Is it worth it

Leftover dinner for lunch is a timesaver for me. It's no harder to cook more servings of the same meal and then I immediately pack them for lunch.

Also, whatever you make, pack it up immediately so people don't end up eating it with dinner. I bought (really cheap at Walgreens or CVS) a set of plastic containers to bring food to work and they make this super easy.

You are ready for a total redo of both your diets and your children.
Why are they drinking soda in the first place/ It should be a very occasional-couple times a year-treat.

Not every day is a cookie day, but without a log of what I ate before I started trying and logging my food, you can't see that even the cookie days are an improvement. At the end of the day I am an emotional eater. A day filled with chocolate or the like, it was guaranteed to be a bad day that I spent hiding from life. Before I left my last job, I was the girl who kept the candy dish both full and empty. I snacked all day on something. Sometimes M&Ms, sometimes caramel rice cakes, sometimes chips... Since mid April, my calorie intake has dropped for somewhere around 4-5k calories (on average) a day to what is showing now. It was worse years ago before I made the switch to diet soda.

I choked down the 5 hour energies this week due to only getting about 3 hours of sleep on what should have been Sunday night but ended up being Monday morning before work. I have been recovering from our move this weekend and last for some time.

The fast food is mostly due to the fact that is all that is near my work and in my price range. Only place within walking distance of work on my break is Taco Bell and Starbucks. Taco Bell is cheaper. There is a 7-11 as well, but I don't think that is an improvement over the other options.

Last night's apple juice... that is fun. I had food... I saw it... I smelled it... but I didn't get to eat it. Instead of coming home to kids and having dinner, I got to commute in rush hour traffic (both ways because I am that kind of lucky) to get the kids, then back home. The person that was supposed to get them hadn't bothered and claimed to be leaving fetch them when I was on my way home. I drove past the house and they still hadn't left. By the time I got home it was past the kids bed time and I still had to do work in an effort to find our thing among the boxes we are currently living in. Last night I found the couch, the computer desks and troubleshot an electrical issue. After that I passed out. My goal tonight is to find plates, bowls, possibly cups and my inhaler. Inhaler has been on the list all week though, so I'm not holding my breath for that one.

I am an amazingly stupid picky eater. Foods with certain texture gag me. I tried cheesecake once years ago and threw up before I was able to swallow the bite. Things that crunch that I don't think should freak me out. Grew up around too many cockroaches and that has its own side effect. Yogurt is a food I want to like. I want to like it so much, but it is nasty. Super gross. I don't know how my kids eat it. I want to like fish because it is generally pretty good for you, but being near anyone even cooking it makes me nauseous. Milk products periodically cause bad things to happen so cereal of any sort has been removed from what I eat since kid #1. I am a red meet and potatoes kinda girl and most the time I can't afford that either. I used to go to a local place at my last job and have salad nearly every day... but they caught fire and didn't re-open before my job move. Eating protein is expensive. I am just a lowly employee at a school district and count my blessings that my child care costs currently include their meals while they are there. I try to get the best things I can with what I have available, but what I have doesn't last a month if I pay more than $5 or so for lunch. At this point I am not sure even the $5 is going to be sustainable.

In my efforts to maintain a relatively nutritious household for my kids, they are not overweight at all. In fact due to my ex-husbands metabolism that my son ended up with, he usually comes in under weight. I am a HUGE hypocrite when it comes to food and the kids. Just because I eat it, does not mean I let them have it. I get a diet soda or tea with most my meals but make them get juice, milk or water. I want desert, I get a cookie. They want desert they get some sort of fruit or yogurt. I refused to let them have anything but milk, water or watered down juice for the first few years of either of their lives. No chocolate, no soda, no candy at that point. Now days they drink some soda, but usually still get milk, juice or Gatorade. The bubbles burn and they don't like it. I am painfully aware that it is a lot easier to develop healthy habits than it is to break an addiction to food and sugar.

I spend so much time stressing about making sure they are active and eating right that I basically get whats left that I can tolerate the taste of, be it what they don't eat or what I have the energy to make/care about. Cooking right now is impossible. My kitchen is covered in boxes. I am sure that my dishes are around there somewhere, but even if I found them it wouldn't matter, cause the stove is buried. I won't eat most pork, or any fish. I have someone in my house allergic to poultry and fish. If we eat any more red meat my husband is going to die of a heart attack.

When not living out of boxes I tend to cook dinner. Typically two veggies (cause I compulsively feel the need for there to be a green one, so even if it is corn season we still have broccoli, artichokes or zucchini with it too), a carb of some sort and a meat. Inevitably, everyone overeats. I have an easier time controlling the quantity of food that both my husband and I eat, if we eat out.

How do people work full time, cook multiple meals every day, manage to have something to bring as a lunch, raise small kids and have any time for anything other than cooking, cleaning and then the paying job? at least half the time I am tapping my foot at the toaster in the morning, waiting for waffles to pop up so I can hand them to the kids and have them eat them in the car while we rush out of the house... cause "No, you can't have syrup with them. You will turn out like me."

So I have been on and off trying to get my weight under control since my first kid. I have actually been using MFP consistently for the last month or two and making slow but steady progress. What I can't seem to do is not be hungry and be anywhere near my daily calorie goal. I wake up with my tunny talking to me and I get to listen to it all day. As such I have noticed my moods are way worse too. Sure, I am down a few pounds, but I can't remember the last day I didn't loose my temper at my kids. My ability to look at the car covered in soda and calmly tell them to get a towel is gone and replaced with screaming things like "Clearly you are to f****** incompetent to have a cup in the car. No more drinks in my car ever!"

Is it worth it? Is it worth being constantly hungry and grumpy and stressed and tired all the time just to loose weight? So far the journey has brought me nothing but constant frustration from not being able to pull out of my PMS type mood for over a month to irritation with the "good" things, like my pants being looser thus needing to be pulled up constantly. What good does being healthier and living longer do if to be healthy and live longer the sacrifices you have to make to get you there make you miserable?

You are ready for a total redo of both your diets and your children.
Why are they drinking soda in the first place/ It should be a very occasional-couple times a year-treat.

Mine drink Dr Pepper and Mountain Dew because they like them and, even at a few times a week, those drinks are a very small part of their overall diet. "Should" makes your statement sound more like a fact than the opinion it really is.