... I made an entire pan of them tonight. I had a box in my pantry, I dug it out, threw in the nonfat vanilla yogurt, and ... BAM! Brownies.

I think I've had five brownies already. I don't even rationalize this sort of eating anymore - all of the working out I've been doing doesn't cancel out the desire to eat five brownies. It might thwart some of the damage that consuming that much sugar can do, but my lifting and running this afternoon doesn't all of a sudden make them righteous brownies.

This still happens is what I'm saying. I've kept off almost 50 pounds and I still get these nights. These nights - when I've been trudging in the snow and cold and muck for almost two days and all I want to do is dive into some brownies. It wasn't because I was still hungry after dinner, or that I was emotional about something, or stressed. I just wanted a big ol' pile of brownies.

Why am I telling you this? Why does it matter?

Because I think we still shame ourselves into a corner when it comes to eating. I think those of us who have been in what they call "maintenance" for some time flip panic buttons when we eat too much of a good thing. As if we ought to. As if listening to our bodies telling us we want something like brownies once in a while is a bad thing. So we tell ourselves we earned it, or we worked off the calories, and we think we need to take part in this mental exercise in order to assuage the guilt we're told we should feel.

Do you know how not guilty I feel right about now?

It's just food, you know. It might give me a sugar crash later, and it might make sleep a little uneasy tonight, and God knows it's really not an optimal choice for someone trying to watch it with her thyroid, but it's just food. Tomorrow I'll wake up and, God willing, it will have calmed down enough outside to take my dog for a walk in the snow. And we'll get back and I'll have my little bowl of Grape Nuts with soy milk - Try the high-fiber vanilla Silk, people! I picked it up accidentally but it is really good stuff! - and then some coffee. Later on, I'll have some carrots and the lean pork chop I slow-cooked the other day, and probably an apple. And then I'll go and run for about 45 minutes before heading home for the night.

I really don't know what I'm going to do for dinner but I imagine it'll involve soup.

My only point is that we have to have enough respect for ourselves, enough trust in ourselves, not to listen to the voices we've been socialized to hear - the ones that cause us to ignore our better judgment, the ones that have us falling off proverbial wagons, eating toxic foods for a period of time, and then latching on to yet another diet, spending our hard-earned money on boring things like pre-packaged meals instead of manicures and CDs and tickets to plays. We allow ourselves to be ashamed for eating a few extra brownies, and instead of just letting them be a night of extra brownies, we decide that they've become symbolic of how we constantly "fail."

It's not failure to want to eat some cheese fries. It's not a failure if you do. It's only failure if you've let yourself believe that eating them means you don't have the courage or strength to continue to take care of your body.

I guess I write this down for me, too. After years of chastising myself for those nights of eating in bacchanalian fashion, when I'd subsequently label myself a fat loser, and continue to berate myself into a bag of Cheetos, I still struggle with the voices that tell me that a night of some extra brownies means I might as well throw in the towel when it comes to taking care of myself.

This, of course, makes no sense. Especially when you figure how much I love to run. How much I love kickboxing. I still don't love the weight lifting, but I've been sticking to it! I love working out. Love it so much I would marry it. And while I will probably never actually love a lunch that doesn't include a big turkey bacon sub on Italian bread with extra mayo and a side of jalapeno chips, I know that I feel better because of I'm not eating this way on a regular basis anymore. That's become enough of a reason for me.

So a night of a few brownies on a snowy winter Thursday isn't the worst thing I can do. Or that you could do. Giving up, however, just might be.

Posted by Erin at 08:50 PM | filed under: Random