Valentines Day

Valentines Day....... A day of Love, Devotion, and CHOCOLATE!

Every year for Valentines Day the kids always get loads of chocolate.  Between friends, relatives, and their class parties, it is like Halloween all over again.  This year was no exception. 

I thought Valentines Day would be harder for me.... diet wise. I haven't eaten any sweets in 7 weeks! Nearly 2 months!! And to make matters worse, I'm on my period.  A time when I am NOTORIOUS for eating an entire bag of candy.  Mostly Hershey Nuggets. YUM! 

I didn't figure I would be able to avoid the temptation of eating just one, teeny tiny piece of candy.  Especially if caramel or peanut butter is involved..... or Toffee.  I LOVE chocolate with toffee, caramel and/or peanut butter. 

But the candy did not appeal to me at all. It was the iced Sugar Cookies my mom sent home with the kids on Sunday that nearly did me in. You know the ones you get at the grocery store, that are real soft, kinda like cake, and covered with icing and sprinkles? Oh. My. Gosh!!  I Freaking LOVE those things!

The night we brought them home, everyone was sound asleep in their beds, and I was in the kitchen cleaning up when I came across them.  There were only a few left, so I put them in a Ziploc baggie. I turned to walk away, but my feet refused to go any further.  I found myself standing at the counter, staring at the bag of cookies. I stood there and just.....stared.  And stared.  

My mouth watered, my teeth tingled, and I could ALMOST already taste them on my tongue.  It should have been a very simple task of just walking away.  But I didn't.  I just stood there for SEVERAL minutes, staring at those cookies.  I realized how desperate I looked, standing in my kitchen, enthralled, by a bag of cookies, and I felt ashamed.

I began to "reason" with myself as I always did in the past.  What harm would ONE cookie do?  It wasn't like that ONE cookie was going to make me gain the 3 pounds I lost.  I had already exercised that day, and would do so again tomorrow, so any calories the cookie added would be worked off.  The sugar in the cookie MIGHT throw me out of my mild ketosis, or fat burning stage, I was in, but maybe not.  MAYBE it would spark another 12 pound weight loss like it did that first week.  Everyone was asleep.  No one would ever have to know....

But I would.

And while it is true, that ONE cookie would not make me gain weight, I realized I was on a precipice.  It wasn't about the cookie.  It was about me... my choices....my self control.  I will reach a point in life when I can eat one cookie, or a slice of cake at a birthday party, and it will be O.K.  It won't spark a downward spiral for me of diet disaster. 

But for right now...... it is best if I refrain.  I've been doing SO GOOD.  I've been SO STRONG.  And while I like to think that I now have myself under control, I am afraid that if I let my self slip now..... and eat ONE cookie.... and still lose weight....  I might begin to relax. Let myself eat off plan "occasionally" remembering that I was able to before and still lose weight.  

And then that occasionally might become once a week, that once a week might become once a day, and before long...... I'm back to eating the way I used to.  This has happened before.  It is why I was never successful on diets before.  

So I walked away.