I’m not gonna do this every day, write more than one blog entry.  In fact, the novelty will wear off and I’ll probably have to drag myself in here.  But I just felt compelled today, to write this thought down.  Well, this series of thoughts.
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Quitting smoking was the first long-term commitment to “difficult” change that I’ve ever stuck to in my whole life.  I can’t help but draw parallels from this new challenge to the old one because I want whatever “worked” in the old one to inform me and help me to “win” in the new one.  Does that make sense?  Anyway, one of the keys I found while quitting smoking was knowledge. 
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Back when I was a smoker, I never wanted to know much about what I was smoking.  Yeah, we all hear that it’s not good for you, we all hear that it causes cancer… but all the articles about the 2,000 chemicals that are in tobacco and how the industry dusts the leaves with neat stuff like ammonia to help to solidify each smoker’s addiction to the nicotine - well, I’d just skip over those articles.  And if anyone tried to tell me stuff about smoking, I’d brush ‘em off with a “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it all.”  I didn’t wanna read it and I sure didn’t wanna hear it.  I knew I was gonna do it anyway, so I did not want to know too much about it.
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Parallel:  When I’m in the “user” phase of my food addiction, I don’t wanna KNOW how many calories I’m consuming. 
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A couple nights ago, we ordered from Jet’s Pizza.  I hadn’t actually started counting any calories yet, but I was just generally trying to be “good.”  So instead of indulging in pizza, I ordered myself an Italian sub.  Actually, I ordered two of them, so that when my husband was enjoying his leftover pizza at a later date, I could enjoy a leftover sub.  This way I could be “good” and avoid that evil pizza.
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Okay, so skip to today.  Today I started actually counting what I was eating.  I had a Fit-Day account (from this past summer) and so I went there and started inputting my food intake.  It was getting close to dinner time, so I started inputting the ingredients for the sub (Jet’s doesn’t list the nutritional values of their subs on their website, only their pizzas).
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That sub, near as I could figure, came to a grand total of almost 900 calories!  Two slices of pepperoni pizza would have been less than half that much!  OMG!
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So here’s what I did:  I took that sandwich apart.  Threw the sub roll away (265 calories) and threw the italian dressing away (125 calories).  I kept the salami, ham, and cheese, even though they added up to a little over 500 calories.  I cut them up into bite-size chunks and added them to a pile of lettuce on a dinner plate.  Added a small scoop of lowfat cottage cheese and I had a yummy filling dinner.
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Parallel:  Knowledge enabled me to make informed decisions about my smoking addiction.  Knowledge will also enable me to make informed decisions about my food addiction.  I *DO* want to know what I’m eating!

I went grocery shopping today.  It was one of those husband-with-me-race-through-the-store-and-get-only-what’s-necessary shopping trips, so I didn’t even bother to bring my new shopping list with me.  I’m thinking I’ll do a nice leisurely grocery shop trip on Friday.  Friday evening.  It’s payday and hubby will be at work.
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I did buy a few things, though.  I got two bags of mixed salad greens and a jar of sunflower seed kernels.  I got low-fat cottage cheese, 100-calorie snack bags of microwave popcorn, and low-fat cheese snacks.  I got potatoes for baking and whole-wheat bread.  And I got grapes and bananas.
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It’s a start!  I have a cold so I slept in this morning until 11 and then didn’t eat anything until after the shopping trip, so here’s my calories so far today:
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Salad - 10.  LF dressing 1/2 tbls. - 25.  Sunflower kernels - 30.  whole-wheat bread - 100.  LF margarine - 50.  I was going to have some grapes and bananas with my lunch but felt satisfied so I’ll save those for snack.  It’s after 2pm and I’ve consumed less than 200 calories today!  I’m not happy about being sick though.  I have a horrible sore throat and cough and I’m all congested and groggy.  It was really fun going out to the grocery store feeling like that but I had no choice.  Hubby needed his lunch foods and hell would surely freeze over if he went and grocery-shopped for himself.
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I think I’m gonna go back to bed.