November 6, 2019

Today is the first day of the Mar Wars: Fat Battle. It is amazing how much food I have to turn down in a day. I arrived at work greeted with a breakfast egg burrito with a side of tater tots and salsa dipping sauce. I watched everyone eat their burritos while we talked. I had my first coffee at 10:00 am on the dot, with a splash of half n half. While folks were eating breakfast, someone brought up lunch orders. One guy asked for an Acai bowl and although I had my chicken and broccoli lunch from home, I asked for an Acai bowl too. Shortly after we got the call that the Cafe is out of Acai, so I took it as a sign from God to eat my homemade lunch instead.

I ate my lunch at 11:43pm and realized that I have not had one drop of water all day. I served myself a second cup of coffee with a second splash of half n half and hurried to my office to down as much water as possible.

With half of the day still ahead of me, I've had to turn down a breakfast burrito, tater tots, any lunch I want from the Rio Cafe, snacks and sugar-sweetened beverages. Throughout the morning as I was tempted, I kept saying to myself, "why do you want to lose weight?" it helped me resist because I visualized a thinner me, having fun with my family, for many years to come. For today, my "why" has to do with living longer and feeling great.


About one hour after lunch, it was time to head down to my board meeting. On the way down I stopped to say goodbye to some friends who were leaving with a big bag full of snacks. My friends were all standing around saying goodbye to one another with snacks in their hands. I reached into the bag and noticed that the snacks were skinny popcorn.  

I didn't read the label but the packaging looked safe so I grabbed one. There is nothing wrong with skinny popcorn but it was a bit of a gateway.

Let me explain. I had resisted so much all morning that when I ate the skinny popcorn the synapses in my brain started firing endorphins to the pleasure centers and a feeling that the fast was over permeated my body. So, when I arrived at my meeting and saw a big bag of leftover Halloween candy in front of me, I immediately grabbed a rice Krispy treat. Then when they decided to pass the bag around the table so that everyone could get something, I snatched two more rice Krispy treats and two more chocolates. I feel like I swallowed them whole! I didn't even have time to think about my "why" it all happened so fast.

I shook it off and kept going, determined not to mess up again. When I got back to the break room two hours later, there were oatmeal cookies on the table. FRESHLY BAKED. I grabbed one fast and ran, like a raccoon.

Until I sat down to write this article, I forgot about the popcorn, rice crispy treats, candy and cookies I ate. Funny how my mind likes to let things go. When I got home I confessed some of this but not all of this. I left out the popcorn, rice crispy treats, candy, and cookies. I ate some cauliflower and went to bed hungry but determined to do better tomorrow.