The Travelin’ Food Addict

I’ve been on the road a lot lately and I’m headed out again later this week for a
work-trip, and as is usually the case before I hit the road, I’m feeling a bit unsettled because it means I have to deviate from my normal, predictable interactions with food.

While traveling is completely doable for a food addict, it does take some extra effort and planning. Specifically, I need to figure out what food I can pack in my suitcase and take with me; what food I can buy when I get where I’m going; and where I’ll be eating for the couple of meals that I’ll likely need to eat out.

During a recent trip to D.C. I was able visit my friend Dana, who graciously gave me full-range of her kitchen during my weekend stay with her. The morning I arrived, I went to the Whole Foods around the corner from her house, grocery-list in hand, and bought the food I would need for the next five days of eating. I went back to her house and prepared everything like I would if I were at home. It worked out perfectly. I had all the food I needed while I stayed with Dana, and when I was ready to pack up and depart for the second leg of my trip, I took my prepared food with me. Thanks to a call before arriving in town, I was able to secure access to a mini-fridge and a microwave in my hotel room. All my pre-planning, and an understanding and supportive friend made this an “easy” trip in terms of food, but not all trips are as easy. For example, this week I’ll only be on the road for three days—one day traveling, one day at my destination, and another day traveling home—so it’s not as long a trip, but it’s slightly more challenging because I won’t have the use of a friend’s kitchen. Thankfully, there are several food items I can pack, I can shop for an item or two when I arrive at my hotel, and the rest of the items will come from the restaurant in my hotel. It ain’t all neat and pretty, like this Type-A girl likes it, but it’s totally doable. It has to be because my old way of traveling was almost always one long binge from the minute I left my house to the minute I arrived at my destination. For me there was nothing better than a long lay over because that meant time for eating and buying items to take on the plane with me. I used to love airport food, no surprise since most of it is either sugar or flour based. Have you ever tried to find healthy food in an airport? It’s not easy.

Back in the old days, before recovery, I would wander around the terminal and gorge myself on whatever my favorite food items were at the time. Never mind that one of my most humiliating days ever came while traveling for work. Weighing nearly 350 pounds, I was sitting near the gate, minding my business, waiting for my plane, when an airport employee came up to me and informed me that I would need to purchase another seat because I was, “too large for one seat.” I nearly burst into tears right there, but instead I saved my hurt and humiliation until I got where I was going (and until I was alone, of course) and had one hell of a horrible binge. It’s sad to think that even this type of humiliation wasn’t enough to stop this addict from eating more.

Writing that story, here, now, nearly ten years later still brings tears to my eyes, but at the end of the day it’s a good reminder of why a little extra planning around my food before traveling pays off. It certainly beats having to ask the flight attendant before every flight for a seat-belt extender, or worse yet, having to buy two airplane seats. Today, even if it is a little unsettling, I take comfort in knowing that there’s a better way to travel and that way is abstinently—no flour, no sugar.

Complexity is Fraud

About a month ago, around tax time, I heard political satirist P.J. O’Rourke on NPR talking about the complexity of the U.S. tax system and he said something that resonated with me, not about our tax code, but about my life at the time. He said, “complexity is fraud.” The minute I heard this phrase it rang true to me.

As I celebrate three years in recovery (on May 14–tomorrow), I realize the more complex I try to make my life the less genuine it becomes. Plus when life gets to be too busy, or too much, my old ways start to creep back in.

I know that complexity and busyness are not my friends no matter how cool I think they are, and no matter how much I want them to be my BFFs they never will be. I’m a self-described perfectionist, layer on some complexity with a healthy dose of busyness and I’m spinning in a million different directions. Not to mention, I’m completely miserable because in my life where complexity thrives, perfection dies. My ego is a mess, I’m a mess, and my program is usually is a mess too. The term “easy does it” is one of those 12-step slogans that I used to roll my eyes at. The first time I heard it I thought, “these addicts are a bunch of f**king wimpy freaks, who clearly don’t know that there’s entirely too much going on in my life for easy does it.”

