Sin-amon Rolls and Other Deadly Sins

Can you believe that we are in the thick of the holidays? It just seems to have slapped me on the back of the head and said, “Ya bloomin’ idiot! I show up every year at the same time and you still act surprised to see me. Amazing!”. So here I sit at my little laptop unable to focus on any one thing for very long. I’m just about to lose my mind from not running for almost two weeks and I am passing things through my lips in mass quantity that I would never eat during the season. Why just today, I’m ever so proud to tell everyone, that I devoured an entire cake pan of homemade yeast cinnamon rolls one of my evil clients made for me. Isn’t that spectacular? I had a fleeting (and I do mean fleeting) thought to just eat the middle (the best part in my opinion) out of one of them and throw the rest of the pan into the trash upside down. That way I wouldn’t be tempted to say to myself, “They’re still in the pan and I haven’t thrown any trash on top of them. That wouldn’t be unsanitary.”. But noooooo! I had a more brilliant idea! I’ll just eat the middle out of all of them to make myself sick and not want cinnamon rolls ever again. So that’s exactly what I did. I was even two fisting it. It was a cinnamon roll orgy! My God, it was beautiful and ugly all at the same time. Nothing but cinnamon roll shrapnel left. I’m seriously glad no one was here to witness it. I did manage make myself sick…for about an hour. I will always love the cinnamon roll, though. I just need to learn to respect the cinnamon roll. Thank goodness I was strong enough to turn the remnants in the pan upside down in the trash or else Chris might have come home to me on the couch with Princess Leia on a leash.
Chris and I decided not to go out to eat for 2 weeks after this past Sunday. Well we made it to this evening. He had pizza and I had pasta. We agreed that it perplexed us that we crave comfort food more when we are dormant. Why don’t we want that stuff when we get done with a long training or an intense workout? Are we distant relatives to bears with their hibernation phase? “Better stock up, we’re not gonna move for a few months!”.
Since I haven’t been running, I’ve been swimming more. I may not be the most graceful swimmer, but it’s a great cardio workout when you are unable to run or ride. So they’ve seen my face quite frequently at Jim Daily Fitness and Aquatic Center. People are so funny to me in justifying what is in their diets (see above paragraph). I walked out of the gym on Sunday morning and the trashcan was overflowing with sacks and wrappers from every fast food joint known to man! Pizza Butt, McFunnel’s, Taco Hell, etc… A sacred temple of crap! People eat this stuff on a daily basis and tell themselves that it’s okay because they will be spending 30 minutes (reading a magazine) on the treadmill or elliptical not pushing themselves because it’s all they could do to even stick their big toe on their right foot in the gym. Someone asked me once what my idea of junk food is and the first thing that came to mind and out of my mouth, honest to goodness, was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Don’t get me wrong, I used to live on fast food and grease laden, cheesy concoctions. When you are young and wait tables for a living you learn to conserve your money for more important things like liquor and cigarettes (yes, I even smoked for 10 years – 10 years ago). The nutritional value, quality and taste of food was somewhere at the bottom of the list of important things.
So I start officially being coached on this Ironman in KY on December 29th. I’m pretty excited about all that I will learn about myself and my nutritional needs. I’m supposed to get on the elliptical on Thursday for 30 minutes and again for 45 minutes on Saturday and report on how I felt. Until then I will try to veer from this self destructive path of eating, but in the meantime I’m pretty sure I will be enjoying a cinnamon roll or six…