Cash your chips in...

Why would you want to cash your chips in, when you can eat them?? "They" say (I will tell you later in another post who "they" is. And there have been many "theys" in my dieting life!) when you start a diet you need to clean out your cupboards. You know, get rid of all your high fat, high salt, high calorie, high cholesterol(translation high tasting, highly comforting, highly pleasant, and highly satisfying) containing foods, snacks, and condiments that you have in your frig, house/kitchen or possibly car, bedroom, or desk drawer at your house or the office. This is the start to getting on the right track or should I say starting my new lifestyle change...picture me pulling out the nearest wastebasket and vomiting in it as I say "lifestyle change", not that vulgar, four-letter word DIET!! Are you happy all you PC people? I don't care if you call it "rainbows with happy little leprechauns jumping up and down with pots of gold in their hands", it sucks!! And it's hard! And it's painful! And as much as the benefits outweigh the risks, I don't have to like any one bit of it! DIETS SUCK!!! There, I feel better!

So, today I finished the first task as I enter this new "healthy lifestyle". I cleaned out my cupboards. I have to face the fact that chips are a deadly weapon in my house. Maybe I would even go so far to consider them weapons of mass distruction! So, on Sunday I started this little clean-out project and got rid of half a bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos. Good start, you are thinking. Well, I finished off the other half on Monday. Yep, you guessed it! I ate them! Oh! And did I mention that I had purchased a bag of Munchos over the weekend for a girls night out snack. (I had the pleasure of joining some friends up north for a girls' night of eating, drinking, and laughing with a great group of women!) Well, of course everyone had brought yummy snacks, dips, chocolate, nuts, fruit with fattening caramel dip and cream cheese dip and then, as if we hadn't had enough, we head out for dinner that night. Needless to say, we never opened the bag of chips I had purchased. "Score!" I think to myself; now I can take them home and it is totally legit...they were purchased for the weekend, we didn't eat them, and I bought them, so I take them home. And there is very good reason as to why I have them. I am frugal. I don't believe in waste. So to stick with my core principals and values in life, I will sacrifice. I will take one for the team! That's it! I am the hero! The chips are coming home with me!!

But now I am home and there is NO WAY that I am opening these chips. I already used the excuse that I am hung over to justify to my husband (and myself) the breakfast sandwich from the gas station which is firmly planted in my chubby, sausage-like fingers as I walk into my house. Oh! And did I mention I brought home a doughnut for my son and my husband?(And, by the way, there was an extra one in my purse...Holy man! How did that get there? And those little devils at the gas station that MADE me buy that doughnut, how did they know my favorite is a regular long john with chocolate icing??) Opps, that's right, I could not resist. I bought it! Now come on people, there is nothing like heart burn all dressed up in a sweet roll to top off a Sunday morning hangover!! And if you are going to be bad, be bad with someone else! So if I bring the doughnuts home, then being bad with my family is not as bad as being naughty by yourself, right? Well, what if you eat your doughnut without them knowing you even had it? Ok, I am bad. I am a sneak. I know it, but probably never readily admitted it. It's been this way forever. Yep, since I was little and my sister loves to tell the story of when she busted my climbing up on the dinner table after supper one night and sampling a finger full of butter out of the butter dish. Yep! that's right pure, Grade A butter. I also remember back to my childhood, sneaking into the kitchen and quietly grabbing an ice cream treat out of the freezer and scurring back to my room to devour it and hide the wrapper just hoping my mom would never find out. I loved it when she kept the treats in the basement freezer cuz I wouldn't have to be so quiet...less risk of getting busted. And I always knew how many were in the box at any given moment and when it would be more obvious to someone that there were more missing than my father could possibly consume on his own....Golden Nugget Bars from the Schwans man, I can remember it like it was yesterday.... Ok...back to my chips story....As much as I wanted to open those chips the minute I got home, I know I didn't dare. So, I will be good. I will resist.

Now unpacking my vehicle like I am running a race, but the only race I am running is myself vs the highly processed cheese on my wanna be McMuffin hardening like a rock before my first bite! I drop all my crap in our entry way...duffle bag, cooler, extra pair of shoes I just had to bring, but never wore, AND my prized possession....that glistening bag of trans-fatty goodness lying so helplessly on the tile floor. Then out of nowhere comes my lanky, long-legged, big-hearted, small-brained greyhound! And in the midst of her my-mommy's-home-and-all-is-right-in-the-world excitement, she steps on the chip bag and pops it in one big "POW"!! Like an orgasm (let me tell you, food is way more exciting than sex to me...any day! And my husband will 2nd that one, i bet!), I exhale with relief!

No harm done my friends. Not a single chip crushed, but there lie an open invitation for me to consume one, two, or maybe three or four handfuls of salty, greasy, yummy, cholesterol bombs all wrapped up in a crispy, little, airy chip!! Yeeeessssss!!!! And there before me, without any fault of my own, another half of a bag of chips....gone. Hey, if you can't blame the kids for your bad eating habits, then surely blame the dog!!

My husband finished the rest of the Munchos on Monday and I completed my end of the mission by eating the last 1/4 of a bag of regular potato chips and Dean's french onion dip for breakfast on Tuesday morning! Yep! My cupboards are pretty much cleaned out now!

My excuses are getting fewer and farther between for not getting started on my goal of 10 pounds this month. I guess I won't say that I haven't started cuz you all know I have done a lot of thinking and some pretty serious writing/blogging about it. I just haven't really put the effort into eating right or exercising...wow! Do you notice a pattern?? I think I do. It's like a 100-pound pattern I think. Hey! At least, I'm consistent, right? Like every other diet, I wait until the last minute and hope that the scale cooperates on weigh-in day. Or I start out well the first two weeks and then blow my diet there after. You see, I play these games in my own head. I am working on makeing this time different. This time I'm going to try and beat myself at my own game...you'll see!
More later! :)