The Desire to Cheat

As I've previously mentioned on this blog, losing the baby weight has not exactly been a piece of cake for me. In fact, I can't even say what it has or hasn't been for me, because it simply hasn't happened. Almost 30 weeks have passed since the birth of my little bambina, but the 30 pounds I have to lose (okay, would ideally like to lose...I still need to lose about 20 to get back to pre-baby, but not exactly svelte, status) haven't gone anywhere. I've tried a couple of times in the last three or four months to get some kind of regimen going, but it always seems to peter out. If it's hard to find time to exercise and eat right before kids, it is nearly impossible when they come along, particularly if they're not prone to chilling peacefully while Mommy attempts to take care of herself. (I know, I know...I'm not even to the days of dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets, mac' n cheese, and popsickles yet!)

When we came back from Hawaii, where I had stuffed myself unrepentantly with mango pina coladas and Hawaiian cookies and cream pies, and I got on the scale, I nearly shit a brick. (Oh, would if I could...that would be a good few pounds gone instantaneously, right?) After months of seeing the exact same (horrifically high) number on the bathroom scale, the situation had finally changed...for the WORST! The number was 5 pounds higher than it had been!

That's when I had it. And that's when I had the brilliant idea to issue myself a personal challenge : 70 days of no candy, no dessert, and no soda. In addition, I wanted to try to write down what I ate, eat small meals every three hours, and exercise as often as possible. 70 days was a semi-random number. It's also semi-not-random, but I'm not going to confess my further reasoning right now, although I might do so in the future.

Now, I have NEVER stuck to any kind of resolution like this in the past. Several times I've exercised every day for a set amount of days--once in college I ran every day for 40 days straight, and a couple of years ago a coworker and I had gym-visit challenges that I always stuck to. And believe it or not, I have quit candy more than once--at one point, I stuck with it for months. But I have never tried to quit candy AND dessert (so yes, whenever I quit candy, I would basically just increase my consumption of sweet baked goods!) Those of you who are not born sugar fiends have NO idea how lucky you are. I hate when people says things like "It's easy! Just don't eat it." No. It's not easy. I freaking NEED sweets and I always have. It's a real curse and probably the one thing I would change about myself if I could. (Luckily this is my only real food curse or I would have to curse the unfairness of fate--oh, other than an inordinate love for carbs. But I don't like or crave fast food, or even fried food very often, and I only eat lean white meat with zero desire for fatty meats.)

But I'm doing it! This is the 19th day. The bummer is, I thought quitting is supposed to get easier after awhile, but that has not been my experience. For the first few days I wandered around proudly content to do without junk food. But gradually, thoughts of Whoppers and coconut cream pies and ice cream have infiltrated my head, and they don't seem to want to leave. Today it's particularly bad. About ten times I've opened the pantry, frigerator, or freezer desperately scanning for something sweet that I could eat without having to cheat, categorically. But nothing. Luckily an apple with a little peanut butter tided me over temporarily.

To be quite honest, I have semi-cheated twice in these nineteen: I confess to two illicit liasons with baked goods. Once was a week ago when I baked an apricot coffee cake for breakfast when Mario's parents were here, and could not stop myself from eating a piece. I rationalized that coffee cake is a strictly breakfast food (how often do you see it served for dessert?) and therefore not a direct infringement of the law. Then last Thursday I made a batch of zucchini bread, and although I gave one loaf to Mario to take to work and one loaf to my sister, I did have one--okay, several spoonfuls--okay, heaping spoonfuls of the very sweet batter.

But other than that, I'm on the wagon. When I weighed myself last Wednesday I had lost seven pounds from the (aneurism-causing) post-Hawaii weight. That means, actually, about 16 pounds to pre-baby-but-could-be-better status. Let's see, that's about A MILLION desserts and pieces of candy I will have to forego until then. Hmmmph. Moral support is welcome!