Brain and Stomach Battle the Munchies

If my stomach had a personality, I imagine it would be a bratty toddler who needs a nap. My brain, the exacerbated parent, responds:

Stomach: I'm huuungry!
Brain: You just had lunch 45 minutes ago. You can't be hungry.

S: Yes, yes I am. Can we go over to architecture and see if they still have the cookies from yesterday?
B: No! You can have some water. You're probably just thirsty.

S: But, Braaaain, I don't want water! I'm hungry. I want a cookie!
B: Look, do you want to ruin it for everyone else? What about butt?! She's down there, working hard for this body, and all you want to do is make her lumpy and undesirable!

S: Hmmmph. (Silence for approximately 19 seconds.) BRAIN!! I just want one cookie! Then I'll be quiet, I promise!
B: Oh my God. OK, if you PROMISE to stop with the hungry talk, I'll take you over to see if there's cookies. But if there's not, you still have to shut up, got it? No talk of vending machines, or Dunkin Donuts runs, none of that. Got it?

S: OK! Let's go!

Brain and Stomach walk across the office, and find that the cookies are gone. They have been replaced by a box of Munchkins.

B: Those are not cookies.
S: But they look OK. Let's eat a few! I'm hungry!!

B: Don't start again.
S: Munchkins are practically cookies! Come on!
B: Fine. But just one.

Hand reaches in and finds one glazed chocolate munchkin....and one with sprinkles...and another one with powdered sugar. Stomach awaits anxiously as Mouth chews while Brain, noting that the Munchkins are a little stale, begins calculating the devestation.

Binge

This week turned from a hiatus to an all out binge. I decided at some point that perhaps it would be good to get all my cravings out of my system in one week, so that I can start fresh on Sunday with a renewed commitment to calorie control. But first, my commitment to calorie consumption: with unabashed zeal, I ate cake, cookies, pizza, pasta, beer, french fries, burgers, crispy chicken, chicken wings, potato skins, cupcakes....I am a little embarrassed to say the list goes on.

And you know what??

I feel like crap.

My tummy hurts, my head aches, my breath could clear a city block, I am tired, and I don't want to see another piece of cake for at least 24 hours. (Okay, 6 hours.) I am so ready to eat salad again, drink water instead of beer and soda, chomp on celery, and eat fruit for breakfast instead of cupcakes. Hopefully I'll look back on this experience and remember how bad the body feels when it isn't being treated well. I do remember when I originally started this experiment, I felt better after the first week of healthier eating. I can't wait for that feeling to return so I can lay off the Pepto Bismol.

The Best Laid Plans....

What I Planned to Eat Today:

Breakfast - 1/2 cup of cottage cheese and 1/2 grapefruit

Lunch - Healthy Choice Pannini Sandwich and 1 piece of fruit (an orange)

Dinner - Pork Chops with Peach Sauce, Rice, and a Salad

What I Actually Ate Today:

Breakfast - one piece of walnut cake and one cup of hot chocolate

Mid-morning Snack - one chocolate cupcake

Lunch - Pannini and one piece of vanilla cake (burned my tongue on pannini due to inability to wait any longer for deliciousness)

Dinner - Turkey Sandwich and a Salad (the pork is not defrosted yet)

And the day's not over! I still have that banana caramel cake in the fridge....

...our actual bananas are starting to get overly ripe. I would eat them if I had room, but there is an intern at work who likes to bake. Perhaps the world is against me? I returned from lunch today to find an email: a vendor stopped by with an ice cream sandwich for me, and it is in the freezer. I must admit this is an effective way to make people remember your company. I would have devoured it instantly of course, but I was too full of cake.

