Monday, September 10, 2007

September 10, 2007

Temptation, thy name is pizza.

I want you to know, I faced a demon today...and won! I'm going to make you all dance a happy jig for me. Nope, you may have to take out full page ads in the New York Times.... Nah, I'll settle for a little "Wahoo!" and get on with my life. Gotcha interested, don't I?

It all started with a special evening out for our family. We were invited to a private party at local place, Magic Mountain, with a group that serves families with life-threatening illnesses, Adventures for Wish Kids. Magic Mountain has video games, go karts, mini-golf, laser tag, and climbing tunnels. Basically, its a little kids' shangri la.

Problem is, Magic Mountain also had a den of eeeevil.... It had a free BUFFET dinner...with pizza. Pizza!! Wheat and yeast filled, carbohydrate-laden, ooey gooey circles of heaven.... Hmmmm...how good it smelled... I mean, you need to understand - it smelled good enough to climb inside of and set up housekeeping. This was not normal pizza smell. This was pizza-smell of the Gods.

So how do I happen to arrive at the lovely mountain of magic? Starving. All out, over-the-top, seriously-considering-gnawing-on-a-child famished. Rather large mistake on my part.

In all fairness though, I just plain didn't have time to eat today. This stupid healthy habit stuff is time consuming! I made my egg/onion concoction this morning, but I could never eek out the time to find a healthy lunch option. I had kids to get clean, dishes, Mt Fujiyama of laundry to start sorting, 2 kids in online school to work with, my 10 month old time-bandit...you get the idea. I had a typical mom's morning. By the time mom's morning morphed into mom's afternoon - we were aiming down the road for speech therapy. As we ran pell mell out the door of speech, we were zooming down several highways to pick up my daughter's loaner wheelchair. From there, I broke land speed records in a grocery store to get the way-past-the-point-of-necessity baby formula. Post formula? On our way to meet Daddy at the infamous Magic Mountain torture chamber. Whew! I suppose I did do a few things today. Who knew?

See my point though? In the process of running hither and thither - it would have been stinkin' easy to slide my van right through any of the 5 (yes I counted them!) Golden Arches I passed. Truth be told, I had to restrain the car with the might of Paul Bunyan. Its passed through so many Golden Arches, its magnetically attracted to them. (hmmm, wonder if that has anything to do with those 100 pounds I have to offer up?) But no, I fought the good fight - and waved fondly as I passed each of my former Meccas. Poor Ronald, he may fall into deep dispair without my patronage.

So much for my dogged perserverence. It landed me right in the middle of Temptation Island - at a free buffet - surrounded by one of my most fiendish foes...pizza. Curses!

However, I am THRILLED to report that I "just said no". I didn't say it nicely, I didn't say it kindly. I said it with a plethera of whines, complaints, whimpers, and bitter rantings. I said it through gritted teeth and quite the pained expression - but I said it! Hah!

I hope one of my cyber friends will forgive me sharing something she emailed me, but this would appear to be the perfect time for it. Last week, as I began this insane quest, my friend Brenda sent me the following note:

"Maybe your dieting could take on an additional anti-cancer theme: For every fat cell you're shrinking, imagine the demise of a cancer cell. For every calorie or cell you're not taking in, imagine a cloning process of cells that could've turned into a mutant cancer cell but the process of control took over and eliminated cancerous activity in favor of healthy multiplication. I hope this tiny tidbit helps you stay the course and not feel as if you're deprived without a justifiable cause!!"

Brenda, I want you to know, you are a certified genius. Just as the smell nearly had me down for the count, I began thinking of all those cancer cells that I could theoretically deny "food" to. I managed to not only get the pizza for my children, but get it for them - and walk away from it, and load up on salad instead. Again, I want to make it clear. Passing on the pizza was not some emotional nirvana. There was no great "inner peace" achieved tonight. It totally stunk more than the keesters of a thousand skunks. But I did it! Hah!

Lest you think I have become some great diety of dieting...I do have a major confession. I may have walked away from the pizza and lasgna (oh, did I forget to mention they had lasagna too?), but I indulged myself by trying a bite of each of the three dessert pizzas. Truly, it was only one small bite of each, but I regretted them as soon as I took them. I mean, crud. Not one of them was worth the calories that were no doubt packed into that one tiny bite. What a waste! Oooh - I was so irritated with myself for being so weak. My hubby jumped to the rescue, though.

