I feel like I’ve been awfully indulgent the past few months: there was my birthday, Winter Ball, a weekend in D.C., a weekend in Vegas, a night of karaoke.

Honestly, I wouldn’t change any of it, but I’d like to be cognizant of it–especially because indulging, for me, can sometimes beget more cravings and lead to a cycle of indulgence. (I saw someone post something along these lines over the weekend, but I cannot for the life of me remember who it was to link to. If it was you, please let me know and I’ll link.)

Sugar and carbs and fried, fattening food can definitely be addicting, and my recent indulgences have brought back cravings for those foods that I previously had under control. Lately, it’s my healthy routine that’s kept me on track, because my body hasn’t been craving fruits and vegetables like it usually does. When I walk past pizzerias and bars with fried food on my way home, it takes a lot of “don’t do it, Theodora” to talk myself out of it. I remind myself of how crappy and bloated I feel when I eat fried food or pizza. How it doesn’t fuel me for my workouts.

Work’s been tough lately, and it would be easy enough for me to slack off and eat crappy food and not work out–but I know that would only make the situation worse. So I’m just going to keep talking to myself and keep telling myself to eat the right stuff and work out.

Tonight when I left work, I knew I needed to grocery shop. But I was tired and hungry and had no idea what I was craving. I started looking through blogs for recipes and nothing looked appealing and/or easy to me. I looked at Skinny Taste, which one of my friends recommended for her delicious and healthy recipes, and her first recipe was for my latest favorite dish–pasta with broccoli rabe and chicken sausage. I was happy that my grocery store had broccoli rabe–it definitely made this dish better than when I used spinach the first time around.

I know I’m in an absolute cooking rut, but I grabbed easy stuff for this week. Next week I’m going to challenge myself in the kitchen. Seriously.