Weigh in yesterday taught me a lesson that I DON’T  want to forget E>V>E>R!   I’ve been on Running Rest for two weeks, remember?   Right.  So, for whatever reason….I seemed to have forgotten not to eat as much food as when I was running 30 miles a week.  “But Diane, You are a Weight Watcher.  You track your food via daily, weekly and earned activity points plus values……how could you just forget?”     GOOD QUESTION.  The short answer is….I’m a Cheater.  The long answer is more complicated.  Er….Nah, if I’m being honest, it’s really not.  I’m a Cheater.  Period.  And it’s got to stop if I want to be successful.  It’s about that Simple.  So let’s get started doing that.  K?

Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’ve made HUGE HUGE changes in my nutrition since joining Weight Watchers.  I’m changed in meaningful ways and I love love love it.   I’m eating more quantities and varieties of fruits and vegetables now than ever before in my life.  Peter’s Chef Skills have introduced our family to vegetables I’d never heard of before.  Kale, Swiss Chard, Leeks, Beets, Endive…..and a host of others.  It’s fantastic, and I’m lovingly eating them. Enjoying them.  So that’s not it.  I’ve also managed to reduce my snacking ALOT.  But not entirely.  I have to watch this part of my eating habit very carefully.  If I don’t reign myself in, I can and will sit down and eat 3 mini bags of chips instead of the 1 I’m supposed to have.  I’ll snarf down 4 Weight Watcher Peanut Butter Bliss bars instead of the 1 that I should eat.  I’ll sneak and steal and eat the snacks we buy for our girls to take to school.  Ugh, It’s Ugly.  And it feels Ugly.  And by the time I’m stuffed (physically and emotionally)….I feel Ugly.

Buuuut…..as long as I was working it, working my cheating so that I could still squeeze out a loss on the scale on Saturday at 8am at my Weight Watchers Center….well…..then It’s All Good!  I mean….Isn’t it?  Come ON!  It SO IS!  If I cheat (I mean, just a little really, in the scheme of things, it’s no big deal, blah blah blah, yadda yadda yadda…)…and still lose half  pound or so….then what’s the harm?

D.I.A.N.E?

Um, ..yes?

Diane, the harm is…..that you are not learning anything with this game playing.  You are not moving forward.  You’re doing “just enough” not to back slide.  You’re two steps forward, two steps back….AND you think you’re going to run a Marathon like this??  If you did your Half Marathon training with this kind of committment…..you would have been carted away by Rutgers race volunteers around mile 7.

CRAP.   You’re right.  And I kinda Love AND Hate that!

I Hate it for the obvious reasons.  I love those little chocolatey, peanut buttery Bliss bars.  I don’t like the idea of telling myself NO when something deep inside is feeling unstable and WANTS to eat something, anything……be honest….EVERYTHING!   I feel alot of anxiety at the thought of trying to figure out who that little demon inside me is…and if I don’t feed him snacks, what will he do?   Will he eat me alive if I don’t feed him?  Or will he be exercised and go away, or get smaller at least?

I Love forcing myself to look at this TRUTH about my game playing with food, because I have some recent experiences with success that I think can help me Help Myself.   For real — I didn’t complete those 13.1 miles by cheating or game playing.  Hell NO!   There really is no way to “cheat” your way through a Half Marathon.  It breaks down like this.  If Ya Don’t Put in da Miles…..Ya don’t get the Finish Line Smiles!  HAHA……look out Eminem!  Not!

Seriously though, the great thing about running is this – – cheaters fall out of the game.  They don’t make it to the Finish Line of a Half Marathon.   Side note:  I think it just dawned on me why those 20 something runners were waiting for us slow-pokes by the side of the road by the Finish Line.   They already knew what I didn’t know until now.  Cheaters Never Prosper.  We Earned Our Right To Be There.  Say Amen!   AMEN!

So, it’s time to stop my game playing with food, and get serious about trying to accomplish something here.  Losing some serious weight over the next 6-7-8 months IS necessary for My Marathon Plan!    This is going to take alot of work and committment to accomplish.  I mean, it’s NOT about just saying,  “Ok Diane..today is the day you stop over-eating”.  Oh, is that today?  Oh, Ok.  Done.

Nope — not that simple.  I’m going to need to begin a habit of Self Monitoring.  I need to begin to understand myself, and that little demon that drives me off the food cliff sometimes.   With the Half Marathon journey, my running became a distraction.  I was able to avoid my food games because I was running enough to disguise it.  But that’s not enough anymore.  Not enough for a Marathon Plan.  My food journey for the next 9 months needs to be about Nutrition, and the approach is going to be whole foods, foods from the earth, power foods.

Please Please PLEASE don’t tackle me if you find me at Magnifico’s on Saturday or Sunday night with my Vanilla Cone in my hand and Rainbow Sprinkles on my chin.    I am still going to treat myself along the way.  I’m not striving to eliminate treats from my life.  Au contraire.   I’m striving to convert Binge behaviors into Treat behaviors.   Dictionary, dictionary, tell me what you know!

Binge:  A short period devoted to indulging in an activity, esp. drinking alcohol or eating food, to excess.

Treat:  An event or item that is out of the ordinary and gives great pleasure.

Soooooo….in a nutshell, I’m trying to convert short but frequent periods of excess indulgence which ALWAYS end with me feeling Ugly –>  into special, less frequent BUT MORE SATISFYING periods of pleasure.

I Like It!  I’m not 100% sure how the hell to do it.  But I Like It!  And my awareness and committment and willingness is all I need today.  I’m going to remind myself that I didn’t just get up on April 22nd and run 13.1 miles.  No Way.  I dedicated 4 months of days to “doing today what Today requires.”  So that’s how I’m going to chip away at my Food Games.  I’m going to set myself up with all the powerful skills and behaviors that Weight Watchers has taught me….and I’m going to set out every day to eat for Health and Nutrition……with an infrequent pleasurable Treat planned in so Life Still Tastes Sweet!

Ciao for now……Diane