I've solved the mystery. It has lurked around long enough. The ultimate healthy eating, diet breaking culprit. Yes - the jury is back in and a decision has been reached! Chocolate - you are GUILTY! Guilty of enticing many to enjoy your scrumptous flavor and sabotaging their healthy eating habits! Yes - I have decided that chocolate can no longer simply reside in this home. At least not on an extended stay! I have been doing so well on changing our eating habits. And I particularly have been more picky with myself than the rest of my family. I quit buying white refined sugar and flour. We now have agave syrup, organic sugar (evaporated cane juice) and some turbinado sugar. Those are the choices. And there's not much of them. Even our natural sugar intake is limited. But I have been limiting myself even more - trying not to have much sugar at all in a given day. Maybe a little agave syrup in my oatmeal. I'm drinking my green tea plain and not using any sweeteners in my cooking (even in tomato based dishes). We've enjoyed some pretty yummy meals and I can sure tell a good difference physically since we've been eating healthier. But yesterday, we shared dinner at my parents house for Christmas and my Mom had no-bake cookies. I ate one but then found myself nibbling on a second one. They were sitting in front of me and I had a hard time resisting. Okay - I didn't resist that second one! But I did resist eating any more. That counts, right? Then my Mom made her wonderful homemade hot cocoa. And you better believe I enjoyed a cup of that WITH marshmallows. The big fat kind too! Now I don't feel bad about having that cup of hot cocoa for I'd been planning on that. But doggone it - I wished I hadn't ate the cookies too. Then wouldn't you know it - I've ate well today. Then this evening, my hubby, daughter, and myself made homemade bon-bons and chocolate covered Oreos (generic form of Oreos that is...) for a gift for my sister and her family. I couldn't resist. I took several bites of the yummy, creamy filling THEN nibbled on some of the hardened chocolate pieces THEN ate a chocolate covered marshmallow THEN ate bits of a bon-bon. And I just had to taste a cookie dipped in chocolate to make sure it would taste okay. :) Stinkin' Chocolate! I wasn't even craving any sweets or chocolate at all. You know, since I've been eating healthier, I really haven't craved chocolate or any sweets for that matter. If it's not in the house, I haven't really wanted it. It's when the stinkin' things are in the house that I have a hard time resisting them. And it's only certain things. Not all sweets. My hubby likes ice cream. But ice cream really doesn't tempt me much. So I don't have a problem having the ice cream in the house.
I figured the holiday meals and treats might prove to be a little more difficult on the healthy eating scale. And I knew I would enjoy a few things. And really - overall - I've done pretty well. Tomorrow is our big family Christmas meal. There will be homemade beef BBQ, homemade cole slaw (and it's really good), fresh fruit salad, jello salad, pumpkin pie, some kind of peanut butter heathbar treats, and m-n-m blondie brownies. Okay - I could skip the pumpkin pie. I could skip the peanut butter heathbar treats. I might could even skip the jello salad. But the brownies????? Come on, those are like one of my favorite types of brownies!!! Not to mention, Mom probably still has some no-bake cookies lying around somewhere! I'm blogging about it now because maybe when I go over there tomorrow, I'll remember I blogged about it and the desire to come back here and say "I DID IT! I RESISTED!" may provide me with some accountability. So I WILL be back tomorrow to report on how I did. Thanks for holding me accountable. Who knew blogging about it might just give the accountability a person needs!
So here it is. Here's what I think I will try to eat tomorrow:
About a tbsp. or two of Beef BBQ on homemade whole grain bread
about a tbsp. of cole slaw
about a tbsp. fresh fruit salad
AND
1 small dessert - I won't promise but it would be good if I could just stick with the jello salad for my dessert. It's a lot less fattening and will have fruit in it. But we'll see.
If I get hungry after the meal (we'll be over there for awhile), then I need to eat the fruit salad if there's any left. We'll see what happens.
Hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season! Until tomorrow then........
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