Breakthrough

After lunch today I was hit with a strong craving for chocolate cake.  I thought about the food I had left in my lunch bag (4 clementines and a banana) and then thought about the spare change in my wallet (vending machine run, perhaps?).  What was going to satisfy this craving?  Or what if I just tried to figure out what I was really craving?  Was chocolate cake going to do the job (and just for the record I was envisioning an enormous slice of the cake they serve at Macaroni Grill...moist, warm and drenched in hot fudge, mmmmmmm) or did I need something else?  I decided to eat a couple clementines and wander over to Jenn's cube for a chat.  We talked about chocolate cake, and diets in general, and the conversation meandered around for a bit.  I ate both clementines.  And then the most remarkable thing happened - I really wasn't interested in cake anymore.  Perhaps my craving was for a distraction from my work, rather than food?   I think I may have just successfully done what all the diet books tell you to do...redirect yourself when you are craving something unhealthy.  This may not seem like much, but I am so used to giving in to my cravings that riding one out is truly a foreign concept to me.  Judith Beck describes giving in to a craving as 'strengthening your giving-in muscle' and suggests that each time you are faced with a choice you need to decide which muscle you're going to strengthen - the giving-in one or the willpower one.  I know which one I chose today!

BTW, I started reading the Complete Beck Diet for Life and I'm really impressed.  Jen over at Prior Fat Girl started a book club to discuss it - check out the action here.

Now back to work...

Books Books Books!!!!!

I received a truly amazing gift for Christmas this year - an unlimited supply of books, in the form of a subscription to BookSwim.  For the uninitiated, BookSwim is like Netflix for books - you have a reading list and for a small monthly fee they send you the first few books on your list, with no shipping charges.  When you are done reading them you mail them back, with no late fees or shipping charges, and the next book(s) are dropped in the mail.  Seriously, this is a dream come true for me!  I used to spend literally hundreds of dollars a year on books, many of which ended up on my bookshelf half-read because I'd find something more interesting to read.  Then I became hooked on the library - the books are free and you can request books from any library in the network and have them shipped to your local library free of charge.  However, there is a time limit on reading these books and often you have to wait several weeks until your name gets to the top of the waiting list.  And of course there are late fees if you don't return them on time.  With Bookswim, you keep the books as long as you want and there aren't any long waiting lists!

This means that one of my favorite activities - spending a few hours at Borders with a latte and a stack of books - has become even more fun.  I still gather a huge stack of books to page through, but now I can bring my laptop and put the ones I like on my BookSwim reading list rather than purchase them or wait for them to become available at the library.  And!!!!  If there is a book you would like to borrow, but it isn't in the BookSwim library, you can request it - if enough people request the same book they'll add it!  And for you students out there, they also have textbooks to lend.

Here's my list so far:

1. The Hour I First Believed, by Wally Lamb
2. Head First HTML, by Eric Freeman
3. Heat, by Bill Buford
4. Belong to Me, by Marissa de los Santos
5. Losing It, by Valerie Bertinelli
6. Cook Food, by Lisa Jarvis
7. On Writing Well, by William Zinsser
8. Cook Yourself Thin Faster, by Lauren Deen
9. 29 Gifts, by Cami Walker
10. Deeper than the Dead, by Tami Hoag
    

I am completely smitten with this website - and would love to hear if anyone else has subscribed to the service!  And of course, any recommendations for my reading list would be greatly appreciated.

Happy reading!