Binge-man Vs. Breakfast Zero

BREAKFAST ZERO: Last night I was determined not to eat any sweets or snacks. Ilsa said at some point I'm going to have to sacrifice to see any changes. This french fry ban is fine, but I'm not a big french fry dude. Obviously, my sweets intake is driven by something big.

I felt fine at 10:30 when I got home, though I heard the dulche gelato kind of calling me. I didn't say anything, but it must of been written on my face, because Betsy sweetly asked me to not eat gelato so late at night. Part of me wanted to eat some just so she didn't think I wasn't eating it because she told me not to. But if I ate some, I'd have to write about it here, and how lame is that? So I showered, watched some TV, read more in the food-education book, put myself down around 12:30.....hungry, easily 4/5.

I remembered how when I travelled Europe by backpack, my food intake dropped drastically because of the language barrier, lack of cash and the lack of an open kitchen to graze in late at night in youth hostels. I went to sleep hungry often, because I had no choice. I lost weight. But now, 1:30am and staring at the ceiling, wide awake....I'm of the theory that if you can't sleep, you should get out of bed and do something till you feel like sleeping....but all I wanted to do was eat! Eat gelato.

So I got up to zoom in on the boob tube, and it occured to me. Weekends I can loosen up a bit and indulge. But 5 work days, I have eat in a more goal-oriented way. It's 2 in the morning. Rather than snack, let's do breakfast. Breakfast Zero! Toasted a garlic bagel, slathered it in the good butter. Enjoyed eating it. Clock said 2:12. Still hungry. Want more. This is the begining of a binge, I thought. OK, I will wait 8 minutes, and after those 8 minutes, I'll eat gelato. For the first 2 minutes, my eye kept wandering to the time, but then the TV distracted me and all of a sudden it was 2:30. Huh. Felt sleepy, went to bed. In the battle of binge vs. breakfast zero, zero won. I had a small twinge of pride - I didn't avoid late eating, but I did go waking hours without sweets.

BREAKFAST: 8:30am, large bowl of hot oatmeal and a small banana, small amount of lime seltzer, hunger 3/5. Would of been hungrier, but was groggy and not feeling too hot. The organic oatmeal had no discernable difference than the usual Quaker Oats. I put in a pinch of sea salt and a pinch of evaporated cane suger - noticed it tasted too salty! Need butter and maybe milk next time. Banana was oddly satisfying, maybe my body is in a bit of a sweets-riot mood?

AM SNACK: 10am, 24 oz still water, mint.

LUNCH: 12:30, turkey and swiss on whole wheat, big bag of sunchips, hunger 4/5. At the deli accross the street, the smallest bag od sunchips was the 99cent bag, but the whole bag had 20% daily sodium, which for a pile of chips is low. When I ordered the sandwich, the counter person asked, "fresh turkey?" to which I said yes - it was real baked sliced turkey breast, not a salty pressed mess! It was a little dry and stringy, but tasted pretty salt-free. And only 2 slices of cheese, so what I thought would be a salt-bomb of a lunch was actually pretty reasonable. An hour later in a meeting, I found myself having energy and felt good.

PM SNACK: 5:15pm, 6 lindens cookies, hunger 4.5/5. Feeling very tired, groggy, very hungry, slammed by meeting all day. Almost went for a haagen dazz bar, but thought I should save ice cream for the good gelatto. Lindens are not organic, but at least they're baked in NYS. About 10x more ingredients than the organic cookies, and now that I'm payiing more attention to them, they leave a slightly unpleasant bitter feeling in my mouth after eat them which I don't get from the organic cookie. Hmmm. Wanted this snack because I'm going to Trader Joes after work to pick up something to go with the corn, didn't want to be starving...

DINNER: 8pm, sauted shrimp and mushrooms, sweet corn on the cob, gelatto. Hunger 3/5. Fun cooking raw frozen shrimp from trader joes, in a simple preparation of butter, garlic, lime juice and tabasco (and a dash of sea salt) - for some reason I never ooked shrimp, it was surprisingly easy, encouraged by the instructions on the bag. I want to learn how to peel and devein myuself, so I can get frsh from chinatown. The sweet corn from the farmers market was horrible, not sweet and a little gummy. Gelatto ruled as usual.