When Will I Learn?

It's your entire body!

An early good morning to everyone. I must sadly report that I feel rotten today. I have done it again -- gone out to a restaurant and eaten something too rich for my tummy and now I am paying the price. The target this time was stromboli, which I woofed down at lightening speed. All that dough and cheese and thick sauce...my body is not happy. I know I must stay away from Italian food. It's not so much even about the calories. It's my body. It cannot handle things like this anymore.

I have sharp pain in my mid-section right now, as the doughy mess is moving through my system. I am drinking lots of water but I know I must endure this until it passes through my body. I'm so angry with myself. As I was looking at the menu, there were many options that would have been fine for me. Problem was my tummy was growling because I forgot to have my afternoon snack; my husband said this would be our one meal out for the week; my weight dipped down and I wanted to get it back up a little bit; and I have religiously avoided doughy, cheesy things for a very long time and I wanted to indulge. Plus I was in a good mood and the weather is getting nicer. All of these things converged and I made the selection. Oh, do I wish I had not!

I have come to the full realization that I cannot have almond butter or peanut butter in the house, because I cannot control my urge to eat it directly out of the jar. When will I accept that these cheesy, doughy, rich Italian foods are bad for me too? How many times do I have to suffer from these bad choices at restaurants? I would never make something like this at home. I only eat wheat breads (English muffins, pitas, waffle, etc.). Cheese is highly restricted. I no longer eat sausage. My body has changed. I've just got to make wiser choices when we go out. It's that simple.

I hope you will keep my current experiences in mind when you ease back onto food. The craving for these heavy foods (pizza, pasta, calzones, stromboli, etc.) will be there. It's firmly intact in my case. But your body may have great difficulty processing it. It may look good, taste wonderful, but the aftermath makes it not worth it to indulge. I also know that I still cannot control my eating at a rapid pace. This must be addressed. I barely had a bite chewed and swallowed before the next one was shoved in my mouth. Millie went over this just last week. In fact, I was thinking about this as I was doing it! So that's two big things I ignored. Don't make the same mistakes as me.

It's times like this that I definitely miss the full fast phase. Can you believe it? Yes, it's true. My body was happy, and my tummy was never upset. I didn't have to navigate menus and make poor choices. This, folks, is a big part of the maintenance journey. The choices you must make. I need to step back and visualize things in the "big picture," in other words, follow the eating experience from start to finish. Think about not only how the food tastes, but how my body will respond to it. This is an entirely new way of looking at things, for me. It's foreign, it's different. But it must be done.

I had planned on writing a completely different post today -- I am celebrating my one year anniversary of my enrollment in the Optifast program! I have reached goal, I have been maintaining beautifully for two months. I will be talking about that soon, because it is a major accomplishment -- probably one of the bigger ones in my life. But I wanted to get this point about not eating rich foods penned this morning, while it it fresh in my mind. You know the saying: Do as I say, not as I do. Steer clear of those rich foods. Your body will thank you for it!