I know that the above statement is true, yet I continue to
fight it. I know it’s easier not to pick
up the first cookie or the first drink, but sometimes the urge to eat sweets or
have a glass of wine is so strong I give in to it. I eat a cookie (or 5) or have a glass of wine
(or 3). Once I’ve consumed something Off
Program, the cravings become more intense and more frequent and before you know
it, I’m getting a Hershey bar out of the vending machine (actually, 2 Hershey
bars, they are not very big, after all) every afternoon and start searching the
cupboards for junk food as soon as I get home from work. Of course, there is seldom junk food in our
cupboards, so that helps. But as I
mentioned in a previous post, ice cream had managed to creep back into our
diets so lately you can find ice cream in the freezer. I find it particularly hard not to eat ice
cream. Sweet, creamy, and chocolaty;
what’s not to like?
One of the reasons abstinence is easier than moderation is
because I am presented with far fewer “am I going to eat/drink this?” decisions
every day. When I am abstaining from all
Off Program food and drink, I only need to make that decision once a day, and
that is when I get up in the morning.
Once I have been On Program for a few days, I don’t even have to make
that decision once a day. All food decisions
are automatic. Today, for instance, I
don’t have any food or drink decisions to make.
I knew what I was going to eat today before I even woke up. In fact, all of the decisions about what I am
going to eat for the week are made on Saturday morning. I have a very relaxing Saturday morning
routine. Some people might find it
strange and anything but relaxing, but for me, it puts my world in order for
the week. I get up early, usually
shortly before dawn, drink a big glass of water and start a pot of coffee. Then I reconcile our checkbook and credit
card accounts (yes, I do this every week), update our budget and cash forecast,
pay any bills we received during the week and make a payment on any credit
cards that happen to have a balance. I
dislike carrying a credit card balance, but every now and then we have a major
expense that we can’t cash flow (like last summer’s $43,000 home improvement)
and we end up getting a little behind.
When we are carrying credit card debt I make a small payment every week,
even if there is “no balance due.” That
way, if something happens and I miss making a payment for a week or even two
weeks, we never have a late payment.
Also, I check the activity on all of the cards every week just to make
sure there is nothing surprising there.
Once we get caught up (which we finally are, thank goodness!) I pay off
the balance on all cards on a weekly basis.
That way we have the convenience of using the cards but we avoid the
trap of overspending. I find this
routine incredibly relaxing. If
something is scheduled for first thing Saturday morning and I don’t have time
to do my financial maintenance routine I get a little anxious until I have time
to get it done.
The next thing I do is plan our menu for the week. I’ve developed a fairly robust cookbook of
dinner recipes that I have saved as a Word document, so planning the menu is
not too time consuming. I open up my
cookbook and scan my collection of recipes (I guess there are about 60 dinner
recipes in it), pick 4 or 5 that we haven’t had for a while that sound good,
and print them off. Now I know what I am
going to eat for lunch and dinner for the rest of the week. At the same time I am mentally calculating
when I am going to cook what. I get
most, if not all, of my cooking done on the weekends. That way when it’s time for dinner, all we
are doing is heating up already prepared meals.
Sometimes the meals are easy and quick to prepare. Those are meals that I can actually cook
after I get home from work, but I have to be confident that I am going to be
able to leave work at a reasonable time so that we are not eating dinner too
late. I almost always prepare one crock
pot meal a week. So I figure out if I am
going to cook that meal on the weekend, or put it in the crockpot before I
leave for work one morning.
Usually, about the time that I am done putting my menu
together, Jackie wakes up. That is when I
cook our breakfast. As soon as breakfast
is done, Jack starts the grocery list (yes, I am lucky, he does all of the
grocery shopping) and I go through the printed recipes and let him know what
ingredients I need. Jack leaves for the
grocery store, I tape my recipes to the front of the cupboards waiting for my
ingredients to show up, and my food decisions for the week have all been made.
We almost never eat out.
I almost never eat food that I don’t cook. It just easier that way because I know what I
am eating. Eating out presents me with
way too many options to go Off Program.
Sometimes I have business lunches or other occasions when I have to eat
at a restaurant, but as a rule we eat at home.
It’s 6:30 – I need to head to work – I’ll finish this
thought with my next post.
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