Needless to say, I’ve been thrown the “easy does it” lesson a few times now. It keeps coming back to me like a bad penny. In my experience, you don’t get past a lesson until you’ve learned it (and in some cases earned it), so the universe keeps throwing it back to you, a little harder each time. This time around the “easy does it” lesson was a challenge.

It all started because I was coasting along in recovery. I had hit one of those places where I thought I had it all figured out, so I started to take on more stuff, I started to pull away from my higher power, I started to miss some of my committed meetings and before you knew it I was chewing sugarless gum again. That’s right, gum, not food, but gum. Thankfully, I wasn’t stupid enough to pick up flour and sugar, but I was stupid enough during a meeting at work to accept a piece of gum from a coworker. When I took it, I thought, “I can have a piece of gum it’s been eight months since I had a stick, what’s the harm?” Well a few weeks later, with sores in my mouth and a sore jaw from all the chewing, plus $150 spent on gum, I had to come to the realization that it was either time to recommit to my program or the food would clearly be next.

Some of you reading this may think, “gum, really?” And the answer is, yes, I couldn’t put it down, I was clearly using it addictively for the sweet hit it gave me when I popped it in my mouth. I know how this works. Today gum, tomorrow an entire gallon of ice cream. I have travelled this path before, except before I didn’t come clean and the gum obsession led me to the food. This time, my gum obsession is leading me back to my program. I came clean with my sponsor, Todd and a few fellows about my struggles and I put the gum down. And I’ve recommitted myself to a clean program that doesn’t include gum. So I’m recommitted. . .yet again. I have to remind myself that my commitment to recovery should be renewed everyday so that I don’t take it for granted, so I don’t coast, so I don’t get too busy and miss the red flag (in this case gum) and go straight for the food. Everyday I must renew the vow to treat my body with respect and care and abstain from flour and sugar. . . and gum.

While P.J. O’Rourke, the good libertarian that he is may say, “complexity is fraud.” This libertarian-leaning addict finally is understanding the importance of “easy does it.” Take it from me, slow down, stay true and recommit yourself everyday to a life without addiction!

Is Sugar Toxic?

A couple of weeks ago CBS’ 60 Minutes ran a story that asked, “Is Sugar Toxic?” If you missed the story when it ran, here’s a link to it: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7403942n

Additionally, if you want to see the video from the doctor who is featured in the story, Robert H. Lusting, MD, Professor of Pediatrics at the University of California at San Francisco you can view it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

Needless to say, I was glued to the boob tube because I wanted to know if all the “work” I’ve been doing in recovery might actually have an added health benefit. And well, it turns out that the answer to that question could be yes. Yes, I could be doing really good things for my body by avoiding the white granular stuff. To that I say, amen and hallelujah.

I’ve known for a long time that sugar is toxic to me, which is why I was fascinated to learn that others are starting to look at the sweet compound as harmful to humans. In fact, some researchers believe that it could be the leading cause of certain types of cancers, as well as an active contributor to the holy trinity of modern-day conditions: diabetics, heart disease and obesity. Of course not many people will be shocked to hear that sugar (the best friend of high calorie, high fatty foods) may play a role in these diseases, but they may be shocked to know that it plays a major role! I’m hoping that with more research and more exposure in the mainstream media that more and more people will sit up and take note that we all need to be more food conscience because we certainly aren’t today. Don’t believe me? Sit in a Starbucks, an airport or any other public place for 30 minutes and count the number of overweight or obese people who walk in the door. It’s amazing what sugar has done to our bodies!

Of course there will always be those who argue that the findings brought to light in the 60 Minutes story are exaggerated. There’s a good chance they would argue that humans have consumed sugar without harm for decades so how can it be toxic now? It may be true that sugar has been a staple of modern man for hundreds of years, but clearly during the past several decades humans (primarily Americans) have completely changed how we consume food, how we manufacture food (yes, manufacture–read a food label of any processed food item and it’s easy to see that most of us couldn’t reproduce it in our own kitchens if we tried) and how and where we purchase food. It’s clear that food today is sugar dense and fiber poor, which has led to the surge in obesity rates in our country and around the world as other countries begin to adopt the American way of eating. Seems like food addict or not, we all might want to pay a little more attention to the amount of sugar we consume.

