Determined To Succeed

Day fifty-one.

This morning I am thinking about demons. Demons that seem unstoppable and invincible. Demons that, no matter what, can stand up to even time itself, the supposed great healer of all. Well, there are some things that time doesn’t take away, like pain. For example, it’s been almost a year and four months already since my mom, JoAnn Larson, passed away and I still feel that moment as if it were yesterday. I still feel the absence of her on this earth and, from what I hear from others who’ve lost parents, always will. Sure, time takes away some of the immediate sting but it never takes away the memory of the pain itself, and oh, how I wish it did.

When I was a child I was so ashamed of how I was living the shame became a tangible thing I touched every day. I felt my surroundings not only around me but inside me. I became saturated by the sights, sounds and smells of where I was living. I felt the roaches crawl on my skin. I could almost feel the gritty dirt on the faded light green of the walls. I smelled the accumulated smells in the carpet in the long hallway of my apartment building floor as the building passed into decrepit oblivion – the dust, garbage, people, old food, must and rodents all part of a gigantic trap from which I felt no release. Hell, I am also quite sure I went to school smelling of old cigarettes, since my mother loved unfiltered Pall Malls and we did live in one very small room. To this day I cannot stand the smell of old cigarette smoke which does get everywhere instantly no matter what a smoker might tell you to the contrary. That is a pain from which I have been removed for more than twenty years but which still helped define me, both in good ways and bad.

The pain and shame of that place, combined with burying that pain and numbing it with X, Y and Z helped to create an addict, one that became seriously addicted to food as part of a cycle that led me to my life’s rock bottom. Then, lump on other unhappinesses, disappointments, anger, the inability to express myself, job stress, relationship bullshit and more and, over the years, the pain and shame became sentient, a living breathing demon who still inhabits parts of my brain and soul.

When you train yourself to numb things it is very hard to not numb them anymore. Food tastes good. I love good Chinese food (notice I said GOOD Chinese food, like Chicago good not Jersey/Philly so-so), I love sweet rolls (good bakery sweet rolls like my mom and I used to get on Sundays to eat while reading the paper), I love ice-cold Coca-Colas which at one point were bottles of ice-cold Pepsi, I love mashed potatoes, fried things, chocolate things, buttery things, Italian Beefs, cheesesteaks, french fries…I love it all. But I was “using,” using all that and more to numb a pain and truth which I have only recently come to grapple with and understand. Once I did that I was truly able to see food and other things weren’t enjoyable, they were the heroin I injected into my veins to make the world and its reality go away for just a little while.

That is addiction. That is food addiction. When using what is normal, everyday, commonplace pleasurable and warping it into something that not only is bad but also feeds the demon(s) born from long days ago. That is how demons can withstand the test of time.

I am doing my absolute best to curtail these demons and live a healthier, happier life. In fact I’m gonna fight the food demon as soon as I am done posting today by working out in the gym (since it is quite rainy today in southern New Jersey). Fifty-one days is truly a blessing and one on which I intend to build a foundation of good for my life and those wonderful people in it. I won’t let them down because I won’t let myself down again. Not like that. Not ever.

Time may heal some things but it doesn’t heal others. That’s O.K., because it’s what we do with today that matters. We may not be able to change what happened before but we sure as hell can control what happens today, tomorrow and in all the tomorrows yet to come.And so far I have fifty-one of them. Of all the things I’ve collected in my lifetime, days of sobriety are what I want a treasure trove of in the future.

Day forty-four.

As you could tell from my posting yesterday I do my best to make “living amends,” meaning even if the people I have wronged in life don’t know, care, support or accept my attempts to put things right I know I am still walking and living the path to being a better, healthier and stronger man free of who and what I was before.But yesterday was a pretty rough. It’s been forty-four days and in each and every one of those days I have done my best to do at least one thing to reclaim my humanity and be my mother’s son again. Yesterday, though, I just fell apart and questioned everything, especially whether or not I was even worth it all.

No matter what your drug of choice might be, if you’re an addict you hurt people in the most acute of ways and that pain can last a lifetime. In exploring my past and trying to reconnect exactly what made me an addict and turn to my drugs, including food, I realize how ashamed I was of me even way back when I was a child. I was ashamed about how I grew up in a one-room, roach-infested apartment in an old hotel, I was ashamed I never had any money, I was ashamed I couldn’t afford new clothes and had to wear pants and shirts with holes in them and I was ashamed I didn’t have the seemingly normal life my friends seemed to have. I was so ashamed I lied about it all and that was the beginning of two things – my creation of alternate realities to suit a false image to others and my turning to food as comfort to numb and take away the pain.

