Avocado Avocado!

Breakfast
2 eggs, cheddar cheese and spinach in an omelet form, about a cup of orange juice. Sugar free rockstar.

Lunch
Spinach salad with feta cheese, green onion, avocado and orange. Raspberry vinaigrette dressing.

Dinner
2 quesadillas, 2 heaped tablespoons of sour cream, 1 avocado.



Exercise
35 mins Zumba
20 minutes stretching

I ate breakfast in a rush today. I was running behind this morning because of my inability to wake up before 9am. I should probably start going to bed earlier, but I just can't. I can't wait until the sun comes up at 5am and I only need 3 hours of sleep to get through the night.

Lunch happened around 3:30ish, I cut up the avocado which was nearly bad and the orange, threw it in my salad and went to town. It held me over until dinner where I had a couple quesadillas with my last avocado.*

I'm going to stop buying avocado. I love them so much that its starting to border on obsession. Also, I only go shopping once every other week, so when I buy several avocados, they all ripen at the same time, and I feel "pressured" to eat them. And by pressured I mean overjoyed. But alas, even with all the healthy benefits of avocado, eating two whole ones a day simply is not going to produce the results I'm looking for. So, I've got one today, one for tomorrow, and then I'm limiting myself buying ONE one the rest of my shopping trips. I wish they froze well.

(*I wrote all the above just before lunch. Its 1130pm, and I've just finished eating dinner.)

The difference a few hours makes is astounding. The differences a few minutes make can be legendary. The difference a few seconds can make could rock your world.

I struggled to make dinner. I was in the middle of washing dishes, and just didn't have a feeling of  "fuel body" but I was worried once I went to bed (or even just sat down) that I would realize I was hungry, and then suddenly be to the point of not caring what went inside. So I stopped washing dishes and started preparing dinner. It should have been a relatively easy thing to do. I make dinner every night, I have since I was 12. But noticing that I wasn't hungry, did I then decide to pass on the avocado? It seemed to be just wasteful to not eat the whole thing, but damn, two avocados in a day? Really? Is that going to help me lose weight? I thought about throwing the other half away- and why that simply wouldn't be acceptable. Its avocado. Then I pondered the possibility of eating it all, as a final hurrah of sorts. But how are you supposed to lose weight when your are constantly having a "last hurrah!"? Not very easily, I suspect. Finally I threw my hands up in the air and wondered how the hell I was supposed to lose any weight at all if my thinking about food is so disordered? How the hell am I supposed to navigate that mess I've weaved over the last 25 years?

Breakthrough. I mashed up the whole avocado. I would eat it mindfully. I would focus all my attention on the texture and flavor, the way the cheese melts and the tanginess of the sour cream. I would not allow myself to feel guilty. I would stop eating when I was full. If that meant I ate the entire avocado, then that was okay and I was not going to feel guilty about it. I've already made a decision to never keep that many avocados in my house again. 

I turned off the tv, I sat down in front of the table. I closed my eyes and took a breath. I asked my body on a scale of 1 to 10, how hungry it was. It answered with a surprised 8. I began to take my first bite.

And then I heard a rapid exchange of knocking, or to my already panicked ears, gun fire. (You have to understand, my neighbors who recently seperated, have not had the kind of relationship that is afraid of phsyical arguments. When alcohol is involved, who knows what could happen. I'm not ready for that kind of eventuality, and I freaked out.) I grabbed my plate (because I was starved at that point, like I hadn't eaten all day and not just the last 6 hours) and went up to my room. I locked my door. I ate at the avocado, and the rest of the first quesadilla, with little mindfulness. I was too busy listening for screams, shuffling bodies, or sirens. But the food calmed me. It served its old purpose well, I guess. I came back downstairs after I was sure the "coast was clear", and sat down, turned on the tv and continued to eat the second quesadilla with the rest of the avocado. I am completely overwhelmed at how much effort I had to put into tonight's dinner. It should have been a simple, quiet, dinner, followed by bed. Instead I'm rattled and worried, and feeling a little guilty about how I ate.

On the bright side, no more Avocados.