One of my favorite foods (besides chips and salsa) are cookies, in particular chocolate chip cookies. Since I love chocolate chip cookies so much, every year for my birthday, my mother-in-law makes me a cookie cake instead of regular cake. As I normally do after my birthday, I put the leftover cookie cake in my freezer to have at a later date.*
Recently I have been really craving a piece of my cookie cake. If I am being honest, it is something I was thinking about most days, but had been resisting because I have really been trying to avoid sugars and focusing on eating whole foods. However, I finally decided that I probably would not stop thinking about the cookie until I had one. So yesterday I planned the cookie into my macros so I could still stay on track and enjoy the cookie I could not stop thinking about. When it was time to have my cookie, I got out my piece and put the rest of the cookie cake back in the freezer. When I ate the cookie, it tasted so good, and I thoroughly enjoyed every bite! In the past, more times than not, I would eat a piece and then decide I needed to have more. I would then get one more piece and then one more piece, and then that one would piece I had originally intended to have would turn into five pieces. Not this time! After I ate my cookie, I had my typical reaction of heading to the freezer to get one more piece, but this time I paused for a second and really thought about that decision. When I thought about it more, I did not REALLY want another cookie, but it really came down to the habit that I had developed of reaching for more. Once I recognized that at this moment me wanting another cookie was more of a habit, then a true desire for another cookie, I was able to take control of the situation and move on about my day.
Since I did not reach for another cookie, I felt I won this time over the cookie! It’s not to say that in the future I won’t decide to have the five pieces, instead of the one that I had intended to have, but I am going to say this victory I had today is the start to having many more victories over the cookies in the future!
*Side note – When I put leftover treats in the freezer, I first put them in a plastic grocery bag so they are not easily visible and then I put them in the back of the freezer so I do not see them every time I open the freezer. Having them out of sight, it takes the temptation away and sometimes I even forget they are back there.