I have been putting off writing this post all day. Truth is, I’m scared to commit to what I had planned to write. Scared to fail, rather.
Last week was a wash in terms of my fitness goals. I exercised every day except one, and I’m happy about that. But I canceled out that success with the food I put in my mouth.
Ah, food. Love/hate. I’m an emotional eater. Case in point: The Shamrock Shake. The other day, after I had eaten a good meal and was not the least bit hungry, I passed someone with a Shamrock Shake in their hand. Can I tell you how excited I got? It’s that time of year! Shamrock Shakes are here! And suddenly all I could think about was driving to McDonald’s and getting some of that minty, frosty goodness. I would have had a cheeseburger & fries with it, too. Even though I wasn’t hungry at all.
But I didn’t. I started to really think about why I wanted it. It’s yummy. It’s only sold for a limited time. It’s fun. It makes me feel good. All emotions. Hunger was not an issue.
Now I don’t agree with people who think food should only be fuel. Food is enjoyable. But most of the time it should not be driven by your emotions. I have so many food-occasion/food-emotion connections. Long day? Wine and chocolate. Party? Cake and brownies. Movie? Popcorn. Too tired to cook? Fast food. Celebration/accomplishment? Burger & fries.
These are some habits I’d like to break, but I need to break them down piece by piece. I know that shunning alcohol, sugar and fast-food would just set me up for failure, so I’m going to try a series of experiments and share them here on the blog. My first experiment will be a detox of sorts. There is nothing scientific about this – it’s just a common sense plan I’ve created myself. For the next two days, I plan to eat only fruits and veggies, with a little egg & cheese thrown in for protein (and because I absolutely can’t live without cheese). The following two days will be a juice fast. The next three days will be fruits, veggies, egg, cheese again.
And it crossed my mind that my “reward” for completing this challenge would be… a Shamrock Shake.
I hang my head in shame.
Stay tuned for my detox updates.
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