Hair Trigger

Nearly everyday last week I felt like my right hand was firmly wrapped around the barrel of gun I knew had a hair trigger. I was familiar with the gun and the trigger because I had fired that gun (fully loaded) at myself many times before.

The term “hair trigger” is often used to describe what happens when we react to the slightest provocation or stimulation, and last week, there appeared to be something waiting to provoke me at every turn. Something just waiting to drive my stress level through the roof, and leave me with feelings of uneasiness, uncertainty and anxiety. Typically, when I feel these types of emotions, the first thing I want to do is pull the trigger, which for me means ingesting a gluttonous amount of flour and sugar in the hopes of making those uneasy, uncomfortable feelings disappear. Of course pulling the trigger (eating) never works, but there’s still a flash of hope in my addict mind that if I eat, everything will be better.

Starting last Monday morning, and lingering late into the evening on Friday, I felt challenged. This barrage of daily (mostly made-up) challenges made me want to eat. From a tear-filled goodbye after a fun-filled weekend with my sister (she lives in Michigan and we only get to see each other a handful of times each year) to a very stressful workweek. Everything, my every thought, seemed to be lined up against me, begging me to pull the trigger.

Thankfully, I resisted the urge to harm myself, I never gave into my anxiousness and I never carelessly threw my abstinence into the nearest rain gutter, but I really, really wanted to and I could have if I didn’t have the tools I needed to stop myself from doing something that I would later regret—eat flour and sugar.

The silliness of my behaviors and actions during the week came to head for me on Saturday evening after sharing a meal with several friends who are also food addicts. During our conversation, I was reminded about all the hardships and happenings others in my 12-Step program have endured, yet managed to stay abstinent through, including the loss of a home, the loss of a spouse, the loss of a parent, personal illnesses or other extremely challenging and emotion situations. Clearly, if the fellows we spoke about could remain abstinent through such difficult ordeals I could stay abstinent through a week that, when I started to look back on, really wasn’t all that horrific, no matter how much I perceived it to be at the time. My challenging situations were easily rectified. My sister will be back to visit me in September (and I’ll see her again at Thanksgiving). Work is work. I am not my job. And no matter how much things seemed screwed up at the office, I have a job and I get paid a decent amount of money every two weeks to show up Monday through Friday to do my part. I need to stop sweating the small stuff and quash that dastardly ego of mine, otherwise, it spends way too much time creating crap for me to obsess about.

At the end of the day, I started to realize that even if none of these things-–my tools or thoughts of others who have survived more challenging times with their abstinence intact, I can (and often do) have one final thing at my disposal, I can pull out my fat pictures and ask myself: do I want to be trapped in a morbidly obese body at 344 lbs with an out-of-control ego?

Or do I want to be in a right size body, with a “mostly” right size ego that from time to time allows a sane thought or two take to root?

I’m not sure whether it was the vanity (those fat pictures) or the sanity (my program) that won out last week, all I know is I didn’t eat, and tonight I get to go to bed with that handgun gun safely holster, a food crisis avoided, and my abstinence in check for today, and hopefully tomorrow.

The Last Bite

A few weeks ago, during one of my 12-step meetings, I was a bit awestruck when I heard one of my fellows mention that she no longer thinks about how the “first bite” of a flour/sugar item might taste, but instead she thinks about the “last bite.” I thought this was clever. In fact, her “last bite” concept has gotten me through many trying times during the past few weeks especially when I was overly tired and/or stressed and found myself lingering too long around food I don’t eat. See my friend, who’s been abstinent for many years, shared a very valuable lesson that all food addicts would be wise to heed: no matter how much you fantasize and imagine how amazing the “first bite” of anything will taste—it won’t be your only bite. After all, the First Step is all about “admitting powerlessness over our addiction.” If I had the “power” to stop at one bite, there’s a very good chance that I won’t be an addict; however, the cold, hard fact is that one bite of flour and sugar is never enough for me. Once I start, I can’t stop. Case in point, the last time I gave into my fantasies about food it took me 10 months and a 70 lbs. weight gain before I took my “last bite.”

