My Recent Wins and Losses

When my family and I first decided to change our diets to improve our lifestyle, it was difficult. There would always be a picture of a chocolate chip cookie or a pizza in my mind. I was craving these empty-calorie foods all day, every day. Although these cravings still arise in me, I have learned how to control my thoughts to make sure that I do not end up throwing away my diet and go back to the unhealthy way I was eating before. Recently I have become very interested in knowing how we are attracted to unhealthy and processed foods without even noticing.

Over the past two weeks, I have been monitoring the foods I have been eating and I realized that in this short time period I had one big win and loss regarding the foods I have been eating.

Let me start off with sharing the success I had. A couple days ago I was extremely hungry and there was no food available at my house. After a long day of school, I was really craving some pizza and I asked my dad to bring me some on his way back from work. My dad stopped by Costco and after doing some shopping, he stood in line at the cafeteria. Before ordering the pizza he stopped, looked up and saw a number of calories in a single slice of cheese pizza from Costco. He quickly took a picture of the number of calories and sent it to me. I zoomed into the picture on my phone and saw that one slice was 760 calories! That is equivalent to 25 cups of broccoli. I immediately told him that I had lost my appetite and that there was no need for him to buy me pizza anymore. I was able to control my cravings through logic.

My failure was the day before one of my track meets. It is a tradition in track for everyone to write down a list of foods that they want and put it in a pile for their secret buddy to buy and give to them the day of the track meet. My friends were all writing things down like cookies, chocolate, and pretzels, so I thought that I would also put down some of my favorite snacks that I have not eaten in a while. When I got my secret buddy gift I was super excited and immediately started eating the chips and chocolate that were inside. After a couple hours, I was reflecting on my decision to ask for such unhealthy food, I realized that it would have been extremely strange if I would have asked for a bag of lettuce or a salad. I do not know why is it so uncommon to ask for fruits as a gift instead of chocolate? I do not think I will be able to ask for a healthier gift at our next meet. Would you be able to?