Well, I made it...I made it through the weekend without ONCE "cheating" (I say "cheat" lightly because even if I DID decide to indulge in something not on my menu, it's not like the Jenny Craig police are going to come to my home and steal my dog...at least, I don't THINK they will....hmmm...must look into that...). Once again, I digress.
Honestly, it wasn't really as hard as I expected it to be. Coming into the weekend, I figured I'd find myself pacing back and forth in front of my refrigerator by Saturday afternoon, biting my thumb nail and marching maniacally, torturing myself with vivid memories of the meal I had exactly one week prior...how Swedish meatballs, pigs-in-a-blanket, fried cheese squares, and a shrimp cocktail towered over my plate at a cocktail party...and how each luscious bite got washed down with a hearty, overly-poured glass of wine (or three)...and how not for one single, solitary moment did I think about what it was doing to my thighs...
...Until the following Monday, when I had my first Jenny Craig consultation, which entailed photographs and a tape measure. THEN I sure thought about my thighs...and my butt, my back fat, my jiggly arms, my double chin, my....you get the idea.
What's been interesting is that in just ONE week, I've started looking at food differently. Really, I had no prior "respect" for it...though I'm not sure that's the word I want to use (until I think of a better one, that one will remain...). I ate with no consequence, no regard to what I was putting in my mouth, how MUCH I was putting in my mouth, and more importantly, WHY I was putting it in my mouth.
I'm still not a big fan of fruits and vegetables...never really have been. But now, when I eat them, I think about the REASON why I'm eating them: Eating veggies with a meal makes me feel full faster, which means I don't eat more, and I feel full longer. (Jenny Craig peeps tell me it's the fiber...I don't care if it's alien chemical composition that turns into little tiny typewriters in my stomach that make me feel full...just as long as it continues to do what it does...I digress, again.)
Now, as I've said on the air many times, I am ADDICTED to the Food Network. I love it. I watch it more than any of the other gazillion channels I pay for. And guess what all my friends in the programming department decided to do to me this weekend (at this point, I do often assume they program specifically for me...they should; after all, I probably pay their electric bills with the amount that I watch...)? They ran all chocolate, all the time, all weekend. I'm not even a chocolate fanatic; I'd much rather sit down with a loaf of Italian bread and a bowl of olive oil than snack on chocolate. But while watching OTHER people pack their "chocolate holes" with pounds and pounds of the confection, I actually thought "Wow, that's like 400 calories right there...they should have just stuck to ONE piece".
WHAT? Did I say that??? Even though I'm not a chocolate-head, I've been known to polish off a bag of mini Reese's Peanut Butter cups in one sitting. But it was insane that I was actually considering the caloric composition of what people were eating!
I know I make this reference a lot, but it's a lot like smoking...I smoked about a pack a day for almost 15 years. I loved my Marlb's...I'd defend them and my right to smoke them to no end. But now, after having quit for almost 6 months, when I see or smell someone smoking, I think "How can they do that to themselves?" So many strange parallels....who would'a thunk it....parallels between food and cigarettes....
Just don't take away my Food Network....THAT, I could not handle... ;)
Till next time,
~L
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