Even though I’ve been abstinent from flour and sugar for more than a year now, I still fantasize about how something will taste. Sometimes I even dream about food, but lately when these thoughts or dreams seep into the dark corners of my mind I’ve applied the “last bite” concept and it seems to work. Even so, I must admit that there are still days when I long for just one bite of a cookie, a small bite of cake, or just a little piece of warm, buttered bread, yet the trouble with these thoughts is that if I entertain them for too long eventually that first bite turns into a check list in my head of all the things I’d like to eat. From chocolate and donuts, to chips and onion rings, the list of foods I’d gladly sell my soul for is pages and pages long (I’m not kidding). In fact, right before I went on that 10-month food bender I mentioned above, I made a nearly three-page (single-spaced) list of all the things I would eat if I lost my abstinence. No surprise, within two days of drawing up my Magna Carte of food, I broke my abstinence and I was over indulging in the sugary, floury plethora of items on my list.

In the first few weeks, I made myself sick on food, throwing up almost daily because I had eaten more than my stomach could process. I had spent hundreds of dollars, that’s right, hundreds of dollars on food–easily. Shoveling it in, enormous bite, after enormous bite. I was on a rampage, a holy terror to consume all the things I’d written on my list, and the worse part, after I gorged myself to the point where I couldn’t possibly eat another bite, I’d shove more food in my mouth, only (minutes later) to find myself slumped over the toilet, crying and arching from the pain I caused my body. Sometimes it hurt so bad that I prayed for God to help me, and promised, “I will never eat this way again.” This promise was always short-lived. I don’t think during that 10-month ordeal I ever made it 24 hours without over-consuming food. I was in a place I’d never been with my addiction-–rock, rock bottom–little did I know that all it took was a “first bite” and with that I was forced to spend 10 months in a self-created, food-induced hell.

Today, and every day I try (some days I’m more successful than others) not to entertain food thoughts—I really, really try not to fantasize, and I think through the bite and about how long it could take for me to put the food down again if I picked it up, or worse yet, if I could even put the food down. See, I’m not sure I have any more recoveries in me, therefore, I don’t need to temp my addict with thoughts and fantasies of food. One thing I’d definitely NEVER, EVER do today (and hopefully won’t ever again) is put pen to paper and allow my addict to run amuck and list food item after food item of food I’d like to eat. Doing that is harmful to me, and it’s a slap in the face to my loved ones, who don’t want to see me suffer like that again. The only one who wins with that crazy list of food items is the addict and my addict has won enough battles for a lifetime, it’s time for the clean and abstinent me to continue racking up the victories. So if you’re thinking of taking a “first bite” of anything today consider taking a moment to think through the bite. Can you stop after just one bite?

Note to Self: I’m Sorry!

In last week’s post I wrote about working the Ninth Step and making amends. And this week, I slowly began that process. The first person on my amends list: me. That’s right, I feel a strong urge to make amends to myself.

For the past several weeks, as I struggled to come up with a complete list of all persons I had harmed, I put myself on my list, then I took myself off the list. And then something divinely inspired happened. What convinced me to keep my name on the list? Simple, I received a card along with a bunch of pictures from my best friend, who I’ve known and loved for many, many years.

This picture in particular stuck with me as a very powerful example of what addiction did to my body and to my spirit.

At first, when I opened Dan’s beautiful card, I was thrilled when all the photos fell into my lap because after all, they were old photos of two best friends–him and I together. But the more I looked through them, a sense of sadness overtook me, and I knew, without a doubt, that my name belonged on my amends list.

