Well, I guess it was bound to happen.

I woke up pissed the fuck off at the world, and that rapidly descended down into tearful misery. I did a bunch of errands, and then on my way home had a "fuck it all" moment and decided that god dammit, I wanted a freaking burrito. I wanted to sit in air conditioning, eat, drink Diet Coke, and read, and fuck everything else. So I went to Qdoba and I enjoyed the hell out of a burrito and an order of chips and queso. And I did enjoy them ... while I was chewing.

As soon as I stood up though, I realized I felt like I had a bowling ball in my belly. I had a crampy sort of feeling under the right side of my ribcage. A few hours later, I felt gassy and was spending a lot of time in the bathroom. That's what happens when you slam down 200g of carbohydrates after a monthish of behaving (or at least behaving better than that, for fuck's sake). I wasn't that sick, but it wasn't pleasant, and it wasn't worth it.

It was bad timing, too, because an hour or so after that I headed 100 miles south to stay at my aunt's house for a week with my cousin. This is bad because they chow carbs like nobody's business. It's worse than my dad's. There are things I can eat -- already here, plus what I brought -- but there's also a surplus of things I shouldn't eat.

This is where being really picky comes in handy, though! See, of all the junk in the house ... it seems I lucked into not liking most of it. I normally love macaroni and cheese, but they have this weird organic brand that tastes vaguely like cardboard. I love ice cream as much as the next fatty, but not the flavors they have. I didn't spot any cookies or cakes. The corn Chex cereal won't be a problem -- rice checks might have been, but I don't much like corn Chex. The tortillas they have are corn, another thing I'm not big on. They do have one bag of chips that look delicious (tuscan herb and parmesan) and two bags of pretzel bites. One is sour cream and onion flavored, so blech. The other is four cheese. I like Ramen noodles, but I don't wicked crave them. Nor any of the generic flavored rices or pasta packages. I'm sort of amazed.

It's always bugged me how my aunt and cousins eat. When my younger cousin was fourteen, she was on a swimming team so was practicing six days a week in addition to horseback riding, archery lessons, gym class, and being a growing adolescent. One day I watched her eat dry Cheerios and a banana for breakfast. For lunch she packed a fruit roll-up, some chips, and a thing of Ramen noodles. Dinner that night was spaghetti noodles with tomato sauce. The next day, she had the same breakfast. Lunch was a treacle sandwich (syrup on bread for anyone who doesn't know), some squishy fruit snack things, an apple, and some cheese-flavored crackers. Dinner was leftover spaghetti.

I don't remember what she ate the third day, but she came home complaining that her leg muscles were tired and hurting. I suggested maybe she needed some protein to maintain her muscles, and maybe some vitamins and minerals, since she'd had 99.9% empty carbs for at least three days. She looked at me and shrugged ... and had Ramen noodles for dinner. Ahrg.

Her sister wasn't much better then, and their mother .... well, let's just say she's got a shelf full of diet books, another full of workout videos, a bunch of unused gym equipment, and several bottles of "homeopathic" HGC "hormone" diet supplements. And eats just like her kids, all the time. With the addition of a respectable amount of alcohol.

Anyway, I was expecting there to be a lot more tempting awful crap, but I might just make it out of here in decent shape. I mean, I know that no matter what food surrounds me it's my choice what I eat. But it's definitely a lot easier to not eat Cheetos if they're nowhere near. Avoidance is definitely my key strategy!