Like I said last night was a rough one and sitting there thinking about it all I started to cry. I started to cry and really question whether or not I was really worthy of the chances I’ve been given in life. I sat there and wondered out loud whether or not I was doing anybody any good and whether or not the demons, dark forces and black holes that had surrounded me in life were right all along – that I was nothing, a bad person not worthy of redemption.

That’s when the oldest demon of all came for a visit. The demon of food. He came to me and put his arm around me. “There, there,” he said, “it’s going to be alright. Why don’t you just hop in the car and grab some Chinese food and we can talk about it.”

“Fuck,” I thought to myself, “Chinese does sound so good.” I thought about all the other foods that would make me feel better – cheeseburgers, Taco Bell, anything…anything to just numb the pain of what I was feeling. Anything to run away from it.

But I couldn’t run any longer. Forty-four days ago I said I wasn’t going to run and hide anymore from life, the pain or the truth and I wasn’t going to start last night. Forty-four days is how long I’ve been sober, and telling the truth about things and being honest with myself and I’m not going to start breaking that especially with food. Fuck that, and fuck all the bad thoughts I had last night. We do need to face our fears, doubts, anxieties, anger, sadness and pain but we can do that without compounding those feelings with even more shame – the shame of acting out in some way that does take us express to the people we were before.

I did, however, compromise and had some strawberry ice-cream. It was creamy, smooth and delicious. After that I was done. I was done with the cravings. Every day, every single day, I work the twelve steps in my mind and try to be a better person, whether others think it or not. But I am so lucky I am surrounded by people who do think I am worth it even I don’t necessarily believe it myself some days. That includes the spirit of my mom, JoAnn Larson, who was wise in so many wonderful ways that her brilliance astounds me to this day and always will.

I will never go back to being 400 pounds. That man was unhappy, and profoundly so, for so many reasons. However, I do have work to do. I am down a few ounces today and that is a start. Hell, I might have even cried out those ounces but they are gone and I am down slightly. I have always told you out there you are not alone and I meant it. There are times I feel beaten down, unworthy, tired, angry and defeated and I want to eat, too. I do. I sooooo do. I want to run away and drown out the noise and numb the pain with food that tastes so good. That is being human. But there is one thing on our side that keeps us sane – reason. We have the ability to reason and figure out/discover the WHYs and HOWs of things so we don’t keep doing the same shit over and over to detrimental effect to others but, most of all, to ourselves.

That is how we survive. That is how we move forward. That is how we will win.

I woke up today feeling much better. The sun was shining (still is) and the crisp morning air felt good. Most of all, I had reached day forty-four and I am lucky and blessed for that because so many people can’t and don’t even reach day one. Yes, I woke up this morning feeling better and today is dedicated to surviving, to moving forward and most of all, to winning so I can smile and reach day forty-five. Even after such a dark night of the soul I know I am worth it. We are all worth it.

PS: I had a low-fat blueberry muffin and coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts for breakfast. Funny how feeling good keeps you from going to the drive-thru at McDonald’s.

Day twenty-four.

Happy September, everyone. Man, yesterday I was both a mess and euphoric. I admit, when I’m sick, I’m a bit of a baby especially since I don’t get sick very often. And while it wasn’t the full-bore cold it could have been it was enough to sap my strength, make my head all poofy and have my throat all scratchy and in pain the whole day. On the other hand, I took care of myself, something I haven’t done really for a long, long time and part of that care involved two things: taking myself for a nice walk in the clean, hot air and going to a twelve-step meeting last night.

I was very torn about the walk. I had zero energy and motivation to get up from the couch and I sure as hell didn’t want to get ready and dressed to walk outside for an hour. But I had to clear my head. Not just physically because of the cold or because I felt like acting out or anything, but because I was mulling something over in my brain. I was thinking about everything and needed some time to commune with nature and my mom, JoAnn’s, spirit to help me be calm and relax. Later, I attended my twelve-step meeting which, I have to say is a wonderful way to re-juice the soul because it’s great knowing you have the fellowship and support of the people around you on any given night.

