Friend of Julie: To Eat or Not To Eat

This past Saturday I found myself in a unique spot.

I had two meetups: one in Salem with a meetup group then one in southern Maine, about two hours further away, at night with another.

The one at night began with a potluck.

Do you see where this is going?

My standing rule is that when attending these gatherings, I bring something I can eat and I bring a lot to make sure I get some.

Well, that's hard to do when you have to leave food sitting in your car all day, especially meat.

I know *I* wouldn't eat meat I knew had been sitting in a car for 10 hours.

So I bought salad and dressing and threw it in a cooler bag with some cold packs.

It worked. It was nice and cold and crisp and I could say I contributed something.

Here's the problem: there was no return on investment.

There was literally NOTHING on that table I could eat.

Nada.

Niente.

Usually *somebody* brings some wings or meatballs... SOMETHING.

But there was nothing.

It was about 8:00 PM.

I had last eaten at 2:00 PM.

I would not get to eat again until after 7:00 AM the next day due to where we were and what we were doing there.

No one would have blamed me for taking a hall pass.

The pasta looked good.

So did the pizza.

The pies, donuts and cakes looked divine.

It was the birthday of the group leader. Was I really going to insult her by not sharing a piece of cake?

Well, I'll end the suspense. No, I did not eat that night.

Truth be told, I wasn't all that hungry. I had water. I had coffee.

When I got up in the morning I wasn't particularly hungry either.

I felt like I could eat, but it wasn't crucial.

In fact, it was another two hours before I would find something to eat and by the time I did I was contemplating continuing on home because I wasn't *that* hungry.

The only reason I stopped was because I had only slept about four hours and I had three hours to drive home. I wanted to make sure I had enough energy to make it.

So I ate.

The best part was being told, "You look incredible. You even move lighter. I see no pain in your face anymore. You don't wince when you stand up. Your eyes are wide open and there are no dark circles, and even your voice and demeanor are lighter. You are losing emotional weight along with physical weight."

Being told that made that little forced fast worth it.

I used to do a lot of justifying.

I would pull through the drive-thru and assure myself that "one more of these meals is not going to, by definition, make things worse."

I would make excuses like, "It would be rude not to try ______ after someone worked so hard to make it."

I also justified it by telling myself that I could be dealing wit my issues with alcohol or drugs but I choose to deal with them with "less harmful" things like toll house cookies and sour patch kids.

The cookies and junk food were killing me, just like alcohol or drugs would.

And, let's just face it. I was told that I no longer looked like a junkie. Seriously, just read it again. I was told that I looked sick and now I look well.

I was told that I once acted sick now I act well.

People who had seen me attack things like cake and pie were astounded when I didn't grab a dozen munchkins to eat with my coffee.

And those munchkins were in every. single. room. during that meetup. It was insane.

So, yeah. I missed a meal.

I survived.

And I have still never cheated on the diet.

It's not time to turn the "Days Without Incident" tracker back to zero just yet.

And I'm still losing weight.

Days without incident: 134