Oh wow!! Your little ones reading is amazing!

I just wanted to stop and say hi! I'm sorry to hear about your recent binge, keep on track! You've got an awesome method and you're doing great!

I had been meaning to share a snippet of my last weekend with you about one of your homeland treats.

Last Saturday, I was in the T-shirt trailer going about my business when my little brother tossed a bagful of stuff from a local c-store. I paid no mind to its contents though the unmistakable bulge of potato chips largely imprinted the plastic sack.

Time had passed and lil bro and Jim had already made quick work of the crisps. At some point I was offered some Australian Premium Black Licorice that was hidden at the bottom of the bag. To be honest, I had never seen this product in the states before. Hell, licorice is licorice - or so I thought.

My sweet tooth rarely gets the best of me, but this, this licorice, omfggggg. Simply constructed like nothing here in our country, so soft, so chunky, so chewy, soooo tasty, was about to put me on a binge.

After two pieces, I took the bag and put it on the front seat of Mike's pick up, had I not, I would have lost that battle. Damn your Confectionaires

Join me if you will, and share in my disappointment as I sit here eating my nightly Natural microwave popcorn while I write about your licorice. I haven't been this distraught since I found out Cat Cora was a Lesbian. Talk about wanting something and no chance of having it, all in one fell swoop. It's kinda like that.

licorice never really did it for me, but i will eat the good stuff if its about, but the cheap stuff is just garbage eh.

I over ate yesterday too just a bit, but oh boy those wedges were pure gold!

OK. Just one line to prove to myself that I'm NOT disconnecting from my health desiring self - I had a bad weekend - used food help myself procrastinate. I'm doing better today - not great just much better - I need to get more veges into my life.

Randy - I feel your pain on the licorice front - not that I look for it to eat - just that I understand how finding out that you love yet another new version of the sweetly sinful is a special kind of torment. I might watch out for that Australian Premium Black Licorice to make sure I never try it!!

wishes - you have been managing a tough programme with your food lately - I admire the progress you're making - wedges and "every trigger known to man" notwithstanding.

And again - to turn my thoughts towards this, a quick post. An ok day food wise, not great, not bad. No exercise - plenty of walking around though, busy but ok.

I was thinking today that I'm going to let myself celebrate the things I don't do, when I don't do them. For example, that box of chocolates on the staff room table. I was thinking that really the thing to do is not notice them and then it's no biggie, not eating them - but then again there are the days - like this week - when things seem awkward or the control hasn't been there recently - when they have an impact. Those days, and every time on those days when I turn my thoughts away from the box to banana, or the coffee or the promise of some other positive activity are worth celebrating (quietly and to myself! ), as little victories just because that turns the whole moment into something positive instead of something negative and reinforces the turning away.

OK well today was totally crapolla. I have some kinda cold or sinus thing happening, plus, yesterday I worked too late (again), I wasn't relaxed when I got to bed, I slept too lightly and too briefly. At school today, either the children started acting much worse than they normally do, or I was grumpy as (I don't feel too guilty about that bit, cos it's time to up the ante but still... ) and I came home and took my son to the dentist and ate badly again and didn't exercise. About 5:30, fell asleep in front of the computer for an hour or so - upright luckily with my chin on my hands - so I haven't cricked my neck ...

Anyhow, usually when I start behaving as crap as this I stop typing about what I'm doing, because I reckon it's too negative and too repetetive ... however, I am having a go at doing the opposite to see if THAT's helpful to me (so maybe gets less repeats). Hopefully now I will get a good night's sleep and be a bit better behaved tomorrow.

It's odd. Once I would have done all that - had a similar day but my response to it and understanding of it would have been quite different - I suppose that's some sort of help. I let myself feel the positive of the the couple of things I got right today - but by the time I got to sit down at home it wasn't working on me any more. I think I have to try and keep the hormones under better control than that.

bugger about feeling sick as a dog, thats not good at all!
get well soon, And agreed totally about the chocs on the table at work lol. Not that im winning that battle atm

Now that I look back on it, I did feel sick as a dog. LOL. I didn't think of it that way at the time. I just thought I'd stuffed myself up. I felt heaps better today though.

Today I ate ... not that well, but not at an extreme. I didn't have a walk in mind - need to fix the mindset once again - but as I pulled up at home tonight I remembered, and figured I might go after I collected my daughter from her shopping trip - and then when I got her almost home we had a phone call that sent me back again to collect her mobile phone. So I called it a day.

I want to go for a walk when I get home tomorrow. I have to try to help my daughter get her card back from the bank first, but I really want to give myself that type of downtime afterwards.

I'm posting to help myself turn around my motivation. It was really badly balanced this morning. I'm saying "badly", meaning that it was balanced with me being unsure which way it would tip. What I need is for it to be unbalanced in favour of eating properly.