Whenever I sit in that room and listen to others I gain new perspectives on things. They help me turn things over in my brain and center me and last night’s meeting gave me a good idea of what pain is like from the perspective of someone experiencing it. I have to tell you how powerful that is, and how humbling. It strips away every piece of bullshit inside you and makes you feel something which, for many of us, is for the first time in years. Feeling the pain of others makes me realize and understand the pain I have put people through in my life. I may not be able to fully make amends to those people but I sure am trying the best way I know how – going to these meetings and getting the help I need.

I can only imagine that other addictions are the same at their core. You crave X and will do anything – lie, cheat, hurt people, shut yourself off – just to have X. That also goes for food. But with addiction, the more you spiral down into it the more shame you feel, therefore you withdraw more and more into your world, alone and broken not knowing how to get out.

After feeling the sun on my face yesterday and after going to my meeting I felt present. Yes, it does hurt to hear these things and yes, it does hurt facing them but any addict needs to if they are to get out of their own personal abyss. It needs to be felt because our emotions have been out of it for so long and it does cause others great pain. That goes for food, drugs, alcohol, whatever. If recovery were easy it wouldn’t work, plain and simple. Put another way, we addicts need to feel to know what it’s like to be a human being again, one that’s not driven by a drug but one that is driven by being a feeling being.

That is why I was euphoric. I felt that pain yesterday. I felt it. I wasn’t distracting myself and it felt good. That’s why I didn’t give in to the temptation to just be a slug on my couch. I got up and walked. I did that to take care of me in my recovery from being under the weather. And I went to my twelve-step meeting to take care of me in my recovery to heal as a human being to try to be a good and decent man.

I am starting to come back down in my weight, too. I am at 235 even today and that feels amazing. I can feel that excitement again. I have a measly ten pounds to go to re-achieving my goal weight and I will one day. I will because I recognize what it’s like to turn off and medicate and numb yourself to reality. However, now I am facing reality for the first time and it strengthens me, thank God. That goes for my weight loss journey, too. I was so worried about handling one addiction I was turning back to food as comfort. I just realized it and got a handle on both, that’s all. And I was able to do that because the pieces of my soul that had been gone for so long are now coming back and making me here and present and alive.

It’s amazing what a person can do when they have their soul back. It is. That will give me the strength to kick that bag today and that will give me the strength to carry on in weight loss and in recovery. And in the end, I won’t be a mess anymore. I will be healed in body, mind and, most of all, spirit so I never again fall into the dark abyss I was in for so long.

Day nineteen.

I woke up this morning and I cried. I cried because of the realization that I was finally becoming a whole person again. I cried because all those parts of me and my soul that had been scattered to the four winds (despair, shame, guilt and gluttony) have started coming back and are now a part of me again and for the first time in my recent memory I am here and present.

I can’t begin to tell you what it’s like having your soul, brain, heart and energy segmented like that.  Sad to say it is something you have to experience to know. To use a movie analogy it’s like being Voldemort from the Harry Potter books. In case you’ve been living under a rock, Voldemort uses physical objects to place parts of his soul so that, no matter what happens to his physical body, he can return. In that world it is the darkest, blackest magic there is. In this world, my world, it was the darkest and blackest my soul had ever been. It’s so bad that you put yourself aside for the drug. You do, and the motions you go through aren’t for you. They’re for the drug.

Being addicted to something – anything – means you not only get a high from it but you eventually start trading things, including pieces of your life and soul for it. If you know anyone who’s an addict they will tell you that. They will also tell you what withdrawl is like – that maddening craving for the drug when you ween yourself off of it. But what I am going through isn’t withdrawl, it’s reverse withdrawl.

I cried today because I really felt myself coming back together today. I felt the parts of my soul that had been gone for so long come back home. I watched the sun rise a bit this morning, listened to the birds sing their morning songs of hunger and felt myself take in such good, deep breaths that I felt almost overwhelmed. I felt heavier. Not just because I’ve been eating like a pig lately but because the best parts of me rejoined me. My mind wasn’t in one place while my soul was shoved away in a closet somewhere. I wasn’t spending my time being an addict and splitting my time, energies and self between so many different things. I was here again and I was at peace.

The last time I felt peace like that was when I sat with my mother, JoAnn Larson, as she lay dying from pancreatic cancer. I’ve said it before and I will say it again I know exactly how lucky a bastard I am because I was able to say to my mom “I love you, mama” and hear her say “I love you, too, son” back. Those were literally her last words to me. Those were literally her last words. After that she slipped further and further away until finally she became eternally free and healed from that terrible bitch disease. Those words brought me peace and they are what I held onto as her hand grew cold even as I held it watching her take her last breath on this earth.

