Thursday, December 16, 2010

THE WAR OF THE COOKIES

I don't know what it is about cookies that make them so nearly irresistible to me! I'm sure it is mainly emotional and has to do with a sense of "reward" and "fun" when I get to have one. Or seven.

I may not have won the War of the Cookies yet, but I won a battle today.

I went to my granddaughter's preschool Christmas program this morning, which was actually written by 4-year-olds (my favorite part - Angel: "You are going to have a baby." Mary: "I will do what God wants." Angel: "Good luck with that.").

I don't know why I did not anticipate that the after party would be a cookie-rich environment. It was, and I chose not to eat even one cookie, but had a cup of tea instead. Here were the thoughts that went through my head:

This morning, my body fat was the lowest so far on Atkins. If I eat cookies, and it goes back up, I will be mad at myself later.

If there was a sugar bowl there instead of cookies, and everyone was eating pure sugar as a treat, would I do that, too? No. (I found out later that a 2" chocolate chip cookie has the same amount of net carbs as 1.5 tsp. of refined sugar, and will increase my blood sugar with equal speed.) Okay, the obvious answer to that is that the cookie tastes better than plain sugar. Must be all that yummy refined flour!

The cookies looked good, but so what?

This is not the last chance I am going to have to eat cookies. I don't have to resist cookies for the rest of my life. Just this morning at this event. (I borrowed that one from Bill W.)

Any time I want cookies, I can always go to the store and buy some. But will I do that? No. So if I won't buy them at the store, why would I eat them at a party?

Each time I resist an unhealthy food, it builds my resolve and increases my strength to turn away the next time, not to mention the neural pathways that are being formed that will make it more "second nature" as time goes on.

You know what I found out in the end? The longer I stayed at the party, the easier it got to ignore the cookies. By the time I left, I was not feeling deprived at all.

6 comments:

  1. Good for you! And tomorrow you may find out something that will make it even easier. Beaux and De are ok now, tears have stopped! Lol
    Karen

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  2. Ooh, those cookies do look good. Nice job on getting through that. I know when Atkins is working for me is so much easier to resist because I just don't need the "boost".

    Funny you should mention cookies. I have been trying to get my brother on board and he has been sitting on a copy of GCBC for months.
    He watched Fat Head and now he is receptive to the message. (Yesterday he told me how he is powerless against chocolate chip cookies, & he can easily eat 1 or 7)
    The day after he watched the movie he counted carbs for the first time, got himself down to 150g & was amazed that he did not feel sluggish in the afternoon.

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  3. You must feel so good that you have been such a positive influence on him!

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  4. You should feel good; it was your links here to the movie that prompted me to his website, and had me buy not one but two copies of the DVD.
    I like the way Tom packaged the message for newbie’s, doubters and low carb skeptics.

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  5. That is so nice of you to say and it put a big smile on my face! I don't get a lot of comments, so I'm not sure how many people are reading. I started this blog in the hopes that it would help people, so your comment makes me very happy!

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