Banana Boost

When you're trying to rebuild self-control, and chocolate cravings hit you hard, if you wait long enough, natural consequences sometimes will give you that little boost you need.

I had gotten serious about losing 20 pounds (or more if I can!) ten days earlier. I'd been walking with Lizard when I could, being as it had been too cold and too icy for us to ride much for close to eight weeks. I successfully avoided sugar for ten days, and then it hit.

Ouch!

I wanted chocolate! I wanted Hostess Cupcakes! I wanted a fresh, homemade chocolate chip cookie from the little diner downstairs.

The diner is open from breakfast until 2 p.m. Many times on days so busy I don't get a lunch hour, I have run down there right before closing to grab whatever is left, often hoping for chicken lettuce wraps or a spicy noodle bowl. Most often they are sold out of everything, and I do a build-your-own spinach salad.

I tried to be strong until 1:45, then couldn't hold back any longer. I checked our own kitchen, which is stocked with animal crackers and pretzels. Sometimes there are tiny containers of cream cheese, and that makes a tasty dip with the animal crackers. There was no cream cheese, and animal crackers just were not going to soothe this sweet tooth.

So I went downstairs, mentally kicking myself the entire elevator ride for being so weak.

The diner was predictably sold out of chocolate chip cookies. And brownies. There were no Rice Krispies bars. There were two donuts, of which I am not a fan, and there were candy bars, of which I'm still able to shun at this point. Thankfully!

So I grabbed a bag of vinegar potato chips and a fresh banana.

Potato chips aren't a decent healthy diet menu item. But I knew (from experience, of course) the bag would have only about six whole chips, about six chip pieces and about six chip crumbs. I was right. And vinegar is good for the digestive tract. Also has a tendency to silence cravings.

And the banana... That was a very wise choice! It would not have been my choice had there been any cookies.

I've wanted to lose weight since about 2014. I make great progress during the spring and summer the years we train for Ride the Rockies, but I always seem to put the weight back on as soon as winter robs me of daily rides.

We're not doing Ride the Rockies this year, even though we love the route, and I am determined to lose the weight and keep it off this year. It will be more difficult without a huge ride on the horizon, but I'm going to be the little train, armed with a yummy banana.

I think I can! I think I can! I think I can!

Actually, I need to do better than that.

I know I can! I know I can! I know I can!

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