Fast Food

All posts tagged Fast Food

Chocolate: 1, Me: 0

Published February 6, 2020 by Malia

People do many things when they feel down. Shop, sleep, drink, sleep around, send text messages to people they absolutely should not be texting. You get the idea. Me?

I eat.

Sometimes I shop, but 98% of the time, I turn to food. It’s been my go to for decades. Does it make me feel better? Yeah. Well, at least it does for a few minutes. And then regret seeps in. Followed by shame. Then I feel even more down than I already did. Which usually leads to more eating. It’s not a unique story by any stretch of the imagination.

Almost a month ago, faced with out of control blood sugar numbers, and severe anxiety about my weight I decided to make one more attempt at losing weight. And since January 14th, I’ve done really well. I’ve lost twenty pounds and stayed completely on plan. I’ve eaten tons of veggies. My blood sugar numbers have been awesome! I’ve resisted pizza, Wendy’s, Arby’s, a giant bowl filled with leftover Christmas chocolate, and piles of baked goods. That’s the short version of an incredibly long list. I have seen myself exercise self-control I really didn’t know I was capable of.

Last Saturday night, I had an incredibly realistic dream. I was tearing my house apart, devouring every little bit of chocolate I could find. I woke up with the most intense chocolate cravings I’ve ever had. I fought it all day Sunday, ending the night by sticking my head in the previously mentioned giant bowl of chocolate and just smelling the chocolate fumes. But the important thing is, I didn’t give in. I didn’t actually eat any. The cravings continued for days. To top it off, I’ve been feeling a lot of stress about work, my stupid fertility issues, and my upcoming root canal. The cravings and stress have started dragging me down into the dark place I don’t like to think or talk about.

I hate the dark place. I know I’ll climb out of it eventually. I’m just hoping I’ll crawl out in a few weeks, instead of a few months. This isn’t my first visit to it, and I know it won’t be my last. I’m not a strong person, but knowing I’ve gotten out of the dark place countless times over the years, helps me hold on. I may sound flippant, but honestly I feel anything but.

Knowing all this, I’m sure it won’t come as a surprise that last night I gave into the cravings. I ate a ton of chocolate and gummies, both from a Japanese snack box I ordered before deciding to get healthy. A strawberry ice cream popsicle, and three bites of a truly disgusting frozen chimichanga. I came very close to going to Taco Bell and ordering 3/4 of the menu, but it was after 10 pm, and would’ve required the wearing of pants.

By 11 pm the regret and shame had settled in, and I realized that I had two options. Clearly the first (and hopefully last) binge of 2020 hadn’t magically drug me out of the dark place or really made me feel any better. The only good that came of it was that my chocolate cravings were no longer driving me mad. So, my two options were:

A. Fall back into my old norm of binge, feel even worse, binge, feel bad, and repeat ad naseum.

B. Accept that I fell off the wagon, suck it up, and remember the important words from Gone With The Wind, “After all, tomorrow is another day!”

So, I woke up today, checked my blood sugar and weight, and hopped back on plan. Nothing magically changed overnight. I’m still in the dark place. I’m still stressed, and honestly I would much rather have had a bagel than my breakfast drink. I can’t promise that I won’t give into my cravings again, because I’m smart enough to know I probably will. I’ll keep facing the same battle, but hopefully I’ll do better the next time I fall off the wagon.

Bring on the Bouquets of Sharpened Pencils!

Published September 1, 2015 by Malia

September is here.  That means the leaves will start turning brilliant, beautiful colors very soon.  It’s not long until it gets cooler out (yay!), and before you know it almost everything will be flavored Pumpkin Spice.  You’ll go to McDonalds, and they’ll be all, “Would you like to try our new Pumpkin Spice chicken nuggets?”    The problem with Pumpkin Spice is that it gets WAY overused.  Pumpkin Spice hot chocolate=Good.  Pumpkin Spice M&M’s=Bad.

September also means that pretty much all the kids have gone back to school.   Soon they will all be sharing everything, including some really fun diseases.  It’s good to share, kids, but I’m sure your parents would appreciate you not bringing the flu home any sooner than you absolutely have to.

The start of a new school year has always fascinated me.  For a very brief window of time, students get to make a fresh start.  Sure, the previous school year was absolutely abysmal, but it’s a new year.  It’s time to be more mature.  It’s time to actually do homework.  It’s time to prove you’re smart and not just a wallflower.

