Self sabotage

Well, I've been struggling still to avoid overindulgence. I told you about the other night when we had folks over and I had some extra food at the end of the night including 2 candy bars.

Well, the next day was Halloween, and even though I knew I didn't feel like going out and partying, part of me was still picking up on the desire to "go wild" and "throw caution to the wind" and "live it up". I wound up with a large cup of doughnut holes and surely some chocolate candy of some kind - I can't quite remember - and some Pama (pomegranate liqueur) though I didn't wind up having much of that. And I had some Taco Bell for one meal - steak burrito supreme, and they threw in a Black Jack taco for free that I didn't know what it was and wasn't planning to order a taco but hey, it was free. That was similar to the occasion where a guy threw a Mint Milky Way Mini at me, not even giving me the opportunity to refuse it. There I was with it in my hand and I do like them and hey, it was just a mini.

So I wasn't surprised when this morning I weighed 225 again. But, hey, All Saints' Day, all the demons have been vanquished and we are contempleting moderation and piety. Except when a recipe called for breadsticks on the side, and I don't have any breadsticks so I substitute a different bread, I chose (with guilty joyous abandon) the graham crackers - which I finished off the last pack within, which Sparkpeople says was over 400 calories. I also wanted very badly to indulge in a hot toddy tonight - hot chocolate or mulled wine or spiked cider or tea... something for the cold, wet, dark weather. Hot chocolate sounded especially comforting, and it's not something I've had a lot of in my time. I looked the hot chocolates over and discovered they're primarily sugar. There were some sugar-free kinds that were only 25 calories a pack, but I imagined they wouldn't be as good as the Ovaltine, which I've never had before and which sounded really appealing. Either that or the General Foods Internation Cafe Francais I had at home and knew to be 50 calories per tablespoon and also very comforting.

So I had an extra glass of Ovaltine too, tonight.

Oh, and at the grocery store I had a hard time walking past the sale candy without getting interested in the candy and I wound up buying a Dove chocolate bar. Now, there's just no excuse for all this. Once in the car, I bit off 2 of the 5 squares of chocolate, which were out of this world, then checked the label and realized that I'd just eaten 80 calories, and finishing off the whole bar would be 200 calories, and I still hadn't had any of that Ovaltine I wanted. It took everything I had, it seemed, to put the rest of that candy bar down, but a couple minutes later I sensed within myself that my craving was satisfied.

So you can see, I'm having a bit of trouble abstaining from too many "exceptions" and "little additions." Today's excesses weren't actually that bad except that the graham cracker binge did add quite a few calories to the day's total. These things add up. I gave up the fruit with tonight's dinner for the Ovaltine in the hopes that some of the calorie differential would cancel out some of the extra calories. (That sentence was confusing but I know what I meant.) It's just too easy right now for me to find myself inside a convenience store, and then on the candy aisle, and then reaching out. I need to abstain, and use the promise of an upcoming cheat day to delay my cravings.

I have to admit, that lately I have been dreading the idea of food prep and dishes management and maintaining the cleanliness of the kitchen - which has to be done if I'm going to prepare my meals at home and mess the kitchen and all those dishes up. But I'm spending too much time on my bed, on my back, on the computer.

The good news is - I did finally exercise tonight. 30 minutes on the recumbent bike - 350 calories burned.

Oh, and by the way - those of you who have lost weight - are you having issues shaving your legs now? I'm thinking I may have lost the padding in the front of my shin between skin and bone, and for weeks now I've been having a real hard time trying not to slice my skin open. I feel like I'm going to be making some scar tissue bumps there. Yesterday I sliced a whole geography off my shin - three pitted spots left to bleed.