I started this whole mess a little more than 2 weeks ago and for reasons I cannot explain, it has taken on a life of its own. Apparently, if I'm not being controlled by food, I'm being controlled by the lack of it. Either way, it just keeps kicking me around. 

  Food and I have had a strange relationship for pretty much my entire life. I can remember holding a Moon Pie in my hand at the age of 11 or 12 and desperately trying to rationalize eating it. I knew I didn't need it, but I was bored and it was more fun than staring out the window. Seems this odd pattern of food rationalization has followed me for decades. In fact, I rarely choose to eat anything without a mental struggle equivalent to mud wrestling an anaconda. Quite frankly, I'm over it.  

  I have gained and lost the same 50 or 60 pounds over and over again in the span of 16 years.  That is so messed up; it shocks me to see it in print!  I don't know of a diet that I haven't tried.  Here's the short list: LA Weight Loss, Atkins, Weight Watchers, First Place, The Monkey Diet (I might explain this one at another time. Then again, maybe not.) , South Beach, Cabbage Soup Diet, Organic Food Diet. I'll stop, as I'm sure you get the point. I heard of a diet called the Israeli Army Diet. I didn't actually check into it....but I thought about it.  

 It goes without really saying, I'm searching for something. So maybe this is more about me coming to grips with what God knows is best for ME, plain and simple. I know He is showing me some things about myself that aren't very pretty. I also know He has a plan, which unlike all my other weight loss plans, works perfectly for ME. 

 I am trusting Him each day to give me a new appreciation for food that I would normally dismiss without much thought, a new understanding of why some foods are just not good choices for ME, and a desire to have a heart like His through all of it.