Hi everyone,

Just a quick post as it's late and I'm tired from getting to bed late last night.  It's still pretty chilly here today but it is supposed to be warming up.  If the wind would die down I don't think it would be too bad.  However, this is nothing like the terrible storm that some of you are experiencing.  I worked late today and then got to the grocery store even later.  I couldn't really decide what to do because I was feeling quite hungry by the time I left work and I thought it might be safer to avoid the store - only there wasn't really much at home that I felt like eating and I thought that might be a problem given how hungry I was.  I decided to go to the grocery store and get a fresh vegetable tray and fill up on veggies.  I haven't been eating nearly enough veggies or protein either for that matter.  The trays were so expensive that I looked at them and decided to make my own tray.  I did have celery at home so I bought grape tomatoes, orange bell pepper, sugar snap peas, and baby carrots.  The plate of veggies I made up was a real treat and I cooked a steak also to make sure I got enough protein today.  I bought a small one and got three servings out of it.  So that was good but I had oranges (more oranges) and walnuts on my grocery list and that is where I maybe have made some trouble for myself.  They don't have tubs of walnuts anymore just small and expensive bags of them.  So I looked at what they did have and they had a trail mix with nuts, seeds and a few raisons - hmmm.  Then I looked at the nut section in the snack dept. and they had a bag of the same kind of mix that was twice the size and only a couple of dollars more and I bought that instead.  I'm not so sure that was a good idea.  In fact I'm quite concerned about whether I can eat them responsibly.  I poured some of the mix into a tub for the kitchen cupboard and I zipped the bag shut and it's going out to the garage to stay frozen until I need to fill the tub.  I ran into trouble with roasted almonds two weeks ago and this might be too soon for a similar product to come into my house.  On the other hand I wonder what my tricky mind is telling me.  I don't think trigger foods should be too easy to get too but I also think that when we start thinking that we "can't" stop ourselves from giving in to food temptations that maybe we're just secretly preparing to cheat and then "excuse" it with that old story about food being stronger than us.  Am I trying to give away my power so I can binge on something I likely shouldn't have bought in the first place since I was feeling so apprehensive about it?  Will putting it out here and being honest about what I'm doing help me see what is really going on?  Am I trying to sabotage myself again?  or is it something that I need to work through and is it possible to stick with my serving size.  Telling myself that I can't control myself or I can't resist some food is really a self-defeating, self-sabotaging type of thing to do and it's also not true.  I can make healthy choices.  I can get enough sleep so I have the energy to make healthy choices the next day.  I can make sure that I eat all of my food each day and have satisfying quantities of non-starchy vegetables, I can eat all my protein, get all my milk, and I can exercise.  I can plan my meals and cook ahead and if I'm determined to see this bag of temptation as a true risk then I can take it to my office and give it to my "difficult" co-worker who is quite a healthy eater and I know he'll appreciate it.  I think I'll put it in the trunk of my car so it will be easy to pass on to him if it looks like it's going to be too much for me to handle at this stage of my journey.  Well, writing this out does help me put things into perspective and even come up with a plan apparently. Now I hope that I can stick with this plan which means that I need to say - I've made this decision and I will follow my plan - and mean it!  Tomorrow has enough challenges for me.  I have an all day meeting and the coffee break food is waiting in the car (I picked it up at the grocery store this evening also.)  I have no idea what they're going to do for lunch.  They've ordered food the last two or three times.  Then I have a dinner meeting with the school board.  I'm taking home made soup and sandwiches so I will be prepared if there's nothing healthy to eat.  It's just not worth blowing my week at these meetings with food and especially when I've got challenges at home too.  Self-sabotage is a very interesting topic.  It's amazing how many different ways I find to de-rail myself during the year and also kind of amazing to see myself make the same crazy errors time and again.  This is not the first time that I've bought Trail Mix and I've had it work out okay and I've had it go totally off the rails but it more often goes off the rails so I should stick with walnuts which I've never gone crazy over.  I'll be stocking up on walnuts at the bulk barn when I'm in the city again.  I just wish that the roasted almonds hadn't turned out to be too much for me to handle.  If I ever buy cashews you can be pretty sure that I'll be in big trouble before they're gone!  Hmmmm.  Self-defeating...self-sabotage...what kind of thinking is this anyway?

Have a great evening everyone and don't take any risks with this weather.  Stay safe!

We CAN do this!

Cheryl

"No matter how long you have traveled in the wrong direction, you always have the choice to turn around. ~ Anonymous

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