Binge Deconstructed

So in honor of "keeping it real" on my blog I'm going to share my monster cookie experience from last night. I realize that this is supposed to be a motivational blog, sharing my tips and experiences to help motivate other people, but come on - no one's perfect and we learn more from our failures, blah, blah, blah, right? Right. Okay. So, in preparation for my son's high school graduation party coming up in a week I decided to make "monster" cookies as the dessert rather than cake. I won't bore you with the details of why, but there it is. So, I decided to get the jump on making them last night so I could just freeze them all and check something off my list. Now, as I was mixing up the dough I realized that I hadn't made these cookies in quite a long time...since probably before I came back to weight watchers. These cookies are deadly good...brown sugar, sugar, oatmeal, m&m's, chocolate chips - you get the picture. My family loves these, but I just don't make this sort of stuff anymore and now I remember why. It is not like I never make desserts...well, come to think of it, most of the time if I do make something sweet like that I'm taking it to either church or work - and again, now I know why. So, I mixed up the dough, started putting them on the cookie sheets and then I decided to have a taste of the dough. Zachary had some so why not, that is a fun thing to do when making cookies, right? It was yummy...yummier than I remember, so I had another taste and another and another. Pretty soon, the timer beeped on the oven and they were done perfectly! I decided to treat myself to a couple of them - I had some floater points left for the week. The first bite was the best and before I knew it I had eaten 3 cookies. Now, I had the taste of sugar, wanted more and kinda lost control. I do remember thinking, "to hell with it, I'm eating them!" So, I guess it was still a conscious decision, but I felt out of control. I think the feeling out of control part comes in when I stop counting or tracking. After all was said and done throughout the evening of baking, I probably ate about a dozen cookies...yikes!

However, rather than beating myself up about it afterward I remembered one of the most important things I learned in Weight Watchers..."what matters is what you do next". So, I brushed my teeth, read my book and went to bed and got back on the horse today. I didn't totally throw the towel in after a bad "out of control" experience, but got right back to tracking and eating a little lighter today - not letting it get the best of me. Just the mere fact that I'm blogging about this is huge for me - it kinda takes the power out of the binge itself. It was a choice and I'm over it...rather than this shameful deep, dark, secret thing. That is such a key to maintaining a weight loss - the forgiveness thing and the moving forward thing. Shit happens and it usually is not as big a deal as we build it up to be in our minds. Well, I need to end on a positive note - there is an addendum to this story. Or perhaps, I should say "sequel" (which was much better than the original). Tonight I made a second batch of monster cookies and I'm happy to report that I did not even have so much as a taste - dough or otherwise. I owned those cookies tonight! They are not the boss of me!!! Moving forward!