If It Doesn't Just Rock Your Socks off to China...

... then don't eat it.

Let me start by saying, I didn't count points this weekend. At the meeting Saturday morning, I clocked a 0.4 pound loss. Fine, whatever, not my best ever. But it is a loss. Progress is progress, and even at that 0.4 pounds per week, that's 20.8 pounds per year. Fabulous if you ask me. But, that's not why I'm here.

I'm here to talk about a biscuit that I ate Saturday afternoon. Now that the lake is back at normal and full levels, Cole and I went out Saturday to clean the boat. After all the rains and moving it back and forth from the racks to the parking lot and back, we feared it would be horribly filthy and overrun with spiders. It wasn't half as bad as I thought it would be, and we were in and out of there in about an hour with a clean boat ready to hit the water today. We pulled through Chicken Express in Lakeway on our way home to grab some sweet tea for Cole, some chicken strips and a biscuit each for lunch. (If you're ever on 620 in Lakeway and hungry for something quick, this place isn't bad, and the service is always friendly and fast.) Anyway, back to the biscuit I ate.

"Ate" doesn't even really convey what I did to this biscuit. I can't even say that I devoured the biscuit because it wasn't a rushed or aggressive consumption. I enjoyed this biscuit. I savored this biscuit. Every crumb. My eyes were closed, my feet didn't touch the ground, and I don't remember what or who we passed on the highway for the 4.5 minutes that it took me to eat this thing. That's how cheating or going "off program" should be. It should be an experience. It should knock our socks off and make us feel like it's an incredible treat. It should make us realize how healthy we've been eating and remind us of the progress we've made.

Have you ever stood at a dessert counter drooling over a beautiful piece of chocolate cake??? Maybe there were four layers of moist chocolate cake, held together by a smooth ganache and sprinkled with fresh pecans and chocolate slivers. Heck, for fun, let's just pretend there was a chocolate-dipped strawberry or two on the top. With your eyes and brain and tummy all in agreement, you take it home. First bite: it's okay, but just okay. I've done this, and unfortunately, even though it was okay -- not great or sinful or fabulous or delicious -- just okay, I've eaten the whole thing.

But I'm trying to look at food differently now, as fuel and nutrition, not pleasure. But if and when I do go away from points and splurge, I want the experience to be like it was with this biscuit: eye-closing, moaning-in-pleasure, forget-where-I-am goodness.

So here's my new plan: If the treat doesn't rock my socks off to China, I'm not going to waste the time or calories to eat it. Sounds easy enough. We'll see...