Day 39: Finding Purpose

 

Day 39 of Nutrisystem 2.0 dawned cold and clear. The snow overnight didn't even cover the grass completely and it was 29 degrees when I got up at 7:45. I'd have liked to sleep later but my bladder didn't want to wait and Abby was hungry. When I sat down with my first cup of coffee I decided I need to have a more interesting, and perhaps productive, topic for this blog each day. I called yesterday's blog "gratitude" because I am so grateful for the blessings in my life.

“To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.”

I decided to use self-love as my topic today, and accepting yourself is the first step. iFit brought this topic up in a Valentine's challenge, so that is where the idea came from. Ironically, when I walked into Wegman's today, love hit me from every direction. They went ALL out with Valentine's day items ! They had a stand set up with chocolate covered strawberries. They had some pre-packaged but they also had a cart with an attendant that would make a custom box for you. I bought a pack of 3 for myself. Each was coated in chocolate and then rolled in pink, red and purple chocolate shavings. They also had massive quantities of flowers. I also saw (and considered buying) individual portions of huge shrimp (6) with cocktail sauce. Mom would have loved that ! Heart shaped steaks. Heart shaped fruit trays. Valentine cakes. Individual size and larger heart shaped chocolate chip cookies decorated with frosting. Decorated sugar cookies were tempting but I have a couple in the freezer. Intermixed with the Valentine spread was the Superbowl foods. Big containers of chicken wings and mac & cheese and other items from their usual ready to go prepared foods. I bought a small bowl of General Tso's chicken, as I last had it at the casino and it's about the only thing I miss ! The family size packages of veggie lo mein and the General Tso chicken were very tempting, but I resisted ! I did buy a piece of their strawberry shortcake, which I absolutely love. Last item I grabbed was a small container of a feta and olive salad. I guess mentioning those items in my blog the other day made it catch my attention. I was really wowed by what Wegman's had done and they clearly have someone smart working on their marketing. All of this delicious food is the first thing you see when you enter the store and it was busier than I have seen the store in a long time ! I was tempted by the fresh hot pizza too, but just as I thought about grabbing a slice of pepperoni some lady stepped up to the counter to place a big order. I didn't want to wait so I kept moving. Dodged that bullet ! 

So, self-love wasn't going to be about food, but in the end food is all I know. There, I said it. The question is: how does one go about changing that ? You see, loving myself with food got me to 304 pounds. Loving me with food brought me from 160 to 247. Loving me with food is not going to get me back to 160. So I need to find another way to love myself. I had intended to treat myself to something for Valentine's Day and today ended up being that day. So I had the General Tso's. I had the strawberry shortcake. I had the strawberries. I had a small amount of the feta & olive salad. I capped off the day with some saltine crackers. I decided if I was going to blow my diet, I was going to do it all in one day. Soft goal for tomorrow is to do the 2 workouts I planned today, along with the 2 I planned for tomorrow. I think I self-loved myself a little too much today, but the damage is done.

What did I eat today ? Well, I started with a Jimmy Dean Delights breakfast sandwich - then ate everything listed above. I also brought a bowl of mixed nuts to bed. Calories far exceed 1200.

