OCD? Counterproductive? Maybe.

I've been thinking a lot lately about living a healthier lifestyle. Not just about the take out thing, but the convenience food, the refined stuff, etc. I've been adding in a lot of sugar substitutes to allow myself to indulge in things I shouldn't be having in the first place (read: soda). If the regular stuff is so bad for me that I have repeatedly tried to cut it out of my life, why then would I want to add in a version of it that's even worse for me?

The other thing I've been thinking about is my caffeine intake. It's bad. Really bad. It's even starting to keep me up at night. But that's what 4-5 cups of coffee, several cups of tea and 1-3 cans of soda will do to a person. I think the realization came to me in two waves. First, there was the night that my skin was so dry I couldn't stand it. I realized I was thirsty. Two glasses of water in under a minute later, no change in my thirst. So I started trying to remember the last time I had a glass of water and I was at a total loss. Perhaps the week before? I had no clue.

The second realization was when I was reading someone else's blog about being a mother of a young child. She was talking about lack of sleep and used the phrase "robbing Peter to pay Paul." It's all going to catch up to me at some point. Whether I get sick and have to sleep or just crash, at some point I have to stop this.

OK - I will pause here while you finish giggling about me eating only healthy, non-caffeinated food.

Are you ok?

Seriously though, something has to change here. I'm not sure how to do it. I'm always looking for a way, a method, a SOMETHING. I have to wonder if I just get so bogged down in the process that I can't reach the goal. Or do I just like making procedures and lists and schedules and plans? Maybe I should just plan things without ever expecting to reach the finish line. Maybe that would provide me with more satisfaction. That's the OCD part. Let's move on to the counterproductive part.

There's a lot of bad food in mys house. Several hundred tea bags. Lots of Jell-O and pudding. A ham. I can't throw it away; I'm way too cheap for that. But that means I have to eat it all by the time I start my life makeover. Today, in an effort to use up stuff I made these incredibly sugary, buttery brownies. They are so good and I may just eat the entire pan of them tonight. But there are two sticks of butter and half a bag of brown sugar still hanging around. How many more brownies can I eat in my effort to get healthy?? I finally drank down 4 cases of soda left over from a BBQ in August. And then there are the hot dogs. I'm going to make myself sick getting healthy!!

I think what it comes down to - and this is no shock to myself or anyone else - is that I need to stop leading an all or nothing life. It is possible to be one way sometime and another way at other times. Now if only I actually believed that.