If you are what you eat, then I really am sugar and spice and everything, well, sweet, if not nice, as nice seems a little judge-y. Especially when we are talking about my poor eating habits.
Over the past two years, the Chief has had a more standard, 40-hour-a-week schedule, as opposed to our usual firefighter routine, which consists of 24-hour shifts at the fire station, flanked by more-or-less 48 hours of downtime, spent in part napping to catch up on sleep. This has meant that for the past two years, I have been planning and cooking evening meals seven days a week. This is not a hardship, but was a challenge to my waistline, as I was used to skipping evening meals to make up for the sorry-ass way I snacked during the day.
These didn't come with chocolate frosting. I made some and frosted them. That's the kind of maniac we are dealing with here.
Now the Chief is back on 24-hour shifts and I’m back baby, allowed to be left to my own kitchen devises (so to speak) for at least one day out of three. As you can imagine, the rubber band, stretched over the last two years of healthy eating, has snapped back a little hard, and kitchen cams (if we had any) might have caught me eating meals consisting entirely of (1) chips and salsa, (2) a few tablespoons of smoked salmon, and/or (3) a few handfuls of popcorn. These less-than-square meals are what’s left of my appetite after an afternoon spent eating candy and/or cookies, and/or chocolate protein bars and/or, in the event of an emergency, chocolate chips.
Okay, now I’m judging me.
The pendulum will swing back and I will resume a somewhat healthier daily diet. I have already begun to sentence myself to remedial training. Last Saturday, while the Chief was at work, I decided to give my appetite a little Time Out and spent the day fasting, drinking tea, water and a little chicken bouillon. It didn’t feel good, but it was completely doable and I did not feel the need to overeat the next day. It made me remember that hunger is not something to fear. Hunger may be a better alternative than the pain of too-tight pants.
I may try to fit a 24-hour fast in my weekly or monthly schedule, when I have a day here and there with no plans that call for a lot of effort or proximity to good food. Also, as long as I am writing or otherwise producing content, it is hard to use my hands for eating. And I do not own a feedbag. YET.