It's my first Friday checking in on eating healthy, and it's been hard.  I can't believe how far I've come from the hip, healthy me: the thought of not having chocolate at one point was enough to make me want to cry.  I think I may be having some hormonal issues, too... Huh... PMS maybe.  Never take chocolate away from a hormonal woman.

I was looking at the write up of The Zone diet, and it looked interesting.  I hate anything with the label DIET, but.. hmm... it seemed to make sense.  I don't like the idea of all that eating, though - it's what I'm trying to escape!  Anyone have experience/thoughts on it?

Weight was 83.3 kg this morning, with big bulky warm clothes on (I didn't feel like checking my true body weight: It's too COLD for that this morning)

that's 183.3 lbs.  Without my sweats and HUGE polartech sweater I'd put myself at 180 or 179.  The exact weight isn't important right now.  My measurements are roughly the same.

My week of eating healthy was... more or less a huge failure.  Well, the eating healthy WAS, but the food journaling was a big success.  I'm thinking more about what I eat when I know I have to be accountable.

In the 2 days that I journaled, I totaled about 5,300 calories - that makes me sound like such a pig, but I had a LOT of chocolate... :S   I was about 600 calories over my self-imposed maximum both days.  And yesterday wasn't much better: Burger King!! (equals death).  It was after work, and we wanted to try the new Rodeo burger.

I have successfully cut out all sugary soft-drinks, and I found a green tea that I LOVE without having to sweeten it (Pickwick Lemon Green Tea).  I don't put sugar in my coffee anyway.

So let's see the checklist:

• Cut out sweeteners in drinks/sugary drinks (CHECK)
• Get rid of hidden fats (i.e. mayonnaise dressings, sugar in foods, etc) (UNCHECK)
  
• Substitute good foods for bad foods  (UNCHECK)
• Stay within 1800-2000 calories a day (under 14000 calories a week) :(
• Exercise (even if just a little bit) every day (CHECK!)
  

Well, it's Saturday now, and I'm starting a new week with a new resolve. Sometime this week I'd like to try my Pilates DVD, even though it's all in Hungarian, so it won't be easy to understand.

WOW, btw, husband made the world's BEST Calzone from scratch yesterday.  I definitely feel we will be saving money on Pizza places from now on: if I can substitute healthy alternatives for the unhealthy things: i.e. whole wheat flour, low-fat cheese, etc... Then we might even get a better calorie balance on the whole thing.

Sometimes one would think that forgiving an animal should be easier than forgiving a human.  Humans should know better; animals rely on instinct.  Humans can think it through; animals rely on instinct.  Humans can ask you for clarification; animals rely on instinct.

Well saying that animals rely on instinct anymore is saying that they are incapable of learning, and that, basically, anything goes.

I'm beyond angry right now - Aaron and I spent hours yesterday making rosettes - fried batter cookies.  These are a piece of my Swedish ancestry, and it's the first time I've shared this experience with him.  We had a plateful leftover, which we put on the coffee table, where the dog is not supposed to go.  He knows it.  Let me rephrase: He KNOWS it.  Never has he been allowed in, especially not when there's food in there.

So I guess you know where this is going now? 

Last night I had a feeling that our little Elephant (his name is Murphy's Law) was going to slip up.  I was so tired, though, that I just fell asleep before I could get up and do something about it.  Besides.  Murphy KNOWS better.

But honestly, that dog must be the first and only mentally ADDLED canine that I have ever met.  He didn't just steal a few; I'd understand that.  It's hard to resist.  Smells good.  We all know what good sniffers dogs have.

But to eat an entire plate full of rosettes? That's asking for it, and not from me! those damn things are so greasy, that many could kill an ox, neveryoumind a german shepherd.

When I went out to the kitchen this morning, after having gone through the living room and seeing the powdered-sugar footprints all over my mom's antique rug, I could see that he KNEW he'd done something Wrong.  He didn't come out to greet me, tail-wagging, like he always does.

