This past weekend was a diet disaster. I am going to have to work out A LOT to avoid some major angriness of the scale. Schedule conflicts have made it hard for me to get to the group exercise classes that I love. When I don’t exercise enough, I don’t get the benefit of the lovely endorphins, hence I feel less motivated to do ANYTHING and one of those things is to eat right.
I have been having the evil BUTTER craving lately. I want popcorn with LOTS of butter on it. I mean dripping in butter. Yummy. Is it PMS? Probably. I have been doing some analysis to try to find out what I really want when I get the butter craving. It has played a recurring role in my life for quite a while now. For at least 2 years, once every couple of months it comes on so strong that no matter what I do, I cannot resist it. I usually do not have butter in the house, so most of the time it’s not possible to give in to it. But sometimes I buy butter for a recipe or something, and I have it. Sometimes, I do not even think about it. It can be in the fridge for weeks and I don’t touch it. But sometimes, I look at the stick of butter, and it says “I think you should buy me some popcorn. We’d have such a good time together”. And this is exactly what it said to me last week. And I was feeling down, discouraged, in need of a friend…having a good time was exactly what I needed. I tried to remind myself what it would be like after Butter and I partied together. I would feel fat and weak, demoralized and defeated. I tried to summon up an image of myself after a popcorn indulgence. But there was a SMILE on my face…NO, WIPE THAT SMILE OFF – YOU WILL FEEL LIKE A FAILURE! But no matter what I did, I just kept on smiling. So, I bought some popcorn, and the rest is history. Orville has this new line of popcorn that is really good, so I bought some. I managed to eat 2 of the 3 packages with no interruptions…but I elected to share bag #3 to shave off some of the calories (I did not eat all 3 bags in one day!).
I haven’t beaten myself up. I allow myself to indulge every once in a while. I do not let it turn into a total backslide, that’s all. I do like to try to find “themes” in my life to better understand the need for certain foods. I was feeling really alone. Lonely. Like no one understood my fears and challenges, and no one cared. I felt invisible. And since I was invisible, eating buttered popcorn was a great idea! No one would be able to see the pounds that it would add to my body, the shiny lips that resulted in scarfing down a bag of dripping popcorn at a time. Aha! The lightbulb has been flicked on. So, I need to be careful of feeling lonely and invisible, because it makes me do outrageous things to make me more visible. But I don’t want to be visible in that way. I want to be visible in the sense that I do things to make myself visible, that my works and personality would make people look my way and want to get to know me better.
So, I am off to make a sensible dinner and then I am hopping on my bike for a 20-miler. I’ll need to do that every day this week. Just the price I must pay for solving my problems with food (again). At least I learned something about myself!
You’re right – it’s great that you learned something about yourself. And now that the splurge is over, it’s back to sensible eating and exercise. No worries.
Popcorn is actually a great snack! But when we add too much butter, sugar or salt, it definitely loses some of it’s virtue! I do advise my clients to avoid microwave popcorn due to the chemicals used to make the butter flavor. Instead, I suggest they pop their own (stove top; no popper needed) or buy some already popped. Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods brands make a popcorn that is so sweet, no butter is needed. Also, Half Naked brand is super sweet too, by using sweet corn and a hint of olive oil instead of butter.
And my absolute FAVORITE popcorn on Earth is definitely Little Lad’s Herbal Corn from Corinth, ME. I get it at Whole Foods, but sometimes have trouble finding it. You may have to call them for store locations. I am telling you, Yum Yum Queen, once you taste Little Lad’s Herbal Corn, you’ll never crave butter-covered popcorn again. Definitely check it out!