Insight or Die

Here I am again, this time to give you insight into my eating habits. Calm down, control yourself. Try to contain your euphoria.

Most of the time I am really good during the day (although I hate to quantify eating habits as "good" or "bad.") and I do not overeat. I have been having some problems with this at lunch--the kids will eat one bite of their food, or half a sandwich, and then get up from the table. The Clean Plate Club member in me immediately screams in protest, saying that there are starving children in China! Not eating that food would be a travesty! Plus, we are a one-income family, and wasting food=wasting money to me. Something that I cannot abide. But yesterday and today I have done better. When E didn't touch his lunch yesterday, I simply covered it and put it in the fridge for dinner. (Shut up. I'm not Joan Crawford, it was something he liked but he wasn't hungry due to sneaking half of his brother's yogurt.) My first instinct was to eat it, but I fought it successfully. And no one is going to go bankrupt throwing away half a PBJ sandwich a few times a week. Although I may start making half sandwiches to nip that problem in the bud.

Nighttime is the worst time for me. After the kids have gone to bed, it is quiet and it feels like I can finally sit down and relax, and what better way to do that than with a bowl of ice cream? Also, DH doesn't get home until 8:30. I consume most of my food after this point. Not because he's eating; in fact, he usually doesn't eat much at night. I actually don't know why I eat so much when he's home. Is it a subconscious thing? Like he can eat whatever he wants and not gain weight (bastard) so I should be able to as well? Or is it a subconscious thing where I'm trying to eat so much that I goad him into telling me to put down the fork, for God's sake? I really don't think I'm that passive-aggressive.

I know that DH loves me the way I am. When we first met, I told him I was on a diet. He immediately announced his intention to make me a chocolate cake because I did not need to be on a diet. Ha. I weighed 176 when we met. If only he had known how much I really did need to be on a diet so I did not blow up like Violet Beauregarde. It was kind of sweet, though. I guess. I probably would have gotten fat even without that chocolate cake, since most of my weight is from pregnancy and breastfeeding.

When I worked, before being married or having children, when I still lived at home with my parents, in fact, I got to go home for lunch. When I went home I did not prepare a meal, sit down, eat it, and then read a book or watch TV until it was time to go back to work. Not most of the time, anyway. Most of the time I would open the fridge or cupboard, find something to eat, inhale it, and repeat. For some reason I was laboring under the impression that since it was a lunch hour, I should be lunching the entire hour. The funny thing is, I did not realize I was doing this until after I moved out on my own. I have been dieting since I was twelve (at least), thought I knew all there was to know about fats vs. sugars, calories consumed vs. calories expended, crunches vs. lunges, and I failed to identify a huge black hole of calories.

I think this entry has gone on long enough. Before I go, though, I am simply bursting to tell you that my weight is down 0.6 pounds. Woohoo! Excuses to eat! And I am going to a Mother's Day Pizza Fest at my mom's house tonight, so let's hope I can keep myself from gaining that back and then some. Anyway. I'm all done. Really.