You had me at Ziti

It's funny how words and ideas can trigger our choices. Mizfit's blog featured a guest chef who gave us a recipe for baked ziti - with the notion that the runner readers would/could use it to "carb load" prior to a big race. Well, this girl doesn't race. Doesn't run. Doesn't. But she has a crazy thang for pasta. And while I've eaten pasta a few time since starting WW, I've pretty much stayed away from it because it triggers me to eat recklessly -pasta is my meth, apparently. So why did I make the ziti? I dont' know exactly. I think my inner-spoiled-child-brat got off the leash. I wanted it. WANTED! I don't like whole wheat pasta even though people assure me that the difference is marginal. That's bunk, as far as I'm concerned. The texture is grainey and ~~~~shudder~~~~. So I made it with bowties - white ones. And a jar of Prego. AND to add veggies I used a bag of my frozen sauce made from my own tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, onions. I wanted fat Italian sausage, but the local butcher didn't have it made, so he made me all-beef (chuck) with Italian spices in it. I didn't use it all in the ziti either. And I baked the ziti. And it was good. So good that I way stuffed myself with it. And I mean stuffed. Get out the buffet pants stuffed. And I didn't track my food on WW.

Well, yesterday I took Hugh to school with me. Had to get him breakfast and they had breakfast pizza. Inner brat wanted, so inner brat go. Up close is that it probably wasn't that bad of a choice; big picture is that it didn't stick with me like my oatmeal pb breakfast. So before lunch time I was ravenous and ate some of Hugh's lunch of a sub sandwich and Doritos. I also had a healthy lunch and didn't let myself go get a big fat greasy hamburger and fries for lunch like the brat wanted. Mostly this because i was going out for fish with my WW buddy. Yeah - and we enabled. What I noticed at the buffet is that lettuce and onions were the only healthy fresh vegetables on the whole buffet. Everything else on the salad bar had mayo/salad dressing or was fat/carb loaded. And the buffet: cheese bread, mashed potatoes, stuffing, corn, onion rings, fried chicken, fried bluegills, fried cod, french fries, fried clams, fried shrimp, and at the very end baked fish and peel-eat shrimp. Not nutritionally sound. None of it really. I ate salad. Then I ate mostly meat: 1 piece of fried chicken, 3 pieces baked cod, 3 fried shrimp; 16 peeled shrimp, 1/2 cup mashed potatoes. Oh and a small cup of tomato-dumpling soup. I guess I protein loaded. And I didn't log any of my food yesterday on WW. Why?

I don't care. Not for ziti day nor for yesterday. I DON"T CARE!

Okay, I lie. I do care. But I did it and it's over and you can't unring a bell. And for what it's worth, I feel like crap. I feel like I have a heard of bison running thru my digestive tract. I feel bloated and larger than life. Ziti day made me feel the same way. No energy. Left with cravings. Wishing for a nap all day long. Irritated and out of sorts. I need my system royally cleansed. If I didn't have plans today I'd take something to make things moooooooooooove along out of my system, because I am over capacity. And I deserve to feel this way. I earned it. I brought this on myself. Now I need to suck it up and deal.

Do I want to feel like this again any time soon? No. That's why I will not, cannot, choose not to eat myself comatose on Thanksgiving Day. It has to be just another day for me. My family is almost all over weight. Those not overweight have other issues and are otherwise unhealthy with food. Food is my family's comfort. I don't want that. Ick. And they will not understand. And they will criticize. And they will think I'm an idiot. And some will vocalize that. And they can all go to Hades if they can't support me. I will walk in the morning. I will walk after dinner. I will do a workout in the afternoon. I will not gain this holiday season. I can't. I won't.

Now I have to continue to make this my mantra. I have made progress this time around, and I won't lose that. I want to overcome my food addiction. I want to be healthier. I don't want to feel that my gut is a place where the buffalo roam. (Poke me with a pin so I can deflate, please!)

Thanksgiving is hard as it is. My dad died 25 years ago at age 52 from heart disease. I was 18 and he was my rock. I hated my mother thru high school, but I had dad to fall back on. Everyone else left for hunting and mom had to work, and I was home from college that Thanksgiving Day. Dad had been having chest pain for a while but thought it was a pinched nerve - he declared at dinner that day that he'd go to the doctor the next time he had an episode. He asked me to tie his boots for him before he left to go hunting. I did, and we teased each other. He left, having an attack as he drove past the hospital, so true to his word he went to the ER. They whisked him away to Madison for emergency surgery. I was the last to talk to him. He died 2 days later of a heart attack post-op in the middle of the night.

Having that yanked from under me was among the top 3 worst things to happen in my life. And ya know what? I still miss him. And I think losing him has something to do with the weight. And my mother always has to point it out during Thanksgiving Dinner that dad died that time of year, and she gets all maudlin' about it. Does she think that no one else remembers? Really? I wish I could tell her not to bring it up. But I can't. I suppose it's her way of honoring his memory. But it hurts. After dad died, I never really went "home" again - not for long. It just wasn't the same w/out him. I fell on my face a few times, but I learned to be independent and make it on my own after he passed. He was a good man and loved telling stories and talking talking talking...I hope I am like him - I think I am.

~~sniffle~~ sorry for the tangent. It's hunting season "holy week" here in Wisconsin, and dad was a big hunter guy. He'd have been in the woods for hours already by now, and he would have wanted to take that Hugh with him. I'm so sad that Dad never got to meet Hugh or Hugh him - they'd have been partners in all kinds of shenanigans. ~~~sniffle~~~

Okay, people. I'm out. I have to get the K-9s walked. Then to the gym. The home to shower so I can go to lunch with friends, do some shopping, then go see Twilight. The books rock! If you like good stories, hook up with Book 1.

Make it a great day.