Food from a different point of view.

I quit smoking almost three and a half years ago, and I'm pretty sure I won't ever smoke again. It took a couple of tries, but I (relatively) quickly realized that the key to not smoking again is that first cigarette. As soon as you have that first cigarette, you open the door to having that second cigarette. And so on and so on.
I used to think that this philosophy could never be attributed to something like food. After all, we need to eat to survive? We can just not eat, right?

Right.

But we can choose those things that do us harm. We can cut those gateways back into failure out of our diets. And it's not easy. At least not now. But then again, neither was smoking, right? Except this last time. The last time I quit smoking, I knew it was for good. I had no desire to smoke anymore.

What's hard is that I do have the desire to eat those foods not so good for me. I love food. My coworker once said that she can handle the sweet stuff and the salty stuff, but bread is her downfall. Mine is all of it. I love the sweet stuff. I love the salty stuff. I love big hunks of fresh baked bread and all the things you can do with it. I love burgers and fried foods and everything that's bad for me.

In fact, you could say that it's an addiction in itself. Now, I don't have a clinical eating disorder, but it's not to say that I have a problem with food. Every meal is a challenge. In between meals it's a challenge to know where and when I'm really hungry or if I'm just bored or needing water.

But I'm here to try.

An old roommate used to leave fresh baked cookies in a container on the counter. And every time I walked through the kitchen I would have to see it and say no. After three or four times in a fifteen minute time span, I took the container and put it in a cupboard where I wouldn't have to see it, thereby removing the need to make the decision. Now that it's just Thomas and I, we just have to make sure that those kinds of things aren't in the house in the first place.

I went out to an Italian restaurant for dinner with my family on Saturday. I knew where we were going and I looked at their menu in advance. I tried my hardest not to change my mind on what I had set out for. I avoided even looking at the pasta and pizza sections of the menu so that I just wouldn't be tempted.

And I survived. So...the part you've all been waiting for:

Beginning Weight (April 26, 2011): 174.4 lbs
Current Weight: 168.8
Week 2 Weight Loss/Gain -2.6 lbs
Total Weight Loss: 5.6 lbs

Still working on the fitness part...but I've got a couple of people willing to be my conscience on that one, so I have a feeling it won't take long. As a side note, it took about six weeks of weight loss through diet alone before I was ready to start at the gym back in 2009 when I dropped my first 25 lbs. But I don't think it will take that long this time around ;)