PB and WHAT?

I love peanut butter. I am thankful I was not cursed with a peanut allergy. You might think I am being facetious or shallow, but I am quite sincere. Peanut butter enhances the quality of my life, and I WANT the quality of my life to be enhanced.

I eat peanut butter on toast, in oatmeal, cookies, and sandwiches. I have a favorite African groundnut stew recipe that my husband whips up. It never fails to make me happy when I'm feeling blue. I spread PB on pancakes, crackers, and celery. If I am feeling especially wicked, I will scoop it out of the jar and eat it neat, right off the damn spoon. Secretly, of course...

You see, peanut butter is a comfort food for me.  My other comfort foods are anything red, and milk chocolate. I know dark chocolate is better for you, but it just doesn't float my boat like milk chocolate. Still, I force myself to choose dark chocolate from time to time just in case I have somehow changed my mind. I try to keep an open mind about these things.

I fully realize one "should not" use food to comfort, soothe, or pacify one's tortured self; however, it works. Anyway, I hate "should nots." "Should nots" make me want to do the opposite.  So, in the interest of not gaining a million pounds during these dark nights of the soul, I am looking for alternate ideas. NOT alternative facts, mind you. Do you have healthier and lighter comfort food you choose when you are simply eating to fill that empty part deep down inside? Lay it on me. I want to know. 

Pomona in winter, no doubt yearning for apples and cherries

Staring my self down

I've been counting calories for 24 days. I have been exercising (biking, walking, swimming) and as of a week ago today, I have lost 7 pounds. Of course those were the easy, first 7 pounds. 

I don't know about your body, but once mine realizes the Hunger Games have begun she throws those first 7 pounds off like wool blankets on a summer night. My body gives those pounds up quickly and graciously as if to say, "Here my sweet, you've done enough. Good job. Now give me some food, dammit." When I continue to withhold large quantities of sugar, bread, ICE CREAM and alcohol my body gets mad. She fights back. I withhold food, she withholds weight loss. It becomes a standoff, a game of chicken. Who is going to blink first?

This is a dangerous point in a diet. You really have to want to lose weight more than you want to eat. Just to be clear, I never want to do anything more than I want to eat, so this is a conundrum. I must reframe the dynamic. Let's see, perhaps I want to win more than I want to eat? Yeah, sure. So that's how I try to get through it.

The time period after the initial water weight loss reminds me of the first couple of months with a new baby when you give, give, give and get nothing much in return. Eventually the baby smiles, laughs, and learns to play and all that effort is worthwhile. The baby in this scenario is the scales.

If you can outlast your body during these stubborn plateau periods, she will eventually surrender some more weight. Really, it is simple math when you are counting calories. You just have to think in terms of weeks or months instead of days. Right?  Please tell me I'm right. 

Of course, my body is a stingy, passive aggressive Miss Thing. Sometimes she'll only give up a half a pound. If that. Some weeks I try so hard and she slaps me upside the head with a weight GAIN.  She doesn't play fair. She wants me to give up.  She is a worthy opponent. I'm kinda scared.

S&J's Tree Face looking like I feel right now