Avoidant Behavior Is My Friend

Thank you, Spark, for providing me with a place where I can spend lots of time not doing my homework and still convince myself that I'm doing something "good" for myself :)

I have a paper due on Monday at midnight-- a paper that is a giant waste of my time that I would rather gnaw my own arm off than work on right now--so of course I am here, blogging.

Things are going well. My body is starting to shed some pounds, I'm starting to feel the difference in a few pieces of clothing and I've been very good about watching what I eat and how much I eat. There are so many times when I wish for ignorance is bliss mode. For example, I would be a far happier person today if I didn't know that my favorite Starbucks beverage (Venti No Foam Soy Earl Grey/Awake tea latte depending on whether I need to be caffeinated or not) is 235 stinking calories.

I still have them, but the whole cost/benefit analysis usually has me ordering a calorie-free iced tea instead most of the time. It's just not worth it.

That seems to be the theme of my dietary life lately. It's just not worth it.
That yummy morsel just isn't worth dying young. That tasty tidbit is not worth the size 24 pants it costs. That nommy nom nom nugget of goodness isn't worth the heart disease it will promote. That festival of deep fried goodness isn't worth the way I feel when I look in the mirror. That mood soothing binge on sweet/salty/fatty food isn't worth the havoc it wreaks on my self esteem.

I did some rough calculations and toyed around with some of the tools here on AvoidYourPaper.com and I realize that I could be at a respectable weight in May of 2014 if I apply myself. Why May 2014? Because that is when I will be done with grad school and start a career as a nurse practitioner. Scary isn't it, the idea of me writing prescriptions? Run for your lives sick people of the world, you could be my patient. But I digress...

I don't want to be that person who says, "do as the fat person says, not as the fat person does." How on earth can I tell people to exercise more, eat less crap and maybe they won't need so many diabetes/cholesterol/high blood pressure meds when my overly generous backside won't fit on a roller coaster?

I mean, let's be serious here. You put me on a spinning bike and my ass is so big that it looks like there is no seat at all. My butt swallows the thing whole. Yes, I always sit in the back row so no one notices the seat swallowing butt of doom, and that's ok and all, but really, I'm in no position to tell others how to improve or maintain health right now. I have the knowledge, sure, but I don't have credibility. My health credibility is like -2 right now. No street cred here, yo. I know my butt will get smaller in the coming months, and that's wonderful, but it needs to shrink a lot before Jenn, NP will be the physical embodiment of health promotion. Over a year before I will look the part, if you will.

So there is a bigger purpose at work here. There is an enormous fat-filled difference between "do as I say, not as I do" and "I did it, you can too, trust me on this." Assuming I eventually do the giant time sucking paper, that is.


In other news, I just figured out that a local restaurant that makes the BEST baba ganoush has their nutrition info online and I can have 15 freaking ounces of wonderful eggplant goodness for something crazy like 160 calories. I may be turning purple in the next few days as I have been eating baba like it is going out of style.

You're turning violet, Violet! Yup, too much more eggplant and you can call me Violet Beauregarde, and if you know who that is and why the reference is appropriate, you get the AvoidantBehavior.com gold star award of the day.

Simple pleasures, like finding out one of my favorite foods is super duper diet food, make this journey a lot more fun. I have to focus on the eggplant win and try to forget about the Starbucks *sniff* calories of doom.