Off the Wagon

Ugh. I fell off the wagon yesterday. After coming home from an extra large grocery trip (tying to buy enough for 2 weeks since I won't have time next weekend), I began the task of preparing my soup for the week, and chopping veggies for planned meals. Only this time, I also made two batches of cookies for some upcoming events. Well, it is just no good to make a cookie dough and not know what it tastes like! You need to make sure that everything is well mixed! And, of course you can't package them up for consumption by others without trying one yourself! And then there's the broken one, well that's just no good to anyone, so you better eat that too. Oops, this batch is a little bit burnt. Better check to see if they are still edible. Well, maybe they are edible enough for you to have them, but you shouldn't include these in the public batch...and so on.
So my industriousness turned into a binge of uncontrollable eating. And I didn't stop at the cookies. I had also bought ice cream - damn you, half price sale!! You see, it melted a little bit in the 10 minute ride home on the 80 degree day, and I love it when it is a little melted. (I am not usually patient enough to wait...)
Luckily, I was able to offset the damage a little bit - it was a beautiful day, so Adam and I took the bikes out. But, I was so out of control that I turned a good week into a bad one, just like that!
Today, I have come to my senses. I have only had one cookie...so far...

Tail Great

Oh Boy, it is going to be a tough week. The reason: a tailgate. For those unenlightened -- I of course am pretending at the moment that my readers are "virtual fans" rather than my family -- a typical tailgate menu consists of burgers, and beer, and cupcakes, and beer, and taco dip, and beer, and fried cheesecake, and crown royal, and sausage sandwiches, and beer, and french fries, and beer, and just about anything else - only no water (or ketchup). Oh, and did I mention beer? It is no exaggeration to say that the above list could represent my own personal consumption during past events. (Though I might drink more beer, and perhaps have more than one shot of crown royal. Oh wait, did I say perhaps?)
I have similar problems at parties, shin-digs, barbeques, buffets, hoe-downs, and hootenanies. Somehow, I am magnetically attracted to food, and despite a complete and total lack of actual hunger, I EAT. I have actually seen pictures to illustrate this phenomenon, taken at a friend's baby shower, where I strategically placed myself in front of a cookie sheet full of taco dip. One could arrange these pictures flip-book style and watch as the dip miraculously disappears. I have, of course, claimed that others had helped to eat the dip, but this is mostly a lie. True, other people may have had a bite or two, but for each bite by another, I had four. I was the only one in the room who did not have to leave my seat to eat the dip, and most did not get up while watching my friend open her gifts. The cookie sheet was easily half-empty after I had rampaged it.
I have very little control over this. As I say, the food just seems to come to me: I do not seek it out. Since beginning my diet, I have gone to several parties, and I have never successfully stayed within my goal. At our company's winter party, I planned for an embarrassing amount of calories (I cannot reveal this number - it is just too mortifying.) I will only say that I went over it by about 500 calories. And the worst part is that I thought I had done well, until I took inventory the next morning. (And by the way, the beer does not help the memory when trying to take stock.)
So, I have worked on a strategy in an attempt to reverse this crazy food attraction. I know that it seems very very geeky, but drastic times call for drastic measures. So I will be keeping notes as I eat (and drink). Don't worry, I have a high limit on the calorie consumption allotted - I will be giving up my snack for the week, and continuing with the coffee cut. I only hope that it is enough.

