It has never been a secret that I love carbs, in all forms. I am a carb junky, could happily live off of bread and bread alone for the rest of my life. I’d be a blob of a person but hey, my taste buds would be happy! lol
During dragon boat season I try my best to go super low to almost no carbs. It sucks. It is hard. I pretty much hate it. Buuuuut, it’s for a good reason and the reason is a solid one so what’s a girl to do? *rolls eyes*
Over the past little while I have decided that this season I can’t do what I did last season. Last season I was high protein, high healthy fat and super low carbs. I was allowed max 150 grams of carbs a day, but really, should be more like 125 grams at the most, and those got in my body via fruits and veggies. It’s depressing how many carbs are in veggies, sigh. Well, it worked, I worked out hard 6 days a week, ate a super restrictive diet and I saw a change, a positive one, a tightening and toning, and I felt fairly good about how I looked…well, to a point lol. Thing is, I got so obsessed with food that if I deviated even a tiny bit I felt huuuuuuge guilt about it and would be convinced that one piece of bread or that extra serving of salad that put me over my 150 grams of carbs per day had derailed my whole effort and it would take me at least a week to fix. Yeah, I get obsessive about these things and a tad nutty, it’s just my way I guess. 😛
I’m getting a bit off track here…
My point is that I think removing something entirely from your eating plan can be a risky game. Your body needs some carbs, sure not as many as most North Americans eat in a day but some. And freaking out about going a tiny bit over, or refusing to meet a good friend for dinner because you know the restaurant won’t have anything that fits in your meal plan, or snapping someones head off because you want bread so badly you could cry are not good things.
There must be a balance somewhere!
So this season I am still high protein, high healthy fat and low carb, but not crazy gonna kill someone just so I can eat their sandwich low carb. More of a don’t eat carbs 90% of the time, but every now and then it is ok. And if I do eat carbs have it be a small portion and still have a balanced meal. Oh, and the carbs have to be really worth it, not just eat them to eat them, ya know?
In reality what this looks like is this: I don’t eat any carbs at work, I try my best to not eat carbs in the form of bread, potato or rice in a restaurant, I still don’t own rice or potatoes or bread so I can’t eat them at home…hmm, so far, that’s about as far as I have gotten with my strategy.
However, for all that I can control what I do and don’t buy, I can’t control what other people give me as presents. Oh how I wish I could! A friend at work brings me presents, almost always food presents, and no matter how often I tell her she doesn’t have to do that she still does. She won’t take no for an answer! This evening she comes to work, plunks down a Tim Horton’s bag in front of me and says “for you dear!”. I could smell the bagels! They smelled soooooooo good! Bagels have to be one of my all time favourite form of carbs. It just sucks that one bagel is equal to 5 bread servings, FIVE!!! That is ridiculous! So guess who doesn’t eat bagels anymore? This girl! Well, try telling that to ML, she just won’t hear it. Not only did she give me bagels, she gave me three bagels, three blueberry bagels! Now how am I supposed to be able to resist that?? *groans*
On the drive home I ate one, I can’t even bring myself to feel bad about it, it was so soft and fresh and tasty, omg was it tasty! But then I kept thinking how I have two more in the bag and while I can sorta condone eating one I can’t eat three. And yes I know, I wouldn’t be eating three in one sitting but spreading them out over the next couple days but to me that is almost worse. It’s like throwing a carb bomb into three days worth of eating, so three days in a row I completely mess things up? I don’t think so!
Enter willpower! The only true protector against any food arch nemesis lol
There is a homeless guy that is always in this one intersection when I drive home from work, he walks up and down with an empty cup wanting people to give him money. When I got to that intersection I asked him if he would like some bagels and he said yes, he seemed really happy about the idea. So the bag got handed over to him and there ended my potential sabotage to my eating plan for the next two days. And bonus, I did a good deed! 🙂
Now, if this was last season and I had eaten that bagel I’d be beating myself up about it and feeling horribly guilty. Right now? Well, mostly I feel tired since it is late lol and I do feel a bit bad cause I didn’t neeeeed the bagel, but I am looking at it as an unexpected treat that I enjoyed. 🙂 End. Of. Story.
Arch Nemesis!
The Amazing Shrinking Woman 