C Is For Cookie

          I remember being a litlle girl watching Sesame Street on television. The show was created when I was about two years old. I loved watching those shows , learning new things, laughing at the muppets. My mom knew that I loved them too so she purchased the albums. I memorized all the songs on the albums and would perform them live. The house I grew up in had a platform after the first two steps upstairs and that was my stage. I wanted to be a singer-actor-dancer. I wanted to sing all the time. When I was bored I would sing and act. I would make up stories in my head.  That was my dream. For whatever reasons, I did not become an actress. I was a little girl. Cookies were not a bad thing. I would eat a couple of cookies. Not a handful, not a bagful. Just a couple of cookies. I was a happy little girl singing "C Is For Cookie that's good enough for me". And they were. Cookies are not bad or evil.
            When you become an adult you are taught to act a different way. You have responsibilities. You go to work. They don't appreciate you singing silly songs at work. You have kids. If you have children, they need you to be in control because when you're not, they have to become the adult. It's no fun. You don't vent your feelings all over the place. You take your lumps and move on. You swallow those lumps until they have a side effect. Mine is weight.
           I moved on from cookies to basically anything. But I am not really talking about cookies am I ? I am really talking about this week's topic in the Weight Watchers meeting about managing your feelings. We had a deep discussion about how most of us make poor eating choices because we want to feel SOMETHING (fill in your own blank here). I admitted in my previous blog that I read about a woman who had her dream job but was still unhappy and took it out on herself with food. This is actually a common thing. I admit to not being happy about some things in my life. Nothing harsh readers, just some things that I feel like I am not getting. Most of the time I brush it off to "what's for you is for you" but that does not mean that the feeling goes away. You're actually suppressing it.  And sometimes those feelings rise to the surface and you need a substitute. I admit to going to food without even asking myself if I am hungry.
           Last week I ate some out of the ordinary things for me. A bag of vanilla wafers, some french fries. I ate ice cream with my hubby two nights in a row. The first night it was two spoons and a quart. WW know that is an absolute no-no. But I was feeling down and didn't have my usual adreline rush so I medicated myself.  There was a length of time in my life where I medicated myself all the time. I did not workout. I barely went out except to go to work. I avoided some people and places. The weight piled on and I just kept wearing my big pants(some were recycled from my maternity wardrobe). I had a position where I was rarely seen outside of my office. Then my office was moved. Then I took a different position where I had to be a little more public. You know what I found out?  Eventually I started to figure out that I was the biggest person in the room. Huge revelation.
          Since then I joined Weight Watchers and I lost weight. Then I stopped going to meetings and I gained weight. Then I went back to meetings and I lost more weight than before. I still have a long way to go. This week I gained two pounds. Bummer. It could have been a lot worse being that I super indulged. But it wasn't because I was in control for part of the time. I did not work out and I barely tracked. Bad Carin!
         In the Tuesday Night Happy Hour meeting, a few of us vented our frustrations. I spoke out about how I buried my needs so down deep into myself that I had become the last person on my own list. It took me a long time to move myself higher and higher up my own list. There are still times when I revert for whatever reasons. That may be part of what's going on with me now. But I am awake. I had to chuckle at my friend, Tam admitting that she loves to eat things that begin with the letter C. It sounds silly but when you think about it....cookies, candy, cake, cheese doodles, cream ( as in ice cream); they all start with C.
         I have a different balance now. Whenever I can, I sing the silly songs. I dance the silly dance. I have a funny family that acts. We love to watch silly movies and laugh until we can't breathe.We talk to our cat and do impressions of what we think she would sound like and answer back.  I may not be a Broadway star but I am a Power Puff Mom. I wear a lot of pink and ride a pink bike. I am a little weird to some people but I don't worry about fitting in as much as I used to. C is for Carin. That's good enough for me.