A Battle of the Will

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Fridays are the day that I do my official weigh-in.   Since I had gained last week, I wanted to turn things around and I did.  Even with a couple lapses in my self control, I managed to lose 1.6 lb. 


I've been pretty good this week thus far with paying attention to my body signals and eating when hungry, not at other times.   I have to watch that I don't eat because the clock says it is dinner time, or that I'm bored, angry, upset, etc.   I also have to really be careful not to eat just because others around me are eating. Social eating can be very detrimental to your calorie limit!  

An example of this was last night. I went out with some friends for dinner.   After we ate, one friend ordered dessert.  It looked so good!  I wasn't hungry.  But my eyes wanted me to eat this dessert.  I gave in to the temptation and I ordered dessert.  It was really good-- but-- it added a whole lot of calories to my day and it also cost about half as much as my entree did!   So I ended up paying more than I had planned and eating more than I had planned.  The moment of pleasure was not as great as it seemed to be. 

As a "Monday morning quarterback"  I tell myself that dessert really was a pretty poor choice and not worth the calories or money spent.   But in the moment, I lacked the self-control to say no to my desire.   I also have to be careful today with my cravings.  When I eat something loaded with sugar, I then crave sugar and food in general and will binge if I am not on alert to fight the temptation.  Already today I have toyed twice with the idea of going and buying chocolate frosted brownies and then cake with gooey icing.  My rationale to myself is my grandson's birthday is today and it is perfectly normal to  celebrate it with sweets.  I am fighting the urge by writing this and then reading some other people's blogs.   From past experience, I know that these sugar urges will be gone by tomorrow if I do not give in to them.  

All this is from a few minutes of eating a dessert.   Dessert itself is neither good nor bad - it is how I react to it.  It's a matter of  opportunity costs --am I willing to put in the extra work for the dessert?

Do you have any foods that trigger cravings?