Curse of the Cliff Bars

I actually had to take them to the outside trash and throw them out. Those cursed Cliff Bars haunted me the night before weigh in last week. I ate 5. I know, and I just got done telling you all how I was so over the bar addiction. GAH!

5 CLIFF BARS!!

Do not make me calculate the sodium, sugar, etc in those things. I felt so disgusted that I threw them out. Never mind the cost of a case of Cliff Bars (which had been residing in a closet, untouched except when we go hiking, etc).

Needless to say I showed up at weigh in today still feeling like I had a food baby. (Urban Dictionary defines a food baby as: "when you eat so much, that your stomach looks pregnant", and notes that " generally cause discomfort and possible gas or embarrassment" and also states that these generally happen "after committing gluttony").

Committing? It sounds so sinful.

It was.

Honestly, poor sweet Woodstock. I staggered in for my weigh in and told her of my crime- Cliff Bar overdose. (I should note that Skinny Buns and I have since declared that Cliff Bars do not taste - or look- even halfway decent so clearly gorging on them was motivated by emotions, not taste. You can say that again).

Determined to have a good workout, I came up with some new terms which could prove useful for anyone else out there prone to bar abuse:

• Clifftuplets- not just a food baby, but a food baby caused by eating 5 Cliff Bars
• Cliff Notes- when you blog about overindulgence in Cliff Bars
• Cliff Hanger- the feeling at weigh in when you would rather hang than see what Cliff has done to your weight.
• Cliff Diving- the moments before you make the big Cliff mistake by opening the first wrapper

And so with a bit of humor and a lot of abdominal cramping, I survived a good strong workout.

All joking aside it really sucked to have to go to weigh in. I elected not to look at the scale, so I did a blind weigh in. But you know what- I have a home scale, and I know how I feel and let me say that I've set myself up for a long week of 'clean up' (that's what I call having to eat extra careful and perfect, on the low end of my calorie range, just to make up for a few dumb choices.

Dangerous Game

First of all, I have been bad about writing, which usually means I write like 4 posts in a day. So expect more.

Second, I had a rough week. I mean ROUGH. You see, I've been playing a dangerous game with eating (and no, I don't mean swallowing watermelon seeds).

On weekends I started this sorta bad habit of eating too much on Friday nights. But Fridays are weigh in day, so I recovered pretty well. Then I started eating more on Saturdays also, which required a lot more discipline to recover. At first it was just extra food that was good for me- like extra cheese sticks or an extra Greek yogurt. Sounds harmless, right?

WRONG!!

Because then I started eating Naughty Foods (sugar, etc) during those times, and recovering became even harder. But last week I did it- I still lost like 2.2 pounds.

And then it happened, I really messed up my eating and I couldn't stop. Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. WHAT!? It was Wednesday before I could get my eating under control. Dang. And do you want to know who I blame? Cliff, who makes Cliff Bars, because that was what I could not stop eating. But nah, I blame myself (and Cliff a little bit. And Piggy).

I always knew this was a risky game, but it was only this week that I discovered how you slowly begin to think you can cheat and then it catches up with you.

Admittedly I did not think of it as cheating at first, it was just a little extra here and there but it grew. And this is pretty much exactly how I lost control of my eating when I gained all this weight. The reality is, taking and keeping weight off is work and requires diligence. No time for lazy, no space for wiggling in extra food. It all counts.

So here I am, night before a weigh in I am dreading more than ANY other weigh in since I started 20/20. But I have learned something, and it feels kinda good to know I have identified what has been happening and taken control of it.

And yep, I'll pay the piper tomorrow, but not next week, or the week after, because I am learning. And that's what its all about...