Food: The Never Ending Struggle

It’s 4:26am, and my coffee tastes delicious. I’m not stoked about being awake this early, but if I must be, at least I can enjoy some good coffee.

We are creatures of habit. My mornings look almost identical most days – the only difference, lately, is the time they start. Waking up at 3am and staring into the dark for an hour before I finally decide to get out of bed isn’t ideal. That’s happening less and less, but this morning I guess my brain felt like it was time to revisit it. Normally, I’m up around 5am. Today I’m not so fortunate, but them’s the breaks.

I’m surrounded by unfinished projects. My half-finished knitting project, a washcloth, practically taunts me from the nightstand. The ingredients I ordered from Kroger when I was younger and more idealistic are rotting away in the refrigerator. It’s time to throw the spinach and asparagus out again. I keep buying these things with all the best intentions. Sometimes I use them, sometimes I don’t. It’s a total crap shoot on what kind of week it will be.

At the moment, the food issue is glaring me in the face.

I can’t financially or physically sustain it much longer. I’m not eating my feelings necessarily, but I’m being lazy about meal prepping and cooking. It is laziness, too. Or maybe it’s executive dysfunction, which I’m all too acquainted with as well. All I know is that most of the time it’s just plain “I don’t want to do that, so I won’t.” And off I go to pick up a Baconator at Wendy’s, then feel like crap for the next few hours.

The only way I seem to be able to do this successfully – get back into cooking at home, that is – is to kill fast food and restaurant food altogether for a month or so. It’s similar to going off social media for 30 days, or those weirdos who can quit drinking for a month and then drink moderately again (I’m not one of those people – if you are, I still love you).

It annoys me, because I also know that small changes add up and it would be much more convenient if I could just start adding in healthy, home-cooked meals over time, increasing the frequency, and boom – it’s all fixed. That sometimes works. It’s rare, but enough to keep me hoping and trying. It’s like continuing to play the slot machines because that one time, I won a thing. More often that not though, it just prolongs the problem. Ordering out is so much easier, you know?

Maybe if I lived half an hour away from everything, it would be easier to cook more, but I don’t. I don’t plan to live that far away from things, either. Therefore, I have to make this a habit that sticks. I may always go back and forth a little bit, but over time hopefully I can shorten the time in between fast food binges and eating at home regularly.

Crossfit and fast food don’t go together very well, I’m pretty certain.

Any intense workout regimen and fast food don’t go together very well, for that matter. Today starts my third week in Crossfit, and I’ve really enjoyed it so far. It would be really discouraging to keep working out and see minimal results because I keep eating 3000+ calories at local fast food places every day, though. I know this. I’m just gearing myself up to make a change.

None of this frustration is about my weight or body size, despite the mention of calories. I don’t track things like that much anymore, I mostly know what feels good and what doesn’t at this point. I’m not feeling great. I know I would feel much better if I got back to more veggies, less (or no) sugar, more protein, less diet soda, blah blah. Booooo. So boorrriiiing. But, I gotta do it. I’m pep-talking myself, obviously.

A 600+ word pep talk.

Alright, let’s wrap this up. It’s 4:50am and I have to get ready for the aforementioned Crossfit. It’s Monday. October is almost over, but I don’t have to start anything at the beginning of a month. We’ll start today. I don’t feel like starting anything, but I’m going to attempt to go through the motions despite how I feel, and hope my feelings catch up.

I will keep you posted, I’m sure you’re on the edge of your seat and can’t wait to find out if I choose baked chicken over a Baconator today. I know I’m curious, myself. I won’t even do a separate post, I’ll just update this one later this evening. Maybe my post title is a bit negative, but it’s all I got right now. It does feel like a struggle at the moment, but hopefully it won’t stay that way.

Time to get my Monday started, woo.

Update 6pm same day: it only took me about 4 hours to completely forget my resolution for the day. Oops. I remembered about 3 hours after my Sonic lunch, but you know what – tomorrow is a new day and it’s fine. At least it wasn’t a Baconator? Ok then. Moving right along, onward and upward.