This little piggy went to market

Does anyone remember this notorious ad campaign by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America waaaaaaay back in the 80’s ??  I found this poster online that I feel better represents my own brain. And I find it somewhat ironic that this spoof on the ad uses bacon in their version of the renowned campaign.  Mmmmmm, bacon :)

I’m going to allow you to delve into my bacon-soaked brain for a moment here, just to let you witness first hand my obsession with food, exercise and all things related, as well as to reveal the true sickness that goes hand-in-hand with said obsession.  You know what they say - admitting you have a problem is the first step in healing.

I know Halloween is over, but I feel I should warn you … be afraid, be very afraid.

This weekend I attended an out of town wedding for my nephew and his now beautiful new bride.  I spent a good part of last week getting prepared for the wedding, putting aside all my daily chores and studying (oops !!) in favour of shopping and getting all girlied-up for the big event.  Countless trips to the mall in search of the perfect dress, shoes and matching jewelery, fresh highlights in my hair, waxing, pedicure, manicure … the list goes on.  Perhaps my obsession is not limited to diet and exercise - could there be a bit of obsessive-compulsive disorder lying just beneath the surface ?!?!

I knew going into the weekend that it would be a diet free-for-all with Saturday being a travel day and an overnight stay at the resort, and Sunday coming back home to celebrate Halloween.  I made sure the week leading into it I kept my diet pretty clean (with the exception of those few raids on my Halloween goodies) and got in a good dose of exercise to boot.  I accepted and celebrated the fact that I could enjoy my weekend without worrying about my diet or getting to the gym, and that I could just have fun and not even think about counting calories or planning my workouts.

And this is where the obsession and sickness that routinely invade my cranium begins.

Knowing that I’m the type of person that typically eats every few hours, and because of that get ravenously hungry if I miss just one meal, I packed a small cooler bag to bring up to the hotel with me, not knowing the area or if I’d have the opportunity to grab snacks in between festivities.  I had a small breakfast before I left the house, then packed a PB&J sandwich and a box of granola bars to take along … that and a full one litre bottle of perfectly chilled Grey Goose vodka.  Fitness and nutrition gurus worldwide would be proud of my bag of travel goodies !!!  Okay, maybe not.

To make a long story short, that sandwich and one granola bar were all I ate for the remainder of the day. Well that and copious amounts of vodka rocks back at my hotel room in the 3 hour break between the ceremony and the reception. I don't know how much I drank, but it was obviously too much. I won't go into all the dirty details (although any readers of this blog who have partied with me in the past have likely witnessed this ugly and embarrassing side of me), but I missed out on dinner :(  The good news is, after some TLC and tough love from a couple of my sisters and my brother-in-law, I made it back to the party ready and raring to go. After a good dose of well deserved ribbing from the rest of my family and a quick chat with my daddy to reassure him that I am not in fact, an alcoholic, I finally found my second wind.  The remainder of the night I was a dancing fool, and in fine Trevellin fashion we closed the place, leaving only after the DJ announced the last song and thanked us for coming out.

Upon returning to the hotel I realized I was completely famished, and there was no way I was going to bed feeling that way. A late night McDonald's run was in order, and it didn't take much to convince my drunken teenage niece to join me.  Between me, her and her sister our tally was $24 ... how the hell do you spend $24 at McDonald's between 3 small girls ???  Easy when one of them, me of course, orders 2 combos. I don't think I have ever in my life eaten at McDonald's and ordered just one combo for myself. I usually get two, or at the very least one combo and an extra sandwich.  I quickly inhaled my food and immediately settled in for a couple hours sleep.

Sadly, my Big Mac attack and excessive alcohol consumption on Saturday is not the diet free-for-all I referred to earlier.  That, my friends, came on Sunday.

Here, in a nutshell, is my food consumption over the course of the day on Halloween Sunday:

• Breakfast buffet at the hotel - bacon, eggs, toast, home fries, pancakes and coffee 
• KFC for lunch - as promised I tried their new Double Down sandwich. If you don't know it's a sandwich of bacon, cheese and some sort of gooey mayonnaise based sauce sandwiched between two thick pieces of deep fried chicken. Yes, the chicken IS the bun.  And in my infamous all-or-nothing style, I decided to combo it with a large order of poutine. Heaven on earth, that's all I gotta say :) 
• Pre-dinner snack - Taco Bell's Chicken Crunchwrap Supreme. Hey, it was one of those KFC/Taco Bell combo joints, so I figured while I was there ... 
• Pre-dinner drink - one of the king cans of Creemore beer that someone foolishly left in my hotel room 
• Dinner at Jack Astor's - the newly married couple stayed over Sunday evening so I took them out to dinner.  Two shared appetizers and a massive plate of Pad Thai, and of course more beer. Even my nephew, who is half my age and has nearly 100 pounds on me, said he was impressed with how much food I could put away. What a proud Auntie :) 
• Dessert - I sort of lost count, but at least 5 bags of the now leftover Halloween chips, and I don't even know how many miniature chocolate bars. At this point I was simply shoveling the food in while literally feeling sick to my stomach. But that didn't stop me ... I knew Monday morning I would be back to clean eating and the gym, so I had to get it all in while I could.

While I'm happy to say I did bounce back quickly Monday morning and returned to my clean eating and exercise routine (and I gave away all my leftover goodies to the kids across the street), it scares me when I have days like this.  As mentioned before I think it proves that my obsession with diet, exercise and my weight is truly necessary. Even after 2 years of keeping the weight off, these type of weekends stand out as a stark reminder that I can easily fall back into my old bad habits at any given moment. The massive food consumption I just described used to be the norm for me ... and I wonder how I got fat !!!

I also got back to studying again this week, so perhaps reading this book on nutrition will open my eyes to the negative effects these bad foods can actually have on my body.

Doubtful.