The love of food and money...

Warning: I’m VERY, VERY, VERY, VERY, VERY tired.

During this competition I have become aware of my love of not just food but of spending money on food. I have what I have lovingly coined “extreme cravings” and I’m not sure what to do with them. My extreme cravings are INSANE and they go something like this… I have something yummy to eat, this something can be good or bad, a banana for instance or a 3 chocolate chunk ice cream Sunday. That yummy thing will get not only in my mouth but in my head. Soon I’m thinking about it all the time and no matter where I am or what I’m doing I have to have it. So here is where it gets bad. Often I will physically get sick of eating that thing. Suddenly the chocolate tastes like cardboard or the banana like soggy washcloth, but I am mentally unable to stop myself from eating it. I went through a phase where it was a sausage egg and cheese croissant from Burger King. I think I ate one 5 days a week for like a month. Do you know how many calories that is? Do you know how much money that is as well? Honestly I’ve never added it up because I know I would be sick at the thought but none the less there it is. I would be driving to work and suddenly although the croissant didn’t taste good to me at all I would still pull in EVERY DAY and order one. On my day off I would look for reasons to leave my house so that I could get one. Often I would lie to my husband or make up errands I needed to do just to get my “fix”. Sometimes I just told the truth and he would question why I thought I needed it and although his intentions were genuine and sincere and not mean at all his words would sting like a whip and I thought it was just easier to lie the next time. I’ve honestly over drawn my checking account and paid an $18.00 fee for something I got at McDonalds (probably coffee cause I love their lattes). The reason I go to McDonalds is because the coffee is good and cheep… but DUH!!! When you’re tacking on a fee of that size I could have gone to Starbucks like 3 times.

Anyway, I digress; here is my point or my thoughts or whatever you want to call it. I don’t know why I do this. I don’t know why I need my “fix”. Sometimes I feel like I go from addiction to addiction never really understanding what the underlying factor is. I’ve always had this feeling like food was the one thing I thought I could control. I used to think that when things were bad in life only I could decide what I put in my mouth. I thought, “This is my choice and I can do whatever I want.” NO ONE could make me eat or not eat anything that I wanted. But I realize that that is just crap and I’m obviously out of control! So EEK what do I do now? How do you break an addictive cycle that you’ve carried with you for at least 20 years? I need to get to the root of the issue so I can rip it out and throw down some weed killer but I’m not sure where to start.

Weigh In Pics and stuff...

I haven’t had much time to get this pic up but I wanted to before to much time passed. I’m mildly embarrassed to post this weight because I gained like 3 lbs. UGH! However in my defense weigh in lands on a not so great time of the month for me and I’m blaming that… SO HA. Still I know it will come right back off and I’m not going to stress about it to much. I did have to have a long conversation with Kari though about whether I should be humiliated or just post it and move on. She basically said I should suck it up and get my butt moving. So here I am. This week has been great. NOT PERFECT but great! I’ve been doing some exercise every day even when it’s been hard. I pulled out an old exercise video one night because I didn’t have many options and my baby did not want me to set her down. So there I was all dressed up in Gym gear doing cardio in my living room with my baby in my arms. One of the biggest challenges was trying not to shake her up like a milk shake while I jogged in place and attempted jumping jacks… LOL! Wish you all could have seen it. It was pretty funny. I think Jade thought it was a really fun game and she had a blast. There were so many times when I thought it was just a pain in the butt and I wanted to just shut it off and sit down with a beer and watch TV but I didn’t! So GO ME! :0) I hope all of you are fired up and working hard. More later…

Weigh Day...

...is here at last. so much to say but my little one is demanding all my attention. i need to update my blog list so if your not up there be patient you soon will be. i just want to say i'm totally excited. i can't wait for summer. i'll post again soon till then happy days and healthy choices!

I made it through December!!!

I made it!!! My loss for this month was 1.2 pounds and I’m proud as punch!!! LOL. I have had some amazing and awesome breakthroughs in my attitude this month to coincide with my loss. At previous points in my life I would have been disappointed that the loss was so small. In fact last month I was! I knew I could have done better and in a sense was beating myself up for not doing as well as I “should” have. What I failed to recognize is the fact that previous to this I would be flying through the holidays will little to NO regard to what I was shoveling in my mouth. I made poor choices this month but the difference is that I was conscious of every one of them. I weighed the choice before I made it and there were times I said no. No to sugar, no to sweets and no to seconds!!! And look at this… I have made it through Thanksgiving and Christmas with a 4 pound loss! That’s a freaking awesome accomplishment for me and I’m very proud of myself.
I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas holiday and I hope that God makes 2010 the best year of your lives.

Christmas

Christmas time is almost here
so many cakes and goods are near
I’m trying to keep a level head
but i think it'd rather eat that bread
just one more week and Santa’s here
it's then I’ll jump and scream and cheer
I hope to make it through this mess
weighing just a little less
if i don't gain I’ll be so happy
I’ll probably write a poem that's sappy
just one more week till Christmas time
here is where I’ll end my rhyme!

merry christmas!

Short & Sweet

It's 5 AM and I’m just walking out the door to go to work so I don't have much time but I wanted to get a post in. I hope everyone is doing great this month. I’m going to try like heck to get in and read some of your blogs soon. :0) Things are crazy for me right now. Big projects and mandatory training at work; my husband may get picked up with the government for a job!!! YAY!!! He's been trying for well over a year. My daughter is getting SO big and can now roll front to back, back to front and either direction. Big accomplishments there. I'm doing pretty well this month. Not as well as I’d like but still making progress. I’ve been working TONS and TONS and I’m pretty burnt out. However, Jan is coming quickly and I’ll be getting a raise so that will help out tremendously. No more over time for me unless I want to at that point. Right now I have to work it so we can make ends meet. It’s hard sometimes but totally worth it. I am just lucky in times like these that a) I have a job & b) I can work overtime. I know there are a lot more people out there (like my hubby) that don’t have either of those luxuries. Well I’d better get my butt to work. Be blessed!!!

December Goal

At the end of the day after the weigh in I had this big AH HA moment and realized that I’m a complete idiot! I really could have won the over all for this contest if i had just buckled down last month… SERIOUSLY! I guess each of you may be thinking the same thing. But alas, I totally slacked and now I’d have to do some serious damage or hope for others to gain in order to win the overall prize. The thing is that I feel like I’ve really gotten to know many of you and I don’t want anyone to gain this month, so… I hope that all of you lose big and that I will do the same. I’m going to set a goal of 12 lbs. this month. It is what I did in the second month and it totally possible if I stay focused. Wish me luck!