Glazed Donuts...

Heidi

Yesterday morning I received a call from one of my oldest friends. We met each other in middle school and have remained friends ever since. The beauty of our friendship is we place no demands on each other. We'll talk every day for several weeks and then not again for several months, but we both know that no matter how long a span of time passes between conversations or visits, we are only a text away.

 We've been talking pretty regularly these past few weeks. I've been been doing most of the talking and she most of the listening, but this morning was a little different. After I updated her on what was going on with me, she shared some of the difficulties she has been dealing with this past week. It felt good to be on the listening side this time. As the conversation wound down, she told me she had one more thing to share. The real reason she had picked up the phone and called me was that she had been driving back to her house after a frustrating morning when she saw the Krispy Kreme store looming in the foreground with warm glazed donuts beckoning her. So instead of giving up to the urge to pull over, she decided to call me instead. Heidi has been one of my regular village supporters, and this time she was turning to me to return the favor. I laughed, as I recounted my unsuccessful adventures with food this week. I told her I had not been nearly as strong as she, so I was doubly impressed with her creative strategy.

As I hung up the phone with a smile still on my face, I thought to myself how a simple conversation with a friend can calm both the mind and the body  and was a far better prescription than glazed donuts or peanut butter eggs. So as a thank you to my dear friend, and hopefully to help in a small way, I wanted to share her link to her fundraising sight for Libby's Legacy and their Hooter's for Skooter's Ride on April 16 in Orlando Florida. I have written about Libby's Legacy and all they are doing to help fight Breast Cancer in my previous posting entitled "Remembering a Friend". Please help Heidi reach her goal and support a worthy cause in the process.  http://www.scooters4hooters.com/fundraising.php?id=134

I'm Still Here....

I just returned from a business trip to NJ, and I've been carrying around some blog guilt. The good news is I've been keeping up with my fitness routine; the bad news is between the personal and professional things going on in my life right now, I just haven't been able to make a daily posting.

One of the things I've determined this past week, is that while I have never thought of myself as a stress eater, and in fact, tended to lose my appetite when I was under a cloud, my habits seemed to have changed. The past several days, I haven't managed to walk by a dessert, and my road trip choices have been beyond questionable.

So on the four hour ride home, I had time to ponder my steps backward in the eating department, and I came to the realization that in times of stress, I crave those same comfort foods that I have spent most of my life indulging in...french fries, chocolates, cokes and burgers. And while my mantra has been moderation, I am far from moderate when it comes to my eating habits if I am the least bit stressed.

The question now becomes, "How do I find a moderate position moving ahead?", and the answer is I really don't know. I don't foresee a reduction in my current stress levels for the next few weeks, so I'm going to have to work harder to stay on top of my game. I do know that once I acknowledged my missteps to myself this afternoon, I was able to turn down the offer of one of my past favorite snacks....Tandy Cakes (a delicious concoction of peanut butter, cake and chocolate), and instead contented myself with a few peanut butter crackers. So maybe the answer is as simple as mentally shaking myself from time to time. And that of course is why I need my blog. It helps to focus and clarify my choices. It provides a gentle voice whispering in my ear when I start straying from my path. So for anyone wondering about my commitment or lack there of, I'm still here, I'm just facing a few more challenges this month. Hopefully my village will stick with me; my journey isn't close to being over.