Mess

Messy mind. Messy kitchen. Messy office. Messy bedroom. Messy stomach. Messy messy mind. So much mess. Everywhere mess. Me mess.

Sweet Nothings

I have a serious problem here, folks.  It's called candy.  Candy, candy, candy.  Sugary delightfulness that comes in so many forms and surrounds me wherever I am.  And conspires against my efforts to lose weight.

At this moment (with a trip to DC for a wedding this weekend, followed by Thanksgiving next week), I'm not actually on any "diet" or trying to make a big "lifestyle change"  (sidethought: how cliche have those phrases become?).  But I'm still trying to be relatively healthy.  Oatmeal for breakfast, grapefruit for lunch, yogurt and popcorn as snacks, (homemade) turkey chili for dinner... (I know, I'm missing vegetables).  And then the candy.  Candy can replace a meal (seriously, laffy taffy is far more delicious than oatmeal), candy can replace a snack (and those candy cane hershey kisses - definitely my achilles heel, though not quite as dangerous as the pumpkin spice ones that were floating around before Halloween).

I know that the only way to break this addiction is to go cold turkey.  And not just on candy but on added sugar anywhere.  And it will take a couple of weeks for the changes to kick in and make the cravings stop.  But how the hell am I supposed to do that with Thanksgiving and then Christmas right around the corner?  Tis the season for cookies and candy canes and all sorts of yumminess that we only indulge in once a year.  Yumminess that is going to make me really happy while I'm eating it, and then really unhappy when I'm done.  I also know that I need to break this cycle.  I'm not going to lose weight this way, I'm not building healthy habits this way, and eating too much sugar (or chocolate) triggers my migraines.

To be honest, I'm not quite sure how I'm going to deal with this.  I would like to make changes now (more realistically Monday) but it seems like that is just setting myself up for failure by Thursday.  So maybe I start next Friday.  That's probably not a bad idea - there's less candy around when I'm not at work.  And hopefully I can limit the Christmas treats to a couple of special days.

I know what I don't want to do.  I don't want to wait for January 1 to come around so that I can make a resolution to kick sugar, to lose weight, to get healthy, etc.  Resolutions are crap, IMHO.  When you want to change your life, you don't "resolve" to do it, you just do it.

Do you think that Nike knows how hard it is to just do it?

On a Slightly More Serious Note

It is so difficult to move forward, to try to make your life the one that you want to live, when every step is punctuated by overwhelming, sometimes paralyzing anxiety.  And not just the steps that involve change.  But the everyday steps, like doing work, cleaning the apartment, taking a shower.  I'm functional, but that's about it.  I wouldn't call what I'm doing right now living, more like existing.  And I think that I need to bring myself back to living before any other changes even make sense.  But right now, just having that thought is difficult.  I can't really describe it in words I haven't already used here.  Overwhelmed and paralyzed are exactly what I'm feeling right now, and I don't know how to move forward.

On the plus side, I've started to enjoy the grapefruit.  Well, as much as anyone enjoys eating a grapefruit for lunch.  I can stomach the flavor, Splenda makes a huge difference.  My only lingering issue is the smell of grapefruit that stays on my hands all afternoon.  So I guess that's the next grapefruit change to make.  Once I figure that out, maybe I'll start using non-plastic utensils.

Quote of the Day - November 5, 2012

From a Huffington Post blog post about cravings, by Dr. Wendie Trubow

"Rome wasn't built in a day. Sometimes you will forget to wear your new lifestyle shoes, but they'll be waiting for you when you get home!"

I should tape that message to my refrigerator, my car, my bathroom mirror, my bedroom mirror,  my office walls and everywhere else.  

Why Grapefruit?

Hello, my name is Cassie and I have hated grapefruit for all of my 30 something years on this planet.  Even more than I hate actual grapefruit, I hate grapefruit juice and anything that smells like grapefruit.  I don't understand why someone would want to wash their face in the morning with grapefruit scented face wash.  You'd have to smell it on yourself all day!  Gross!  Actual grapefruit smells like grapefruit too (hello captain obvious), which only adds to my dislike.

That said, I'm sitting here at my desk at work eating a grapefruit.  Sort of.  (The "sort of" part is that it's really difficult to eat a grapefruit with plastic utensils and I'm more mangling it than I am eating it, but that's a problem for another day).  Also, it's covered in Splenda, so I can't taste the grossness as much.  But every journey has to start somewhere, right?

And my journey towards enjoying grapefruit begins here.  With Splenda and a plastic spoon and knife (the fork was really useless).

Of course this isn't just about grapefruit.  This is about changing my life.  But grapefruit is a little less overwhelming.  So for this week, it's grapefruit.

**Disclaimer: I am not doing some crazy grapefruit diet.  Learning to like grapefruit is just one step in the journey I'm starting today.  And choosing to eat this grapefruit that I brought from home instead of a delicious cinnamon crumble bagel at work this morning was a pretty big first step.

TTFN,

C