In the card, Dan wrote, “I hope you enjoy these cute and fun pictures of us.” Thumbing through the pictures, my sadness to a strong sense of horror. I was truly horrified. All I kept thinking was, “nothing about me was cute.” And fun, really? Frankly, I’m not sure how I managed to keep the friends I had. I was terribly moody, mostly ornery, easily irritated and constantly hot (and sweaty). And I didn’t think twice about bitching about one thing or another ALL the time. Others may not remember me in such stark, dark terms, which is good, but also I was pretty good at faking happiness and I could mask the misery I felt being stuck in the severely obese body I had created pound by pound. Looking at these pictures I realized that I had caused everything that was wrong in my life, no one ever force-fed me, no one, except yours truly, ever made me eat the way I did. Clearly, the harm that was done to me by food was completely self-induced. And that harm wasn’t short lived, it didn’t last days or weeks, but years and years. Today I need to tell the old me, the addict me that I’m truly sorry for the choices I made and for all those years of abuse.

So to that girl in the picture above I write:

I’m sorry I thought food was more important than health.

I’m sorry I thought food was more important than happiness.

I’m sorry that food was more important than friends and family and for all the times I choose isolation and loneliness instead of companionship.

I’m sorry that food was EVERYTHING and that it consumed nearly every waking thought.

I’m sorry you suffered at my hands.

I’m sorry I didn’t treat you like the beautiful and light-filled human being you are. I abused you over and over again, and until now, never realized the harm and damage I had caused. I love you and I will fight with every fiber of my being and with the power bestowed upon me everyday by my higher power not to harm you like that ever again. To the Susan who was. . .I’m sorry.

Weighing and Measuring My Time

First, my apologies to all the wives and mothers of small children who may read this post (written by a single gal) and say to herself, “she doesn’t know the half of it.” Believe me, I have enough girlfriends who are married with kids to know how much harder it is to juggle your schedule with a husband and a kid or two. Life for a mom can get crazy, quickly; however, in my defense, I have to say that if I’m not careful I can quickly default to burning the candle at both ends. Lately, I’ve been feeling a bit overwhelmed in terms of my calendar/schedule, from a 40+ hour work week, to my 12-step commitments and other professional and social obligations, my schedule has been jammed packed the past few weeks.

Given the recent craziness of my schedule, I’ve purposely been more mindful of my time and being grateful for every minute I have something to do. I know from experience that if I’m not good about monitoring my time, and choosing to commit myself only to what is humanly possible, that one of two things will happen:
1) My 12-step program will start to slip (i.e. my 30 minutes of daily quiet time gets shortened to 20 minutes or my 3 outreach calls a day becomes two calls a day); or
2) I become resentful about all I “have” to do and instead of enjoying my time I start complaining that I need “more time for me.”

“More time for me” is something I always seem to be in search of, but what does it really mean? Well, it’s changed over time. In my early thirties (when both my feet were planted firmly in my addiction) I would have said that “more time for me” meant shutting myself in my apartment for the weekend with a boatload of unhealthy food and watching movie after movie. I literally would spend the entire weekend on the couch with my best friend food. I would only leave the apartment if I ran out of food and had to go on an emergency fast food run. Of course, looking back I realize that wasn’t living–that was isolation. It was escapism, but for a long time that’s how I choose to carve out “more time for me.”

Today, “more time for me” means something completely different, it means laughing through an abstinent meal with two girlfriends, it means making soap with my sister-in-law, it means Skyping my parents every Wednesday night—essentially it means interacting with people I know and love. Now in my forties, I know that I’m not here (on earth) simply to kill time, which is what I was doing every weekend I spent in a food coma on my couch, but I’m here to spend time learning all life has to teach me. This means that I need to get out, expand my circle of friends, and enjoy all life has to offer.

At the end of the day, yes, my schedule is hectic, and my “to do” is never-ending, but the truth is I’d much rather be out and about enjoying my life than trapped on the couch in the throes of addiction. And as for that “to do” list, there’s always something that needs to be done, but most of it can wait a day or two (or ten). So while I need to continue to be mindful of how I spend my time and where I spend my time, if I weigh and measure it, like I weigh and measure my food, I can rarely go wrong. I don’t need to worry about skimping on my program and I don’t need to be resentful about all I have to do because I’m doing what I want—taking “more time for me.”

The Thread that Binds Us

The reason I can do what I do everyday is because I get a boatload of support from other people like me, people who identify themselves as food addicts. Men, women, young, old, black, white, people from all walks of life who have determined that flour and sugar ruled their world and that there had to be a better way. Well there is definitely a better way and that way is together.