Reclaiming what had been gone so long makes you heavier. I don’t know how but it does. They say when your spirit leaves your body you actually lose weight. Well, I now know what it’s like to breathe and live again. I was dying. Maybe not physically, but emotionally and spiritually. This morning, and these past few weeks, have all been part of a process I hope to and want to continue. I love this reverse withdrawl. It’s renewed my senses and it’s making me whole again.

I talk all the time about seeing the “promised land.” In the past I meant about weight loss and I still do. I lost the weight of a grown person and I will never, EVER regain it back because I knew I would be dead had I kept it. But I have also seen the “promised land” of what it’s like to crave something so much it takes over your life, and yes, that can be food, too. But I would try to save you that pain and have you learn from my experience to stay away from that rancid hell on earth.

No matter what your addiction you are worth so much more than that which drives you. Our souls must be one within ourselves to truly be alive and that cannot happen craving something else. Yesterday I made a kick-ass soup (the Delicious Bean Stew I listed the recipe for – it’s awesome, by the way). Today, Friday, and tomorrow, Saturday, I’m going to workout with my martial arts instructor, Doug Shaffer, and it’s going to feel great. I am going to see and talk with friends and I am gonna drive with the windows down to feel the warm air on my face. That is life, and I am embracing it again after such a long, long time.

If you are new to reading me, welcome. I truly appreciate you stopping by to check out this website to gain inspiration in your weight loss journey. I am still on that path and will forever be on that path with you. There are two parts of it, you know. Losing weight and keeping it off, the latter being the on-going, lifestyle-changing part. It may be rough, and I know it is, but there is a difference this time as there is now a difference in my life.

I am here and present, and when we can say that, and really and truly mean it, we can and will do anything because we have our lives back and finally back in our control. Have a great weekend.

Day seventeen.

Did you ever have one of those days when a whole bunch of stuff happens and your mind is just racing with it all? Thoughts about this here and details of that there and you just want it all to go the fuck away? Shit. It’s enough to drive you buggy (as my mom used to say). Sometimes you’d almost rather have a physically-trying day rather than a mentally-draining one, or worse yet, an emotionally-draining one. Yesterday was like that for me. I don’t know what it was, maybe the moon was out of its alignment or something, but yesterday just didn’t feel right, and that caused my brain and emotions to go into overdrive. I felt lost, nervous and scared. That is when being a food addict sucks. Everything everywhere looks and sounds good (and comforting) to eat and drink, including a nasty-ass soda called Mello Yello.

It had been a long day, and an emotionally draining one, and my old patterns of emotional eating came back and came back with a vengeance. Even though I did a workout I ordered myself up some Chinese food for dinner and, while sitting there waiting for it, I perused the soft drink case. I saw my old friend, Coke, sitting there waving “hello,” but I tried my best to ignore it casting my gaze elsewhere in the cooler. There were many other soft drinks and I tried to be good – Diet Dr. Pepper, Orange Crush, Sprite Zero and the afore-mentioned Mello Yello. I was in such a mental state yesterday I stupidly bought at least one of them all. It wasn’t until later, as I was getting ready for bed and pouring myself the last Mello Yello over ice, did I realize what I was doing.

For those of you who don’t know, Mello Yello WANTS to taste as good and as refreshing as 50/50 but ends up being a cross between Mountain Dew and Sprite (which is not a great combination). The thing that got to me most was the color of it. It looked like an irradiated greenish yellow. It looked nasty. It tasted O.K. but it looked nasty and I sat there and looked at this concoction in utter disgust.

Here’s everything that went through my mind:

“I drank that?!”

“I put that in my body?”

“I can’t believe I just did that!”

“It was awful.”

“I will never do it again.”

Ever since my catastrophic failures of a few weeks ago I look at things slightly different now. I am an addict twice-over. Being addicted to food was how I got to be 400 pounds, and I admit that part of me reverted back to that “needing food” guy last night. But what is changed is how I see what I am doing. Sometimes, you can’t see the forest through the trees. You’ve heard that phrase before, right? C’mon, everyone has. It’s a phrase that essentially means when you’re too close to something you can’t see the big picture. Before when I would eat and drink I was so in the depths of that addiction I couldn’t see the entirety of the cause and effect of it all on my body and health. I just wandered through the forest from tree to tree eating this and that, not looking at it and saying “I’m lost. Please help me.”