It occurs to me that the kids aren’t the only ones making a fresh start this new school year.

A little over a month ago, I came to a startling realization.

I’m married.  I’m no longer single.

Okay, I know this shouldn’t be such a shock.  I think in my head I knew I was married, but I was so scared that it wasn’t real, I was refusing to let my heart believe it was true.  However, it is true.  Our marriage isn’t perfect, we’re not perfect  people, but we sure are adorkable!

See, we’re super adorkable!

At the same time it hit home for me that we really are officially a permanent part of each other’s lives, it also dawned on me that I had a really bad habit.  I’m an emotional eater.

It started way back in junior high.  I was getting bullied, and the only way I could deal was by eating.  Which lead to even more bullying.  It was a vicious cycle.  Once junior high ended things got better, and I did pretty well throughout high school.  It helped that I was in swing choir, because I got a pretty good workout most days of the week.  Then in 2004, a year out of high school, things went pretty kablooey at home, and I found myself constantly eating.  I didn’t want to burden people with my emotions, and to be honest I really didn’t trust most of the world around me.  So, I ate…and ate… and ate…and ate…  I turned my brain off, because I didn’t want it to tell me I was full, and to stop eating.  Instead, I spent the next several years eating and ballooning.  There were a few times I made weak efforts at losing the weight, but frankly I didn’t really care enough to make it work.  Besides, by 2011 I was convinced I was going to grow old and be the crazy spinster cat and book lady.  So, it didn’t really matter if what I weighed or how I looked.  The only person who cared was me, and I really didn’t care.

Now, though, there’s this boy, and crazily enough I trust him.  I trust him enough to realize that it’s okay to vent about my frustrations verbally, instead of eating a large Hawaiian pizza by myself.  He cares about me, and actually wants me to be healthy.  And more than that, I want to be healthy for him.

The worst part about having a bad habit  is trying to break it.  In August, I made a goal of not eating fast food for a month.  I also joined Weight Watchers.  I actually did pretty well.  I only had fast food 3 times, and I was really good about tracking what I was eating.  Now as I head into September, I once again am planning to avoid fast food all month.  I’m also not going to drink any soda.  I did have to cancel Weight Watchers, not because I hated it (I actually loved it), but because I found out that a bill that I knew was going to go up this month is going to go up quite a bit more than I was originally told.  I don’t know that we’ll be seeing a skinny me anytime soon, but I’m at least making an intentional effort now.

Couldn’t stop it if I tried

Published January 2, 2014 by Malia

Well, for better or worse, 2014 is upon us.  2013 has come and gone and will never come this way again.  Now is about when some people are starting to regret the kisses at midnight and the hastily made resolutions.  Of course, I too am swept up in the enthusiasm of facing a new year.  Maybe it was the whole waking up to the first snow of the new year.  Everything looked clean and white and new and fresh and possible.  So, here’s a few goals I’ve got for myself as I start down the road of 2014…

-Lose the weight.  This one is starting to make me sound like a broken record.  I know it needs to be lost, and I need to keep going and being serious about it for more than a month.

-Eat less fast food.  Fast food has definitely become an escape method for me.  Let’s see, the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem, right?  Okay, well I’ve admitted it, now to put into practice avoiding it.

-Read more and revamp book blog.  The discovery of Skyrim and the availability of Facebook have definitely interfered with my reading habit.  I’m a free-ish, single woman.  I should be reading.

-Speaking of Facebook…Neil Gaiman beat me to the punch last night when he posted that he’s going to be on Facebook less, and going to be blogging more.  I’ve been wasting far too much time on Facebook, and it’s really been bothering me over the last year.  Up until this last month it hasn’t really bothered me enough to do something about it, but I’m now to the point that I’m not giving it up, but I’m going to try to be on it quite a bit less.

-Spend more time writing.  First off, I want to update this blog on a more regular basis (and the book blog), but I also want to get more serious about writing in general.  I’ve got several very good ideas, but I’ve been too scared to write them down, too scared of what others might think of me if they knew what I had written.

-Dealing with fear.  I tend to let fear control my life, which is apparently a bad thing.  Mostly, I fear what other people think of me and my decisions.  Then when I know someone’s disappointed I spend way too much time beating myself up over it.  I’m going to try very hard to stop living in fear and especially try to stop beating myself up constantly for every time I think I’ve screwed up somehow.

Happy 2014!  Make it a good one!