Day One Hundred and Sixty-Six - Self-Control is Always Harder When You're Hungry

If I was going to have a day that I completely blew it, today would have been the day.  Mondays are always extremely busy in our office.  They can be stressful, with clients calling needing their policies serviced or bills paid.  When you add in the attempts to gain new sales, the day absolutely flies by.  When lunch rolled around I was already past being hungry, and as all of you know, the hardest time to have self-control is when you are hungry.  It was one of my coworkers birthdays, and everyone had chipped in to get lunch.  On the menu was, Pizza from Paxton's (my favorite pizza in Little Rock), wings from Chicken King (my favorite wings), and salad and breadsticks from Olive Garden.  Add in chocolate-dipped strawberries, and it's a table of temptation.  I had brought my own salad (which is good, because I like my spinach or mixed greens over iceberg lettuce), so I decided I would have one wing, one breadstick, and one chocolate-dipped strawberry.  Thankfully, I stayed with what I had determined ahead of time (and tracked ahead of time).  I actually only ate half of my breadstick, and avoided the pizza all together, which we all know was a huge victory for me.

I know some of you may be laughing or even questioning why this was such a big deal.  I have said it before.  I am a huge food person.  I really enjoy what I eat.  I have passed the enjoyment and gotten into the gluttony of it for the past seven to ten years (well, probably even longer than that).  It culminated these past few years into a borderline addiction.  I gave up so much, just to gorge myself and satisfy the obsession with eating.  So when I looked at some of my favorite foods all in one place, flashes of how I used to eat came back.  There was a part of me that wanted to down four or five slices of that pizza (overloaded with meat and sauce) and ten or more wings.  Not to mention the breadsticks and strawberries.  I am so grateful for the self-control that I was able to have.  We teach our kids the fruits of the spirit (found in Galatians 5:22-23).  We want them to live their lives with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  What's cool about these fruits is that if you truly have one of them, the others will be evident in your life as well.  Sadly, in America we promote the love, joy, peace, kindness, and goodness, while ignoring the patience, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  Let's be honest.  We suck at self-control in America.  Because of this, we really don't have any of the other fruits.  I've ignored it for so long, but through grace I'm not anymore.  I want to model these fruits to my kids, and I know I can't leave any of them out.  I'm learning to have self-control, and it's helping me lose my butter half.

My calorie intake was good today.  Bekah did point out that I had pork at each meal, so I should probably be careful of that in the future.  Also, I have another workout in the books.  If I can keep this up, I should be down another two plus pounds again this week!