Since then, I at least know I am an addict and can stop running through that forest and finally scream out “I need help!” That is the first step in the twelve steps: recognizing your addiction is greater than you are. Sitting there last night looking at that putrid green/yello “soda” I just knew I needed to stop. This goo wasn’t going to calm my mind, a sense of peace was. Sitting there and getting a handle on what the day brought and how to deal with it and how I am going to deal with it in the future brought a peace that quieted my mind as well as my want for food.

At that moment I did something I am very proud of – I stopped drinking that stuff. I got up and threw the rest of it out and I know I will never drink it again. The sense of peace I am finding is helping me finally see the forest and my true path through it.  Today I have two therapy appointments and I am very much looking forward to them. And as far as food goes, I am going to get back to my good patterns, including exercising later, as I pray for today to be as mentally and emotionally peaceful as sleep. That is why these days I am not as lost, nervous or scared as I once was, because I am finally recognizing that the forest I am trying to navigate has been me all along and because of that I will find my way through. It will just take time and knowing I will need help along the way.

Day Twelve.

Odds are, at some point in your life, you will visit a cemetery or two. Personally, I find them and their history fascinating, especially when their history, in part, is told by the inscription on its tombstones and grave markers. Some of them are funny, and some tell a story, but all of them list a birth year and a death year. I don’t know one that doesn’t. In the past few weeks I’ve come to realize just how much of an addict I’ve been, one created when I was a kid and finally admitted to now.

There are so many similarities between the different types of addictions that it usually becomes just a matter of which drug you choose. You’ve heard me say over these past couple of weeks how I merely went from one drug to another, but that lesson got hammered home to me yesterday when I was cooking.

There was a huge time in my life when food was my drug of choice. Food was my escape. It was my security. It was my warmth. It was always there. Dammit, I wish I could have seen how much I was “using” back then. Because I grew up with no money and only a hotplate on which to cook (we owned two pans – one to boil water in and one frying pan) my mom and I ate out almost always. Most kids would kill to eat out as much as we did and have the foods I had – Chinese food, pizza, meatball sandwiches, McDonald’s – but they didn’t realize how good they had it because the meals they had were created in their own homes by people who spent time, energy and love making whatever was served, not food picked up on the streets. The meals my friends had were honest meals, and while in no way, shape or form am I saying my mom failed (she did an absolutely amazing job doing the best she could to feed us) what kid – what adult – doesn’t like a good home-cooked meal not just because of the food but what it means…that its earned from the journey and not acquired.

Yesterday I got a wild hair to actually cook something. I was sitting around thinking to myself how much I wanted to get my hands dirty and create something from scratch. I dug up and old recipe I’d been saving for a seven-cheese mac and cheese and headed off to the store. It was exciting to be in the store looking around for the ingredients, eventually enlisting the help of one of the store’s workers to help me find the cheeses I needed. He was awesome and the more and more I put the ingredients in my cart the more and more I knew this was going to be good. I could feel it in my bones.

When I cook there’s always a mess. I’m not the neatest cook there is. I don’t throw bits of this and scores of flower or that everywhere but food that’s created has a certain mess and I embrace that mess. It’s part of the process and part of the journey. And I have to say I enjoyed destroying my kitchen. I loved seeing it dirty. I loved even grating off part of my hand as I grated some of the cheeses. Yes, you bet your ass it hurt but I was creating something, something that was coming from hard work. And just as an aside, it’s bloody strenuous to stir and huge ever-thickening mixture when more and more cheeses are involved. Whew!

When I was done adding and mixing and baking and cleaning this incredible mac and cheese came out. It was bubbling from being so hot and it looked and smelled incredible. And there was sooooooo much of it (ok, note to self – half the recipe next time) I will be eating it for days. When it cooled and I actually had some I was triple-pleased. One it was delicious (as I was hoping it would be since I smelled like butter and cheese the whole night). Two, because I actually cut pieces and exercised portion control. I may have had a half-helping too much (I did mention it was delicious) but I put the rest away and was content to do so. Three, because it was an honest meal, once created by me and not merely bought by me. Created from my own two hands from hard work.

