July 8th 2014. That was the day I wrote my final post on my old blog. So much has changed since then, especially in the area of food education. I’ve learned so much, saved so much money, lost so much weight… it’s been an interesting journey. But even with a year’s worth of change, I’m bound to hit a bump on the road every now and then.
When I went to Brooklyn this week, I took a pass. I decided that it was okay to eat whatever I wanted since I’m away from home. This was the general result of the trip:
8 slices of pepperoni pizza (4 by myself, 4 with Brooklyn Mike)
4 Mozzarella sticks (with Nino)
Turkey burger (lettuce, tomato, and sauteed onions) with French fries and onion rings (with Nino)
1 medium cup of vanilla iced cream loaded with Oreos (with Nino)
Pretty bad, but I have done MUCH worse. Remember, this is over a two day period. I’ve eaten this amount of food in one sitting.
So I drove back to Smalltown and stopped at the gas station to pick up some more outside food. Not seeing anything to buy, I should have left. Instead, I bought the unthinkable:
I don't use the term unthinkable because these snacks are so bad. It’s unthinkable because I don’t even like this stuff. I haven’t had a Little Debbie snack in years! My weakness is with cooked foods like pizza and tacos rather than processed snacks. Or baked foods like cake. So why did I go for a bunch of snacks that I knew I wouldn’t like?? I realized then that I had a problem. Whenever I’m away from home, I feel as though I can eat what I want… as if my body should be rewarded for healthy eating with crappy foods. This is a problem that I’ve discovered many people having, but I thought I was immune. ‘Fraid not…
If I were home in my Smalltown basement apartment, I would never consider eating those foods. With almost a year of homemade food under my belt, Little Debbie snacks and pizza would look out of place there. The basement apartment has become my sanctuary. But when I leave that sanctuary, my frame of mind changes. The minute I get on that highway, it becomes acceptable to eat that which I don’t usually eat. It’s okay to have 4 slices of pizza because I’m not in Smalltown anymore. I don’t have to work right now. I even used the “I can work it off” excuse in my head. This may seem normal to some, but I don’t like it. It means that my mind isn’t strong enough to handle this, and I’ve never been one to accept such a reality.
The task at hand is to expand my sanctuary. In the same way that it is out of place and completely unacceptable to have crappy foods in my sanctuary of an apartment, I have to apply that same philosophy to the world outside my basement apartment. I should feel that way at work. I should feel that way walking down the street in Smalltown. In NYC. In Hawaii. Wherever! The change in behavior always comes from the mind, reprogramming and such. Healthy foods need to be the reward while bad foods should be the punishment. Get it?
Those snacks looked so wrong in my car and I felt like crap even before the massacre began. That’s a sign that this way of thinking is already working. My car is becoming an extension of my basement sanctuary. So how do I extend it further? I really don’t know, but it’s a solvable problem. It took decades for commercials to beat it into my head that garbage is good, so I’m aware that it’ll take a while before I truly get rid of my unhealthy eating habits. Eventually I’ll figure it out, and then I’ll never have to see that dangerous Little Bitch again.
When I went to Brooklyn this week, I took a pass. I decided that it was okay to eat whatever I wanted since I’m away from home. This was the general result of the trip:
 |
| Gas station pizza. |
4 Mozzarella sticks (with Nino)
Turkey burger (lettuce, tomato, and sauteed onions) with French fries and onion rings (with Nino)
1 medium cup of vanilla iced cream loaded with Oreos (with Nino)
Pretty bad, but I have done MUCH worse. Remember, this is over a two day period. I’ve eaten this amount of food in one sitting.
So I drove back to Smalltown and stopped at the gas station to pick up some more outside food. Not seeing anything to buy, I should have left. Instead, I bought the unthinkable:
 |
| The Little Debbie massacre |
I don't use the term unthinkable because these snacks are so bad. It’s unthinkable because I don’t even like this stuff. I haven’t had a Little Debbie snack in years! My weakness is with cooked foods like pizza and tacos rather than processed snacks. Or baked foods like cake. So why did I go for a bunch of snacks that I knew I wouldn’t like?? I realized then that I had a problem. Whenever I’m away from home, I feel as though I can eat what I want… as if my body should be rewarded for healthy eating with crappy foods. This is a problem that I’ve discovered many people having, but I thought I was immune. ‘Fraid not…
If I were home in my Smalltown basement apartment, I would never consider eating those foods. With almost a year of homemade food under my belt, Little Debbie snacks and pizza would look out of place there. The basement apartment has become my sanctuary. But when I leave that sanctuary, my frame of mind changes. The minute I get on that highway, it becomes acceptable to eat that which I don’t usually eat. It’s okay to have 4 slices of pizza because I’m not in Smalltown anymore. I don’t have to work right now. I even used the “I can work it off” excuse in my head. This may seem normal to some, but I don’t like it. It means that my mind isn’t strong enough to handle this, and I’ve never been one to accept such a reality.
The task at hand is to expand my sanctuary. In the same way that it is out of place and completely unacceptable to have crappy foods in my sanctuary of an apartment, I have to apply that same philosophy to the world outside my basement apartment. I should feel that way at work. I should feel that way walking down the street in Smalltown. In NYC. In Hawaii. Wherever! The change in behavior always comes from the mind, reprogramming and such. Healthy foods need to be the reward while bad foods should be the punishment. Get it?
Those snacks looked so wrong in my car and I felt like crap even before the massacre began. That’s a sign that this way of thinking is already working. My car is becoming an extension of my basement sanctuary. So how do I extend it further? I really don’t know, but it’s a solvable problem. It took decades for commercials to beat it into my head that garbage is good, so I’m aware that it’ll take a while before I truly get rid of my unhealthy eating habits. Eventually I’ll figure it out, and then I’ll never have to see that dangerous Little Bitch again.
Is that picture really from a gas station pizza? It looks surprisingly good.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your posting. It made me realize that I haven't been updating LoseIt because I have been eating crap. Yesterday I had pepperoni pizza and tres leches. I need to get back on track.
As for your car comment, I have always noticed that my mental health is not at its optimum when my car has fast food bags in it. Certainly right now there are plastic frozen coffee cups and sweets wrappers. :(
Really gas station pizza. Now one can clearly see why that was difficult to resist.
DeleteI haven't been doing LoseIt consistently either, but mostly out of laziness. I finally bought my measuring cups and food scale this weekend so I'll be starting that pretty soon.
You know, I remember the McDonald's days when my passenger side floor and seat of my car would have empty McDonald's bags and pizza boxes. Once I threw the garbage out it felt good... for a while. But soon the floor would fill back up with empty wrappers and fast food bags. It was then that I realized that it's not a matter a cleanliness but rather a matter of mental conditioning. I think it's all in our heads, and the quicker we solve that issue the quicker we get clean cars and apartments with no more empty bags of misery.