Day 27: 100 Days Challenge - Eat Dessert When It's Special

Just got off the treadmill.  I really wish I could bottle up the feeling of accomplishment and spray it around when I'm tempted to skip the workout.  More and more, I am loving the Never Say Diet book.  Have you ever read something and thought "I could have written that?"  The other day Chantel was talking about what it was like to grow up fat.  When I was a kid, weight really wasn't much of an issue.  I was hyperactive and my poor mother was sick.  Our neighbor (my mother's best friend) had a sister who owned a dance studio.  One day a week I spent the day at the dance studio.  I took tap, ballet, acrobatics, and baton twirling.  It gave my mother a badly needed break once a week, and at one dollar for the day, it was a bargain.  I can remember that as recital times drew near, my mother would encourage me to ride my bike so that my little pot belly wouldn't be so prominent under my costumes.  Weight wasn't really a problem because I was so active, but even back then I had the seeds of compulsive eating lying under the soil.  As the years went by, my mother became sicker and sicker.  They had no diagnosis at the time and even if they had, they didn't have the technology or the drugs to treat it.  In typical oldest child fashion, I took my mother's sickness as a sign of my failings.  Children are powerless over things like that and the only control I had was what went into my mouth.

When I was twelve, my mother died.  I was the caretaker of my two brothers and baby sister after school and on Saturdays.  I was not nearly as active as I had been, and the eating accellerated.  It was the worst time in my life to be overeating and not moving.  My weight began to inch up but I still wasn't that concerned.  We had bigger problems in our house with my dad trying to keep everything together and be both mom and dad.

Within a year my dad re-married.  Our new stepmother was a registered nurse.  She was also taking Bishop Sewing Classes and was very good at sewing.  I can remember as a teenager, she was measuring me for a dress I needed for something - can't remember what - and one of my aunts on my dad's side was visiting.  As Mom was measuring me, my aunt said, "be sure to add extra inches for her big butt."  Mom and I were embarrassed and didn't say anything.  I think we were shocked that someone could be so incredibly rude, and - yes- cruel.  When we didn't answer, she repeated it.  I can't remember what my mom said, but I can remember in great detail how I felt.  I can't imagine what was going through my aunt's mind saying something like that.  I'll bet she forgot it long ago, and yet the memory remains with me.

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Today's topic from "100 Days of Weight Loss" is about eating dessert when it's special.  Special would mean not only that the dessert is tasteworthy, but that it is eaten at a special occasion and with people you love.  When I think about this, I think of the times I swayed from my "diet" and how I had the mindset that one dessert would ruin it.  And when I succumbed to that dessert, where was I?  Usually at a family gathering for one of the holidays.  And not only did I eat the dessert, but I very likely went on to eat to oblivion, long after the food even tasted good because, after all, I had already blown it.  In this 21 day habit cycle, I have allowed myself anything I want to eat, and I have found that the stuff I usually crave just isn't all that appealing anymore.  It's beginning to lose its power.

The "Beck Diet Solution" is about preventing unplanned eating.  At this stage of the game the only "planning" I'm doing is the spacing of my four meals.  I'm not sure I will ever get to the point where I am writing everything down and counting every calorie.  My jaws clench just thinking about it.  I am getting used to the four meals and once I have done that for 21 days, then I will think about the next habit.