About My Ooops Moment

The first day of this challenge I was making a peanut butter sandwich for my 3 year old and without thinking I licked my finger. It took me a minute afterward to realize what I had done and I discovered then how conscious I would need to be about that behavior during this challenge. Since then I have not had a single lick of anything except my juices....

.... Until yesterday! My sister and her family were over for dinner and Nate and I had prepared something scrumptious for them....

This

With these... and for dessert

These!

It all looks so delicious right?! As per the usual I drank my juice while everyone ate. Not a biggie. I enjoyed that they enjoyed dinner!

As I was serving up the brownies without thinking I licked the bit of brownie batter that was on the back of my hand from mixing the brownies. Once again it took me a minute to realize what I did. Oops! I was surprised I did it. I had gone 21 days without anything but fruits and veggies and I just broke that streak!

BUT I wasn't mad at myself, for a couple of reasons; the first reason being that it was completely innocent, and I was unaware of what I was doing in that moment. And the second... Well I'll get to that after this little story.

A friend pointed out that she's been noticing a lot of the foods I've been pinning, and asked how I was "dealing". I had to laugh because when I started this I went crazy pinning healthy (vegan healthy even) foods to try out at the end of my fast. That has since changed, and a lot of the things I pin now (again) are just anything that looks delicious. I don't care if it's good for me or not!

For a while that scared me, because I assumed that meant that I really am not changing my health habits and I must be planning to go back to my old ways after this is all said and done. Now it does not scare me.

I've learned that pinning food is a coping mechanism for me.... an outlet for any emotions this extreme diet brings. That is ok! It's fabulous even. Because if I am choosing not to eat food the least I can do is look. I've decided there is no shame in looking. I don't care if I'm pinning artery clogging poutine

(LOVE this stuff but seriously, IT WILL STOP YOUR HEART!),

the important thing is I'm not eating it! I NEED an outlet, and this one works perfect for me.

I've realized on days that I'm really appreciating, and dare I say, enjoying, this fast I tend to post healthier things. And on days that I am hating juicing and tired of it and just want it to be over (i.e. days I'm not liking what I see on the scale) I pin anything that looks delicious. Seriously... ANYTHING!

So now, back to the second thing I learned about my slip up... When I realized that I had just licked chocolate off my hand my first reaction thought wasn't Mmmmm! That was delicious! it was instead Hmm. That wasn't vegetable juice.

After processing everything, my mistake, the shock, the reaction in my mind I realized something. This IS about being healthy, and it IS working, and my tastebuds ARE changing! I think I can safely say, that while I still enjoy looking at anything that will make my tastebuds water, I am no longer addicted to sugar. I AM NO LONGER ADDICTED TO SUGAR!!!!

That's a pretty big deal for me! Let me share an embarrassing confession just to prove how big of a deal. When I was a kid, as per Mary Poppin's suggestion, I would literally eat spoonfuls of sugar. Strait sugar. HA! Can you believe that? Am I the only one that did it? Please tell me I'm not. But still. How embarrassing. I'm grateful for the metabolism my body had back then!

Anyway. I'm grateful for my mistake. I needed to know that I am doing this for a higher cause and not just the size of jeans I wear. I had some other things to share, but this post is longer than I expected, so I will share those thoughts at a different time. In the meantime I hope you enjoy looking at yummy foods as much as I do!

And I almost forgot. I discovered "Oh She Glows" today and I can't wait to try out some of the recipes from it at the end of my fast!