Chasing the Wagon

When you've had fat habits for as long as I have, it's pretty dang hard to change those habits. I knew that was going to be the case, but knowing hasn't made it any easier. What I didn't consider is how hard it is to change fat habits others have towards you, especially when you want to pretend that other people really don't think that you're fat. Even though you know they do. Because you are. ANYWAY...

Valentine's Day this year is a perfect example. My husband is very supportive of me losing weight. He likes to say that he doesn't care if I'm fat or thin, he just doesn't want my weight to prevent me from doing anything I might want to do, like water parks, or zip lines, or riding donkeys down mountains to former leper colonies (I'll explain another time). I often tell him that when I lose weight, I'm going to run off and find a boyfriend. He always tells me he'll take his chances.

For V-Day, we planned to eat dinner at home because we hate fighting the crowds at restaurants. My husband makes a mean immediate-family-famous, grilled, thin-cut, boneless ribeye steak that he marinates in lots of evoo and spices. Mmmmmmmmm. We agreed to complete the menu with a nice baked potato and some steamed broccoli, all doable on my "life plan." In an effort to save our son and his girlfriend from the same packed-restaurant plight we were avoiding, we offered to cook them the same dinner and serve it to them outside next to the pool so that it would be both romantic and away from us (we would eat on bar stools at the kitchen island - almost 31 years together).

I came home from work on Monday and started to prepare my usual delicacy of tuna with light mayonaisse and sweet pickles, when my husband informed me that he forgot that he was on-call at work on V-Day so he moved our V-day celebration and dinner up a day early. Such great news when you're facing down tuna. Again.

He had already done all of the shopping and had started the dinner so I was left to do nothing, which is sort of my speciality when it comes to cooking (I do have talents, cooking just isn't one of them). He then served me a GIANT steak, a GIANT baked potato, and enough broccoli to...well...a LOT of broccoli. The sad part of it is that I didn't see anything as giant or excessive when it was on the plate. All of the portions looked completely normal and I simply saw it as an awesome dinner lovingly prepared by my husband. I ate every single morsel. It was soooo good! And it wasn't until I had licked my plate that I came back to my senses and realized how much food I had just eaten. What happened to my committment to smaller portions? The only comfort I could take in what I had just done was that I had used spray butter (no fat, no calories, just chemicals) on my potato and broccoli.

I wish I could say that was the end of it, but in addition to the tasty dinner, my husband also gave me my most favorite of favorite chocolates - See's Bordeaux. He gave me the small, heart-shaped Bordeaux, and then gave me three more pieces of heaven along with three cherry chocolate cordials (fruit group!). This man knows me! It was portioned perfectly so that I could enjoy a little bit every day for an entire week, and if I had done that, I would be enjoying a piece right now. But no, I downed every last bit of chocolate, too. Rationalization? It was our Valentine's Day celebration and I was taking the day off from portion control. I would just get back on the wagon the next day.

I felt completely comfortable placing full blame on my husband for my being fat. If he hadn't provided all of that yumminess, I would have stayed on the wagon. See's candy? He should have known better! It was all his fault. And then, as I was writing this blog post in my head about how my husband is the reason why I'm fat, the light came on.....it wasn't his fault at all. He was the one who cooked the steaks, but I'm the one who pulled an entire steak onto my plate rather than cut off a smaller portion and save the rest for another day. I was the one who inhaled the entire baked potato rather than cut it in half and save the other half to eat another time with the rest of the steak. The broccoli? Well, that's just plain good for you, no matter how much you eat. And he steamed it just right!

That's all well and good, but what about the chocolate? That's his fault. Except he didn't sit on me and stuff every single piece down my throat in a single sitting. He gave me a few pieces of my favorites rather than a pound of assorted chocolates that would taste good, but that wouldn't have any meaning. I should have had the heart Bordeaux as a special Valentine treat and then had one piece of candy each day for the next week so that the love I felt with each morsel would have lasted so much longer. It's my own fault.

Crap.

I can't blame anybody but myself and I need to stop trying to place responsibility on anyone but myself for my own choices. And I also have to understand that because I have been the way I have been for as long as I have, it's going to take some time to acclimate others around me to the fact that I am trying to be different than what I've always been.

The most enduring gift my husband gave me was a small sign to put in my home office:

It says more to me about so many different things that are far too personal for me to share on this blog, but I know I'm always looking for miracles. If I'm the Princess of Whales in the same princess category as Cinderella, like I think I am, I need to cut myself some slack and give myself the time it's going to take to make this healthy miracle happen.

So it took me a couple of days to chase down the wagon (or chariot, as a princess should see it), but I caught up to it and I climbed back on. It has been, and will continue to be, a bumpy road. I just need to adjust my grip so I stay on better and stop believing that everyone is trying to push me off.