health, baking, and being a type-A eccentric.

Jesus H Christ.

I guess the fact that my chosen career path is more along the lines of creative ideals is a good one.  I am terrible, I repeat, TERRIBLE at sustained changes.

There was a fitness center that opened up around near us.  We paid ahead for what seemed like a great deal: crossfit style classes with total personal attention.  Or as it turned out, too much personal attention.  Not enough people signed up and the trainers (a married couple, and we really liked them) had to up and leave.  Eventually we’ll get our money back.  Eventually.  Hopefully.  Ugh.

T-storm even went so far as to get on their eating plan, which was like muscle milk followed by rice, broccoli & either tilapia or chicken like 6 times a day.  (The muscle milk being breakfast.)  Since our friends have been gone for a few weeks, tonight while helping me with my baking supplies run at 8:30 on this Sunday night (he drove the getaway car), he bought a box of Oreo Klondike bars.  How little time it takes to slip back.

We both admittedly eat more fast food than we should, as our jobs are stressful and the last two weeks have been a lot of 10-12 hour days.  And as a result, we exercise less.  The proximity and the ass-kickingness of our trainers was helping us.  Over my break, I did 275 push-ups in two days.  Yes, me!!

When I see people talk about making positive life changes, and creating habits that are lifelong, I try to think that way.  I try to zen out and think of the future.

But screw that.  I am a competitive, project-based kind of thinker.  I don’t think of what will get me somewhere in the long run.  I think of getting this task done.  Hence why I loved being a college student, and extended my stay (willfully) in undergrad.  Hence why I loved wedding planning (stressful and bonkers as it was).  PROJECT!

So tonight I tried to take on a project – a banana bread mix with vanilla pudding mix in it.

And shortening.  For the first time, I find myself cooking with shortening and I look at the ingredients.  WHOLE BEAN NON-HYDROGANATED PALM OIL.  It’s like nutritional heroin.  NOTHING ABOUT THIS IS GOOD.

I suppose I could be a wretch and just um, eat butter instead.  And really, that’s a pretty damned good idea, because butter is just BUTTER.  It’s not horribly processed worst imaginable part of a vegetable.  Dearest Gina (the other half of the Five Percent Rule) gave us some Rebel Nutritionist Rules in the past, one of them being “eat more butter.”  Not like on or with everything.

But I sure eat real butter when butter comes up, and I also drink real half & half, rather than the International Flavor junk, which is all full of palm oil stuff and horrible other things that humans were probably never meant to consume.

Anyway.  Seeing that I’m totally forgetful and tend to live from project to project, and not with any real true stability in mind (don’t even talk to me about finances), we are missing something important at home.  FLOUR.  And we really like our neighbors (at least the ones across the hall) but we’re not close enough to them that we’d ask them to borrow some flour.  I went through an insane baking streak on Christmas Eve this past year and had my mother-in-law bring some back over.

We had enough for those cookies.  No extra.  So we made a bonus trip to the store for shortening and chocolate chips (which are much healthier than the shortening) and now even though I started late I can’t bake the extra moist chocolate chip banana bread.

Like I said, everything is a project.  As my mother would say about me, I get a “bee in my bonnet” and I just have to do something, at whatever moment it is, regardless of how convenient it is.  Which in some manner of speaking gets me a reputation for getting things done, and in others makes me a nutjob.

Back to shortening.  Just the thought of scooping it out made me feel like Paula Deen.  Ugh.  I’m not the healthiest person, but I am also lucky enough to not take a liking to the most unhealthy foods.

And healthy eating is like fitness for me.  My next goal is running a half marathon.  A friend of mine who’s been doing lots of exercise craziness and Paleo diet with her husband for the last year or so posted a little graphic on Pinterest, stating, “I’m not training for a 5K.  Blah blah blah.  I’m not trying to impress you.  I’m saving my life.”

I can’t operate like that.  I don’t work that way.  I need to have a project.  I want to run a half marathon.  Because giving myself an end goal will make me do it.  And in the way that my bizarre little brain works, as long as I have constant goals and projects on the horizon, I keep busy & productive.  I want to train to run a half marathon…because it’s a project.  It’s a source of motivation.  It’s the way I work.

Tonight I was defeated, even though the goal turned out to not be something that was going to be terribly good anyway, and it was frustrating.  I was about to join my husband in eating a completely unnecessary Oreo Klondike bar.

But alas.  Sitting in between him (playing Skyrim) and the sleeping orange cat calms me down.

New “project”: attaining a healthy balance between things I have to do, things I enjoy doing, and things I should do to stay healthy.  (Next goal: getting better at these lifelong “projects”.)

AND pertinent links:

Give up coffee?  Never!  (And the ramifications of that.)

Paula Deen’s diabetic shitshow.

 

***UPDATE***

Found a non-life-threatening alternative recipe!!  YESSSSSS!!

Petite Chocolate Chip Banana Bread Loaves!

(Also, if you post a delicious looking recipe with “skinny” in the caption, you will be the most popular person on Pinterest.)