Too much food. 04/13/04
I have realized why I've gained weight again. For a while I thought it was simply that my willpower had dwindled to the point where I no longer had much at all. But that's not it. I'm as strong and determined as I ever was, in the past, to stay thin. The change is in my circumstances. The amount of willpower I'm used to having is no longer sufficient, considering my new environment.
Never before in my life has such a great variety of delicious food been so readily available to me. To not give in to it at least twice a week will take superhuman strength. I am going to have to summon up that strength, and quickly.
There is a Burger King right next door. There is a middle eastern place that has great gyros and baklava in this very building I am working in now.
Everything I could ever want for lunch is within a short walk from my workplace. Including the best Chinese food, and they have an ATM machine right in the front of the restaurant... I am powerless to resist, way way way too often.
Add to the sudden overabundance of lunch choices these unfortunate circumstances: Even should I choose to get exercise by walking to or from work, there are tons of places to stop and get a bite of something on the way. And now that the car is somewhat working again, and it's convenient to take the bus when I don't have the car for the day, well, I don't walk as much as I should these days.
A year ago, I had a more active job. I can rarely even come up with an excuse to get up from my workstation, at the place I am now. I find myself feeling sleepy, so I buy a diet energy drink, only to find I have nowhere to direct any energy I have. Shall I practice typing really really fast?
We still go to the gym in the evenings, two days a week or so, and there's the occasional weekend hike through the forest or walk downtown, but obviously it's not enough to make up for the three-item plate with chow mein/fried rice, lemon chicken and eggrolls.
The gaining of excess weight coincides exactly with my changing jobs. Last summer, I weighed 120-ish. Then in September I started working here. By October I was up to 125, and not too unhappy with it although 120 is more my ideal weight... but by Thanksgiving I was at 130, then at Christmas 133. This week, stepping on the scale the morning after Easter dinner, I am at 137. I haven't been this large since March of 2002. Yikes. Part of my mind, that in which the willpower resides, is trying to get the rest of the brain to feel more shock and dismay than it does. And to DO something about it. But it is so very very easy to just throw on something loose-fitting, remember the times that people have called me thin during the past few weeks, and put off any real thought or action. So easy to carry on as always, balancing out a few large meals with a few days of eating sparingly. But circumstances have changed, and that is no longer enough.
I wish I wasn't able to smell Kentucky Fried Chicken from the back window of the office.
