Doug Losing Weight

I have to tell you right up front, this one is a tough one to write.  I’m hoping by writing about it I can get a grasp on what is happening.  So you, my dear reader, are my digital therapist.  Once I spill it you can leave a comment solving my problem, giving me new “tools” to cope with it, and then send me an invoice.

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We’ve taught the kids to cook.  My youngest is 14 now, oldest still living at home is 20.  Four of them, all great cooks.  This works great for dinners, my wife only cooks a couple of times a week for dinner, the rest of the nights one of the kids is in charge of cooking it.  I hope it serves my children well for the rest of their lives.

Now here’s the downside.  One of them will come home from school, decide the snacks available are not satisfactory, and they will whip up a batch of cookies.  Not a small batch, they usually double the recipe.  So I walk in and the house smells like fresh cookies, and there are four or five dozen fresh cookies on the counter, and a bowl of cookie dough…

Can I just say here that cookies are my weakness?  They are.  I can easily eat four dozen, maybe more.  This is not an exaggeration.

So I come home, there’s cookies, there’s dough.  I eat some.  I can live with that.  It only happens a couple of times a month.  I’ll get through it.

The issue comes three days later…

I get up in the morning and go into the pantry to get my Isagenix shake supplies.  While I’m in there I have to look down so I don’t step on the potatoes, and as I look back up what do I see?  Well you’ve probably guessed – it’s a giant plastic storage tub with the rest of the cookies in it…

Do you watch Survivor?  Have you seen what those people act like when they have been out for 20 days and see a cookie, or a Coke, or a hot dog?  That’s me standing in the pantry staring at my new found secret like some sort of Pavlovian dog…

If I had been walking for a week in the desert, came upon a table with cookies, and knew that I had to walk another week before I saw food again – it’s kind of like that.

But really, and here’s the most disturbing thing for me to admit, I’m not sure it’s about scarcity.  I guess in my mind I think (more like feel, these aren’t conscious thoughts, just gut instinct reaction) “If I don’t eat these now, there won’t be any later.  Those BOYS will get them”.  Hmmm, that sounds like it’s scarcity huh.

I tell myself “just drink the shake, you’ll be fine once you get the shake in you”.

I walk out of the pantry, shake supplies in one arm, the cookie bin in the other.  Before the shake is done, EIGHT cookies have gone into me.  And I don’t understand why.  It’s frustrating enough that I can feel the hurt and disappointment as I type about it.

So before my day begins, before I even have one sip of good nutrition, I’ve put a bazillion calories in me.  Empty, non-nutritious, DELICIOUS calories.  I can’t even say “I’ll work it off at the gym” because I can’t go right now…

And I feel like my day is blown before I even get started.

Other times I’ll hide the food (usually some sweet “found” snack) and sneak off to my room, my office, my car where I can eat without anyone seeing.  I plan trips so I have to stop by a convenience store to get gas, and 4 for $2 candy bars.  I eat them all.  They might be the last ones I ever get to eat in my whole life – remember these are feelings, not rational thoughts.

Man that’s hard to admit in public.  My actions are like some kind of insane person who may never get to eat this kind of stuff again – so hoard it, eat it, before you head into the wilderness of bland tasting food/shakes for the rest of your days on this earth…

I know, it doesn’t have to all be bland.  But it feels like it has to be non-sweet, non-snack.  And I’m just so emotionally tied to that snacking.  Remember what I said about vending machines?  As soon as life gets tough, I’m looking for the snack.

So there you have it.  There’s the big rub.  There’s my giant fear when it comes to spending hundreds of dollars on specialty shakes to help me lose weight.  Because even when I’m “on the program” if I  discover hidden treasure I’m plundering like there’s no tomorrow.  If I can’t get that under control I don’t know how I’ll ever lose the weight.  I have little faith that if I do lose it, it will stay off.

And I don’t know where it comes from.  I don’t know why I feel that way.  I don’t understand why when my brain says “leave it alone” I end up with eight cookies in my mouth before breakfast.

How do I tell my brain that there is abundance, I don’t have to hoard/consume everything I accidentally find.

I think this whole issue is it…  the source of all my doubt as to whether I can really do this.  I just can’t trust myself.  That’s a sad commentary on where I’ve ended up.  I promise to keep looking for a way back.