I probably should have mentioned at some point that I historically get into a major funk around my birthday (middle of June), and this year was a doozy, what with the health issues and the work issues compounding the normal birthday blues.

Seriously, we are talking major mid-life crisis. I mean major. It wasn’t just about relapsing as far as eating goes, it was a full-blown depressing and existential “what the hell is going on” kind of episode…things were pretty scary for a while.

Well, the good news is that after skidding down the slippery slope for nearly two months, I finally realized I was out of my league, and last week, I got myself back to my therapist.

Things aren’t quite back where they were in April, but I’m feeling a lot more confident, and am feeling optimistic for the first time in many weeks.

That said, entries are still going to be a bit sparse, as I’m off to Nags Head for a week (or two) of vacation with the family. I promise to get back to regular posting no later than mid-August! Really :).

Thanks again to everyone for your kind words…they really meant a lot!

Brought to you by Act Boldly. Some rights reserved.

Human happiness comes not from infrequent pieces of good fortune, but from the small improvements to daily life. -Benjamin Franklin

See more from this thread at MetaFilter.

Brought to you by Act Boldly. Some rights reserved.

Anyways, I hope you’ll humor me. It won’t be an every Friday thing, but alas, I am one of those folks who think: “aren’t my cats cute?”

The one good thing about blogging about it is that if I move in the direction of scary cat lady, maybe you’ll kindly alert me to the error of my ways :-).

Brought to you by Act Boldly. Some rights reserved.

However…I got some great news today. I mentioned in early May that my boss, a guy I really liked, had been forced out.

Well, well.

They say what goes around, comes around. Today, the guy who forced my boss out was forced out!

Ding, dong, the witch is dead!

I don’t know that this makes the long-term situation much better, as this group may be too dysfunctional to save. But this is a good start!!

Brought to you by Act Boldly. Some rights reserved.

Yep, it’s my birthday! I’m 30…in hex.

Sorry math joke…I just turned 48. Gosh, where did the time go? And why don’t I feel that much differently than I did at 24? Same problems, I just make a lot more money :).

Not any major celebrations this year. My family celebrated with me while I was on vacation over Memorial Day, and I was taken out to dinner last night. Tonite I’m hanging out for a while, then heading off for my regular Thursday choir rehearsal.

Anyways, I share this birthday with Wade Boggs (the great Red Sox 3B) and Doogie Howser. Actually, Wade is 48 today as well. Years ago, I was sitting next to Wade and Bob Stanley (an infamous Red Sox player) at a bar at Logan Airport in Boston. I was waiting for my brother to arrive; they were with the team waiting for the weather to clear so they could leave for some AL city.

I sat there thinking “hey, you should tell Wade you have the same birthday.” And then I turned chicken. Ah well. Like what would he have said? “Uh, isn’t that something.”

Well, it’s always amused me!

Brought to you by Act Boldly. Some rights reserved.

The trans-fat fed monkeys gained more weight on the same calories as their trans-fat free counterparts! More important - the trans-fat fed monkeys had higher blood glucose levels and were more insulin resistant than the trans-fat free monkeys.

Wow. Okay, it’s animal research, blah blah. But it really does make you wonder just what kind of damage decades of eating trans fats and low-fructose corn syrup may do.

Brought to you by Act Boldly. Some rights reserved.

Now there’s another entry in this market (at least new to me): Robek’s.

Shocker, Robek’s started about ten years ago in California, where they were primarily a juice bar. Now, many of them are getting into salads and wraps. The one closest to me has some really interesting wraps, including a southwestern roast beef, a mediterranean tuna, a turkey and cranberry, and an asian veggie. Yum!

Like with Camille’s you may need to cut back on some of the dressings, but I like the choice of ingredients…a whole lot more than iceberg lettuce and bland tomatoes. And I think I may try switching to a Pomegranate Passion smoothie instead of my morning Diet Coke…at least occasionally :).

Brought to you by Act Boldly. Some rights reserved.

If you’re a long-time dieter like me, you may well have remembered the buzz cut Susan and her Stop the Insanity program, a book and video series that focused on exercise and a low-fat diet as the key to weight loss.

Back now after an long absence (she says she took time off to have and raise a third child), Susan is sporting funky Christina Aguilera-like blond dreadlocks and is bringing Stop the Insanity back, this time with an infomercial selling the revised plan and a membership-based website (warning epileptics: this site may induce seizures as there are a ridiculous number of text crawls and other moving images).

The new Stop the Insanity looks like it hasn’t changed much, with low-fat diet and exercise the key. The ABC/GMA article notes that:

The truth, Powter says, is that she “worked [my] butt off,” literally — and that is what overweight people must do to make significant change.

I don’t think so. But your mileage may vary. If you like your drill sergeant to be a size 2 with dreads, Susan may be for you!

Me, I’d like to see Susan in a steel cage death match with The Biggest Loser’s Jillian :).

Brought to you by Act Boldly. Some rights reserved.

Brought to you by Act Boldly. Some rights reserved.

This may be a bit of a duh, but it occurs to me that it’s worth thinking about the differences between impulses and compulsions.

For example, I consider that I’ve been pretty much on track since Sunday. That makes today day 5. However, I had to really think about whether or not to count yesterday, as I was at Ruby Tuesday’s last night for dinner. I was looking at the Smart Eating section of their menu, and was waffling between ordering something more healthy (like the petite sirloin with just 8 grams of fat) or less (the Church Street Chicken with 31 grams of fat).

Yep, I went with the chicken. And you know what? It was really good :).

Now, I count yesterday as on track, because while it wasn’t as healthy as I could have ordered, it wasn’t horrible. Yep, I had a little bacon and some cheese with my chicken, but I also had broccoli, mushrooms, and brown rice with a tomato garnish. Not exactly a Big Mac and fries!

Ultimately, what I did was give in to an impulse; I meant to order something more healthy, but when confronted with a choice (two supposedly “healthy” option with more or less fat), I chose the less healthier of the two options. Yeah, I know that it isn’t that “bad,” but on the other hand, I’m off for vacation for a week. I could have banked those calories!

What this wasn’t was a compulsion. The impulse was “hey, this looks yummy, let’s eat that.” Which is just like the eating good stuff at a party, stopping into the bakery when you walk by, etc.

This, to me, is considerably different from my more problematic behavior, which involves doing something that you know is pretty much harmful (stuffing yourself with a whole pizza or drinking a whole bottle of wine followed by a whole crapload of Chinese food). That’s compulsive. And for almost a month, I was really having difficulty stopping. Seems to me that both need to be worked on.

BTW, Susan had an interesting comment earlier this week which is on the same kind of topic:

I feel that binges arise from one thing — deprivation. Deprivation and insatiability go hand. When you are depriving yourself of something you really want and you finally get it, you want as much of it as you can get before it’s taken away again.

I think compulsive eating and bingeing are two very different things. I only binge when I’m trying to diet and starve my body. I eat compulsively when I’m not taking care of myself emotionally. You can’t feed a feeling with food, but I think when I get to urge to eat when I’m not physically hungry or continue eating at a meal when I’m already satisfied, it’s because I’m trying not to feel something.

I don’t know that I agree that compulsive eating and bingeing are two different things. But I see her point about different origins for these behaviors.

Brought to you by Act Boldly. Some rights reserved.