Tuesday, June 17, 2008

It’s All About the Choices

So I am setting on my couch last night, after TKD class. I am glued to the TV. Yes, I know, being a couch potato but still...I JUST exercised. It was chill time. There is but one good thing that comes from this “chill time” for me. My brain gets to relax.

Last night, it only happened for a second though because I saw a thought provoking commercial on the tube. It was the latest Subway commercial. I tried to find it so that you all could watch it. No luck. Here is the verbal Queenie version: There is a guy, in line at a fast food place. Obviously a burger joint. He turns around to the camera and is asked “Do you know what you get with a value meal?” To which he gets told that he not only gets a huge burger, a mondo order of fries and a gigantic soda...but he also gets elastic waisted pants, a stack of diet books, an unused gym membership and eventually a therapist to help him work through it all. I laughed. Mainly because all of what they said was true and it was funny.

This 2 minute commercial made me think. Everything we are right now...the place we are in with our health and weight has been up to us. We got us here. We didn’t have help. No one made us eat the crap that made us fat and unhealthy. We did it. Right? So, ultimately, WE are the ones responsible for the situation that we are in. You can’t blame the husband that cooks like a 5 star chef for making you eat enough food to last a normal person an entire week in one sitting. Nope. We can’t blame Mom for forcing us to clean our plates when we were young. It’s all on us.

We have a choice each time we put something in our mouths. We can make a bad choice. We can make a good choice. Sometimes, making the bad choices are easier and we know they will taste so darn good. In the back of our minds though, we always know that the bad choices won’t make our thighs disappear. It’s all up to us. A choice. So, when the time is upon you and you have to choose: How do you make the good choices? Simple, you don’t think about anything but the right now, and your goal. Period. Don’t think about how you haven’t had any splurges this week so you can afford this one. Think instead about how great you are going to look in those new perfectly fitting jeans. Think about how as good as that double chocolate mocha latte would taste right now, it won’t get you into those jeans any faster.

That is what always works for me. I don’t think about anything other than the decision that I need to make right now. It makes it easier to do what is right. It’s all about the choices. Always. So, what helps you get through your tough choices? When there is chocolate cake setting there and a nice fruit yogurt. What makes you pick the healthier of the two? I really think this is one of the most difficult things we are faced with as “dieters”. So much pressure on ourselves and really...it’s just about one simple choice in front of another.