The excuse that started it all... but it wasn't ALL bad. It has definitely been worse.
So Friday August 22 I was out with a friend of mine and she wanted to treat me to lunch and a cupcake. It's my birthday no big deal.. I should be able to treat myself, right?
We went to Edgar's. Her favorite is the chicken salad sandwich. Prior to this journey I would have said the same thing. OK we will get the chicken salad croissant with chips and fruit cup. We will split it. I chose the Chocolate peanut butter cupcake.
It tasted fine. Not as yummy as I remember but ok. The cupcake was tasty but no way I could finish the whole thing. So half a chicken salad, half of the chips and half a cupcake. 15 minutes later not feeling so good. An hour later, I think I'm gonna be sick. Headache from the sugar, nausea from the mayo and chicken and fried chips.
I talk to Cliff later and ironically his company catered in the exact sandwich in for their meeting. He had the same thing. He's nauseous as well. The desire to EVER eat that again is gone! And to think I used to feel that way so often but didn't notice it because I had never felt this good before. The contrast was not this evident before! The comatose feeling of sugar and fat was such a normal feeling for me. I felt it at least every Sunday. I hadn't felt that way since the weekend before Memorial Day.
From my birthday until today it has been mostly good. I'm not where I was before my birthday. I allowed my birthday to pull in a couple more moments of compromise and that has changed something in my mindset that I'll explain in a minute. Eating dinner with my husband on my birthday I was able to reflect on how far I've come. We went to The Village Tavern and my favorite thing to get there is a Zuchinni Spaghetti Squash dish. I first ordered this dish 2002 when we were trying the South Beach diet. It was Phase 1 when all we could eat was veggies and lean meat. I fell in love with it. I reflected on how it's been like since then. Started out with "all or nothing" attitudes, the idea that the diet is only temporary until I get to my goal. Moving along through my journey I turned it into my lifestyle but finding the lifestyle I wanted was the challenge... until now.
Now I know where I want to be but I don't do moderation well. I can't just treat myself every now and then. Not yet. Maybe not ever. The demon of compromise is not one I can fight just yet. Now one thing that is GREAT is that the junk I treated myself with is no longer a treat for me. I am on the other side now. I don't want to feel that way anymore. It's not worth it. That makes this journey a little easier. It gives me the power to live the way I want but I have to push out the demon of compromise again. It makes this journey way too hard. My mexican meal at Chuy's today was the last hurrah. The chips and cheese dip was super yummy the nausea was not so fun. I could probably continue down this road and get to the point where chips and cheese dip didn't make me sick. But then I'm back to where I started. The power will be gone. Compromise just eats away at the power. It's time to flip the switch again. I'm NOT going back. Mark my words!