I didn't leave the house today with the intention of buying a Valentine smorgasbord. I needed to pick up my mail and I needed a few things at the grocery store. Once I got in the car I saw I was going to need gas soon, so after the post office my first stop was Delta Sonic. Then I headed to Wegmans and bought a bunch of stuff that wasn't on my list ! Then I went to Walmart. So weird - I was able to get everything on my list except the frozen green beans that you steam in the bag. They also didn't have the 30 pound bags of dry cat food that I use to feed the outdoor cats (and probably a few raccoons and other assorted wildlife). I bought a 20 pound bag of Friskies but decided to stop at Walmart in Central Square on the way home, for the green beans I wanted. They didn't have any of the Great Value brand so I had to buy Green Giant, which cost a little more and were smaller bags. Apparently everybody bought green beans at Walmart today ! I'm a little tired of salad right now so I've been eating a hot veggie at lunch. I still have 2 heads of lettuce and all the other fixings, so I plan to cut up a salad tomorrow. Can't let all that stuff go to waste. I did manage to get the last 30 pound bag of the dry cat food I was looking for, along with 2 boxes of the seafood Fancy Feast variety, which is often in short supply. Once I got home and put everything away I parked myself on the couch with a cup of coffee - and that is pretty much where I stayed for the rest of the day. At Walmart I picked up a different wet cat food to try. It's Iam's Perfect Portions. Abby likes to eat every 2 hours or so and I waste so much food opening the 3 ounce Fancy Feast cans because she doesn't eat it all and Minnie eats more dry food than wet. I started putting the leftovers out for the stray cats rather than throwing it away. Anyhow, I gave Abby the new food when I got home and she ate every bit of it ! The portion is 1.3 ounces, which is nearly half of a typical can of Fancy Feast, so I don't feel like I'm giving her less. I actually like the smell and texture of this food too, and I know Iam's is a good brand. Minnie came into the living room and was staring at me and I figured she wanted to eat too, so I gave her some. She ate most of it and Abby finished the plate ! I placed an Amazon order tonight and got 8 more boxes of it (there are 24 portions per box) so I'll have a supply on hand. I still have 150 cans of Fancy Feast but I ordered 60 more from Amazon. That and the 50 pounds of dry food should hold me through March ! I also bought 2 cases of litter today, so I have 3 of those on hand as well. I spent a lot of money today but these days you have to stock up on things you use frequently, because supplies are not reliable. Before COVID you'd go to the grocery stores and the shelves were full in the pet food aisle. For some reason the cat food aisle is often empty but when I look in the dog food aisle the shelves are full. I did a little searching online and it seems there have been shortages of aluminum, which is needed for the cans, and many more people have cats now so there is more demand. It might seem like I'm buying ridiculous amounts of food but I feel like I have to since it often goes out of stock. Can you believe COVID has been disrupting our lives for almost 3 years now !?!?!?!? So much for the "2 week pause" that led to my working from home .. permanently ! When COVID started I was feeding Fancy Feast Savory Centers. Those were small cans and it wasn't cheap, but the cats liked it and I could afford it. Production of that stopped and you couldn't get it for months (turns out it's manufactured in France), so I ended up switching to the regular Fancy Feast, which both cats took to. I didn't bother going back to Savory Centers. Anyhow, over the past 3 years I was constantly looking for their food in the grocery store and also ordering from Amazon and Chewy - whoever had what I needed in stock and had the cheapest price. I stock large quantities now because of the fact that I often can't find it in the grocery store and it's often not available online either. A week ago the seafood Fancy Feast was not available on Amazon (unless you wanted to pay double the price to 3rd party sellers) yet today it is available again. I think people are buying it up on Amazon and then reselling it on Amazon at ridiculous prices. Today was the first time I noticed the Perfect Portions food in the store, so I don't know if that has availability issues. Since my cats liked it I ordered a bunch on Amazon but I'll continue to look for it in the grocery store. My plan is to feed them the Fancy Feast 2-3 times a day and then supplement Abby with the Perfect Portions. I also buy beef baby food for Abby. She gets that every morning for extra protein. I may try to give her the Perfect Portion instead and see if I can get away from buying the baby food. A jar of baby food is 1.29 and a Perfect Portion is only 67 cents, so half the cost and again, less waste. She doesn't eat the whole jar of baby food and even though I throw it in the fridge I often end up tossing it unfinished. Would you believe that the quest for cat food has given me the most stress during the pandemic ? I never once worried about having enough food for myself because Nutrisystem never missed a beat. I didn't even worry about toilet paper ! Lucky for me I had bought a big package right before the pandemic hit. 

It's late and I'm tired .. so I'll pick up the self-love topic tomorrow.