Empowerment came in the form of an Oxo Good Grips Meat Tenderizer

Yesterday I had to get into the garage freezer for a tub of Cool Whip Free to make dh's birthday pudding pie.

I don't get into this freezer often as it is filled with Lean Cuisines and the like for dh's lunches when he doesn't want leftovers or a sandwich.  Since I stock up when they are on sale, the extra space comes in handy.  Anything else in there is basically "odds & ends" like butter, cool whip and the occassional box of corn dogs for the kids.

I opened the door to grab the Cool Whip & realized what was in there.


Yep, a box of Girl Scout cookes. 
Thin Mints. 
My favorites.


Oh crap.
I completely forgot they were in there.


So what is a dieting girl to do?

Throw them away...after eating one first.
I swear it was involuntary - there was no brain action involved - hand to mouth lickety split & before I knew it I was chewing.

Huh.
This is what I got all excited about each year?
I mean, sure, it was good.  I adore chocolate & mint together, but I would have rather eaten a square of that fabulous dark chocolate w/mint that I have in the pantry.

Sooo, now what? 
Throw them away.
But it is food!  I can't throw away perfectly good (aka not spoiled or poisonious) food!

But wait!
I don't need these cookies.
I don't even want these cookies!
But I am afraid of eating them out of habit because I now know they are In. My. House.

Then came enlightenment.
I am in control here, not these stinkin' cookies!

I reached out & grabbed my meat tenderizer...

and showed those cookies who was boss.

Two reasons for smashing the cookies into little bitty bits:

1) It felt really good even though I couldn't do the powerful smashing action (couldn't hurt the counter top - I don't get to replace it for another 2 years!). 
It was a silly little thing yet empowering at the same time.



2) I knew that smashing them into little bits meant all the pieces would fall to the bottom of the trash can.  This was the end of the cookies.  No rescue attempts would be made...gross as it sounds.  I wanted this to be final.

Since I can't carry this around all the time, smashing all the bad foods who want to own me (it is a bit ungainly & I think someone would call the cops) at least I can carry around the feeling it gave me & remember it the next time some lowly food item tries to tempt me over to the dark side.

Sorry cookies, you have no more power here.

Girl Scouts, go peddle your addictive wares elsewhere. ;)



I hope something empowers you today.
Lynn

The chains of habit are too light to be felt
Until they are too heavy to be broken.
Warren Buffett

Sparkpeople, I heart your food log!

After struggling w/entering my foods at Bodybugg online (struggling mostly because I don't have time to enter every ingredient in my house into the computer plus I hate that they only look at a very limited amount of nutritents) I decided to go back to Sparkpeople for online food logging.

Oh wow, did I forget how much easier their system is to use!

What has been taking me 10 minutes to do on BB, took maybe 2 minutes on Spark.
Best of all, I didn't have to enter one food - everything was already in the database.

Love it!

If you are still looking for a good free food logging system then you might want to give Spark a try.


Now I'm off to make a gigantic batch of spaghetti sauce (dh's birthday meal is homemade spaghetti every single year - he is so easy!), check the Woot Off, exercise & make pilgrims out of toilet paper rolls w/my kids.

Have a terrific day!
Lynn

Gratitude is the heart's memory

Jean Baptiste Massieu

We cannot change our past. We can not change the fact that people act in a certain way. We can not change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude.

Charles R. Swindoll