So Delicious

The fact that this:

Is in my house means I had no plans at starting a "diet" this week.  Have you tasted this stuff?!!!  It might very possibly be the best thing I ever tasted.  And, I've tasted a lot of things.  

I did start being more conscious about my eating, though, and really didn't have too many issues today.  I didn't have donuts for breakfast, that's a good start, instead I had some leftovers from some fragrant Indian food I cooked over the weekend.  It was warm and a little spicy and on a morning when the temperature dropped to nearly -40 F, the warmth was greatly appreciated!

I really only had two sticking points today, one was when I went into my storage area at work (looking for sea salt) and I saw a bag of rice chips I bought last week.  I could feel my mind trying to convince me I wanted them, no!  Needed them.  I recognized them as a trigger and reminded myself that a craving is just that, it isn't a signal that I am starving or need the nutrition, I can have cravings without saying yes to them.  I didn't have the chips.  I played a mental trick on myself, imagining that they weren't closed up tightly, and that they were all stale and disgusting.  And, I told myself get busy!  Once I started on a hands-on task, the chips were off my mind.  The other I want that moment came tonight after eating my dinner.  I had an organic beans an rice wrap (vegan and low sodium, but it was still very good).  Again, I was happy to have the warm food, though I had to add a little taco sauce and sea salt.  I had a side of gigantic grapes that were so sweet they tasted like candy, and some hot tea.  I felt comfortable after eating, but when I was getting the grapes out for the kids, I saw the offender pictured above.  I went back and forth in my mind whether or not I was going to have any, then I remembered how destructive all-out, cold turkey deprivation is to being able to stay on track.  I had some.  It was less than I wanted but more than none.  I swirled it around in my mouth, savoring the intensely creamy, almost buttery cinnamon dream.  It was everything I knew it would be.  That little bit satisfied me.  I have noticed this many times before when cleaning up my act, that I want to eat and eat more than I would if I weren't dieting.  I thought it was a psychological thing, like my mind was acting like a child who's had his favorite toy taken away, but then I had an "aha moment".  In the book Angry Fat Girls, Frances Kuffel breaks it down in terms of the chemical process our bodies go through when we eat, especially when we eat foods high in fat and sugar.  Our body gets a lot more of the "feel good" chemicals with those foods, so conversely when we eat clean foods, it doesn't give us those happy chemicals (namely tryptophan, seratonin and dopamine) in the quantity were are used to, so the desire to keep eating presents itself like a strong craving.  I didn't feel bad about having the drink, realizing why it satisfied me when I really wanted to eat everything in the house is a vital key; a tool I can use to my advantage.  

So, while technically I didn't start a new diet today, it felt really good and right to be more mindfull of what is going on instead of just eating "whatever" and assuming there will plenty of time to fix it in a month or two "when I'm ready."  And that feels pretty good to me.  

I hope you had a good Monday, too and stayed warm and toasty!