I Just Couldn't Do It

Yesterday I wrote about my ongoing battle with my refusing-to-die fat girl taste buds, especially when it comes to sweets.  I'm really glad I blogged about this yesterday, because what I wrote helped keep me out of trouble later on in the day.

After a networking lunch meeting that my husband and I attended (we always get a side salad with grilled chicken breast), he and I ran a few errands.  His cell phone has been acting up so he decided to stop by the Sprint store to talk to one of the reps.  The Sprint store is right next to Starbucks, and my husband just happened to have a coupon for a free specialty drink of any kind.  He gave me the coupon and I headed next door for coffee.  Since the coupon was good for a free specialty drink of any kind, and any size, I started looking over the list of their coffee drinks.  Since it's Christmas time, Starbucks has several holiday drinks right now and they all sounded good to me.  I reasoned that just this once it wouldn't hurt to get one of the drinks and began the task of deciding which one I wanted. 

When I'd made my selection and was ready to order, I felt myself hesitating for a moment as I remembered what I'd blogged about just a few hours earlier about making secondary choices that support what we really want.  The question was, was I willing to make that secondary choice or was I going to go for immediate gratification - especially since I had a coupon for a FREE drink of my choice?  Rationalization began and I figured that it really wouldn't be THAT bad, really . . . but I decided to ask the young man helping me if he knew how many calories were in the beverage I'd selected.  He pulled the nutrition information and told me that the beverage had around 400 calories.  Yikes!

That's all I needed to hear for reason to prevail.  Four hundred calories for one beverage . . . something that had very little nutrition and enough sugar to guarantee a nice sugar high followed by a crash.  I couldn't do it.  I smiled at the clerk and told him that I'd lost 126 pounds and couldn't justify spending that many calories on a beverage, so I spent my free coupon on my usual Starbucks treat - a venti Americano with sugar-free syrup.  It was a great - and guilt-free - treat :-)

Once upon a time, I would have felt the need to get the most "bang for my buck" and would have ordered one of the high-priced, high-calorie beverages with my free coupon.  What I understood again yesterday was that even with the free coupon, drinking a 400-calorie coffee beverage would have been way too costly for me in so many other ways.

I write these blogs not only to help those who read them, but also to help keep me focused.  What I also understand is that I can't be encouraging others to choose wisely if I'm not doing so myself - to not walk the talk is living out of integrity.  Coming here on a daily basis is a daily reminder to me of my need to make daily choices, some of which are easy and some of which aren't.  Yesterday the choice was frankly a bit of a struggle, but it was a good feeling walking out of Starbucks knowing I'd made the right choice.

One thing I've learned for sure over the past three years:  I'm never sorry when I've made the right choice, but I've always regretted making a poor choice.  I'm guessing the same is true for you, too!  For today, let's all choose wisely :-)