Caring: 24 / 7

When I wake up first thing in the morning I’m ready to go. I care. I’m fully committed to having a healthful day.

I go downstairs and pack my lunch, still fully committed. I load up my lunch box with fruits, vegetables, oatmeal, sometimes a few nuts, dried fruit, sandwiches made from roasted red pepper and 35 calorie cheese wedges, a little peanut butter for my bread rounds, apple butter, healthy leftovers, salads made from wheat, herbs and vegetation, salads made from artichoke and beans.

Obviously not all of this on the same day, but those are the types of things I have on hand all day at work.

All day at work I care. I eat my healthy food, I drink my water, I feel good. I avoid the doughnuts, the bagels, the soft pretzels, the chocolates, the cakes. When someone is kind enough to bring a fruit or vegetable tray to celebrate a birthday instead of butter cream cakeness – I have a bit.

I’m committed, I care, and I feel good.

Then the end of the day comes… the five PM hungry time.

I get in my car and drive home, and during the hour long drive the hunger builds, and the caring drops.

I get into the house, and I no longer care.

It doesn’t take long to spoil an entire day, nor does it take much – a few too many crackers, a handful of tortilla chips, some sugar wafer cookies. I know how fast the fat calories build.

I binge, and then I know it – that half hour lapse in caring has spoiled the whole day. From a weight loss perspective, that day may as well not have happened at all.

So then it’s all wasted – and what does it matter if I have a second helping of something at dinner or eat the meat I made for Ted and Kyle instead of a vegetarian alternative?

In a twenty four hour period, my plan is ruined by the half hour per day when I’m hungry and can’t seem to care. Every day is day one, and every day I ruin it.

How do I care – 24 / 7?