Single-Mindedness

While working a completely mindless and incredibly boring job, like I am right now, my day looks like this in my head:

Breakfast
Snack
Lunch
Snack
Dinner

After I eat breakfast at 7 I immediately start thinking about the 10 o'clock snack, and then lunch, and so on. I'm sure it's just my particular little obssession. If I was an alcoholic with nothing else to think about, maybe I'd be counting the minutes until I could have a drink.

I find that my thinking right now, when I'm in that place mentally where I'm geared up to lose weight, is structured around food in a more positive way. I think about what I can eat and estimate the calories and think about how I could add some fruit or vegetable into the mix and praise myself for eating whole wheat and for not eating sugar.

When I'm not feeling all peppy about the weight loss idea, my thoughts still focus on food during the day, but in a not so positive way. I think about how there's a chocolate peanut butter ice cream cake in the freezer and plan when exactly I will allow myself a decadent piece. If too early in the day then I use up the treat and wish later on that I'd waited. Maybe after dinner... But I will be having a piece, no question.

I think the moral of the story is, I need a more interesting job. But more importantly, I am off the sugar again. It's just way too easy for me to fall into the "Just a little bit here, just a little bit there" mentality where pretty soon I'm having lots of little bits all over the place. I work well under the splurge day regime - no refined sugar/corn syrup except for one day a month. I find after a few months I want less and less sugar. I can only eat a quarter or half a pint of Ben & Jerry's versus the whole thing. This is what I need to do to have any hope of losing weight.