Late Bloomer

Food Fight: To Eat or Not to Eat

So I did not keep my word and follow the goals I had set out to keep on Tuesday, July 16. However, today was different. Yesterday I had a thorn on my side, which did not allow me to carry out my goals successfully--the cafeteria. Indeed, it is the modern day "Chocolate Factory" for highschool students, college students, and even for some work environments. Irresistible in what it offers, it is easy for people to overeat or make unhealthy choices in cafaterias if they have not practiced discipline in their life diet--and no, it is not enough to have grown up in an environment where all you were allowed to eat was healthy stuff. Temptation can lead to temperance or temporay pleasure with longtime risks--take your pick. Therefore, today, I chose to avoid the cafeteria completely altogether; at least until my disciline turns into habit which in turn lets me override my impulses at the cafeteria. I chose instead to go to the Oasis restaurant across the street from La Sierra University, in which I had planned to try a new dish a friend had introduced me to; the fiesta bowl of rice, black beans, pico de gallo, and avocado came with an amount of food I considered small. But what I thought was "small" was actually large! Once I took out my measuring cup I was horrified to see myself robotically throw away half of the bowl's rice and beans. Even at the end of the day, I felt beyond sad, throwing away half of my huge beans, rice, and potato burrito. Life is so unfair! And yet, at the end of the day, the feeling of satisfaction that comes from eating in a healthy manner will last longer than the temporary pleasure I would have gotten from finishing that entire chipotle-sized burrito. Indeed, the trash bag has become my new best friend.
Now some of you out there may think that life's too short to decrease portion sizes, which is the only thing I am doing. That's right! What other's deem starving, I label my salvation. My obsession with eating healthy has been mental for far too long--it's time to release that mental agony into the permanent practice of considering food portions before embracing pot bellies. And so the war begins in my brain--for it is there, and not my digestive system, where the real war wages.