The Confessional

"Forgive me, blog, for I have sinned."

"How long as it been since your last confession?"

"Oh, not long enough, sir."

"Why do you say that?"

"Every week, I power my way through All Bran, fresh fruit, tasteless soup, pounds of tofu, chicken breast after chicken breast... in the hopes that my next blog will be a testimonial, but then the weekend comes, the week 2 curse comes, a blizzard comes, some poor sap who visited Okinawa and bought me cookies comes.... and I sin. And when I sin, oh boy, do I sin GOOD."

"Tell me more of these sins."

"Well, you see, blog, it's fried chicken. It's potato chips. It's cheese puffs and Doritos, potstickers and potato salad. I-I-I...I'm a junkfood whore, blog! Always letting them have their way with me! *sobs* Sometimes twice in one day!"

"Shh, shh... it's ok. The gods of health, diet, and exercise may be angry with you right now (as is your lower intestine), but you can still appease them. Do 15 Hail Willpowers and expel all chemical 'food-like-substances' from your system and bring me a testimonial next week."

"Thank you, blog, oh thank you... Hail Willpower, full of logic, fiber is with thee..."

Sigh. SIGH.

I'm as tired of typing up excuses as you surely are of reading them. But, honestly, who can keep their healthy lifestyle focus in the middle of the third record-shattering blizzard in as many months? I applaud those of you who can, I honestly do, but I do not count myself among you. I can handle being alone for hours, even days at a time. I can handle not setting foot outside my apartment for up to three or four days.

I can not handle silent contemplation of a salad with low fat dressing while 40mph winds blow snow/ice balls the size of BB gun pellets against my windows and deep down, I wish I were staring at a pound of lasagna piled high with some overly buttered garlic bread on the side.

I can not handle cooking (a healthy) dinner, clearing a space to work out in my small apartment, then working out when I get home two hours later than I'd planned due to the train's aggravating inability to cope with the weather. Salmon and broccoli and Bob Harper do not make for a comforting evening after waiting in the cold at a train station for two hours. Perhaps they should, but they don't.

Once I start down the sinner's path, I almost never turn back until at least two or three days have passed. Roads paved with hydrogenated oils, vats of corn syrup, and 15-syllable chemical miracles are the only ones I seem able to run on... everything else is a mere crawl.

Yeah, like that.

But you know what's weird? And works as a subconscious fiend, undermining everything I do?

The scale.

"Yeah, yeah, everyone hates their scale. Get over it."

Oh, no, friend. No, I don't hate my scale. I love it. I love it the first week I'm eating on a healthy plan and I drop weight Biggest Loser style. I get on it every single morning and I lose half a pound, a pound, two pounds. In one week, I lose 10. It's amazing.

And then? The week 2 curse.

Day 8, up half a pound. Excuse me? I did nothing to deserve that. I ate under my calorie target yesterday! Ugh, it's fine. It's probably water retention and rebound from being so awesome last week. It's fine. I have Zumba today anyway.

Day 9, up another half a pound. Wait, WHAT? I burned 600 calories in my Zumba class yesterday, what do you MEAN +0.5??? Hold on, calm down... I totally killed my muscles in that class. Killed muscles retain water like crazy for healing. Tomorrow, it'll be gone. I've got a 40-minute walk to school, now, so this will be a good week.

Day 10, no change. So, I've gained, and maintained, a full pound since I weighed in on Saturday and you're not going to give it back to me? Even though I had a 45-minute Zumba class AND a 40-minute walking commute to school? We'll see about that... oh, the students brought chocolate for the teachers from Tokyo Disneyland? Cute... I'll just keep it in my desk drawer here until I am here on a day where I know I have the calories free for it.

Day 11, no change, or another gain. Well, that's just uncalled for... ooh, who brought cakes from Osaka to school? Mmm, banana.... caaaaaaaake.

And so it continues. Around day 11 or day 12, with absolutely no help or encouragement from the scale, I start to get depressed. I want chocolate, because it will make me feel better, even if only for a fraction of a second. I take sips and nibbles that I don't account for in my food diary. I give up entirely on cooking my own food, because obviously it isn't doing me any good AND it's creating a pile of dirty dishes that I would rather not have to clean. At this point, it's almost the weekend, and the weekend mentality morphs "a piece of chocolate will make me feel better" into "the entire junk food aisle at the supermarket will make me feel AWESOME." And it does. I think.

I mean, Homer dreams about the land made out of candy because that's where he's happy, right? The small province called "Food is Love, Population: 1." It takes away the stress! Right? Maybe? Actively doing something to make myself fatter helps me to feel better about being depressed because of my fat?! (Error, error, does not compute. Logic failure in line 894.)

I honestly can't remember how it makes me feel. Because you know what? It's like being high. And then, it's like crashing so hard that I want to die. I oversleep alarms the day after a bender - every single time. Why? Because my body is too busy digesting Mr. 15-Syllables Chemical and converting sugar to ass-fat to bother supplying my brain with blood and Oxygen.

I know these things. Obviously, I do. My friend tells me that it's amazing how in-tune I am with my body (recognizing bloat in my face the moment that it appears, that junk food makes me oversleep, that Kit-Kats give me terrible gas - true facts!). What I find amazing is how in-tune I can be with my body, and how completely ignorant I can be when it comes to taking care of it.

Being so self-aware and yet so negligent has got to be some sort of psychological disorder. Isn't it? Kids run around slicing their arms open with box cutters, intentionally harming themselves, and it's a cry for help and/or attention. What does it mean when the intentional harm comes in the guise of Oreos and chicken nuggets? A cry for seconds?

The path to fat is clearly paved with good menu plans; though I am back on the straight and narrow today (with a nauseating weight this morning that I dare not divulge until I have re-lost it come Saturday's official weigh-in day), I must keep in mind that it doesn't take much to veer off the edge of the road and end up back in the land(fill) that is Food is Love.