Well, I stepped on the scale last night. I’m up twenty pounds over the last 18
months. That may not sound like a lot,
but it amounts to a 20% weight gain. As
I refused to weigh myself when I stopped smoking mid-December, I’m guessing
that at least ten of those pounds have come on in the last four months – and I
KNOW most of them have been added in the last two months.
I wasn’t stuffing my face with cake. I was eating super healthy most of the time. For a two week period, I practically stopped
eating grains, dairy, meat, or processed foods.
I knew I was gaining weight. I
knew I was eating more than usual. I just didn’t realize what the deal was!
Added to this was a super-heightened awareness and the fact that I
was ALWAYS thinking about food because "OMGI'MGAININGWEIGHT!!!". When I
sat down to dinner – an approved meal in my book – I would totally pig out
because, I mean, this was when I was allowed to eat, so I needed to be sure to
stuff my face completely.
So what caused this? I finally
figured it out yesterday as I found myself sucking down Skittles while working. Yes, I have gained weight as a direct result
of quitting smoking, but it’s not quite as bad as I thought…or at least it’s
very fixable - even if it will take six months or so. I was worried that as a
result of quitting smoking my metabolism would slow down, or I’d become hungry due to a
lack of blood sugar regulation. Neither of those are my problem.
It seems that, in the past, whenever I wanted to take a break, stop and
think, or procrastinate, I would smoke a cigarette. Since I’ve started working again, I’ve wanted
to do those things a lot more. And since
I’m working from home, it’s ten times easier to get up, walk to the kitchen and
make a slice of toast, pop some popcorn, eat a handful of saltines, or munch on an
apple.
Further exacerbating all of this, I stopped drinking
multiple glasses of wine each night about six weeks ago. Guess what that got replaced with?
For some reason food seemed more acceptable while
working. Picking up the violin in the
middle of reviewing a contract seemed a bit much while taking three-seven minutes to eat a pear
seemed legit. After all, I needed energy
and brain food, right? As it turns out,
I’ve now eaten enough to count for two months worth of advance meals. AAAAAHHHHH!
So you get the idea.
I replaced a twenty-times a day habit that burned ten calories per break
with one that added ~100 or more. It doesn't take a genius to figure out where things ran off track on that one. The hard part was determining why I was eating more and when. So now the fun part is figuring out something
NEW to replace the food habit with when I need a break. So
far I’ve come up with:
- Walking around the block;
- Listening to my ipod for 2-3 songs;
- Keeping a bottle of water nearby and taking swigs of that
now and then; and/or
- Sweeping the floor or doing some other quick chore.
I could also pick up one of the instruments for ten minutes
or so, but I think the idea is to get up, move around, and do something that
burns around ten calories.
Anybody else have any great ideas for those of us that can’t
live without the ten-fifteen minute break every hour?
