A CREATURE OF HABIT

I admit it I am a creature of habit.

 I buy gas at the same filling station and bank at the same bank that my folks did. I grew up with Skippy peanut butter and see no reason to try any other brand. (Except PB2! Boy that's good!)


I like a certain brand of shirt, and any shirt I buy must have a pocket! MUST!

I prefer Hanes to Fruit of the Loom,  and I used to prefer Chrysler products but Chevrolet may be winning me over. 

Maybe.


I've never had a "perm" and if I wasn't so vain I wouldn't color my hair, which by the way has been parted on the same side since I learned how to comb my hair.

I didn't realise I was vain until I started losing weight and feeling better about myself. Hmmmm.

AND I have a morning ritual believe it or not!



And boy I was knocked out of it this morning!

The furnace had quit working sometime in the night and the outside temp this morning was 2 above zero...it only felt slightly warmer in the house!  (Actually it was 57.)

No one will ever accuse me of being Handy Andy.  I went downstairs and pulled the panels off of the furnace and looked inside...so that's what the inside looks like! Hmmm.

I went to the circuit breaker box to see if the furnace breaker had tripped...it had not, but I flipped it on and off just to make sure!  Nope! Not the problem.

By this time it was 5:55. (Yes Megan, there are numbers on the clock like that!)

As you might imagine, my morning routine as concerning what I eat is also "fairly regular." 

Oh sure, I may go from 7 Grain Country Hearth Lite to Whole Wheat Country Hearth Lite I'm not that rigid, besides I was out of bread and Hyvee didn't have the 7 grain on the shelf that night!  I didn't feel like going to another Hyvee, and Fareway was already closed...perfectly acceptable to go whole wheat in that case.  Ahem.

I get up at 5:30 - 5:45 a.m. each morning so that I can take time to read thru diet motivational books and Overeaters Anonymous literature and start out my day first with some bible reading, prayer and devotions.  This is a new routine that has been going on pretty regularly for the last three months.

I like it.  Starts my day out right.

Recently, I've discovered that I still feel "hungry" even after my stomach feels full.  My "routine" solution has always been to eat more.  I thought feeling stuffed to misery was just feeling full, and I thought that way(though I really new better) for 50 years. 

So now I look for emotional clues as to what I'm trying to bury by overeating.

Scary!

Another emotion! 

If I really look at myself I might see something I've been avoiding. 

Might?

I will and I have! (whimpers quietly)

"It'll be okay I'll just eat through it and pretend I didn't see, or feel that feeling or emotion."  I used to say I wouldn't know an emotion or feeling unless it bit me on the patoot.  Well...

As soon as I discovered the furnace was on the fritz and realised it was going to take much more than Bizarro Handy Andy could fix I felt a pang in my stomach a little like butterflies in the tummy and I wanted to go eat something that was not part of my eating routine.

I really noticed it! 

It was NOT a hunger pang.  It was an emotion pang, for lack of a better way to describe it. 

It was,  "Okay how is this furnace repair going to effect my budget for the month?"  I had not planned for a major outlay of cash in January, after all Christmas was just a week ago!

I started playing the what ifs:

"What if they can't fix it and the pipes freeze and I have to hire a plumber...and how much will that cost?"

"What if it stretches our budget so far we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't even buy....GROCERIES!!!!"

"It's 6 a.m. and there is NO pizza delivery available!!" (looks about wildly) "But I can't afford it anyway!!" ARGH!!!!

Overeaters Anonymous talks about the "insanity" of compulsive eating...

You mean it's not reasonable to order a jumbo garbage pizza and add black olives, canadian bacon and double extra cheese?  At six in the morning?

I would wait til 7 a.m. if I had to.

That's completely reasonable.

For a food addict.

Obsessive/compulsive?

So now I carry these character defects over into my new eating program???









Megan is my dietician & health educator AND SHE DOES A GREAT JOB!...pray for her...she doesn't get paid nearly enough!

Because she deals with me when I struggle through all these heavy thoughts as I crawl ever-so-slowly towards lighter living.