Mental Health Portion of the Show

You Are Invited
To: Jane's Birthday Party
When: Saturday March 20th
Time: 1:30 - 3:30pm
Where: Playtime for Kids on Merivale


Jane is the daughter of a very good friend of ours, Laura. Jane and Alexis get along great, even though there are two years separating them. Yesterday, along with Jane's party, we also planned a small get together at my sister's place with Lacey and Adam. It turned out Lacey and Adam were town earlier in the day then they thought they would be, so they decided to come along to Jane's party since they know Laura too. After a hurried stop at Toys-R-Us to get Jane's present and a collective wrapping job in the backseat of the car, we were ready to head in. We get past the front desk, take off our shoes and as I'm helping Alexis get her coat off, I look around for Jeff, who is nowhere to be found. The next thing I hear is a bunch of kids screaming Jeff's name. I look up to see Jeff already in the play structure, surrounded by kids, playing. I married a child. After playing in the structure for a bit it was time to get the kids (and Jeff) into the room for food and presents.
I decided that yesterday was going to be a day where I didn't think about what I ate. To go along with the mental health portion of this program, I decided I needed a day to, not eat everything in sight, but to take a break from counting calories and fat. Although my instinct told me to go along with the counting free day, the logical part of me said to stay on track, that it hasn't even been a full week yet. I, whether it was smart or not, decided to go counting free. For breakfast I did very well. I had two slices of whole wheat toast, (about) 1tbsp peanut butter with some strawberry jam, and a cup of skim milk. Pretty close to a perfect breakfast for me. At the party, after eating a lunch consisting of a pogo, some nachos and cheese, a banana and a red Slush Puppy, I felt pretty gross. I decided that if Jeff could get away with being a kid, so could the rest of us. Lacey and I ran into the structure and started playing James Bond. We ran, jumped, avoided crocodiles, rolled through spikes of death, raced down slides and climbed towers. We crawled, crouched, leaped and swung. We had the time of our life! Half the time we we're playing with Jane, who was our teacher, or JJ, who was our fearless leader, but the other half, it was just Lacey and I (joined at times by Jeff, Adam, Nat and Steve) just having fun. By 4 o'clock we had played ourselves out, and we were starving. I left the party exhausted and happier than I've been, after doing exercise, in a long time! After a quick trip to the grocery store, we decided to head to Extreme Pita for lunch. I was seriously craving pizza, so I decided to go with the flat baked pita (on whole wheat) with peperoni, mushrooms, green peppers and mozzarella cheese on it. It was delicious, and totally satisfied my craving for pizza. I had to stop myself from looking at the board that said how many calories that were in it, but today is a new day, and I'll probably look on the website, just to know. We headed out to my sister's around 7pm and with us we brought cheese and crackers, chocolate fondue, bananas, marshmallows, strawberries, organic blue corn Tostitos (for the guacamole Natty made), three bottles of wine, and some beer for the boys. Natty had made guacamole and had bought Smart Food (god help me). Although I didn't count the calories, I do know exactly what I ate. I totally screwed up the chocolate fondue...it was pretty much chunks of chocolate in a bowl with a candle underneath, so no one really had any chocolate. I, myself, ate half the bowl of strawberries, a banana, 5 marshmallows, two glasses of wine and probably a total of 4 cups of Smart Food.
I woke up this morning and my first thought was that I had screwed up my whole week, my second thought was that since I screwed the whole week up, I might as well continue to screw it up today. My third thought was, "God, I'm effed". Instead I got out of bed, went to the washroom, and weighed myself. I know I promised not to, but I knew if I didn't that I would have continued to eat badly today. The scale surprised me. It also made me quite happy. I also know that if I had gotten on the scale and it hadn't been an OK number, I would have either a) eaten like a pig all day and told myself that I'd start again tomorrow, or b) starved myself all day today with the hopes of tomorrows weight being lower. I know my thought process isn't healthy, but I also know that I must be doing something right if I'm actually willing to put this all out there for everyone to see.
Tonight we're taking my uncle out for his birthday. We're going to the buffet at the slots. I am going to stuff my face with vegetables in hopes of avoiding the dessert table. Wish me luck!