Reading Cookbooks

Dissecting My Decisions

I left a rambling voice message for my workout partner Meg yesterday afternoon. It was something along the lines of, “You know I think I’m going to skip out on the gym today. I’m just exhausted. And my throat is a bit scratchy. I don’t know… maybe it’s allergies. This usually happens to me once a season, but then I’ll take one Claritin, and I’ll be fine for the rest of spring.”

In reality, I wasn’t feeling great. I was completely rundown after a week long business trip, and I had every right to bypass the gym and head straight for bed last night. But, I knew the hidden subtext of the message I left.

I was looking for an out. Not just a “get out of gym free” pass from Meg, but an opportunity to convince myself that it was OK to say, “Not today, healthy habits; maybe tomorrow.”

As I pressed send on my phone to leave that long, rambling message for Meg, I was mentally mapping the quickest route from the train station to my grocer’s freezer case packed with pints of Ben & Jerry’s. I knew exactly what I was doing.

Has it really come to this? In my world, are there really only two options: workout and have a healthy meal or don’t workout and eat an entire pint of Chubby Hubby for dinner?

I walked to my apartment convincing myself to call Meg back. I knew that if I went to the gym, I’d go to Whole Foods afterwards, and buy the ingredients necessary to make a healthy dinner. Do not to stop at the grocery store before you get home, I warned myself, because if you do, it’s all over…

This cannot be the way it is. It just can’t. But this is the way it always has been for me. One extreme or the other. Either stick to the healthy habits or throw it all out the window. Why have one cookie, when you could have six? Why have a bowl of ice cream, when it can be bought in and eaten directly out of a pint-sized container, no dishes necessary?

Moderation is not a word often present in my vocabulary… or my eating habits.

It’s this kind of behavior that has lead to me to define entire chunks of my life in terms of fat or skinny. And I’m smart enough (now) to know that if I don’t stop swinging from one end of the spectrum to the other, this sad fact is never going to change.

In the end, I went to the gym. Meg and I walked uphill on the treadmill for 40 minutes, a compromise since I wasn’t physically up for the full circuit workout we had planned. We went to Whole Foods, I bought carrots and spinach and other similarly healthy odds and ends, and I made soup for dinner.

One day. The battle won, but still… there’s a war to fight.

For some reason I never had the courage to ‘fess up on A View about my weight loss goals. I talked around it a bit, but I had issues with “going there.” But since this blog is a bit more focused, it’s seems as though I ought to start fresh.

I want to lose some weight. There. I said it. I’d be happy with 10 pounds. Delighted with 20. Ecstatic with 25.

And I’m going to give WeightWatchers a shot. Scratch that. Another shot.