Today you get a personal story. Last Friday there was an interesting clash in my head. At the outset of my my cholesterol/diet experiment, I determined specific boundaries for food choices during the test period. I’ve worked that into my subconscious mind, and it’s become an instinctive, habitual part of living for me.
I also determined that I would make allowances for specific events. They being a handful of family gatherings over the year, they are far and few between. When I created the new image in my mind, these were essentially forgotten.
Last Friday marked the arrival of one of those days. Our family has an annual spring trek to an out-of-the way location. Part of the tradition is dinner at a small pizza and hot sub shop in a nearby town. It’s the kind where the building has seen better days, but the food is pleasantly superb.
Quite frankly, I had a small amount of anxiety that manifested itself after the main purpose of the trek, which grew into a brief moment of terror as I pulled into the restaurant. “There’s nothing on the menu that I’m willing to eat”, said the little voice in my head.
On one hand, that’s a minor tribute to successfully changing how I see my eating habits. On the other, it’s a warning that we get what we ask for. While I planned that out from the beginning, I really hadn’t integrated it into the picture of my new eating habits. Had I done that, there wouldn’t have been any need for the small internal turmoil that I had set myself up for.
I needed to remind myself that (1) this was already accounted for from the beginning, and (2) I wasn’t obliged to gorge myself as was customary in past years. My wife and I ended up splitting half a hot sub (alone it’s a meal in itself), and I savored a modest bit of garlic cheese bread and pizza.
The net effect was (1) my family and I were able to enjoy the event as planned, (2) I had a delicious treat, and (3) there was a three-pound spike in my weight. While perhaps undesirable at the moment, it was an expected and acceptable trade-off. Since diet immediately reverted to normal, that spike has almost disappeared.
Status: 23 pounds lighter.
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