On Time

Another surprising mini-goal has been to get to work on time. "How are these things related?", you ask? Well, I found that packing my lunch, my breakfast, my snack, and my gym clothes was causing me to need a lot more rounding in my schedule. Like, the time reads 8:02, that's close enough to 8 in horseshoes and hand grenades, right? Well...then it started reading 8:06, and sometimes 8:12. It is not as though I have a boss who is breathing down my neck about it (heck, I do just as much rounding when leaving work or going to lunch). But, being late does cause added stress, and makes me forget to tend to my other important morning duties like feeding the cat or putting on nice earrings. (Do not worry - my cat could stand to lose a little belly fat herself, and when human #1 leaves without feeding her, she proceeds to bug human #2.) I found I was often leaving things behind in my rush to get my behind out the door, like the gym bag I had just packed, or the breakfast I had just made.
I try to allow for flexibility, but one reason this diet works for me is because I plan ahead, when I am thinking with my brain and not my tummy. When I forget a meal, I am forced to be hungry. And when I am hungry, the candy dish is enticing, the snack machine calls my name, and I am a sucker for the burrito place across the street. Likewise, when I forget a gym bag, I am not likely to make it to the gym. Go home first? And then leave? This plan of attack is effective only in theory, and has never been successful in lab trials, let alone real life.
So, every Sunday I make a list based on my spreadsheet which includes all my meals for the week. The list is on the fridge so I know what to pack each day. I also pack my gym bag for the next time as soon as I get back from the gym. I have a friend who packs her bag for the whole week, but alas, my gym bag (a free give away from an Orioles game) is not large enough to accommodate this.
This goal was a difficult one for me to meet. I have this weird "lateness" gene, inherited from my parents who made me wait for rides for hours at a time as a child. Even when it looks as though I will be on time, I find something to distract me enough so that I will not be on time. It is a gift. I did find that having a little foresight helped a great deal with my ability to remember my gym bag and my lunch...and most days, my brain.

I Did NOT Just Eat That!

Dude! Seriously! It could not have been me who ate the rest of the icing from that tube. It must have been some one else. I mean, come on! "Icing" isn't even a food! It's like a condiment or something. And you're telling me I ate a quarter cup of it?? Really??

OK, OK. So I look it up. As anticipated, "icing" is not a food, and the search yields results like "cinnamon buns with icing" and "blueberry scones with icing" (mmm, that sounds tasty). I see a million desserts with icing. But what about the poor schlep who skipped the dessert and went right for the sweet stuff? So, I dig out the canister from the garbage and read the label: serving size, 2 Tablespoons. How many tablespoons did I eat? Like 4?

No way. 280 calories?? I did not just eat that! Poop. I think I did.

the Five O Clock Feeding Frenzy

Approximately 30 minutes after implementation of my ambitious plan to drop some pounds, I realized that there was a huge roadblock to overcome: the five o clock feeding frenzy. Every day when I get home from work, I rush to the kitchen to find snacks, and proceed to binge on anything I can find as I wait for dinner to cook. Any time I wait for water to boil, I find myself stuffing my face. It is not uncommon for me to eat: a handful of nuts, a few spoonfuls of cottage cheese, a gulp or two of orange juice (poured into a glass, of course), some crackers, and maybe a few frosted mini wheats. Yes, all in a 15 minute period!
Taken one by one, none of these things is an obvious diet breaker - notice I never eat cupcakes or ding dongs (actually not even sure what a ding dong is). But, taken in one shovelful, it does add some wiggle to my jiggle. Not to mention that it is difficult and time consuming to log all this into my spreadsheet accurately.
I still have not been successful in eradicating this behavior completely. Tonight, I had several crackers and a peanut butter cream (yummy - thanks Gramom!). I have found a few things, however, that have helped me to keep my wits about me as my tummy rumbles.

1. Eat a snack late in the day before coming home. When I am still at work, I have no choice but to eat the sensible item I lovingly packed in the morning. I find a piece of fruit works best, leading me to believe that these cravings are due to a lapse in blood sugar. I have this fruit at home, but for some reason it is not appealing when chips and salsa are just a few feet away.
2. Chew gum during my commute. Pretty obvious here - unless you're a talented porn star, only one thing in the mouth at a time.
3. Keep veggies on hand. If I have a recipe that calls for celery, I cut up the whole bunch. Similar rules apply to carrots. I also buy bags of baby carrots or grape tomatoes. Most veggies are only 60 calories per serving, and they are so full of nutrition, that I don't even bother adding them to the log. I have found that as long as the celery is on hand and ready to eat, my tummy is satisfied.
4. Get Chinese take out. Instant gratification. Probably not so good for weight loss. I guess I should keep thinkin'.