Some Thoughts on Food, Stuff, and Self-Gratification

Are you master of your domain?

This post is 100% G-rated, I promise.  I'm really talking about ways to reward oneself, and, I swear, it never veers into that topic.  I just couldn't resist that intriguing title and the Seinfeld tie-in.  

So, as you know, all this year I've been talking about The Year of Less Consumption. I don't feel comfortable with my tendency to just buy and buy stuff, when I have a house full of stuff already.

Except, this week I ran up against and obstacle in The Year of Less Consumption.  Specifically, I questioned whether it was better to reward myself with new stuff, rather than with food. 

See, last Monday, for approximately the 548th time, I recommitted to Weight Watchers.  Back to the weigh-in booth, where I didn't lose any weight.  Back to the meeting, where everybody else seems to have it better figured out than I do.  Back to hearing everybody else's weight-loss celebrations, whereas I never get to have any celebrations of my own.  I was trapped in a cycle of healthy behaviors at the beginning of the week, followed by unhealthy behaviors of far greater magnitude at the end of the week.  Good-bad.  Down-up. Back-forth.

And then the leader said something that really stuck with me.  I don't know why I'd never heard the leader mention this before, but she talked about how the time that she really stuck with Weight Watchers, her third go-round, she just said, This is it, no more messing around, no more up and down and back and forth.  And she put her nose to the grindstone and lost 70 pounds in 6 months.  (I should also note that she looks very thin now, so it's not like it's one of those cases where somebody goes from like 500 pounds to 430, which is good and all, but not that helpful for the rest of us.)

I don't know why that story stuck with me, but I thought, I want to be like that.  It's time to be like that. 

I'm not positive I can be as disciplined as the leader was.  She mentioned that she never went anywhere without a container of lettuce, and that she brought her own food to every holiday and gathering.  That seems a little extreme.

But I do know that if I want to get serious, I need to do whatever I can to avoid overeating.  And sometimes there will be Food vs. Willpower situations that aren't going to be pretty.

Last Wednesday night was one of those situations.  I don't know why, but Wednesday is always the day when the dieting starts to unravel for me.  

And, predictably, Wednesday night the little voices in my head were talking about what kind of food I would binge on after Nathan went to bed.

But damn if I was gonna let food win that night.  So instead I drowned out those voices with thoughts of fun stuff I could buy online.

It worked.  I didn't binge.  I didn't end up buying anything either, because quite honestly I was too weak from hunger to fire up my laptop.

Then Thursday, there was another standoff in my head between Food and Dieting, and another incident where Stuff came in as the impartial mediator.  That time I decided to go shopping on Friday at some actual stores.

First I went to an estate sale, which made me feel all good and Year of Less Consumption-y.

And then I didn't even buy everything I wanted from the estate sale.  I just took pictures of stuff I liked.  For example, they had this old-school textbook from 1879, back when you only had one textbook for every subject.  Being sort of employed in the textbook industry, I was intrigued by it:

Also it seems like one of those old books where you open it up and discover a spell that leads you to an understanding of your family's true identity.

Oh and I took a picture of this cat painting, because I sort of liked it, but not enough to shell out $2 to own it:

But enough photography, it was time to start acquiring material possessions!  Second-hand, of course.  Of course. 

This estate sale had a lot of cool antiques, and glassware, and antique glassware.  I bought 5 old bottles and arranged flowers in them:

Illustrating that you always learn something new from an estate sale, I learned that Chicago was once home to a lot of bottle-making plants.  The bottles were probably shipped up to nearby Milwaukee breweries, where Laverne and Shirley could put their gloves on them and then wave at them.  

I bought two neat-o blue Mason jars, because the blogs and Pinterest are always using Mason jars for stuff.  Nathan used one jar to mix a potion that included my morning coffee, and I arranged flowers in the other one, alongside this other random blue container I got:

Oh, and I got a milk bottle from an old dairy.  And I don't mean to brag, but I got it for $5, and the exact same bottle was going for $7.75 on ebay.  Such a steal!

On the right is my tulipiere, which I got last year from a quaint little glassware boutique called Amazon.com.  

The whole lot of them:

Look how fun and spring-y!  

I also got this random turquoise-colored metal bucket, which I don't know what I'm going to use for, so right now it's Pooh's bathtub:

So far, I hadn't done any real damage in the stuff-acquisition department.  I did make a rule that second-hand goods were preferred in The Year of Less Consumption, and even those flowers were mostly recycled from last week (except the tulips).  Plus I love to arrange flowers, so I was giving myself an experience, which was also a Year of Less Consumption principle. 

But then I went to JC Penney and bought $146 worth brand-new stuff just for the hell of it.  I was just grabbing at things to buy in order to fuel my disturbing shopping high.  Ooh, earrings!  Oh, that necklace is so cute, I must have it!  And I can always use another pink cardigan!

Later we went to Costco and I bought myself a purple cardigan. 

So, Friday was mostly a big fat Year of Less Consumption FAIL. 

Except, in the course of my shopping spree, the strangest thing happened: I lost my desire to reward myself with food.  It's like all of my self-gratification needs were met by the shopping, so I no longer needed the high that came from eating. 

My dieting resolve lasted until Sunday night, when I felt it weakening again.  So, what did I do?  I went and ordered a new pair of shoes and several new pens online! 

Phew, gratified.  Also poorer.  But, the shopping-as-a-substitute-for-eating plan worked: I stayed On Plan the whole week, and I lost 5 whole pounds! 

Except, I gotta slow down the shopping, or else I'm going to need to take out a small loan to get to my goal weight.  For now, though, I think I need the instant gratification of material goods to replace the instant gratification of eating.  I know a lot of people can delay gratification and promise themselves, say, a new pair of shoes for every 10 pounds lost, but right now I need something a little more immediate.  Maybe as I start to lose, the weight loss will be motivation in and of itself, and/or maybe after awhile I'll want to stick with the diet just because I don't want to break my streak.  In those cases, I won't need to shop all the time.  But right now, I need to shop for stuff. 

Which means I've solved one problem (rewarding myself with food), but created two new problems (consuming a lot of material goods, spending too much money).  I know there are alternatives and solutions here.  But I don't want to talk about solutions right now.  Right now I just want to talk about the situation.