First, he completely "got it" . When I griped about the bites not being worth the calories, he said "If you'd have waited - I could have tasted them and warned you they weren't worth the effort". Before I had a chance to whack him senseless with a carrot stick, he immediately redeemed himself by saying, "But I know that it wouldn't have mattered. You needed to taste them for yourself. "

Arguably, he still was in jeopardy of being whalloped at this point. Then, he became my knight in shining cotton - and offered up this bit of wisdom. "Honey, don't look at it as a failure. You didn't eat even one bite of pizza. You got it for the girls, you sat here while we ate it - but you never touched it. That's a HUGE victory! You had to take those tastes. Because next time, you won't even want to - you'll know they're not worth it. This wasn't a failure - it was a lesson. You passed!"

Wow, who knew you could fall in love with your spouse all over again...over a few lousy dessert pizzas? I guess it goes to show you, love really isn't blind - it just pretends to be when it cares enough. When its needs to see - sometimes love has superhuman vision and focus.

Thanks to my hubby tonight for his encouragement. I'm putting a few extra points in his husband account for the next time he forgets my birthday...

Breakfast: 2 eggs, mountains of onions, 1 tomato, 2 C coffee with 2 TBS creamer each

Lunch: - nope, no time

Dinner: Huge salad to distract me from pizza purgatory, salad had hard-boiled eggs, cheese, pepperoni (which I pretended was cooked and on a green pizza) 2 diet cokes, 3 small bites of 3 different dessert pizzas. (remember - not a weak moment...a lesson. A lesson. A lesson. Keep repeating that - I am)

Alicia - www.crazycancermom.com

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

alicia, i gotta tell you... you rock!! i don't have a cancer kid; i know a cancer kid if that counts -- but i think you speak from the heart and to many people when you say you are sick of it all.... and i agree. our children deserve better. your child deseres better. and there are so many things wrong with all of it that there's nowhere to even begin.

and hey, you _gotta have a bite of desert pizza. there is nothing wrong with that :-) make sure you eat enough calories too... otherwise it's defeating things.

YOU GO GIRL !!!!!

Anonymous said...

Hi Alicia!

WAHOO! Good for you! Forget about the dessert pizza; you had the strength of Hercules to be able to face the temptation of pizza while feeding it to your kids and STILL sticking to your diet!

OK, everyone join me here:

GO ALICIA!
GO ALICIA!
GO ALICIA!

Take care,
Sue (Rachel's mom)

Theresa Burchfield said...

Alicia-
I tried to post to you the other day, but our multi-billion dollar corporation computer server crashes frequently and I was halted in mid-sentence. Anyway, I am inspired by your mission. I have been looking for a while for something to do for someone else. I have been involved in political campaigns, volunteer work with our schools and more recently have been trying to get our local youth football league to let me be a fundraiser for them. They are too interested in who's in the clique (not me) to allow me that opportunity. Then lo and behold, I see your web site while visiting Chris and Zayla's Caring Bridge site. I love your sense of humor! I can completely relate to your quest to shed the weight. I am a plus size woman myself. I lost 82 pounds several years ago and have nearly gained all of it back as a result of lung disease(steroids) and a spinal fusion which makes it very painful to excercise.(good excuse, well, excuse anyway.) I know what you're talking about when you are frustrated by TSA. I went through that when my ex suffered a traumatic brain injury. It took 4 years for us to get a final word that this was as good as it was going to get. Keep the faith, I am a total stranger to you, and I don't have a pediatric cancer connection, but since I started reading your blog, I've thought about you at meal times and I'm praying for you and your family. I look forward to hearing your progress. Keep the faith and God Bless you!
Theresa

Anonymous said...

Way to go Alicia! The occasional dessert is good, don't completely deny yourself dessert or the weight will come back. I am trying to lose weight right along with you, but have yet to get the serious control that it takes to make much headway (2 pounds in two weeks). Thank you again for doing this for our kids and the kids that will come after them.

Anonymous said...

Whoo! Hoo! I am caught up!

You. Go. Girl! You are doing great! I really enjoyed your blog entries - not because I like to see you torture yourself, but because you have such a way with words and make a situation that could really KO you into one that you can laugh at (well, sort of), and share it with joy.

You are a true inspiration, lady. And I'm very proud to know you.

BTW, I shared the video you sent on my blog - http://ohginnyfan.livejournal.com/195548.html
Sadly, no one commented. I also passed it on to the email group I know C from. (I actually sent it twice, by accident - I was sending it to a second group of friends, and well, sent it to the other group twice at first). Anyway, I am planning on posting the video again on my blog - and share it with some people at work - they've been on vacation.

You are on such a great mission - and I love the thought that each fat cell that dies is a cancer cell deprived! You go!

sending you *hugshugshugshugshugs*