Okay, so I had to do a health evaluation today in order to qualify for my health insurance policy. It has been something I have been dreading since the Insurance Rep told me that I was just a couple of pounds above the optimum weight for the cheapest category. She told me to really try to bring my weight down if I could. Well, that was all well and good until I went on vacation and gained 5 pounds!!! Now a couple of pounds was turning into nearly 10 pounds! Being the silly person I am, I decided to try to go for it. The nurse called to set up an appointment with me the Monday after I got back from my trip. I immediately told her that it was a bad week. After all, I had to have at least a few days to purge! We set the apt for early this morning as I had to be fasting and the earlier the better when no food is involved!
The race against the scale was on. I started the week skipping all snacks and sugary foods. I knew it wasn't going to cut it. I needed to take more drastic measures! I was looking through the medicine cabinet (which spans the entire top of the refrigerator) and found the Vital 18 that my grandma gave me for my bday in Sept. It was the perfect solution, I thought. Drink 4 cups of milk mixed with Vital 18 a day and one meal and you're good to go. It has all of the essential vitamins and minerals a body would need.
Day one on Vital 18 went well. Hey, it actually tasted good. The Buska's came over and brought brownies. Well, I thought I'd be fine because I don't really care for brownies (I know, I'm sick in the head) unless they are covered in ice cream and fudge! Sarah somehow knew this about me and had made caramel, chocolate chip, ooy, gooy brownies. It was hard to resist them, but I was good and I did. I was proud of myself too (I stored two away in the freezer for a future binge). Day two was a little tougher. I woke up starving, but could only have my cup of milk with a tablespoon of V-18. Then a migraine set in and I was doing more physically than I probably should have. I ended up eating a pb&J so I could take some medication for my headache, then I had to go to dinner with Jean who was in town from VA for the weekend. I was good then too. I had a salad and water. They had to get an asphalt pie and it would have been rude of me not to at least have one bite. Okay, so I had two or three bites, I still felt like I was ahead of the game. But then we went to Jean's friend's house and she had specially made--just for us, home-made hot fudge. Once again, not to offend, I asked my portion to be very tiny. It was good, but the guilt I was feeling was not! How can one ever hope to lose weight when they are socially guilted into eating????? I mean, I think I would feel bad if I spent a bunch of time and effort on someone who refused to even taste my offering. So, why do we do that to each other???
The next day was Sunday, thankfully. I never eat more than one square meal on Sunday, anyway, so I knew I could get through it (even though I usually snack throughout the day and eat dessert for dinner).
Sunday night, the nurse called and said that she had double booked herself, and would have to either come later in the day, or reschedule. Now, here I am, a woman on the verge, who hasn't had enough to eat for several days . . . she may have been endangering herself with that phone call! I took it all in stride. I told her to come at 11:30. To get my mind off my hunger, I decided to deep clean my house. I dusted, I vacuumed, I cleaned under the couch cushions, I cleaned out the coat closet. I was getting ready to mop the entry way (something I've only done once in 9 months), and the phone rang. It was the nurse again. She had a cancellation and wanted to know if she could come right then. That was fine, but you know how much of a mess you make when you clean the house? And, I hadn't even gotten into the shower yet. I started running through the house stashing the 3 vacuums in various places, returning cushions and chairs to their correct places. I hurried and changed clothes, pausing to weigh myself. I was down 9 pounds!!! Hooray, I did it! I had just enough time to run a brush through my hair, when the door bell rang.
The nurse was bright and cheery and chattery. She put me at ease as she poked and prodded at my veins. Then it was time . . . she brought out the scale. I stepped on and was quite unhappy to see that it put me 5 pounds heavier than my bathroom scale had five minutes earlier. I mentioned this and she graciously took that into account and recorded the mysterious number. I'm not sure exactly what number she recorded, but I'm hopeful that my sacrifice will be forever worth the pennies that I will save on my insurance policy.
Just as soon as the door closed behind her, I was in the kitchen pulling out the biggest feast you could imagine. Binge time!!! Okay, it wasn't that bad, I fried up a couple of fish filets (in butter), and had a nice salad. But then I went to the freezer for that brownie from Sarah. I warmed it up and put some ice cream on top. It was heaven! A little later in the day I ate the other brownie--frozen. It was divine! Oh, the guilt!
Sometimes the things we do to ourselves are not nice. From now on, I want to be nice to myself. I want to eat a nice balanced diet and get some good exercise. As far as the vital 18 goes, I don't know if it's something I'll continue as drastically as I did the past few days, but maybe with a little more moderation. I think that is the key to success with anything, after all--moderation.
A little while later I was watering my plants with my trusty watering can. Connor (my 4-year-old) pipes up and says, "Mom, you need Aqua Globes. I'm going to buy you some Aqua Globes. They water the plants for you so you don't have to." Um, Okay, I can barely even understand what you're saying, but okay! I had never heard of Aqua Globes, but the next time the commercial came on TV, he was screaming for me to come in and look. They are very interesting. I wonder how long those things would actually last in my plants before Connor, himself, broke them.
