A humbling NSV.

[Carol]

Tuesday, April 4.  
Its Day 23 of my W30. 
I received unexpected news!   A long, painful saga of my life is coming to a close.   Ohh MYYYY!!!!   I started thinking about the end of the day.  I wanted to celebrate.  I wanted to go out to dinner or have a nice dinner at home.  I wanted to dance!  Cheer!   Sing!   Dance naked under the moonlight...er, wait, its NH and there's still snow on the ground.  Raincheck.  I wanted sit with my BF and share a fabulous meal, to sip an exotic beverage and wonder about what comes next, and bask in the goodness of it all.

Right. Whole 30.  Can't drink.   There have been several times this month when I've been REALLY tempted to go off plan.  But I haven't.  I don't want to let my W30 buddy down.  

And then, it's time to leave the office.  One of my colleague comes by my desk and gifts me two very hard to find craft beers.  2 beers that I have wanted to try but haven't -- the beers are only sold at the brewery in some back country hollow 2 hours from my house, are only 10 hours a week, and once they are sold out, they are sold out.  Purchasing these beers means making a long drive, standing in line, and hoping for the best.  And here they are in my hands.   

I eagerly texted my BF.  "I've got beer!!"   

"Yay!!" he texted back.

I placed the beers in my cooler and drove home.  Perhaps I'm done with W30. I made it just over 3 weeks. Perhaps I should pack it in and try again after Easter.   This is just too good.  Too much of a big deal to walk away from.    If I start on Easter Monday, I can finish before Memorial Day.  I want to go home and ENJOY this!!!  I want to sip these exotic gifts and happily share my impressions of them with my generous colleague.   

And, I realize.

It's not the alcohol per se that I'm craving.  Yes, I've enjoyed the may different flavors of this or that.  Sure, I've enjoyed the intoxicating effects.  But what I want is MORE. I want the celebration. I want the adventure of trying something new, the exoticness of sampling something difficult to find.  I want the camaraderie of sharing the experience. This has been my downfall.  Too many of my personal indulgences have been because I wanted to celebrate something to its fullest.  But I have health and fitness goals that I want to achieve, short term and long.  To get there, I need to find a different way to live in the moment.

It's taken me way too long to realize this.  WAY. TOO. LONG.  But now I know.

 When my BF came home, we danced around the kitchen, giggled, laughed, and goofed around.  We relished a dinner of sashimi made from the fresh fish I bought on the way home.  BF poured himself a spot of whiskey, I enjoyed my seltzer with lemon wedges.

As Melissa wrote in "It Starts With Food" the half-slice of pizza on Day 23 isn't going to be worth starting over.  Whether the half slice of pizza is a shared can of beer is irrelevant.

Wednesday, April 24.
Its Day 24 of my Whole 30.

I have proven to myself that have the strength to walk away.

[CB125]

Such an impactful testimony to the power we have in our everyday choices! Thanks for sharing. So cool how you were able to figure out it wasn't worth it to start over. Nice!

[Carol]

1 hour ago, CB125 said:

Such an impactful testimony to the power we have in our everyday choices! Thanks for sharing. So cool how you were able to figure out it wasn't worth it to start over. Nice!

Thank you so much!   I have to admit, I was embarrassed to write it.  I'm in my 40s, shouldn't I have figured this stuff out by now?   But I guess the more important thing is that I do understand that now, and can make better choices going forward.  

It wasn't until the next day that it sunk in that the big victory wasn't reaching for the seltzer instead of the beer.  It was knowing that I can stare down all these reasons to falter and say "Nope, not today."     This is an experience I want to hold on to and remember, the next time the going gets tough.