Well, okay, lets quit that too…

It’s the creamer.  It has to be.

 

I happen to be one of those people who are doomed to be forever battling with weight issues.  If I am not carrying a bit too much around with me, then I am on my way to skeleton-ville.  For some reason I can’t seem to find equilibrium – always on the up, or down, swing.

 

With that said, I unfortunately find myself at an impasse.  By all accounts, I should be dropping pounds like there is no tomorrow.  I am going to the gym on a regular basis and giving my body a healthy (over)dose of cardio and strength training.  This, by the way, is somewhat unusual for me and by its lonesome, should be resulting in visibly slimming results.  I have combined this with eating a very healthy diet.  At least what has always worked for me in the past:

Salads with low calorie dressing

Fruits, steamed vegetables

Low calorie wraps with Deli Turkey

…..and coffee and tea (lots) with sugar free creamer and packs of sweet n’ low.  I suppose with all the healthy eating and exercising I may be pouring the creamer a bit too liberally.

 

This one has me a bit stumped.  As I go to pull on yet another pair of jeans from my ‘lets keep these around just in case I get a bit heavy pile’ and find them on the tight side, my mood shifts.  I find myself getting more and more bitter about the fact that all my hard work is paying me a negative return.  Why is it again that I am not going out to eat (which I obviously love to do way too much) and eating bottomless bowls of pasta and never ending baskets of bread?  Why did I work so hard to get all of that dreaded ‘holiday’ weight (okay lets call it NOVEMBER-DECEMBER weight since I gave myself free reign with food during the whole of those two months) – off?

 

It’s the creamer.  Or at least that’s what I can think of to cut.  Oh, I don’t want to do it.  I have this attachment to my creamer that goes back quite a few years now.  It’s good, it’s candy, and until now, it has been the one indulgence I have refused to abandon.  Sadly, it seems that time is over – at least for a while.  Hey, maybe if my coffee (which I make myself – out of extra fine (Turkish) ground espresso beans) doesn’t taste as good, I will drink less of it.  Plus, tea might be better for you if you can actually taste the tea and not just the pseudo-sugary goodness you put in it.

 We shall see…

Back In The Kitchen

Okay, I don’t feel good – so why can’t I admit that to myself?  I woke up this morning and have been repeating over and over the though ‘No, you actually feel fine…good even…start your day and get out of the house.’  At the moment this just not true.  No I do not ‘feel fine’, I feel like I was run over repeatedly by one of those huge metro buses  – - hmm, how to explain…everything from my head, to my stomach, to my skin just feels like shit hurts.

 No it’s not a hangover.  Well not in the alcohol and drug sense of the word.  What I am wondering is if you can get a hangover from food.  Yes, I know that anyone can probably eat until they make their stomach hurt – but does their entire body hurt the next day?  This is a reoccurring thing with me and I find it utterly confusing.  I am not one for sugar/sweet indulgences but on occasion[<-- that was a lie, in reality it's quite often] I feel extremely hungry and compensate by eating a large amount of food.  [As a side note: I do try to stick with relatively healthy foods such as fruit, meats, lower fat items ...not that I am always successful...].  What I want to know about is the physical effects this has on my body the next day.  I once likened the feeling to having a bruise over my entire body. My skin becomes painful to the touch, in addition to the more obvious symptoms such as a headache and stomach pains.

 I can’t help but wonder if this is a typical response to overeating.  I do know that it has a disastrous snowball effect in that once I feel this crapy bad, all I want to do is comfort myself with food.  Yes I do know that it will not help and will make things worse – but this knowledge does not seem to be enough of a deterrent.  It might even be that knowing this makes me more prone to head back into the kitchen.  ‘Oh you don’t think you can feel any worse, well lets see about that,’ or ‘I know you planned all night to work out today but you don’t feel good, might as well eat instead…’.

 It’s odd watching myself say these things to myself, knowing they are compete nonsense, but being somewhat at their beck and call.  I do know the consequences of actions like these.  I was overweight in my teen years and while I am currently a slim looking 5′7 130 lb woman [<-- that wasn't easy] – the weight/FOOD issue is a constant battle.

[Another side note I find interesting:  My finance does not share in these struggles.  He is healthy, extremely fit, eats what he wants, stops eating when he is reasonably full, works hard, and usually feels great with the exception of some version of IBS.  Watching him, for me, is like a science experiment.  I look at him go about his day without the obsessions that plague mine and I take him as proof that no, everyone in the world does not battle with this as I do. 'Ahem, no Andrea, you are not the center of the universe...'.

It seems that the problem of obesity and weight in general - in the U.S. and possibly elsewhere - is, at least in part, derived by own own obsession with restriction and substitutions in the name of healthy living.  C has never had to diet.  He cannot conceptualize why anyone would eat huge portions of something - past their comfort level.  While he doesn't eat low fat versions of food because they don't taste as good, he does avoid eating fast food saturated in oil too often - ie. more than a couple times a week... If he is hungry - he eats, when he's full that's it.  He has no anxiety whatsoever in conjunction with food. (I am reminded here of something I heard in an AA meeting several years ago.  They said that an alcoholic is unable to waste alcohol - can't understand how someone could drink half a glass and be done with it.  Are we simply becoming foodaholics? <--this word is not found in my computer's spell check function despite the fact it suggests 'workaholic, shopaholic, and chocoholic'...  The 'clean your plate before you leave the table' gone horribly wrong?)]