One Week 'Til Christmas

‘Twas a week before Christmas … and as always, I am way behind on getting gifts, despite the fact that two months ago, I got organized about shopping and shipping. I’m good with the organization — not so much with the follow through. Oh well … I’ll get it done this weekend, and those who love me will love me even if Christmas comes in January!

Yesterday was pretty normal … My alarm went off bright and early for a run, but I really didn’t want to get out of bed. I’ve learned to tell the difference between “gee it’s early and wouldn’t it be nice to sleep but I really do want to get the run in” and “not today, my body needs sleep.” So I moved my run to last night, and it was pretty good! I jammed out to my Mix With a Message playlist, which has songs like Push It by Salt and Pepa and the new song by David Cool where he sings about living life in the moment or something.

I had a pretty good food day, too.

For breakfast, coffee in my favorite celebrity gossip mug and a beautifully ripe pear.

For lunch, I had carrots, some awesome salad greens (arugula, spinach, and some other stuff) with FF salad dressing, and steamed green beans.

Take a closer look at those greens — I actually had TWO plates full!

That all kept me pretty full, so I didn’t eat my orange until late afternoon. I knew I had the run after work, and I didn’t want to have that sloshing around in my stomach, so I had it along with a small cup of Diet Coke.

I am a recovering soda addict (do they have clubs for us?) so that little cup is the way I stop myself from drinking a full bottle of Diet Coke a day.

Dinner was okay — we had a couple of mangos to use, so I made mango chicken, collard greens and sauteed summer squash. I am allergic to mango skin … I found out the hard way, when my face and hands broke out into horrible hives that took a week to go away. And since I didn’t know the mangos were to blame at first (I can EAT them with no problems, I just can’t touch the skin), I actually broke out twice before I figured it out! Now I use gloves to peel and cut the fruit.

After dinner and some chores, I had a nice snack of grapes (no pic, sorry) and a couple of unsalted rice cakes with sugar-free blueberry spread. Yum.

After that … the wheels fell off a little. I wanted something sweet, so I decided to have a handful of Fiber One banana clusters cereal. Well, there was only about a cup and a half left in the box, so I ate that. Then I saw that there were only a couple of cups left of my Fiber One caramel cereal, so I ate that too.

Ach! I wasn’t even hungry. But it’s okay … because I am always aware of my propensity for binge-eating, I try and keep things light through the day so it’s not a disaster if I do give in. And it was my first binge night in 4 days, so it’s fine.

I am reading Sophie Kinsella’s Confessions of a Shopaholic.

It reminds me of myself a little … with her, it’s shopping. With me, it’s eating. We know that we’re not totally in control, but we’re in denial! At least, that’s how I was before I started getting healthy. The book’s pretty good so far … very Bridget Jones-y.