Surprise Noodles

The day has been pretty good foodwise. I woke up late so I had some leftover salad with chicken breast and honey mustard for breakfast. I wasn't hungry again until dinner time, so I had a bigger meal than usual -- a fruit and protein shake and some stir-fried spinach and tomatoes. I planned for a big snack later on and just ate a yummy bowl of Asian salad.

But while I was preparing it, I got a surprise. I thought the Asian salad mix I bought yesterday was just thinly sliced veggies with a packet of dressing and almonds. When I opened it, I found myself face-to-face with one of my greatest fears: chow mein noodles!

I should have thrown them away, but they were mixed with the almonds. I had a serving of them in my salad figuring they were already included in the calorie count for the mix, and it was delicious. Of course, that was not enough.

I have already been back twice for a little pinch, but I can't keep giving in to my inner fat kid. She will "pinch" the whole bag away, and it does not seem like much, but already the taste is triggering cravings I've been avoiding for days, for greasy fried rice and (for some reason) big warm fattening chocolate chip cookies.

There's no way for me to get any of that stuff, but I might as well not make myself suffer. I am going to have my second planned serving of the salad, but I am going to give the noodles away.

...

Okay, done.

I'm not happy to report that I ate some of them, but the majority are never going to touch my lips. I sat and picked the almonds out of the bag with the fat kid telling me every second to just shove them all in my mouth or dump them into the salad.

When I was done, I had a pile of noodles that probably totaled 50 - 100 calories.

That's nothing, right?

Wrong. It's that 50 - 100 calories, times a few hundred or thousand, that I'm carrying around on my body. It's that little portion of treat that I tell myself is okay day after day, that snack that triggers cravings for something worse. The cabbage tasted great at first, but after a bunch of noodles my fat kid is whining at me to eat around the vegetables and get at the "good part".

The funny thing is that after I gave the noodles away, I wanted to eat out of the stress of avoiding food. I began to cram the salad in my mouth before realizing this. It really is a vicious cycle, isn't it? Our cravings wear us down until we give in.

I think tomorrow I am going to have nothing but raw and cooked vegetables and fruits and tea - no sauces or dressings, no meat or nuts, no condiments except for a little olive oil if I need it. Then if that goes well, I'll eat raw fruits and veggies for the next two days. I feel like I need some detox to break myself of the desire for binge foods and really start to enjoy the way fresh food tastes.