For having a pretty bodacious summer for weight loss, the fall definitely started slowing down. Honestly this last month, I have been a bit of a lazy-bones and it doesn’t thrill me. I think my will-power skedaddled with the warm summer wind. That and my voracious appetite for pumpkin everything this time of year, really isn’t helping matters. I purchased pumpkin english muffins the other day because I could smell the pumpkin through the packaging. So obviously, those babies were not being passed up.
I was going to leave it at that. But my sister, who I was shopping with, pointed out caramel cream cheese and said it’d go perfectly with the pumpkin english muffins. Now normally I don’t even acknowledge the cream cheese aisle. Besides maybe a rare and occasional splurge on veggie cream cheese I have not dared to ever buy the sweet cream cheeses, for obvious reasons—I’m a sweets hound—but I felt like she had a rather strong point. It wasn’t every day I was going to eat a pumpkin english muffin—even the packaging reminded me that it was limited edition—so what was one little indulgence like a totally terrible for you caramel cream cheese?
Well, it was obviously a horrible idea as the pumpkin english muffin/caramel cream cheese combo was sweet decadence and I couldn’t stop myself from enjoying it just at breakfast. Suddenly I had to have it for snack too. And then before I knew it the whole package was gone in a matter of days. Except one, which my sister tried and told me later that she threw away because it was too sweet for her. I had to resist having this kind of moment on her:
But then I remembered I really wasn’t benefiting from eating an entire package of pumpkin english muffins slathered in caramel cream cheese and thought it was probably for the best that one of them had been thrown away. But assessing the scale, I realized I had been gaining and losing the same three pounds for about two months. Interesting, right around the month of October and what … pumpkins.
This simply would not do. If I was at my goal weight, fine, I could have a little tango with three pounds, that wouldn’t bother me at all. But being that I am not exactly where I would like to set up shop, hovering back and forth around this number (a number I am really not fond of I might add) is getting a tad ridiculous.
I know I need to take more serious measures, like I did this summer with challenges both eating and exercise alike. And I definitely need to get a handle on my pumpkin dependency. It’s like I feel a sort of dishonor if I pass a pumpkin-infused goodie that I haven’t tried. Like the poor pumpkin will be sad that I didn’t ingest her fall-ish goodness. Even as I write this I am fantasizing about the last pumpkin porter in the fridge … and OK, fine, I may have also crumbled and bought pumpkin donuts this weekend. It’s actually getting out of control my pumpkin lust. I think I need a hotline. Pumpkin Junkies Anonymous. Now that’s a group in which I could benefit being told, step away from the pumpkin. Seriously, I need a sponsor to call when I am being bombarded by pumpkin flavored everything, who can tell me it’s not worth it and there will be more pumpkin yummies to be had next year and the year after that.
I love fall and I especially adore the holidays but man, for a girl on a weight loss mission and healthy food forays, this season is not kind. I guess this can only mean one thing. It’s time to get ugly again. As in: Beast mode. Warrior time. Go to the mattresses. Get a grip and stop messing around with that little floozy, pumpkin imitation and instead consume the real deal, like pumpkin seeds, or maybe some of her kin, a squash? That’s it. Yes. Officially, I am covering my ears to pumpkin’s sweet siren call and I am locking it up.
Well, except that last pumpkin porter in the fridge, that really would be a sad thing to waste. Oh, and Thanksgiving, maybe just a smidge of pumpkin pie and then I swear I will break it off. Otherwise I will have to start looking into a pumpkin sponsor…
-Cassandra