I blew it yesterday, but I sort of got away with it. I went to work and used some unpaid time off to work on a technical writing class I’m taking for the first couple of hours. My stomach was acting up (probably because of the poor eating I’d done the day before), so I left work after not actually working. Doing so, of course, left me with a lot of unplanned time off, and given that I’d managed to avoid yet another day doing a job I’ve come to loathe, my mood was rather celebratory.

I made it home without stopping at P. Terry’s. However, I needed water, so I ventured to the grocery store. By that time I got there, I knew I wasn’t going to complete my Friday fast. It’s really hard to fast on a day off simply because there isn’t enough pressure to keep you constantly busy. Anyway, I hadn’t had sugar in about two weeks, and the chocolate-covered almonds beckoned. I also got some sausage (I still can’t adequately explain the lure of sausage given that I know what it’s made of) and cheese, so I was headed toward a high-calorie, high-carbohydrate day with a lot of sugar and fat but no fiber.

After consuming everything I left the grocery store with yesterday, I was stunned to get on the scale this morning and see that I’d only gained a fraction of a pound. In reality, I was probably lighter before eating everything yesterday than the previous weigh-in indicated. After my morning weigh-in, I drink two glasses of iced black coffee, and that tends to evacuate anything remaining in my bowels (gross, I know). Anyway, I’m not being too hard on myself this morning because the massive ingestion of sugar yesterday made me feel so sick that I’ll likely avoid any sugar for at least another two weeks.

I’ve become fascinated by something that occurs in these situations in which my self-discipline breaks down. Obviously, having an unplanned day off leaves a lot of time to be tempted by thoughts of food, but there’s a very distinct threshold that seems to be crossed right before indulging in something I ought not to indulge in. It’s like a dam breaks in my brain, and all of the temptation that’s been building drowns my willpower. The question is: how do I make that mental dam stronger? I already know the answer, of course: I have to keep practicing resistance. I’m just not very good at it yet.

The plan for this weekend has been modified. I want to try to lose at least some weight, which has been hard on the weekends, but I already previously committed to pizza, so losing anything won’t be easy. From a dietary perspective, pizza is “bad” because of its carbohydrate load. I’d originally planned to get just a (giant) slice of pizza from a place north of me, but I got a great offer for the best pizza in Austin (Via 313) texted to me on Friday, so I’ll be taking advantage of that. It’s for a personal pizza, but it’s Detroit-style (square and thick pan pizza), so it’ll be higher in carbohydrates than just a single giant slice. However, except for the pizza, I’m planning to eat only high-fiber foods (specifically, apples and mandarin oranges) for the rest of my sustenance. We’ll see how that pans out (a little pizza pun there).