Like just about everyone struggling to lose weight, I constantly find myself engaging in mental gymnastics that really, if life were fair, would burn a bazillion calories and hour. It goes like this:
I know the only way to lose weight is to burn more calories than I consume. Since I hate to exercise and spend most of my day either at the computer or at the desk in my family’s homeschool classroom, the only other way to accomplish this is by limiting myself to, say, one Cheerio per week. With water, not milk. Yeah, I burn that few calories per day.
Unfortunately, I have absolutely zero willpower when it comes to making food choices, and that’s where the mental gyrations come in. I find my stomach trying to convince my brain that because I had onion, tomato and lettuce with my cheeseburger on a multi-grain bun, I really did something good for my body. After all, that’s a serving of veggies, dairy and protein, and two whole servings of grains. I’m supposed to eat that stuff, right?
Of course, the truth is usually far too obvious the next day as the dial on my scale ratchets up a notch (and so does my belt). That’s when I engage in even more mental gyrations as I try suspending my disbelief over various diet products that promise I can eat all I want and still lose weight thanks to their magic pill, gizmo, subliminal tape or whatever.
Yes, I know better. But look, I still half believe in Santa Claus so the fact that I get my hopes up over new diet products shouldn’t come as that much of a surprise.
Thanks to that whole Santa thing, I was unbelievably busy over the weekend getting our house decorated for Christmas. We have so many decorations that it takes two full days to put everything up — on top of which I also had some shopping and gift-wrapping to do.
As a result, I didn’t get to the grocery store and our cupboards, fridge and pantry were all but bare. Oh, there were plenty of the things my husband and son like to eat: PB&J sandwiches, deli meats, bread and a smattering of fruits and vegetables. But we were completely out of the things that I like to munch on: Blast o’ Butter popcorn, chips, pretzels, crackers, bacon and cheese. I can’t count how many times I opened the fridge over the weekend in hope of finding something to nosh, then wound up settling for carrot or celery sticks and cantaloupe cut into chunks the size of cufflinks to make it stretch.
Meanwhile, since our boxes of Christmas decorations were crowded together in the kitchen — blocking my way to the scale — I didn’t set foot on the darned thing all weekend. Then Monday and Tuesday were packed with appointments and errands, so I still didn’t weigh myself. I did, however, manage to go grocery shopping, but last night I was too tuckered to bother cooking dinner so the boys had PB&J (again) while I had a bowl of soup.
I woke up this morning knowing that I really couldn’t go one more day without weighing myself. After all, I’ve seen my weight jump up 5 pounds in one week when I haven’t been vigilant about stepping on the dang thing. I dreaded what I’d discover this morning, but I just couldn’t put it off any longer.
The good news: I lost three pounds. Three!
I see a lot more PB&Js — and an empty fridge, cupboards and pantry — in my family’s future. A lot more.