Where is the ice cream?

You might remember me proclaiming I’m quitting ice cream a while back.

Wondering how I’m doing on that?

For the most part, really good.  The beginning was rough.  I still had ice cream here and my thoughts reminded me of what I said to myself when I attempted  to quit smoking ages ago…”Well, I’ll finish after this pack is gone, no sense in wasting money.”

And so it became “I’ll finish when this ice cream is gone, no sense in wasting money.”

The thing is, the real moment which matters isn’t at home, it’s at the grocery store.  Being able to NOT put the ice cream into my cart is all that matters.  If I don’t have ice cream at home, then I won’t eat it very often.

So I didn’t buy any.  I instead chose a mango sorbet which is lovely and which doesn’t cause me to enter some sort of eating contest mode where I shove as much into my mouth as possible.  The sorbet took the edge off, but it wasn’t ice cream and boy oh boy did my body know it!

I swear to you I went through a sort of withdrawal.  I didn’t get the shakes, but I certainly went through a period where my mind tried to convince me I NEEDED it.

And then one day I just forgot about it.  Magically.  I even forgot to eat the mango sorbet.  I even forgot to walk longingly past the ice creams in the grocery store.  I forgot to replenish my  mango sorbet.

All this has happened in the past three weeks and I’m quite pleased with the progress.  I have eaten ice cream while out (a scoop comes free with my meal at a restaurant I frequent nearby which is literally the best deal around, soup, salad and a meal and ice cream for like 6 bucks.  I eat the soup and salad and box up the meal for the next night…. anyway).  I ate that scoop and it was ok.  I didn’t have any more ice cream available to me so it wasn’t a major issue, but I did crave more and that tells me ice cream at home is likely a no-no for the foreseeable future.

I will always wonder what it is about ice cream that makes my body go crazy with cravings, but I’m totally going to work at maintaining a distant (but loving) relationship with the stuff.

I Scream… You Scream….We All…Say Goodbye?

I knew this day would come.

My love affair with ice cream has lasted a long time.  My first day at Curves, when asked what food I couldn’t live without… my answer, immediate and decisive was “ice cream.”

And the look on Ms. Size Zero’s face when she peered over her chart at me said “Hmm I hope you don’t wonder why you’re overweight.”

Ice cream and I go way back.  I remember college pity parties spent with a friend and a couple of pints of Ben & Jerry’s.  I remember celebrating fantastic events with blizzards or sundaes from Dairy Queen.

What’s not to like about ice cream?  It’s been so controlled during my diet.  My 150 calories of ice cream a day… the thing I claimed “kept me sane” and on the straight and narrow.  I eat my ice cream every day and then I don’t have the urge to binge on it.  (You know, like I did after Atkins when all I wanted in the world were some sugary goodness carbs?)

Only… ice cream is currently betraying me.  My little cone after dinner?  My 150 calories of super yummy goodness?  It’s begun to turn on me.  What once satiated my need for the creamy goodness now causes something a bit more sinister to occur.  Lately, I’ve been having my ice cream and then feeling something like this: omgomgIwantmore!  MORE!  Iwantanother!  Gimme Another!  I need more!  I deserve more!  I. Must. Have. More!

And, you see, I’ve given in a couple of times.  And, well, I know that’s not right.  And so, I’m beginning to wonder if maybe my ice cream isn’t triggering some sort of over-eating mechanism inside of me.  Or perhaps it’s making me crave stupid stuff (like more ice cream).

I don’t know precisely what it is.

I just know it’s got to stop.

And so I’m saying it right now… the words I never thought I’d utter (willingly, anyway).

I think I’m going to try to take a month off ice cream.

I just can’t justify eating something which makes me go so crazy.  There are alternatives.  I’ve got mango sorbet which makes me squeal with delight and which I seem to have self control around.  There’s chocolate, of which I have gobs in my freezer and seem to go days without thinking of touching.

And then of course, there’s the notion of having no sweets after dinner and breaking that stupid habit.

Whatever the case, there are alternatives and I know it.

I feel a bit like I did when I decided to quit smoking.  Something about it was making me feel dissatisfied and so I went with the feeling and maneuvered myself into quitting.  I may be far more addicted to ice cream than I ever was to cigarettes, but I think the concept is the same.  I need to run with this feeling of “woah, this isn’t right and I should do something about it” while I still can.

Besides, it’s just a month.  It’s not forever.  It’s a month.  If after a month I decide to eat ice cream again, that’s fine.  Hopefully I’ll be a less frequent ice cream connoisseur but if it’s daily again, well I hope I’ll at least have freed myself of the crazy craving for more which suddenly seems to be coming with it.

I can do this.

I can do this.

I can do this.

I can do this.

Screw you ice cream!