Aaron grabbed the plate from the living room, and I pulled him from under the table by his collar.  We showed it to him... And this is proof that he knew better: he started whimpering when he saw that plate.  He felt BAD.

If I weren't so damned angry, I would have forgiven him.  For any less of a crime, I would have forgiven him.  He stole a chicken leg out of a package of chicken legs defrosting on the counter a few weeks ago. 

One would think this dog doesn't get two large square meals a day plus snacks (and rosettes at 3 in the morning).

Anyone have any advice on how to a). get this guy to quit stealing; and b) help me forgive him? 

When he was 2, he stole a bottle of fizzy aspirin off the table and ate the whole thing (it wasn't near the edge of the table, either).  He ended up at the vet getting the vomit-shot.  Rather than learning to stay away from the table, he now avoids plastic.  Great move.
*head explodes*

I now know that after Murphy, I will NEVER have another dog.  NO.

When I was a child, I couldn’t sleep with my back to the world.  My bed was in a corner, and if I wanted to fall asleep without the feeling of impending doom, of some monster coming out to eat me, I had to have my back firmly to the wall.  I was 6, it corroborates with the “monster-under-the-bed stage”, so whatever.  Even at that age, I knew it’d probably go away.  It did for a while.

It’s  back though, and with a vengeance.  I lie in bed next to my husband and stare at the door, peeking timidly over his sleeping form.  There’s no monster under the bed anymore: the monsters are all outside.  Every creak, every whistle in this old house is a sign that someone has come.  Someone to hurt me.  Someone to take something from me.

As a child, I was not afraid of death.  I knew, presumably because God had told me, that I would die by my mid-twenties.  I’m not there yet, so I don’t know if it’s true or not.  But this matter-of-fact thought of mine, about death and all, upset so many people so much, that I decided it must not be true.  But either way, I wasn’t afraid – God would be there, waiting for me.

But I’m grown-up now.  I’m not a good person.  I had a nightmare about the apocalypse one night, and I saw exactly how the world would end.  God said it would end in fire, but in my eyes, it was more than fire, more terrifying, worse.  It was the brilliant, blinding white of nothingness.  I could feel every cell of my being dissolve, evaporate.  Everyone around me was out of reach, and I was so very alone.  Where was God?  Where was my comfort?  Was there any, after the end of it all? WHAT was there?

Now I cannot sleep.  Every creak, every whistle in this old house is a sign that the end is coming.  I will die.  And I’m so very afraid, because before I die, I want children.  I want someone with my eyes, or my nose, or my sense of humor to carry on, preferably without my psychological flaws, to carry on, so the world doesn’t lose me.  I know it sounds self-centered.  But even with my deep-seated sense of inferiority, I’m sure I must be something special.  God wouldn’t have made me otherwise.  And He made me, so my genes and I must be here for a reason.

But I digress.  As I sleep, or try to sleep, I feel the crawling feeling of my cells and the very atoms of my being disappearing.  I feel myself not dying, but being lost.  Just like in that nightmare.  If I stew on it too much, I see skeleton patterns in the darkness, which is just emo.  Ridiculous.  And at night, I have nightmares.

Nightmares of children, of babies being born, but then they’re gone! Nightmares of an empty feeling.  Nighmares of dying.  Nightmares of disappearing.  

I must be crazy.  Or maybe God is really trying to tell me something?  There are more questions, more thoughts, but they’re forbidden to me.

This is a piece of work I just wrote.  Some of it is real, some of it isn't.  This is not, by any means, meant to be representatives of my thoughts.  This, for all practical purposes is fiction.

But scary, isn't it?  Maybe you just have to read it in the right tone of voice, with the right stress on the right syllables.  I don't know.

But me being able to write this is frightening in the sense that these thoughts came from somewhere within me.  As the last lines say: I must be crazy....

Enjoy :)