Maple Fest -- Day One

Well, I survived the first day of the festival. While I did eat differently than I would have in my normal routine, that was just the point -- I was out of my normal routine and still managed to eat pretty healthy and not compulsively.

I did eat a couple crackers (and a pretzel) sampling some dips at one of the stands, but that's far from overeating. I bought one goodie -- a burnt sugar gob [for those of you wondering what the heck that is, they're also called whoopie pies: two round pieces of cake with icing in the middle; the burnt sugar thing deals with caramelizing the sugar in the batter and the icing] and saved it until I got home. Probably the biggest divergence from my plan was eating the remainder of Mabel's nachos with cheese -- there were only about 10 chips left, I'm guessing. So I ate those and the gob when I got home and decided that was my supper and dessert, and it was enough.

For the first time ever, I wasn't driven to go out and buy every deep fried, breaded, fat-laden thing I could find. While things looked tasty, nothing was so tempting as to be calling my name and beckoning me to gulp it all down. It was really quite strange and truly liberating for me. Could I really be breaking free from the addiction of food? Granted, I sort of "treated" myself when I packed a ham and cheese sandwich on whole wheat bread, but that pales in comparison to what a day at the festival was last year. What I ate in one day last year is what I plan on spreading throughout the whole week this year, rather than all of it on a daily basis!

I watched a show on Discovery Health about Ann Wilson from Heart, who had the lap band surgery, and the whole thing gave me a bad vibe. Am I kidding myself that I can change my life on my own, when you see these people who could only do it when forced to by surgery? They showed her and her lifestyle now -- exercising five days a week, eating healthy foods -- which is what I'm doing now -- and I think, "couldn't this rich and famous rock star figure this out before subjecting herself to the knife?"

Maybe addiction's like that: for some people you have to force the issue -- whether it be the Betty Ford Center or bariatric surgery -- to finally break free of it. I guess my question is, am I strong enough to do this without such drastic measures? Will I be able to make permanent changes in how I think about and eat food that will enable me to get to a "reasonable" weight and maintain it?

I'm very anxious and impatient to see the scale move down again, but somehow I doubt I'll lose much (if any) during the festival, since I'm allowing myself my daily "goodie" (rather than calling it "bad" food). But for heaven's sake, I've lost so much so fast already, and isn't it better to get me through this immense trigger week by teaching myself to think and eat sanely -- eating small portions of trigger foods without prompting an enormous overeating session? If I can make that happen, that's real progress -- not on the scale, but for my emotional well being. And that's what's going to make this thing work; changing my brain, not necessarily the size on my clothing tags.