Driving home from meeting Hannah for coffee to hash out some school plans. My stomach grumbles a bit. I had had an early dinner with my family before rushing out and drinking plain black decaf. I don't need to eat, though; I'm just going home and going to bed, after all, and am still working on dropping the pregnancy weight.
I reflected on that, how nearly two years ago -- it does not seem so long ago -- I set out to train myself to endure mild hunger, to learn that hunger is not an emergency. To go beyond the diet advice of "Eat only when you're hungry," and get to the place where, like normal people, I don't have to eat even when I am hungry -- I can wait. I think I have it in my bones now.
Reflections from restaurant signs slid up the windshield and over the car and I left them behind in the puddles on the pavement, smeared red and yellow. My ever-chattering mind still suggests them to me. I could pull through a drive-thru and get a hamburger. I could stop and get bagels for tomorrow's breakfast. But I put a stop to it these days with the simple truth that I don't do that anymore.
Even though I really am kind of hungry, and thus somewhat more susceptible, I know what it's about -- if I stop off for a snack, I will get to prolong the evening out, delay the coming home to the house full of kids. I have seen this destructive impulse before in the form of "If I make myself another sandwich, I will get to sit in front of the computer longer while I eat it."
Sometimes the answer is to permit myself a lunch break that lasts longer than my lunch. Other times the answer is just to laugh at my silly ruse and go home to my family.
Leo's almost 11 weeks old and I am at 126 lbs, and am planning to lose 13 more.
Comments