Alohamora!

It’s back to the old low-carb standby for me starting this week. I’ve been fiddling around with the “eat reasonable portions of anything you want” plan (which I assumed would be a rough approximation of calorie counting back in the day) for a few weeks to no avail. I am simply not cut out for that kind of culinary freedom, people. Left to my own devices, plan-free, I seriously overestimate my intake of vegetables and underestimate my total intake of absolute garbage. It turns out that relying on primarily vegetables, lean protein and nuts/dairy is the only way my body will part with fat. So, I’m back at it today. This morning’s breakfast consisted of two Boca sausage patties and a scrambled egg in a whole wheat tortilla, with tomatoes, green peppers and onion. Lunch was tilapia and a spinach salad with feta. Snack = hummus and celery. Dinner will be a chicken/vegetable/brown basmati stir fry with blueberries & cream for dessert. So really, despite my whining, that’s a pretty nice menu. Truth be told, I am just looking forward to not having to think about food any more. Unlike sane people, I think about food MORE when I’m not “dieting”. Eating on a plan actually helps me by taking away some of the choice – because my “choices” are all bad, and I don’t say that lightly. I have the palate of an eight-year-old. When I’m in a bad spot with food I could eat nothing but Spaghetti-O’s and pizza and toast slathered in butter, and I’ll do that until I snap myself out of whatever food phase I happen to be in.

Yesterday’s get-in-there-and-eat-something-decent! thing left me feeling considerably better this morning. I’d had a vague, persistent feeling of nausea since the 8k last weekend and it was starting to get on my nerves. On Monday I had a weird food aversion to the taste of beef and was suddenly all “ooh, I’m going to become a healthy vegetarian!” and I was feeling morally empowered, etc, but then I had a taco on Tuesday and did fine. So, bummer.

Tonight is the “Winter Wonderland” 5k at a local horse farm. It’s the home of the biggest light show in the area and so you run (presumably) through the park as they light the holiday display around you. I can only hope that we don’t actually run in the fields, as I already need a new pair of shoes and running in thoroughbred pasture isn’t going to help that fact. It’s a nice day out there, sunny and cold, and I’m feeling energetic and happy so there’s at least a passing chance I’ll beat my first 5k time from last month (33:19). I was an idiot today and wore high heels though, and they always kill my poor left knee.

In other news, after tonight’s run I’m going to prop my eyelids open with toothpicks and stay up to go to the midnight show of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. No, really. Just me and A. I wish we had some teenager around to take and blame it on, but we’ve decided to embrace our inner geekiness. No use trying to hold back the tide with a spoon, I guess. Hee!