So I made cheeseburgers for dinner last night with homemade buns and big salad on the side. That sounds relatively healthy right? Especially considering what I had eaten earlier in the day. The patty was a quarter pound and the bun was small. The salad consisted of lettuce, spinach, carrots, onion and homemade yogurt blue cheese dressing.

I feel good about what I ate yesterday.

Brett wanted to go get ice cream around 8:30 and I told him no, which was hard. I wasn’t hungry and I wasn’t craving anything sweet, so passing up on the actual eating of the ice cream wasn’t difficult. But just SAYING no, was difficult for a couple of reasons. One of them I just recognized as I was typing this paragraph.

So first- it was hard because I’m not his mother. He is a grown man and he doesn’t need my permission to eat ice cream. Telling him no made me feel controlling and bitchy. I mean, I knew it was the best decision for both of us, but I’m certainly not his boss. At the same time, it makes me mad that he asked in the first place.

During dinner I expressed to him how I was feeling all day. I told him that we seriously need to CONSISTENTLY make better choices. We do good for a few days but then as soon as we find an excuse to make a bad choice we totally take advantage of it.

We really like the words of Michael Pollan. “Eat Food. Not very much. Mostly Vegetables” He says it’s okay to eat junk food as long as you make it yourself. I agree with this…and long as you remember to eat “not very much”.

So last night, as I’m mixing up the hamburger bun dough, Brett says, “We having french fries?” and I about lost it. “NO! We’re having hamburger buns!”

“What else?”

“Salad”

“That’s all?”

“YES!!!”

Little did he know, I had made up a new food rule just minutes prior to this conversation. ONE CARB PER MEAL Makes sense right? So why was he questioning me?!?!?! He should know!

At this point I was fuming, thinking to myself, “Potatoes AND buns! What the hell? I’ve told him a hundred times! Potatoes are NOT a vegetable!!! Dammit!”

Sitting at the table in silence, we began eating our cheeseburgers and salads when finally I realized…he had no idea that I’d made a new food rule.

“I’m sorry. I’m in a shitty mood…I just–” tears begin forming, “I’m just so frustrated. I want so badly to have a baby. And every time I eat a carb I feel like I’m feel like I’m choosing food over being a mother”. I continued “And the other night, when you told David that we’re off the wagon because now we’re going to adopt, it really upset me. Adoption has always been an option, but it certainly isn’t as excuse to abuse our bodies. I would love to have a four year old right now, but I don’t want to be a fat mom to any child”.

“So I’ve decided that we should limit our carbs to 1 per meal.”

Done.

Back to the ice cream dilemma. Now that he knows the rule. He knows I’m upset that we’ve “fallen off the wagon”, he knows I want a baby, he knows I hate being fat, he knows, he knows, he knows…and yet he still asks, “you wanna go get some ice cream?” AHHHHHHHH!!!

Like I said, avoiding the temptation wasn’t hard since I was satisfied from dinner and not craving anything sweet. But the more I sat there and thought about it, the better the idea sounded. Not because I wanted ice cream, but because I wanted to share that experience with him. Which brings me to the epiphany I had while writing the second paragraph of this blog.

That’s what we share…food and bad choices. It’s how we spend time together. It’s what we do. We love being gluttonous together– whether is food, laziness or spending money we don’t really have. We’ve talked before about how we enable each other. We are aware that we make bad decisions together. But it wasn’t until 15 minutes ago that I realized, it’s what actually bonds us. It’s like our hobby. And me saying “no ice cream” felt like I was saying, “I don’t love you. I don’t want to spend time with you.”

What the frigg!?