Unnecessary Eating

Yesterday I had a bit of a blip. A wonderfully light and crumbly, home-baked scone made by a brilliantly talented office buddy had left a sweet taste in my mouth. I was walking home past Waitrose and decided to go in and torture myself. I started out well; perused the bakery aisle, oogled the cakes and the freshly-baked, chewy, chocolately cookies. I spent some time in the baking aisle and briefly daydreamed, realising I was surrounded by world of limitless, delightful possibilities.


The biscuit and confectionary aisles called out to me. In Waitrose the force in these aisles is stronger than other supermarkets because there are some seriously scrumptious and exclusive products to tantalize the taste buds. I scrutinised the posh biscuits and managed to tear myself away only to be faced with an enormous range of biscuits for cheese! I stood and imagined a smearing a thick layer of Boursain atop a salted and cracked black pepper thin or a slicing a well-softened brie onto a hovis digestive...


More mental agony occured in the frozen section as I ran the tips of my fingers over the cool, frosted tops of many a luring and luscious flavour of ice cream.

Who needs cheese on crackers when you could have
chopped apricot on dried banana?! Snacking at work
made healthy...

As this point I very nearly left, pleaseed with my own restraint thus far. A last minute urge took my back to where I started and a grabbed a bag of Waitrose Seriously Chocolatey Triple Chocolate Cookies with vicious intent. I headed for the till and then spotted at the end of an aisle, half price pretzels. Usually I am not phased by crisps, pretzels and other savoury snacks but a combination of a half price offer in Waitrose and the fact that I had broken the seal; like that first wee on a night out, you manage to go for so long but after that first one you just need to go more and more. I picked up two packs and made haste to the tills, avoiding eye contact with any further produce. 


I could blame the fact that is was a rest day and I was bored, I could make an excuse that I have been so healthy recently that my body craved something something naughty (but that would be a big old lie as I filled up on the naughties in France) but realistically it is just a weakness in willpower. I've been keeping the blog for just over a year now and whilst the emphasis recently has been on reaching new fitness targets, training for endurance challenges and racing, yesterday made me realise that it's time I returned to the reason I started this all in the first place.


My food choices have improved dramatically over the last year, healthy new recipes have been discovered or created and for the majority of the time I do manage to maintain good eating habits. However, my appetite is still incessant to say the least and as shown very clearly above, my love of food (especially the bad stuff) is unhealthy on many levels. Saying that it is also important not to get too obsessed, a treat is good now and again but the trick is not to gorge and eat a kilo of chocolate or a whole cheesecake when a couple of squares or one slice will suffice!


So I am raising my glass (of freshly squeezed orange juice) to portion control and my new goal is not to avoid the naughties completely, but to control the inner glutton when it comes to the sweet stuff!


p.s. I only ate one bag of the pretzels..