Life is like a box of chocolates

With the dawn of the new year, and the end of holiday parties and uninhibited eating, came the need to get my diet back on track. I'd been maintaining pretty successfully since reaching my goal back in April, but I'd gained back a few pounds. Over the holidays, I packed on quite a few more (I blame Pioneer Woman's cinnamon rolls, and my inability to leave any in the pan). I rebooted my MRC diet from last winter, but on my own at home, just till I get back down to goal.

The following post is from an email I sent to a couple of friends this morning. They're serving as my accountability partners. They both rebooted their own diets (similar concepts, but all a little different) at the same time, and we check in with each other often and encourage each other. Well, I check in often, and they chime in in response to my tomes. But they put up with me, and that's good.

(I apologize in advance, and cringe to admit it, but I seldom use capitalization in personal emails unless it's for dramatic effect. I considered retyping this, but it's getting late, so I'm just leaving it. I promise not to start blogging with such disregard for the rules of proper writing. Forgive me this once, dear reader. I also have a serious issue with overdoing the emoticons, but I appear to have somehow avoided that here. Small miracle, that.)

last night, i was lying in bed hungry. like really, stomach growling, slightly uncomfortable hungry. my stomach was growling one other night last week, but this is the most i've noticed hunger since getting started on this plan. and it was fine. i mean, sometimes it's GOOD to feel hunger. it reminds us of people who don't have everything they feel like eating in any given day. you know, the majority of the population of the world...

i digress. as usual.

so what does my mind fixate on? i want a box of chocolates. for valentines. i want nathaniel to bring me a big heart shaped (or rectangular. whatever) box of mixed chocolates. probably russel stovers. i want to pick through them and enjoy the mystery of whether they'll have some funky colored fluffy center, or a soft chocolatey fluff, or something more fudgy. 

the funny part is that i don't even really like those sorts of chocolate. i know they're not a great quality candy, and that there are tastier things out there (hello, donuts). it's the nostalgia, though, i think. each of the kids got a little four-chocolate box in their stockings from sherri this year, and watching them eat them, even though i knew what was in each one based on the shape, totally took me back. my dad used to get TONS of boxes of chocolates at christmas time from drug reps and other doctor's offices and heaven knows who else. it was ridiculous! it was before people got really good at corporate gift-giving. i remember the first time he got this super amazing creative gift basket that was something unique and had been created for the specialist's office by a corporate gift COMPANY and we were all like, WHOA! is that a THING?! and i said, i want to do THAT for a living. and now we have pinterest and giving a box of chocolates as a company gift would be an embarrassment.

anyway, back to the chocolates. he'd keep a few at home, but most of the boxes he'd keep in the office for the gals who worked there - the nurse, and front desk gal and my mom and the nurse practitioner. i worked there sometimes, too, after school or on breaks. the main receptionist would work her way through the box by poking holes in the bottoms of each one to see what was in them, and leaving the ones she didn't want in the box. it was both really sensible, and really annoying. but now i'm totally in the mood for a big box of chocolates. i think right now, i'd even eat the weird orange cremes. 

i think i just wrote a blog post in this email. don't be surprised if you see it there later :)

In case you're wondering, the refresher diet thing is going really well! In the first week, I lost over a third of the weight I'm looking to take off to get back to my goal, and so far in this week I'm continuing downward (though obviously at a slower pace than I started). It feels good to be back in control of what goes in my mouth. The sense of lost control is really unpleasant... I hate to say it, and it's not a life change I'll ever commit to permanently, but I LIKE the way I feel when I'm totally off sugar. 

Not enough to quit dreaming of boxes of chocolates, though, I guess.