Those Blasted Choices . . .

Sometimes I really hate to have to make good choices.  Yesterday was a prime example, and it took me a few minutes to actually decide what I was going to do.

After hanging out near the top of my healthy BMI range for a while, I made the decision last month to get down to at least the middle, or perhaps even the lower end, of that range.  The easiest way to do that, of course, is to go back on Take Shape for Life/Medifast 5&1, which I did.  I experienced the expected couple of days just before going into fat-burning when I was hungry and headachy, but I know that all of that passes and have been happily in fat-burning for a couple of weeks.  This past weekend in Denver I stayed on plan and passed up a number of very tempting-looking items on restaurant menus - no problem.

Then there was yesterday - Valentine's Day.  My husband spent 38 years as a retail jewelry store manager, so Valentine's Day was a huge business day for him and he usually worked until close (9 PM).  As a result, we never went out for dinner on Valentine's Day, until yesterday.  We made reservations at a new local restaurant and I looked forward all day to a nice dinner together.  I am in the habit of checking out restaurant menus on line prior to dinner so I can see what they have and pre-plan what I'm going to eat, so I sat down at my computer around 3:30 yesterday afternoon to figure out what I was going to order.  To my surprise, instead of a regular menu yesterday, the restaurant had a special Valentine's menu - dinner for two - and the price included an appetizer, two glasses of wine, a choice of several entree's, and dessert.  Our much-anticipated romantic Valentine's dinner was clearly going to involve a lot more food than I wanted to eat, and it was also clearly going to throw me right out of fat-burning.

I can go right back on plan - that's not an issue - so I really toyed with just enjoying the meal with my husband and starting back on program today.  I mean, we have NEVER gone out for a Valentine's dinner before, and this looked like it was going to be a wonderful meal from start to finish.  The restaurant even had a long-stemmed rose for each woman.  It's not like I HAVE to lose weight - I just want to. 

Therein was the rub . . . I WANT to drop some additional weight.  The question I had to ask myself was, what did I REALLY want?  I looked at the on-line menu several times, then printed out so I could look at it again. 

I decided to call a couple of other restaurants in the area that weren't advertising a Valentine's special, but they were booked (it was almost 4 PM on Valentine's Day after all).  So I gave some additional thought to just keeping our reservation and enjoying the dinner, but I also started hearing the words "choose wisely" running through my head :-).  I knew that keeping our reservation and enjoying the undoubtedly delicious meal wasn't a "bad" choice, and no one would ever fault me for making the choice.  What I understood, however, is that that choice didn't support what I REALLY want, which is to move in the middle/lower range of my BMI.

With that realization, I decided to call one more restaurant to see if they had any openings for dinner and they had one left, just an hour from the time I called.  (I'd already made the decision that if this restaurant didn't have any openings, I was going to thaw a couple of salmon fillets and cook some fresh broccoli at home.)  I booked that reservation, canceled my other reservation, then called my husband at work (since retiring, he now works part-time in the jewelry department at our local Penney's store) and told him that I'd be there to pick him up when he got off work at 5. 

We had a table next to a window with a view of the lake and watched the sun set on the lake while we enjoyed a small salad, grilled tilapia stuffed with seafood, and steamed green beans.  We drank ice water with lemon and ended dinner with conversation over black coffee.  I also ended the meal still on plan and still in fat-burning!  And while I didn't leave the restaurant with a rose, I did leave with a long-stemmed carnation that each woman was given at the close of the meal.  And I left with no regrets.

I had a dozen really good reasons for going off plan yesterday, and only one good reason for staying on plan:  I wanted something else more than I wanted the special Valentine's dinner for two. 

Once we decide what we REALLY want, we will figure out what we need to do to get it.  There will always be challenges and a million reasons to not do it, but if we know what it is that we want and we stay focused on it, those reasons (really, excuses) will evaporate.  It's not always easy to choose wisely, but in the end it's the only way to get what it is that you REALLY want.  Do you know what it is that you want today?  If so, stay focused and choose wisely :-)