WOOOOOOOOOOO!

Okay, yes, I am crazy. Please take that into account. And I mean no disrespect to any other cultures; this is entirely in the spirit of imitation as flattery, because I believe that the Native Americans hit upon one hell of a smart idea with this counting coup thing and I'm trying, in my poor way, to use it.

In order to show that I'm not afraid of the vending machine, or free food in the office kitchen, or any foods that I have the opportunity to sneak off and eat in private-- I'm counting coup. I have myself a coup stick of my own devising, or rather coup chopsticks, because that's what it is-- a pair of fast-food chopsticks, still stuck together at one end, which I have wrapped with a rubber band.

Yes, it's silly. But I'm hoping that this will, in a way, provide an answer to that "thrill of the hunt" eating, and give me moments where I can stick out my tongue at these foods, taunt them, poke them with my coup chopsticks and say, "I could have had you, if I wanted to, but you're not worth it. I'm not afraid of exposure to you or close proximity when we're alone. Neener."

And as for that mischievious adrenaline rush, well, the prospect of being caught in the act of poking food with a crudely decorated pair of chopsticks isn't quite as viscerally freaky as the prospect of being caught pigging down, but it's pretty well up there. Everyone understands eating, after all. Taunting food with chopsticks is, however, a bit on the weird side.

I have counted my first coup today, and snuck out to the vending machine with my coup chopsticks. Just to really rub it in the vending machine's nose, I brought along enough change to buy things. Using the CCs, I poked the numbers that would ordinarily bring me a Butterfingers, gave it a mental NEENER!, secreted the CCs up my sleeve and snuck back to my office. Whereupon I celebrated by ceremonially recording my first vending machine coup by using a marker to put a red dot on the CCs. The first of many, perhaps. I like the idea of being able to track how many times I stared into the eyes of a Snicker's Bar and deliberately gave it the finger.

So, yes, I have gone completely mental. But hey, whatever helps.

My Hub has eaten breakfast, hooray! I even got him to take a banana to work to stave off the mid-morning post-breakfast hungries. This last was less successful, because today is apparently a very stressful day at work for my Hub and he informs me that he would rather have doughnuts-- sugar and carbs. He is also already plotting out his dinner for the night, since I'll be at the Fun Run and he gets to run mad. Thus far a six-pack of beer figures in; I'm willing to bet that some kind of deep-fried calzone makes an appearance as well.

And the man swears he's not an emotional eater. Oy.

These days, my Hub has started talking about starting up "some kind of fitness thing"-- not now, not soon, but the idea has surfaced in his head that he will inevitably be sucked in. He is mourning his beer belly in advance. In a weird way, my new "I will get into phenomenal physical shape!" attitude (instead of "I have to do this stupid movement shit to keep weight off!", heh) seems to have struck a chord that my previous plan missed. Fitness apparently makes sense to him, where wellness or slenderness did not. I suspect that he doesn't see his weight or his health as actual problems and is comfortable with both-- it's not that he doesn't see that they could be improved, as that he doesn't really see that there's any clear reason to work for that improvement. Fitness, on the other hand... well, he sees me working out every day (particularly now that I do my strength training in the living room, right in front of him), and he sees the results, and he seems to see that as a worthy project.

I will not push. I will not push. I will be good. I promise. But this is the first sign he's shown that he isn't completely accepting the status quo, and I can't help but get a little hopeful at that. He seems to have moved from "Pre-Contemplation" to "Contemplation" on the Stages of Change scale. Rock on.

Today, I changed the yoga DVD. Wow. There's nothing to remind me that I'm not as bendy as I think I am like a new yoga DVD. On the up side, I'm able to handle about 80% of the poses without too much trouble, which is up significantly from the last time I took a look at this DVD. On the down side, that last 20% is a bear. My Hub was highly amused by my howls of outrage, which went something like this: "Do WHAT now? Are you crazy? How are you doing that? I can't bend that way! Son of a bitch!" He came in while I was in cow's head pose ("Oh, you're the cutest little pretzel that ever was!") and tried to imitate the pose next to me. This led to some howls of outrage of his own, particularly when we moved on to the next pose, legs straight out in front and leaning over, in which the yogi encouraged us to try to hook our thumbs around our big toes. My Hub, ever trying to over-achieve on the first go-round, immediately reached for his toes, grunted in pain, and proclaimed "Fuck you, you bendy garden gnome, I'm going to go take a shower."

I love my Hub. He's so goofy.

I was way under my calorie limit for the day yesterday. Never missed it. Weird. That may not be the case tonight, since doing what is essentially a second workout is bound to make me more hungry. Maybe. It didn't happen last week, so who the hell knows.

Oh, but the best news? Yesterday I got 10 out of 10 on my daily goals list. Drank water with every meal, brushed my teeth immediately following every meal, wrote a thank-you card, worked on writing prose for something like 20 minutes. (Oh, the mental muscles, they are so weak and spindly right now. How did I let my brain get so out of shape?) Washed my face before bed. Went to bed before 10 PM. TEN OUT OF TEN, hot damn! It's good to know that it's actually possible; I've had this list for more than a week now and was starting to wonder if I really had it in myself to get anything done in the evening at all.

Even better, the Hub and I have snuggled in bed right after work for two days running. Work clothes come off: snuggling occurs. It makes for such a nice way to adjust and relax and get my brain in the right place, and it really makes up for any lack of interaction in the evening. It solves so many problems, it's not funny. When we get up, my Hub makes dinner and-- shocking!-- two days in a row, I've picked up a project and worked on it, rather than farting around on the internet as I am wont to do. It's like we've achieved the perfect evening balance. I'm stunned. Wonder how long we can keep this up.

Fun Run tonight. I'm looking forward to it. I'm not going to try for the 4-mile yet; like any new habit, I want to break in the "going there" habit before adding any real challenge to it, otherwise my fear of the challenge will just become a reason not to go. Maybe next month.