Next month, I will have one year of back-to-back abstinence. That’s one whole year without flour or sugar. Of course that one-year was built one day at a time and it will continue beyond the 365-day mark by living one day at a time too. I claim little credit for these 300+ days instead I give credit where credit is due and that’s to my higher power, and most especially to the people in my life who support and accept what I do as the best thing for me now.

From family and friends to coworkers and people who read this blog . . .you all give me strength. Some of you are aware of the strength you give me, others are not, but regardless I gladly accept the energy I get from others every single day because it makes what I do that much easier. And here’s the reason why: while at home during the holidays I went shopping with my sister, and in one store, where they sold items from local artists, I came across the most beautiful wood-crafted wall hanging and the words expressed exactly the sentiment I’m attempting to express in this week’s post, so on the piece these words were etched, “An invisible thread connects those who are destined to meet, regardless of time, place or circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle, but it will never break. May you be open to each thread that comes into your life-the golden ones and the coarse ones –and may you weave them into a brilliant and beautiful life.”

The golden ones and the course ones—I love those words in particular because it means that EVERYONE we interact with has a purpose in our life, and more importantly, I’d like to think it means we are all connected by a power greater than ourselves. These words meant so much to me that I took a picture of them, and I read the words often to remind me how blessed I am to have so many golden threads in my life. People who keep this food addict honest and accountable for the choices I make everyday. People like my sponsor who helps to point out what lies ahead because she’s slightly ahead of me on the path to recovery. She also reassures me when I’m about to make a good decision and dissuades me when I’m on the verge of making a bad one. Beyond the love, support and strength I get from my sponsor, I have many, many fellows who walk the 12 steps of recovery with me. I’m so fortunate that during any given week I can see up to 100 other food addicts like me in the three meetings I attend and I’m even more lucky that I can call and talk to any of them about anything in the world—food related or not—and they get me. They know where I’m coming from and when my program isn’t as good as it should or could be. They know and understand my struggles, and my triumphs, in recovery. It’s these threads that make what I do so much more than a diet; it makes what I do a spiritual and emotional experience that I never got from all those other times I tried (and failed) to lose weight. I always, always thought I could do it myself, that it was all about willpower and if I failed it was because I didn’t have the strength or resolve to do it. Why I love what I do today is that it forces me out of my comfort zone—isolation—and it forces me to interact and gain strength from other food addicts—together we hold each up and cheer each other on. With them and my higher power I know what I do is possible. So if you are struggling with your New Year’s Resolution (it’s week three of the new year and this is usually where people start to falter) get yourself some friends to support you, but not just any friends, get some friends that are in the same boat as you, so they can understand why what you are doing is so difficult. There are many, many things I have learned from my three years in recovery and probably one of the most important lessons is that food addiction is not a disease you can recover from alone you need those “threads” in your life (the golden ones and the course ones) so you can continue to weave a beautiful brilliant life!

Be Prepared!

The Boy Scout motto, “be prepared” often comes to mind in my daily quest to starve off food addiction. Of course I was never a Boy Scout, but I know enough to tell you that those two little words were adapted as the organization’s motto to remind little guys to always be prepared in mind and in body. For me, being prepared in mind means spending a little time every day in quite meditation. A friend of mine recently shared this quotation from Jelaluddin Rumi, and I love it, so I wanted to share it here. Rumi said, “What nine months does for the embryo, forty early mornings, will do for your growing awareness.” Taking time for myself everyday isn’t easy in my self-described, “very” busy life, but I know if I want to remain abstinent from flour and sugar, and connect daily with my higher power, that quite time is necessary to ensure that I am “prepared” in mind to face the good and bad the day has to offer.

