Mamarati

“Discipline doesn’t produce immediate joy, but it is an investment that will pay great dividends in due time.” (Hebrews 12:11)

Seriously, though.

Yesterday I got to thinking about my weight and just how I feel in general. And I’ve been down this road before… realizing that I’m not eating the best I can. That I eat too much fat and sugar.

And in my quest to get rid of high fructose corn syrup, I end up eating more sugar. And in my quest to get rid of trans fats, I eat more of other fats.

So, anyway, I wound up here at SparkPeople, for like the umpteenth time. Tracking my food and gaining that awareness. The awareness that I am putting way more stuff into my body than I realize. That I take part in way more mindless munching than I know.

I can watch one of those shows about people who are compulsive eaters, who are so big they never leave their houses… and I am astonished at how much denial they express when they are confronted with all the food they eat in a day or a week, all gathered at once before them.

And yet, on a smaller scale, that’s me. I eat tiny bits of things all day long to keep me from feeling hungry. Or I eat or drink or take or do things to make me feel less hungry or to distract me from hunger. I could trace it back to my childhood, I suppose, when days and days would pass with that feeling of hunger gnawing at me.

But there’s healthy hunger and there’s unhealthy hunger and as usual, my overcompensatory self is trying to keep me from feeling either.

The other thing is, I’m lazy. I truly truly am. And this whole arm thing aside, which does make me terribly tired, I know, but that aside, I’m still lazy.

And so the easy thing to eat — something out of a box or bag — is what I tend to go for instead of the thing that might take longer but be better for me… like chopping up some carrots or some strawberries and bananas or making a sandwich or a yummy salad with lots of fresh stuff inside…

Another thing that’s getting at me is the compost issue. I’m finding myself buying less and less veggies and such because the compost has grown over this year and is covered with poison ivy back there. I’m also not able to use the pitch fork because of the arm. The worm situation that I was hoping for hasn’t panned out because I can’t ever find the darn worms and it’s too hot to ship them right now. But like, I will find myself just cringing at throwing away strawberry tops.

I should stop worrying about it and just throw it out in the yard… let the birds and possums and raccoons get it. It doesn’t stay long when it’s just out there in the open like that. And all those critters are coming around every night anyway for the cat food. Maybe it would keep them out of it.

I read somewhere that raccoons will stay out of your pond if you find a spot and bury a little bit of food there every night… so…

Anyway, so I end up back here and then I’m sitting there after having dinner, and I’m about 100 calories or so away from the top end of my range… and blammo. I want another roll. Because I made fresh rolls… not store-bought crap, but real, yummy yeasty rolls. And I want one.

And not because I’m hungry, but because I’m not stuffed. It’s like at dinner time I just have to be stuffed or something. Why?

And I ate it. And then, since I already “screwed up” I decided to eat the rest of the peas and put butter on the roll, too. Now, it ended up that I only ended up going like 100 calories over for the day, but I could have just exercised some discipline and been 100 calories under and been proud of myself for accomplishing something and been that much closer to my goal weight. Right?

Right.

I’m going to work on that today. It’s not going to happen overnight, which of course, is when I would like everything to happen.

Unless it could happen sooner. Haha.