Today J, C, and I were talking about going to the grocery store.  I said I had thought I needed to go to the grocery store, but then I realized I have a container of breadcrumbs already.  C. was like, "Are you going to eat the breadcrumbs?"  Seriously?  WTF do people think I'm doing?  And, it's not like she hasn't seen me eating.  I come to work every day equipped with a lunch and two snacks.  I informed her that I'm making meatloaf with ground chicken instead of ground beef.

But, seriously - Why do people act like they think I'm starving myself?  Especially a person who sees me with food and eating food every day?  And what kind of a lunatic would eat straight breadcrumbs?  I do have to go to the store now though to buy milk.  Booooooo....  Yes, there are foods I can't eat because they trigger a binge for me.  Yes, I do miss those foods.  But, really, in one way this has been relatively pain free because there's very little time that I'm hungry.  I eat.  I get three meals a day and snacks.  But, in another way, it has been the hardest thing I have ever done because it meant finally confronting the food addictions, carefully planning every meal, and not giving into cravings.

Jilly asked about food plan vs. counting calories.  I do not know what a food plan is.  It is a term I hear tossed around a lot in OA, but nobody has explained it to me yet.  I use the program on Loseit.com to both track calories and to plan my meals for the day because I do very carefully plan every meal.  Normally, I cook breakfast, lunch, and dinner all at the same time.  That way I'm not tempted to say:  HELLO PAPA JOHN's!  I have a planned, measured, etc meal that I can just pop into the microwave.  Because meatloaf takes a little more effort, I'm making it tonight.  Then, I will eat my portion for tonight and put the rest of it into freezer bags and into the freezer.  Then, it'll make its way into the rotation of what I eat this coming week.

Things I am absolutely not eating: 1) Anything with refined sugar in it.  I never knew before how hard it was to simply avoid sugar.  Plus, people really wig out when you say you can't have anything with sugar in it.  What must my diabetic friends go through?  2) Red meat.  It's sad, but red meat is a trigger for me.  I love nothing more than a medium rare steak.  I am still using beef broth to cook my rice and beans in.  I think it actually helps with not having really bad cravings for red meat.  3) Any kind of snack food that you can just kind of eat repetitively without thinking about it - including carrot sticks.  I know that seems odd, but I've caught myself munching on baby carrots when I wasn't even hungry.  It's just a compulsion. 

I am also paying passing attention to the glycemic index because of being insulin resistant.  I've traded white bread for wheat bread, white rice for brown rice, and regular pasta for wheat or whole grain pasta.  The white bread was the one that really hurt.  I really liked the Italian bread I used to get, but the honey wheat bread I've traded for is not half bad.  I've discovered that I like brown rice more than white rice because it actually tastes like something.  I didn't used to understand how anyone could like rice.  To me, white rice has no taste.  It is just something to fill you up.  I try to eat completely vegetarian either two days a week or five meals - they don't have to all be on the same day.  A lot of times I eat beans and rice for lunch, but then I have chicken or fish for supper.  On Saturday, I get a mashed potato.  I go to the store special to buy one single potato.  The cashiers at Food Lion probably think I've lost my mind.  I only buy a single potato at a time because I figure by the time I got through a five pound bag it would have started getting funky.  It also removes the temptation to make more than a single serving of mashed potatoes.  I love me some potatoes.  I am, afterall, Irish.

Something else I'm avoiding is Second Life.  I have a theory that it might be one of my triggers.  Instead of going out and doing something like hiking, biking, playing ball, whatever - I sit in front of the computer playing Second Life.  Instead of getting up off of my fat butt and making a healthy dinner, I sit in front of the computer, playing SL, and snacking all night long.  I haven't given it up completely.  I do consider some of those people to be my friends like I consider some Shelfers to be my friends.  But, I do spend significantly less time in world than I used to.  Instead I'm watching a lot of British television online because it doesn't require me to interact with it.  I want to get a decent set of speakers for my computer, so I can put up the volume and still here it if I'm ratting around in the kitchen.