Semi-Snowed In

Happy Thursday!  The winter storm moved in in earnest last night and we have a blizzard with all that brings, including near-zero wind chills.  I know that a lot of you are dealing with this same type of weather and I hope everyone is able to stay warm and safe. 

My husband has the day off today (he works part-time in the jewelry department at our local J.C. Penney store after retiring last January from 38 years as a retail jewelry store manager).  We're planning to stay in and will work from home today (he also works with me in our TSFL health coaching business).  In the past, being snowed in meant only one thing:  baking (and eating) lots of chocolate chip cookies.  Living in Michigan, getting snowed in is a given at least once every winter, so we always kept supplies on hand and were ready.  I remember one time years ago when the snow hit so fast that it caught us off guard.  One of our friends stopped by on his snowmobile to see if we needed any supplies and we asked him to pick up a couple bags of chocolate chips for us, which he did.  Thankfully he had to pass our house to get to the store, so I didn't feel guilty asking him to risk life and limb so we could bake cookies :-).

Prior to losing weight, food - especially fattening food - was the centerpiece of almost any event, and any event was a reason to eat.  I'd be less than honest if I told you that I wasn't even tempted to bake - and eat - a dozen cookies or so, because the thought crossed both my husband's mind and mine.  What's different this time is that even though we toyed with the idea, and even though it was a pretty tempting thought, we didn't follow through with it.

It's not that there is anything wrong with spending a snowy day inside baking cookies, but my husband and I know that warm cookies aren't something that we can approach with any level of moderation.  If we baked them, they would be gone in record time, with only crumbs around our mouths to incriminate us.  Because neither one of us can deal rationally with sweets in the house, we keep them out.  Period - no negotiation.

It helps that both of us are committed to maintaining our weight loss and continuing our pursuit of optimal health, because I think that if one of us was game to bake, the other one would probably go along.  When we were both overweight, we were co-conspirators in our eating.  We openly sabotaged each other sometimes - it's no surprise that we both struggled with weight for such a long time.  Now we support each other to stay healthy, which is MUCH better!

Staying focused on what we really want - staying healthy - helps us make some tough choices.  It always comes back to primary choices and secondary choices.  Since our primary choice is staying at a healthy weight, we make some secondary choices that aren't necessarily fun (like deciding to not bake & eat cookies) because those secondary choices support our primary choice.  Once we've made a decision on what's most important to us, it makes those other decisions a lot easier.

The choices we make today will either move us in the direction we want to go or will move us away.  Choose wisely :-)