Meatballs: Or How Other People Can Be the Death of CR

My first day on my plan went perfectly, or purrfectly, as we cat people would say.  I got up the next day, did my yoga and all was well.  I went about my plans and then my mom got some unexpected good news.  She texted me while I was at the grocery store to buy ground beef.  She wanted to make our favorite meatballs because we were celebrating.

So I did.  It was a big deal.  I had just now started back on my CR diet after being completely un-serious about it for a very long time, and Mom wanted to do something special.  So I bought the meat.  I proceeded to eat almost nothing all day to save calories for the meatballs.  I ate quite a few, but I figured it was a good infusion of B vitamins and iron, two things I tend to lack, and it was just one day.  Then back to the plan.

Then the next day while I was out, my mom texted me that she made me more meatballs.

I've lived with my mother for two years.  I came here to help her when she was having trouble recovering from a hip surgery and ended up getting a job I loved teaching in the public schools, so I stayed.  I was supposed to move back to Philly in January and did for a bit but then the pandemic hit, so I came back here.

To state the obvious, it is very difficult to live with someone who doesn't do CR when you want to do CR.  I never tried before.  First I was alone, then I was with MR.  I had pressure from friends when I was eating out, but during the early and most successful days of my CR, my daily calories were so low that I could eat out and not worry about it without losing track.  I often kept my calories to 1000 a day, but would go out for a meal with friends and probably pack in 2500 at once.  Seem impossible?  Read the calorie counts on menus and you'll see it's actually quite easy.  And I drank wine back then - those calories add up.

I am moving back to my own place in Philadelphia in literally two weeks.  In between I'm spending a week at my father and step-mother's house, where the dinners will be fabulous creations by my father (who calls himself my step-mother's personal chef) but during the day there are no structured meals so I can eat lightly.  Then I will be back in my own place, carefully controlled environment where everything is set up to suit me.

People see food as love, celebrations revolve around food, etc.  We know this.  I find it difficult to get around.  I don't want to make anyone sad by refusing their loving gift.  At the same time, I really need to get back on CR.  My blood pressure has been running higher than I like it to these days - partly due to stress (okay, almost entirely perhaps, as last time I had it taken was at the urgent care center when I was waiting to be seen for an acutely painful case of poison vines!) and I'm not messing around with stroke risk, not with my family's history. 

It's hard to communicate your food needs to people, especially when they've seen you go back and forth on the topic before.  I've been trying to get my diet straight for a long time since I've lived here, but too often ended up impaled upon a pile of toast that waits so appealingly in the toaster at night.  Late night eating often gets me, especially sugary things.  That's why I find it so much easier to just set a clear diet plan and stick to it.  Less decision energy... more about that later.

Anyhow, today I am right on plan.  Feeling better about myself and life in general.  It's a turbulent time... for everyone, to be sure, and my family was going through a lot without the pandemic.  But, as Lord Petyr Baelish says in Game of Thrones (which is now my religion):

"Chaos isn't a pit.  Chaos is a ladder."