The Best Laid Plans (you know the rest)

In the many hours of Road Runner and Pinky and the Brain cartoons I have watched I have learned one thing...nothing ever goes as planned.

My plan for today was to concentrate on eating healthy and to start my food diary. A very rare thing happened to thwart my plan...I overslept. I almost never oversleep, maybe only once a year. Now you may wonder, how can oversleeping have a negative effect on eating healthy? Let me explain (or offer my excuse if you want to look at this negatively.)

I only had 15 minutes to get ready to leave the house for work today (I normally have a little over an hour.) I was unable to prepare a suitable breakfast. My options for breakfast were now limited to the snack machine in the office break room or the deli a few floors down from my office. The first bad option, the snack machine (notice that is not plural - one machine.) The 'healthy' options included baked chips, a small package of nuts and cookies. Nothing that would suffice until lunch (before you point to the nuts, a 1/2 ounce package of nuts would never satisfy me until lunch.)

The second option, the deli, has a variety of items. Extra-large bagels, extra-large muffins, pancakes, eggs, etc... The size of the bagel and muffins put those out of my calorie range for breakfast. I'm not a fan of pancakes. The eggs at the deli are kept in a warming tray - not freshly cooked when you order them. Nothing that I would find satisfying, healthy and low calorie.

I have a diet theory that if you have a craving you should satisfy it - within limit. Here is an example. You really want a piece of cake. At your workplace someone brings in a cake to celebrate a co-workers birthday. You are happy because you can satisfy your craving with a small piece of cake and be social with your co-workers. The problem is the cake is a yellow cake and you are craving chocolate cake or you like cream cheese frosting and this cake has whipped cream frosting. If you still have a piece of the office cake your craving will not be satisfied and you will want the cake you crave even more. Pass up on the cake that doesn't fulfill your craving. Get a small piece of the cake you want. Eat it slowly, savoring each bite and make healthy choices over the next week. My theory is you cannot tell yourself 'I will never eat cake again.' You can have cake in small amounts, just not every day.

Moderation.

In case you are wondering what I had for breakfast today...I had a completely unsatisfying pastry.

Live and learn (and try to go to sleep earlier tonight.)