The Weeks Without - Part 2: Purchasing Freeze

Last weeks' bread fast has come to an end. I've learned a lot about how I eat, when, and why. Turns out, I'm more likely to crave bready things when I'm tired or slightly sad. I desperately want pasta when I feel like I need an excuse to crash on the couch and do nothing. Even when I eat bread for the appropriate reasons, I eat waaaaaaaay too much, just because it's so easy to do.

Eating fruit is hard. I can't just push it into my mouth and gulp it down and be done with it. It must be chewed. It demands to be peeled, or sliced, or pitted. Fruit likes to make itself difficult.

I'll be happy to reintroduce bread to my life this week, but it won't be making a full on, Madonna-like comeback.

Indeed, bread is back, but it's back like visiting relatives.

Maybe it will roll though town once in a great while, and maybe I'll go see it and have a great time, then I'll laugh about how we should get together more often, but I won't really mean it.

Bread makes me exhausted in the afternoon, sluggish, hot when I'm trying to sleep, and um...fat.

Well, not really fat, but puffy. Puffy like a puff pastry

After seven days of no bread, here are my measurements compared to last week:

• neck: 12" ------> 12"
  
• bicep: 11" ------> 11"
  
• bust: 36" -------> 35.5"
  
• waist: 30" ------> 28"
  
• hips: 37" --------> 35"
  
• thigh: 22" ------> 22"
  
• calf: 15" --------> 15"
  

Notice that the parts of my body that have very little fat made no changes in measurement. That's good news for me because it means I haven't lost any muscle. My weight has gone from 140 at the start of this experiment to 138.5, not a huge drop, probably just water weight.

The running regiment hasn't suffered at all from the reduction in flour. I'm still trudging along at 8 minute miles for my one hour runs, and averaging 9:30's for my two hour training festival of fun.

I even managed to make it through the Spokane Interstate Fair without feeling sugar-sick or being mistaken for a bovine. Don't worry though, I spent plenty of time chewing, I wasn't out of place. Instead of my typical Fair food favorites like fry bread, onion petals, pizza, mini doughnuts and gyros, I enjoyed a corn on the cob and a caramel apple. Believe it or not, that's still a vegetable and a fruit, even when coated in butter and sugar. Better still, I feel completely satisfied with my Fair experience without also feeling completely regretful.

Check out this list of calorie content in common Fair foods from an article by John Brewer about the Minnesota State Fair

Caramel covered apple (1 order): 347 calories

Cheese curds (1 order): 759

Corn on the cob with butter (1 cob): 179

Cotton candy (1 bag): 323

Flowering onion with ranch dressing: 980

Funnel cake/ Elephant ear (1 each): 452

Mini donuts (1 bag): 622

Pronto pup (1 each): 350

Taffy (30 piece box): 557

Soooooo, for those who are like me and look at numbers like they are beautiful poofy clouds in the distance...so pretty, but not able to be touched...let me break this down:

Selina's regular Fair Fare: 2,054 calories for a funnel cake, doughnuts, and fried onions

Selina's reasonable Fair Fare: 526 calories for corn on the cob and a caramel apple

A savings of 1,528 calories.

To recap: still The Fair, still fun, still smelly like horse poopy...minus the 1/2 pound weight gain.

Please don't try to pet me, I will think your fingers are carrots!


Tiny horse!!!!!


Mutton Bustin' - children dressed as tiny linebackers clinging to stampeding sheep

Sick individuals who enjoy watching children getting thrown into the dirt by sheep

Desi rockin' the fried potato on a stick


Corn on the Cob...not nearly as terrifying as I've made it look

Hi Greg

This week the hammer is coming down. Hell and wallets are freezing over. The bank of Selina is shutting down. Cliches are coming down like mana from heaven.

A big part of this weeks' "without" will be determining where my money goes, if I really buy things because I need them, and if my spending habits are affected by the company I keep.

I'm hoping to come out the other side of this seven days with my new, smaller waist intact (no purchases means no restaurant eating), a budget for the remainder of the year, and a new appreciation for the things I already own.

Wish me luck and dollars.