Cookie alert!

Well, I did it. I baked cookies last night. Surprised?


I am proud to say that I only ate two of the cookies last night. I packaged up 3 dozen of them and sent them into work with Mike today, and kept about a dozen for us (to use in the boys' lunches, primarily). I am incredibly happy with myself and my willpower last night - AND I think I enjoyed the two cookies that I did have more than I enjoyed the 10 of them that I ate the last time I made this recipe.

As I was taking a tray of cookies out of the oven, I experienced what some may say is an epiphany, or a moment of clarity or enlightenment. The cookies that I was making have to rest on the hot cookie sheet for a minute before you transfer them to a cool plate or cooling rack to finish cooling. When you take them off of the pan after that first minute, they're soft - VERY soft.

I transferred over the first dozen from the pan to a plate just fine - it was during the transfer of the second dozen that the moment occurred. About 3 cookies into the process, I broke one. It just ripped right in half as I slid the spatula under the cookie. As my hand automatically reached for it, to grab it and pop into my mouth (after all, when you break a cookie, you have to eat it, right?), I found myself feeling like I was hovering over my body, watching myself like you'd watch a movie.

You know that moment in the horror film where the poor girl runs UP the stairs instead of out of the house and you just know that she's going to be dead in a few more minutes because now she's trapped upstairs? Your mind knows what she's going to do, but every fiber of your being is yelling at her to "Don't go upstairs!!!!!" That's how I felt last night when the cookie broke.

My body's response was purely automatic - I even found that I opened my mouth slightly in response to my hand reaching for the cookie. Like I was in a trance, I felt like I had no actual control over my actions. My mind was screaming, "NO!!! DO NOT EAT THAT COOKIE!!!" even as my hand was reaching for it.

And then somehow......my hand faltered. My mind had managed to grasp control again. Feeling like I'd just narrowly escaped some sort of bodily harm, I watched my hand re-form the cookie and transfer it (whole!) to the plate to cool. Even now, as the cookies sit in the container on the counter, I can't tell which one it was.

I realized last night that, even three weeks into this journey, I have a lot of habits that I need to break. Sneaking a bite of my son's mac and cheese as I clear his plate, having something sweet after dinner...I mean, every meal, not getting out of bed in the morning to work out, sitting on the couch watching rerun after rerun of Criminal Minds on TV instead of working out while watching those reruns, eating a snack before bed EVEN when I'm not hungry. All of those things I seem to do without thinking - it's automatic.

My challenge for myself this week (since I forgot to set one the other day) is to try and be more conscious of what I'm doing, whether it be regarding my eating habits or my working out habits. I need to notice what I'm doing before I can change the behaviour.

I've made such a big improvement in my life since Christmas day - and it's up to me to keep that forward momentum going. It's only going to get harder as I get closer and closer to my weight loss goal. All of these little changes are going to end up mattering.

I want to master them now - how about you?