What comes first: the chicken or the vegetarian?

I am having my first vegetarian crisis.

No. I'm not jonesing for a juicy black and blue burger, cooked to medium pink perfection. And while memories of sizzlin' summer bbq still tickle my cilia, I do not wish to tear off strips from smoked baby-back ribs. I'm not desirous of bangers and mash...or chips. No want for thinly sliced steak n' cheese.

No, I'm not falling off the veggie wagon. Rather, I feel that I'm becoming a leading member of the caravan.

It started last fall around September. All summer long I enjoyed shrimp and scallops. Grilled and served straight up. Sauteed in garlic and olive oil. Boiled in spicy jambalaya. Stuffed in plump ravioli. I enjoyed these sea creatures all summer long. No pain. No guilt. Just low-point protein satisfaction. And then the fall came and on a trip to Vermont for work I visited a local restaurant renowned for it's fine seafood. I ordered a shrimp and scallop pasta and was delighted to be served a large bowl with jumbo shrimp and golf-ball sized scallops. I dug in with gusto, but retreated after 1 shrimp and 1 scallop. I thought perhaps they were too large. Too meaty. I was confused. I blamed it on root vegetable season and hibernation.

Not to be foiled, when my mother visited in early November I signed up for another shrimp pasta. Ravioli. And what do you know, when ground and spiced, mixed with ricotta and hidden in ravioli, shrimp is unidentifiable. I made it through the dish.

Heartened, I determined to take on shrimp again at Thanksgiving. Shrimp ring appetizer with cocktail sauce. I dove in, grabbed a mini-shrimp smaller than the first nub of my pinkie finger and popped it in my mouth

I regretted it immediately, dove for my wine glass, and washed away the nausea with a good swig of Cabernet sauvignon. I haven't touched a tail since. Or a scallop.

I've been okay with my lack of seafood until now. Until this week.

This week, when siting down to eat breakfast- potatoes and egg (over-easy) I found myself thinking of baby chickens. Baby chickens. And me about to dig into a perfectly over-easy egg yolk. Being the staunch Brit I am, I dug in, chewed and willed myself not to think about fluffy yellow baby chickens. I made it through the egg.

This past Monday I found myself once again at the mercy of baby chicken imagery when offered a baked egg for breakfast by a dear friend (and Fine Cooking aficionado). Again, my staunch British side (and well-bred politeness) led me to close my eyes, swallow and....enjoy-ish. Thankfully they were hard-baked, and so reminded my less of baby chickens. This morning, as I pondered what to eat post-run for breakfast I once again was stuck in baby chicken mode.

So I had baked potato and baked beans. Not potato and egg. I ate supper for breakfast.

I'm not sure what's going on. I didn't become vegetarian because I'm an animal-loving softie. I like leather bags and shoes. I love cheese and milk. I love[d?] eggs. I became vegetarian nearly 3 years ago purely for reasons of health and ease post-cancer and new girlfriend (a veggie of 10+years who LOVES to cook). No other reason. So I'm having trouble understanding my recent distaste for seafood and eggs AND the live-animal imagery that is plaguing me when I try to eat either.

So what comes first: the chicken or the vegetarian? [Sadly?] in this case I think it's both. The chicken gets to have it's egg and the vegetarian, well, she gets to enjoy tofu-scrambles.

Weekends

Weekends throughout my young adult life have traditionally been marked by two nights & days of no-holes-barred behavior. It's the time of the week when I get to kick back and do all those things I can't get to during the work week- like napping, or hiking, taking my dog to the snowy arboretum (which we did today for a lovely walk off-leash), or shopping (when I have cash or an insatiable desire to burn dollars on credit).

All of these things aren't too bad for you (okay, shopping on credit is quesitonable)...but my no-holes-barred attitude on weekends also extends to food and drink. Yup. You guessed it- I'm a weekend binge-monger. It's the time of the week for nachos and beer at the local pub with a group of friends. For warm home-baked muffins, right out of the oven on a Sunday morning. It's glasses of red wine with cheese and crackers while cooking on a Saturday night. Splurging on a Starbucks grande non-fat mocha.

I had a no-holes-barred night last night. Red wine flowed freely from the bottle to the glass and from the glass to my lips. Glass after glass. I dined on uncontrolled portions of penne with shrimp in a white/wine tomato-heavy cream sauce. Followed up with chocolates (4 Hershey kisses, 1 Ferrero Rocher) and a caramel brownie bowl. I was uncontrollable.

In retrospect, it was a lot of calories, but not as terrible of a day as I used to have. But in the middle of it, I acted, ate, and drank with abandon. I felt like bingeing. I did binge. And I didn't try to record or think about WW or points (until this morning when I did go back and count everything. I know, I'm an overachiever by nature. I feel guilty when a task is incomplete or just shoddy work, and that includes WW journaling).

So what was it about last night? That I was at the end of my monthly menstrual-hell and craving all those sweet, salty, and alcoholic "bad" things? That I was falling into old weekender habits? That I was pretending to be "normal" and not a WW follower?

I don't know the reasoning for the behavior, but I do know that this morning my internal reaction to thinking about my Friday night foodmongering was, "Fuck." PAUSE. "I have 3 days until weigh-in." PAUSE. Groan. "Fuck."

And so today I've been on-target. But I'm still wondering- how am I going to enjoy my Saturday night without going over points? How will I feel like I'm living and taking advantage of my weekend if I can't eat and drink what I want? How will I relax?

Crazy? Well, it's my crazy-normal life right now. And how I anticipate it'll be for a while- at least while I kick these pounds and this program.