Huge dieting success today.
It's hard to pinpoint which emotion is the hardest to get through without comfort eating, but I would put tired in the top three. Yesterday was a very active day. I logged 12,000 steps. To put that in perspective, the previous day I had logged 6,000. I spent the early part of the day trying to wear out Spencer so he would take a nap. Of course, that backfired, but that's not the point. In the evening we went to the circus, which he LOVED. We got home about 10:30 which is not late-late, but as I said it was a long day. My knees and legs were hurting, so it took me a very long time to get to sleep and Rachel was up and yelling for me at 7am sharp. Long story short, I was very tired today. Still am in fact.
It's also been a long couple of weeks of illness (Mike is just now declaring himself well again) and I've been carrying the load at home while taking care of sick kids, a sick husband, and I was sick too. So, I'm really tired.
And that's when controlling my comfort food craving is really, really, really hard. I just want to eat all day. And not healthy foods either. I want a baked potato covered in butter and cheese, followed by half a dozen cookies, followed by a whole large pizza - and that's all before lunch. And I really wish I was kidding. There's a reason why I'm 100 pounds overweight - well, 86 now :o) - and it's not a thyroid condition. So today was hard.
I had cereal for breakfast like usual, but I opted for honey nut cheerios instead of raisin bran. And I had my daily Starbucks bottle frappuccino much earlier than usual. Looking back, I can see the additional sugar right there that caused me to get hungry again much earlier in the day, but it didn't occur to me at the time.
So when I got hungry, I had some cottage cheese, which I measured to make sure I was having a single serving - I could have plowed through that whole container very easily. Then I had my usual lunch, a lean cuisine panini, but still an hour earlier and I found myself eating it much faster than usual. I munched on some steamed butternut squash, and several times found myself licking the smudges of peanut butter from the kids snack off my fingers. Given how a typical day would have gone a month ago, I'm doing pretty good so far.
I gave Spencer a cookie as a snack and had ONE with him. Just one. Go me!
I looked down the dinner options and opted for the one that felt the most like comfort food, spaghetti with meat sauce. I used the smaller bowl and kept myself in check while portioning out my food. I did eat a little more than what would have just satisfied me. I had the loaf of bread in my hand to take to the table, but put it back. I love buttered bread with pasta meals, but I usually end up eating 6 or 7 heavily buttered pieces rather than the single one I intended.
Spencer and Rachel ate well, something that's increasingly difficult at dinner time for Spencer, so he had ice cream and a cookie for dessert. Rachel had a cookie sans ice cream. And I had another cookie with them
Not too much later I'm hungry again (not sure if it's emotional or biological). I wanted to put in a frozen pizza and then eat the whole thing. Really badly. Luckily, I had Spencer and Rachel snuggled up on my lap at the time. So I decided to rethink it after the tv show was over and the kids were in bed. Well, it must have been emotional hunger (not surprisingly) because I forgot about it.
After the kids went to bed, I hopped on the elliptical before I gave myself a chance to think otherwise and did 33 minutes in the zone, and I felt so good that I almost stayed on longer. Which effectively worked off the two cookies and got my calories balanced out for the day.
I can't even begin to describe the feeling of triumph I have right now. I'm one of those people that really believes that if I can do anything. Realistically, of course, I think it's a bit late for Presidential aspirations lol. But I believe that if right now I decided that running the NYC marathon was something that I really, truly wanted to do, eventually I could make it happen (I've actually been toying with the idea as a long term fitness goal). There has only ever been one challenge in my life that I've failed at. And I'm finally succeeding!
And now I'm going to bed :o).