Food Drive, Halloween, and The Devil!!!

Three things that can destroy your life...especially when trying to be healthy. First of all the Food Drive was such an awesome week. I just love collecting food and money from all of our amazing listeners that just seem to make the food drive a success every year. It was great seeing sooooo many people through out the week...I got enough complaints about my weight loss that I'm suprised my head didn't swell up like Jack from Jack in the Box. The tough part about the food drive is the fact that people also bring us so many treats for us to eat during the long week(I was also amazed how many people brought me fruit or nuts or something healthy). At one point we had bags of starburst, redvines, cookies, muffins, cinnamon rolls, italian sandwichs, poptarts...the list goes on and on...and lets not forget we were in the Tomato Street parking lot with a free meal pass at one of my favorite places in town! Temptation was EVERYWHERE! But I really just kept thinking about what Mike and I talk about all the time, and that is sacrifice. GIVE UP SOMETHING GOOD FOR SOMETHING BETTER! Now it's easy to say give up a cookie for some grapes...or give up that cinnamon roll for an apple with almond butter...but it does get real tricky when you have to do it time after time after time all week long. That is why I try not to have that type of food around my house very often. Would an alcoholic have beer in the fridge all the time??? Doesn't seem like it would be too successful. Needless to say I did survive the week(other than the cold I have and lost my voice for a few days). My nutrition was not too far off. I did sneak a few of the red vines and had to have 2 bartlett mini donuts...but other than that the week was a success. It's pretty awesome how powerful your mind is when you just set it on something positive.

Halloween...oh how I love thee. From the parties....to the candy...to the dress up...trick or treating with the kids. So much fun, but lets face it, the holiday is not based on healthy decisions. We also have a little tradition here at our house that includes the wife making up a big ole thing of chili and a few friends stop by through out the night and hang out for awhile. So I sit here typing on this Sunday afternoon and I'm proud to say that I have only had two pieces of candy the whole weekend and those were last night at about 2:30am when I got home from a night of Halloween parties. Seems like 2:30 in the morning is when a LOT of bad decisions are made :-). I will consider to rolls of smarties to be a victory for a 2:30 decision. Today I knew the rest of the candy was gonna be out so I made myself my very own try of "candy".... a big ole veggie tray and I have snacked on it all day long. I think I tricked myself into a nice treat. No candy...no desire for it either. It's pretty cool I just gave up something good for something better!!!

The devil...oh that was just another temptation that made the title of this post seem cool. Although my devil this weekend was certainly Sweet Tea Vodka. As good as I did eating all week and avoiding the candy...I did have a few too many of the ole sweet teas. The good news is...80/20 rule. 80 percent of the time do it right...20 percent of the time enjoy what you are doing that isn't perfect. I try to keep myself more like 95/5 for the weight loss...but this past week and halloween weekend was more of an 80/20 deal and I still feel great. Beats where I was a year ago and I can't wait to see next halloween and the food drive. I am so excited to see what a healthy future will look like.