Actus Contritionis

Deus meus, ex toto corde poenitet me omnium meorum peccatorum, eaque detestor, quia peccando, non solum poenas a Te iuste statutas promeritus sum, sed praesertim quia offendi Te, summum bonum, ac dignum qui super omnia diligaris. Ideo firmiter propono, adiuvante gratia Tua, de cetero me non peccaturum peccandique occasiones proximas fugiturum. Amen.

Yes, Gentle Reader, I have sinned. I have sinned greatly. And now I must pay for it in this new year that's hours away. To paraphrase Lydia Grant's little speech from the opening credits of Fame (the TV series, not the movie or the recent movie remake), "You've got big thighs? You want to be lean? Well, lean costs. And right here is where you start paying...in sweat."

If you've been wondering why I haven't been updating the site much this month, allow me to explain. No, I haven't been so thoroughly swamped with holiday preparations and festivities that I just couldn't squeeze in a post or three or four. Instead, something inside my head...well, it broke, and the consequence of that break has been that my control over my eating has vanished. Foods I haven't touched or barely nibbled on on rare occasions have been going down my gullet with reckless abandon. The consequence of that loss of control is immense guilt, which then leads to even more eating and then even more guilt and so on and so forth.

Hence the act of contrition. Hence my inability to write about food, even though I have several recipes to share with you. If you're on of those lucky people for whom food doesn't have a lot of emotional baggage attached, I envy you, Gentle Reader. But if you're like me and you have food issues and eating issues and emotional issues and control issues, then perhaps you can understand what I've been going through.

But with the new year barreling our way and my thighs not looking the way I'd like them to look, despite increasing my running distance back to 12 miles three or four times a week to try to compensate for my out-of-control eating, I'm digging deep within me to find the true resolve I need to get my shit together and take off the weight I've put on and reestablish control. And to be perfectly honest, I'm afraid that I might not have that resolve.

I've said before that guilt is my primary motivator for a lot of what I do, and while it can be a great source of motivation, it can also bite you in the ass and trigger one of those awful downward spirals, such as the one I'm trying to pull myself out of. Sure, I should find another motivator, but when it's one that's been with me so long, it's damn hard to find another reason--a positive reason, even--to get me to turn things around.

So I'm going to try to let my culinary misadventures be my motivation. Instead of the gross quantity of empty calories I've been consuming, I'm going to try to focus on creating and consuming meaningful, flavorful, inspiring, explorative calories that I can then share with you. And it that doesn't work...well, Goodwill probably still has all my old fat clothes on its racks.

Happy New Year and New Decade, Gentle Reader! Let the guilt-inducing TV ads roll!