So having won the little battle to start typing, I now think I will be okay. I don't know where this came from ...

Last night I didn't get the walk. By the time I'd helped my children with the driving and other things they needed, it was too dark. Also I was mindful that I needed enough veges to make my evening meal satisfying, and it was. Also, I did get some pleasant healthy downtime early on - but - I still ate too much sweet stuff later in the evening - not at an extreme but without fighting my impulses at all for a few hours. I let myself stay up way late too. I tried to watch a movie with my girl, but I fell asleep for a while, too early in the night, then I made myself revive to finish little things that interested me, and after that I wasn't tired and didn't notice the time. So I stayed up late, so then I woke up late - and I had to fight myself to eat my normal breakfast - in the end I sort of did - but the tomatoes looked gross, so I didn't get any, and then I was blowdrying my girl's hair and forgot about my egg (luckily my son turned it off before it burned the house down ... ) So I ate leftover chicken and no veges.

So then my food balance was a little worse still.

So probably the reason I wasn't inclined to eat a normal breakfast (even though normally I want to), was about it being Saturday and waking late and smelling bacon. Why did I have to win it? Because a few times lately I've modified my breakfast for the weekend and then eaten badly at other parts of the day. The normal breakfast was the safer choice.

Wanting to eat badly after breakfast was probably because I had to fight to eat properly in the first place, and then still didn't quite make it to normal.

I ate a yoghurt instead. (80cal) And pushed myself to get on here. That was touch and go too. It was useful that I'd already decided to try and put something in my diary every day (I know this is Saturday not Friday but I felt guilty about not posting last night).

OK. That will do for writing now. I know these thoughts aren't pushed to conclusions but I need to do other things as well. Getting them done will be more help to me in the long run.

It is a truly beautiful mild sunny day here. I'm going to get a piece of it. Also I'm going to work on some long term planning for school. I'm sure it's my insecurity about my work, and my sense of it's omnipresence that is the underlying reason I'm not making more progress with my health. (I don't mean that to excuse anything - just that I see it's an issue which would pay off for me - if I could manage it better.)

So time to get some shoes on and tidy this desk so there's space to work here without touching the computer. I'll walk the dog after I get feligirl from dancing, do some programming, and eat a standard lunch later on.

This evening will probably be the next trouble spot. I'm going to plan to do some kind of writing. Maybe programming if it's going well, but if I have that pen sticking in the paper feeling that writing them has sometimes given me before (even though other writing doesn't), then I will write something else I feel like doing.

So, that should have been a good plan A. However I had no plan B and when my timing was off for 5 minutes plan A pretty much unravelled. And then I remembered it was about to be Mother's Day and had to shop at a bad time ... So nah. Not a good day, Saturday.

Today was a lot better. Fairly good food. No walk. Lots of work.

And of course, as it's Sunday night I'm working. I did start quite a long time ago.

A busy day, but I felt good and not exhausted despite the amount of sleep being marginal. I stayed at work fairly late, but when I got home I went straight back out without changing my shoes or sitting down, and had a great strong walk. The good thing about that was that I hadn't made any special advance decision to do that - there just wasn't any reason why not and I actually remembered, which I liked. Seeing as I haven't been putting in that effort too regularly though, I was a bit dismayed to see my ibuprofen has run out. Wimp eh? It's all about school though and keeping up that balance where I don't feel overtired.

I didn't try too hard with my food tonight unfortunately. I think I still have a slack feeling hanging over from being given chocolate for mother's day. I've shared it so it's almost all done with. I'm thinking I might ask my husband what we're eating, in advance (he always knows - not like me when I'm cooking), so I can sort of aim my expectations around it, and around the way it finishes.

I know I'm not giving my health the attention it deserves, on any level. Today my food was better than yesterday - but no accolade. Exercise ... well the unpredictable, extra demands on my time simply didn't leave space for anything regular. I did at least get enough sleep and felt pretty human all day. Luckily.

I do think these little messages help me keep myself in a steady place - not great but steady rather than deteriorating?

do you notice that when you are tired or in pain you tend to eat more? And go get more ibuprofen! drugs are good mmmkay?

Yes. Absolutely. Tired and/or pain is a pressure to eat - as though trying to balance things up. I know a lack of sleep has it's own bunch of hormones causing problems, but yeah - also, after a certain point - lack of sleep makes my joints ache - and of course, there are a bunch of other things that can do that too.

I got my ibuprofen yesterday. This time 2 bottles, so I can shop again when 1 is empty and don't run out.

Once I notice what's happening, I do take drugs pretty fast! I'm cautious about how long I'll take the same pills for, but for joints or sinus, they can really help a lot with the initial issue and stop everything from snowballing.

It's nice to have a voice in between efforts. It's a form of awareness, if nothing else. The road paved with good intent, so to speak?

I feel like that's all I've been on lately. . .......