This blog is helping me stay On Program, thank
goodness. After many fits and starts, I
am solidly back On Program and most of the cravings are gone. Yesterday I wanted to snack a little bit
between meals, but I wasn’t craving sweets.
I had a small handful of nuts and an apple. At dinner time I wanted to eat more than the portion
I put on my plate, so I had a little more chicken. I was tired going into the day yesterday
after working a 14 hour day on Thursday and our late dinner with Steve and
Audrey on Friday, and then I had a very busy Saturday morning and
afternoon. By 4:30, when I got home from
working for a few hours, I was just beat.
I put the chicken and vegetables in the oven to roast and took a nap! I never nap.
I hope to have a little more energy today. I was in bed before 9:00 last night and woke
up this morning at 5:30 without the alarm.
I have a lot to do today, too! I’m
going to try to get the meatballs cooked this morning before leaving for
Firestone to get a new headlight and an oil change at 8:00. I need to get the headlight this morning
because I hit the road at noon tomorrow for a quick business trip to
Illinois. I’ll be home by 6:00 on
Tuesday so that we can have our last dinner at home with Steve before we take
him to the airport early Wednesday morning.
Then he is off to Samoa! After
cooking Tuesday’s dinner (the meatballs) and getting the car serviced, I’ll
come home and we’ll eat a late breakfast.
Then Jackie and I are off to the last Royals home game of regular
season. We’ll get home around 4:30, I’ll
cook the Thai Basil Chicken stir fry for dinner, and then I need to pack, dust
off my old laptop for my work trip, and it’ll be time to go to bed. There’s not much time for rest this weekend.
In spite of being too busy, the blog helps me stay focused
on my top priority, which is staying On Program. Just typing the words “80 Days Until Surgery”
in the title of my blog post is enough to focus me. It’s an “Oh Crap” moment every time I
type those words. This is really
happening. It seems like no time has
passed is I typed “84 Days to Go,” yet it has been four days. I really don’t have time to waste. I need to stay focused so that I can be the
size I want to be going into and, more importantly, coming out of surgery.
It is a huge relief to have the cravings gone. One of the hardest parts of losing weight is
fighting the constant cravings for Crap Food.
Crap Food, or “foods that are supernormally stimulating in the absence of
nutrition and satiety,” to quote It Starts with Food, is so easy to eat and so
very addictive. These foods are manufactured to trigger our desire to
eat more of them. They are abnormally
sweet, salty, and fatty; all tastes that tell our primitive brain that this
thing is nourishment. Yet Crap Food is
not nourishment. It is a manufactured mess of highly processed ingredients
and chemicals pressed together to resemble food. There are easily accessible calories in these
products, but there are virtually no nutrients.
We overconsume Crap Food and get too many calories and are malnourished
at the same time. Then we wonder why we’re
hungry and want more Crap Food. Our food
should not be manufactured, it should
be grown or raised. Our food shouldn’t
come from a factory, it should come from a garden. Cars come from factories, vegetables come
from the back yard.
I abhor the Big Food Industry, or the BFFI, as I like to
call it. I’m sure you can figure out
what the extra “F” stands for. The two
biggest targets of my ire are Monsanto and ConAgra. Under the guise of creating technology to
feed the world, they have taken the manufacturing of foods all the way to the
seed level. It is getting difficult to
find seeds that have not been genetically engineered in some way. The BFFI genetically engineers seeds to
withstand the pesticides that they manufacture, then they patent the seed. In addition, they engineer the seeds so that
they don’t reproduce, locking the farmer into buying their seeds year after
year after year. But that is just the beginning. The wheat from the engineered seeds is then
ultra-processed and repackaged with “stable fats,” sugar (usually in the form
of high fructose corn syrup), salt, and artificial flavors (chemicals of all
sorts), in order to create something that resembles food. We eat it and, really, it doesn’t taste that
good. I mean really, Oreos, for example,
don’t taste that good. Eat one slowly,
if you can. I mean really savor that
Oreo. What does it taste like? Chocolate?
No, not really. Butter? No, not butter. There really isn’t a taste, per se, yet if I
eat one, I’ll eat more, compulsively, until I’ve had “too many.” Quite frankly, one is too many. It really does piss me off that the BFFI has
been so successful at taking over our food chain that it takes real effort to
avoid manufactured food. The BFFI is not
in this business to feed the world. They
are in this business to make money, a lot of money. I don’t have a problem with businesses being
run to make money, I’m a capitalist, I help run a business, I get it. But I do have a problem with a couple of huge
companies controlling our food supply, shoving patented and addictive foods at
us non-stop, and a few people at the very top getting incredibly rich in the
process. It’s nuts. The biggest difference between the BFFI and
the big drug cartels, in my opinion, is that the BFFI is legal and it’s
sponsored by the government. Ugh. My soap box.
I’ll get off it. It’s just…it
really does upset me. Buy local. OK.
Now I’ll step off the box.
I am lucky, Jackie and I are both fully employed and our
kids are all grown and out of college.
Our expenses are relatively low compared to our income so I can afford
to buy the food I want to buy. It is
more expensive to buy from local farmers.
It costs more money for farmers to raise crops and livestock without the
manufactured seeds and without rampant use of chemicals and hormones. It was not that long ago that I was on a very
tight budget and I had to be very careful about every food dollar. I know it’s not easy. I’m grateful that I am now in a position to
buy local. It makes me feel better to
know that some of my dollars are going to the farmers that are working hard to
grow real food.
I am also grateful that my cravings for Crap Food are
gone. It only took four days, though the
first day felt like ten. I am grateful
for this blog. When I write about this,
it forces me to actually think about it.
When I think about it I get interested in what motivates me to make the
choices I am making. Then I start
reading about it. Then I write about it
some more, which really makes me think.
I get beyond the compulsion to satisfy my cravings to understanding what
it is that I really want. When I get to
the spot where I am examining my motives and desires closely, it becomes pretty
clear that I really don’t want that Oreo.
If I eat that Oreo, who ultimately wins?
Not me. That Oreo does nothing
good for me. Who wins, then? The BFFI wins. I don’t want the BFFI to win. I don’t want to support them. I don’t want to be addicted to their
products. Why then, am I eating that
stupid Oreo? It all becomes pretty clear,
when I really think about it, and writing these blog posts forces me to really
think about it.
I occurred to me that I could write in a journal instead of
writing blog posts, but I lose interest in writing in a journal very
quickly. I have no idea if anyone is actually
reading my blog posts, but at least I can pretend that people are reading
them. It is a lot more compelling to
write to an audience than it is to just write.
I talk to myself enough all day long, I don’t need to write to myself,
too. So, if you are reading this, thank
you. I am truly grateful.
Have a beautiful day!
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