Day Two Hundred and Nine - Don't Let the Traffic Throw You Off Course

I had a major adventure on the way home this evening.  My normal commute (with zero traffic) is twenty one minutes.  When I come home at night I usually have a five to ten minute slow down in traffic, so I would say my average time is somewhere around twenty-eight minutes.  We'll round up and say it's roughly a half hour drive.  Tonight there was a major incident on one of the interstates I live off of, and another accident on the interstate my office is near.  These two interstates are the bulk of my commute, so as soon as I heard of the upcoming traffic, I diverted to downtown Little Rock which led to a back way home.  The problem was that this is the same way everyone else diverted as well.  My commute this evening took me a total of one hour and forty minutes!  The last two and a half miles took twenty minutes!  It was horrible.

Here is the difference in being stuck in traffic today and what would have happened last year.  In the past I would have seen the traffic ahead of time, and stopped through Wendy's and eaten a few thousand calories on my way home.  It's crazy to think how much my thinking has changed.  Sometimes our plans change.  That doesn't mean we need to just throw our self-control out the window in frustration and give up.  No, it just means you have to work a little harder to follow through with your plans.  Trust me, you will feel more satisfied in the end.  I can testify to that.  Anytime I realize how different my reactions are now, I feel so much better about the decision I made or self-control I was able to display.  So don't let the traffic throw you off course.  I'm changing each day, and I'm losing my butter half.

My calorie intake has been good today.  I had two salads, and I have been able to avoid snacks today.  I also got in a full workout including my two sets of crunches.  It has been a good day.