Hunger

I'm off my normal routine.  In fact, I have been for a while...months even.

We live in a large enough neighborhood with sidewalks throughout, which gives us a couple of decent routes to walk and take the girls out.  Every summer that we've lived here, my routine has called for a daily walk.  When that gets tiresome, there is another neighborhood across the street that we often venture into and a park just a few minutes away with a decent loop. 

But I've been struggling with a compete apathy towards anything of this nature (in nature, so to speak).  I've been at a loss as to why I should bother.  It's an utter pain to squish both girls in the wagon what with lots of legs happening in a small space, which inevitably leads to bickering about whose feet go where.  Plus, they're probably around 70 lbs. combined.  Thank heavens for wheels, but that's enough resistance to make me forgo the walk entirely.  Call me a wimp.  I do. 

El problemo is, however, that I have this thing with food.  It's something of a love affair (scandalous).  It's the good kind of affair because the affection is mutual.  (You should see the way that those brownies are winking at me from the counter right now.)  But, when don't walk and continue to eat like it's 1999 (metabolism of a teenager, friends), things happen.

The idea of a diet has entered my mind again, in part because a friend is on one and the in-laws are working through their own, but I just can't stomach it (so to speak).  I won't do it.  Nope.  No diets here.  Change of lifestyle?  Yes.  Diet?  Get away from me, tempter of evil things.

I keep coming back to the idea that really, all I need to do is reinstate portion control.  If I do, when I do, good things happen.  I feel good about myself, even if I'm holding on to more pudge than I want.  I've never been one to care all that much about what I look like so long as I can fit in my clothes.  And while I still can, I could and should fit better.  So that's what I'm striving for.  (And then I found myself at a buffet restaurant for a baby shower over the weekend, after eating a doughnut at church, and there was sushi, and about 15 desserts, and lo mein, and oh, the temptations!!!!)

Even more importantly, I've realized again that I have almost completely lost the sense of hunger.  Perhaps it's the basic, animal instinct in me, but my day typically revolves around combating even the possibility of hunger, not only with myself but also with my children and with the boy.  I keep a box of crackers in the car now for after-school pick-up drives home.  I nearly always stash something in my bag before leaving, for myself as well as the littlest.  Snacks are pervasive, and a good amount of my food bill goes toward foods that are easy to be consumed on the go.

We shall not feel even the slightest twinge of hunger!

So I'm taking on this challenge: to allow myself to feel real hunger, to avoid eating for any reason other than actual hunger, to remember what it feels like when I have need rather than want.

It's a work in progress, but frankly, what part of me isn't?  Just add it to the list.