When we look at our lives and realize that what we’re addicted to isn’t what we’re really searching for the doors open and we can truly begin work on the hard things, including and most of all changing how we think and act so we can see that it’s always been about finding that which we need within ourselves. And yes, many messes are made in the kitchen of the mind when that happens, but only because you always have to crack a few eggs to make an omelette. If in this weight loss journey food is your drug I can honestly say you don’t need it to feel better. It is delicious and wonderful but it is not something that will make you feel better. That can and will come from inside you once you get down to what the issues really are in your life, and I would spare you the pain of becoming an addict if I can. And I say that because, at 39-years-old, I am finally ready to begin the next, honest and healthier phase of my life so I can finally carve the death date of my addictions on that particular tombstone.

It’s never too late start, so don’t be afraid. Creating the best meal you can be will always begin with the true recipe and the willingness to get dirty in the process. Have a great weekend.

Sometimes I feel like such an addict. It starts with my thoughts wandering toward my addiction. I’m just going about my business and all of a sudden those thoughts start their evil takeover. How nice a small taste might be. Then, out of nowhere it goes from being just a thought to a powerful taste that begins in my mouth before running to and infecting my brain. When it gets there, it’s all over. That’s when my mind starts playing tricks on me, helping my conscious justify having my addiction and lying to me saying “if we just have this one it’ll be the last time.” The phrase “I can quit any time I want” comes to mind. It’s so bad sometimes I feel like dressing up in a trenchcoat, brimmed hat and sunglasses just to “score.”

Now I have been lucky in my life that my tastes, my addictions, do not run to illegal drugs, or alcohol or gambling. No, they run in a different direction. One that promises to thwart any weight loss journey if done to extremes – My friends, my name is Bill and I’m a Coca-holic.

I know I’ve spoken about this before but those of you who know me know I have this “thing” for ice-cold Coca-Cola. I don’t know what it is but I do and lately it has gotten so bad I think the Coke delivery people are wondering why they have to refill the Coke section of the local Wawa so much in my part of town.  And if I have one I get that rush of immediate satisfaction followed closely by “ok, I just want one more…”

See, I am an addict.

Don’t you guys get that craving for that one something? That “thing” of yours you can’t resist? Ice-cream, doughnuts, candy bars, potato chips, hot dogs or Chinese food (that’s another addiction of mine, too, but one that’s way more controllable since the Chinese food here isn’t as good as it is back home in Chicago). It doesn’t matter. EVERYONE has an addiction to some type of food. I can’t be alone in this. Am I?

And what makes it worse if that my addiction goes part-and-parcel with weight gain, and I have struggled so hard to keep this stupid weight off and will be working on that for the rest of my life.  I talk about driving “the gauntlet” all the time (Wendy’s little red-haired girl, McDonald’s clown, Burger King’s, well, king, and Kentucky Fried Chicken’s colonel), but nothing will stop me more in my tracks than a 20-ounce bottle of “the good stuff.”

Jeez! Thank God I don’t crave anything else addictive.

Yesterday was a good day. I didn’t have a single Coke and I feel fairly strong today that I will not have one, kind of like going through detox and coming out the other side clean and sober. Part of that is from that wonderful voice in my head saying there are a million reasons to do bad/dumb/unhealthy things. But everything is a choice and, at some point, you chose to move in a healthier direction. It’s not perfect, and if I fail today it doesn’t mean I’ll fail tomorrow.  I do just keep moving in a good direction while also trying not to eat crap, too. And I so try to ignore the cravings, the call of the impulse buy coolers next to the checkout counters. Yesterday I succeeded and I plan to succeed again today.

Yesterday I spoke of light bulbs going on in our head that help us deal with our weight issues. I talked about how mine went on and that’s when I decided to lose weight. But food addictions can easily knock those lights out again. We (and I) just have to find ways to control them, and I have to find ways to walk away from the Coke. Find a way to turn the light bulb back on by developing a new set of Coke-coping skills. That is a food person’s “rehab.” My Coke rehab.

Coke ain’t a bad thing, and I do try to have it, as well as my other favorite foods, in moderation. It’s just been getting bad lately, hence my weight gain. But the sun is out today and I feel “clean.” I like that “clean” feeling very much, as if the syrup is drained from my veins and blood is flowing strong and free again. My scale also showed me good news today and I so love that feeling, too.

And like any recovering addict I will just take this one day at a time. Oh great, now the theme song from the old 70’s TV show is running through my head. That’s enough to kill the taste for anything from anyone’s mouth.