Monday, September 15, 2014

My Evolution: How Six Weeks Turned Into A Lifetime, Ep. 4

Guys, I'm convinced that foods are created by companies for the same reason Big Tobacco sells cigarettes: to get us addicted, so that we'll keep eating their sugary, crap-ridden foods and pass the unhealthy habits that they forged onto our kids, our grandkids, and so on. 

I'm not even sure if that sentence was grammatically correct, but it's disgusting. I see Cap'n Crunch and my mouth goes on auto-water; and if someone waves a peanut butter cup in front of me, my brain can instantly justify having it. This can't all be about willpower. The fcukers are putting something in these things.

Robin finds out she's allergic to lobster and can never have it again...then this happened.
I don't deprive myself. I won't. The reason is mental: if I tell myself I can't, I want it more. This is true of everyone! If you're a fan of How I Met Your Mother (like I am!) you'll know what I mean when I call it The Lobster Situation. Pushing that explanation to the wayside, I'll say this: it's a known fact that we all want what we can't have. And, while I'm certainly not perfect, it's becoming easier to talk myself out of bad food choices, which is completely different from deprivation. 


Joe talks about this briefly; he doesn't believe in deprivation to get results. Besides, turning your health and body around is 70% diet, 30% exercise. So, if you're trying to drop pounds by temporarily depriving yourself of things you're going to fail, because it means you'll eventually eat the garbage again. And failure isn't an option anymore, right? So, why deprive? If you want it, you want it - and it's really okay, especially if you're killing it all week. But when you have a road as long as mine to travel, cheat meals aren't a good idea because, in most cases, they bring about setbacks. Joe gives himself one cheat meal a week. He's also a fcuking anatomical marvel whose Mom didn't give him things like Chocodiles & Moon Pies - fcuk, those were good. While he can down a half chicken and several waffles once a week without consequence, I try and keep myself down to one cheat meal a month. Last month? Oh yeah, it was bad. But I've maintained my weight, so all is not lost. Of course it's not good - but I'll get over it.


When September began, I looked myself in the mirror - not a single change from July. Why? Well, I know why - a twizzler here, an extra spoon of peanut butter there... it doesn't seem awful at the time, but it does add up. So I spent the last month playing with the same five pounds, and I had to think - is this what I want? Do I really want to be on this damned merry go round again? I have no excuses, I messed up. It's up to me to take back control of my cravings and make a decision. So I did. 

I look at whatever it is that's teasing my senses and ask myself, "Is it worth it?" And you know what? Nine times out of ten, it isn't. When my ultimate goal is to regain my strength and rediscover the warrior that's been hiding behind 150+ lbs of excess weight, the bag of Doritos isn't worth my time. So I guess that would be my advice to someone asking how they can control their cravings. If you're in a store, staring down a bag of Cheetos... pick them up. Tell yourself you can have them, but then ask yourself how you're going to feel if you eat the whole bag. All 400 calories of it (that's a meal!) - and if that's not enough, read the ingredients. Food additives, processed ingredients.. you know, all the tasty stuff that makes you gain weight while your a**hole leaks and your head hurts. Then think about how much extra work you'll have to put in at the gym to make it all go away. 

I'll tell you from experience - the first few times you might eat it without so much as a twitch, but the next few will bring pangs of guilt. And eventually, you'll see them and roll your eyes. You'll wonder how you let yourself ingest those deceptively tasty bags of isht. I'm almost at the eye-rolling phase - the difficulty lies in the fact that there are so many awful things out there that I've been stuffing into my face my entire life and I have to manage to fight them off as quickly as possible. But, if I could quit smoking, I can give up chips. And candy. And those oily, greasy, over-processed mass produced cakes. (The cakes have actually been easy - I bake better goodies than that, and the ingredients I use are fresh, whole, and easy to pronounce.)

If I'm not giving up, you can't either! Changing our perception of food and refusing to accept anything less than the best things to put in our body may be a difficult transition, but you get out of life what you put in - if you give it your all, the change will come. I've never been so inspired, so determined to make things work. That big wolfy tree, I owe him a lot - he threw open a set of gates that I never want to close. It's hard work, but I'm going to keep picking myself back up and, eventually, cross the finish line. If I ever see Joe again, I'm going to hug the hell out of him - here's hoping I don't startle him in the process.

xo,
S.


No comments:

Post a Comment