Battling the muffin in my head

I'm not much of a shopper, but last weekend, I wanted to buy a Lug bag. More specifically, the Taxi Full Tote. Rarely do I feel the urge to buy something and rarely do I declare to my sweet husband, "I need to go to Mapleview Mall this weekend, I really want this bag!"

My little bears are almost four and almost two, so thankfully, I don't need to carry around quite as much crap, so I'm hoping to make the transition from a diaper bag to well, a big bag. So while hubby took the big bear to skating lessons, little bear and I trudged off to the mall in Burlington. 

Unknowingly we arrived a half hour before the store opened. However, the food court, the convenience store and the Starbucks were open for business with tempting aromas of fresh-baked muffins and donuts wafting through the mall.

I thought to myself: Mmmm, a muffin would be good right now.  

Immediately an inner dialogue began.

Wait. Why am I tempted to buy a muffin from Tim Horton's? It's junk food. I had oatmeal and grapefruit for breakfast, what is going on?

I took a few moments to clear my thoughts.

OK, I want the muffin because it is in front of me and it smells good. I could be tempted out of habit - historically, a visit to the mall usually means eating something at the mall." 

The mental discussion continues as I get in line at Tim Horton's.

I'm not hungry, it's my brain that wants the muffin not my body. If I eat this muffin it is one step closer to having two weeks of unusual eating. 

"Can I take your order?" asks the Tim Horton's cashier.

It'll be fine once I'm out of the food court and away from all the food. Out of sight is out of mind.

"A large peppermint tea please." I reply.

The little bear and I head out to a sitting area away from the food court. The need for the muffin subsides. I distract my thoughts by watching my little bear fling a goldfish onto the floor and run back back and forth between the couch and the overhang that looks to the floor below. 

Before therapy, I would hold onto a temptation (let's say a muffin) and refuse to let it go. By doing so, I had to continually battle the urge to not eat the muffin the rest of the hour/day/week. Finally eating the muffin seemed to be the only way to stop thinking about the muffin.   

Looking back, I needed double the willpower: one dose to abstain from eating the muffin in front of me, and another dose for the muffin in my head so I wouldn't hunt down a muffin even when there was no muffin in sight.

I don't really now why I felt the need to hold on to a temptation. Perhaps I didn't think to make things easier on myself, or thought that I deserved to take the difficult route. Perhaps it had to do with years of cycles of restricting and overeating, or maybe I was subconsciously punishing myself for being overweight (or see myself as overweight). 

In any case, now I know: when I'm tempted to eat junk food, just walk away and let it go.

NOTE: It seems that blogger has flagged me as spammer. I noticed that comments that I make on blogger blogs disappear. Munchberry confirmed this and she is finding my comments in spam. So I've been making comments, they just may appear in your SPAM folder, please check. 

Has this happened to anyone? One day blogger deleted my blog (OMG) as they said it was spam. I went through a process (trying not to panic) to restore my blog, but I'm guessing that this is why my comments are going to the spam folder. If anyone knows how to remedy this situation, please let me know!

The scale is so random

Once a week I step on the scale. This week, I was dreading not looking forward to doing so.

If you’ve looked at my progress page, you’ll see that I’m losing weight at an incredibly slow pace. Of course, I’d like to see results faster, but I know that feeling restricted will lead to overeating. So I’m OK with this. However, I admit (and I’m probably not alone) there are those days when I just don’t want to see the scale go up. I have noticed that this feeling usually coincides with unusual eating.

Last week was one of those weeks. Apparently I was hungry. Plus, it was a long weekend. AND our fabulous friend stayed with our little bears overnight at our house, so hubby and I had a night of fun at a friend’s house.

Details of the unusual eating included:

• Buying a package of Heshey's chocolate kisses at work (on sale from Valentine's Day!). First time I have bought chocolate at work since I returned from mat leave in May. Good news is that I gave half of the package to a colleague and ate the other half over a two days.

• Accepted a piece of birthday cake from a work colleague.

• Forgot to bring a snack while running errands. So I picked up a Tim Horton's wheat and carrot muffin. For lunch, I decided to have a piece of toast with hummus with salad, but instead I ate 1.5 grilled cheese sandwiches that hubby made before I got home.

• Went to a tapas restaurant for dinner with friends; we shared several dishes, including a beet salad, hand cut french fries, calamari and a glass of wine. The festivities continued after dinner, including a small whoopie pie from Starbucks, sharing two big bags of chips, plus I pretty much ate an entire bag of Werther's Original Toffee Crunch myself.

• The next morning we went out for breakfast that included eggs, homefries, toast and bacon.

• Hubby runs out to buy a few groceries since the stores are closed on Monday for Family Day. While he is out, I eat a bowl of vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup and walnuts. Hubby comes home with a small New York style cheesecake. I have a small piece.

• Our original plans for Family Day fell through, so we ended up at McDonald's for lunch. I usually order a cheeseburger and split an order of fries with the kids, but this time I ordered a quarter pounder combo.

• While watching the Bachelor, I ate another piece of the little cheesecake. Plus, I go back for subsequent slivers of cake thereafter. Thankfully, hubby puts the little cheesecake out of its misery and eats the remaining quarter piece.

• Just when I think everything is returning to normal, the managers at work serve pancakes for Pancake Day. I grab two: no butter, no syrup (tasty just on its own). At lunch, I head to the kitchenette to make my lunch; what is in there? The leftover pancakes. I eat three more.

After all that eating, I thought for sure I was going to see a gain. Sure, I ate well the rest of the week, but I obviously did some serious mindless eating this week.

So what happened when I stepped on the scale on Wednesday? I'm down a pound. Wow - the results on the scale can be so random.