Being prepared in body means that I am prepared to face a physical world that isn’t always kind to the very few of us who identify ourselves as food addicts. Case in point, I recently kept track of how many times I came into physical contact with food while I was out running errands, the total: eight times in the span of 3 hours—that’s crazy*!!! Eight times is exactly why being prepared means staying present and away from (as much as I can) all the food I encounter while I’m making my way in the world today. Additionally, being prepared applies at home too. This is why nearly every Sunday morning you won’t find me in a church pew, or on the treadmill at the gym, you’ll find me in my kitchen preparing my food for the week. Seven days, 3 meals a day, means I will prepared 21 meals during the course of three hours. Trust me, sometimes this task seems daunting and I’m not in the mood to prep and cook, but preparing my food ahead of time, plus weighing and measuring it, and having it waiting for me everyday–it just works for me. Spending three hours on a Sunday means I’ll spend less time in the kitchen during the week, which means less time around food, and less time tempting my addict on days when I’m tired, extra hungary or frustrated.

Last week when I finished making all my food I took this picture. I love when I open my fridge on Monday mornings and this is what I see–a fridge full of delicious, nutritious and abstinent food that will give me the sustenance I need to make my physical body work the way it is suppose to.

Making this mind/body connection to always be prepared is what gets me through the day, especially the tough days, so for now, I’m going to hold the Boy Scout motto close and remind myself to be prepared.

*In case you are wondering how I managed to run into food eight times here’s a run down of where I went:

Coffee House – I still need my decaf coffee or tea.
Grocery Store – no surprise here, yes, there is food at the grocery store.
Michael’s Craft Store – I love that before you get to the checkout they make you walk though all the bags of sugary crap.
Dry Cleaners – There were “fundraising” candy bars for sale on the counter.
Gas Station – I wonder if they sell anything healthy in these places?
Target – I know this may double as a grocery store, but I wasn’t there to buy food.
Sporting Good Store – Yep, they sell those damn “energy” bars that let’s face it, are really just over-priced candy bars.
Walgreens – I went into buy personal-hygiene products and had to walk past three rows of junk food to find what I went there to buy.

Of course this doesn’t include the countless number of restaurants, donut shops, bakeries, and ice cream parlors I passed while driving around town or all the food-related advertising that blankets so many billboards.

Post Holiday Blues

Every year, without fail, after the holidays I always feel a little blue and this year is no exception. I’m not exactly sure why, but I think it has something to do with the fact that like most people I usually spend the entire months of November and December running around like a crazy woman. My calendar is full with social commitments, gift buying and travelling for the holidays. Of course all this makes for days that are full and fun, but come January 1st its time to settle back into my normal routine, and after two months of running nonstop, adjusting to normal always feels like a giant let down.

Right now I feel particularly susceptible to the blues because for the first time ever–I get to feel the blues, and I mean really feel the blues. Presently, I have nothing to dull the sorrow—no flour, no sugar, and for 2012 I made a commitment not to purchase anything I don’t need, which means I can’t even go out and buy something to make myself feel better. And to add further insult to injury, I have finally decided to give up diet soda. UGH! I know writing (or whining, I’ll let you be the judge) about my struggles with diet soda may seem a bit infantile, but it’s the last thing on my list of unhealthy items I want to purge and I’m finally ready to let it go–I think. It’s been nearly a week since I partook in the fizzy goodness of Diet A&W Root Beer and oddly enough I’m still standing. Like all the items that came before the soda–the flour, the sugar, the sugar-free gum (that I chewed incessantly to take the edge off) and the caffeine–I know that cleansing my body of all the nasty chemicals that are in diet soda will make my body feel better, run better, and last longer, but even knowing all that I’m a bit pissed and resentful that I’m turning over my last life crutch. You see, the diet soda was the substance I could rely on to get me through the day especially when I was hungry, tired, anxious or wanting to avoid my feelings.

While the first few days and weeks (and sometimes months) of removing something from my life are always the hardest, I know from experience that when I live a life that’s not chemically dependent and/or reliant on something else that life is never sweeter. So while overall I couldn’t be more excited for what 2012 has to offer, I’m also going to take these first few days/weeks of the New Year and allow myself to be a little blue. And at some point, hopefully in the near future, I’m going to be glad that I put the diet soda down and I’ll be grateful that this year I got to know what it feels like to be blue because I didn’t mask my feelings with a substance or a purchase!