Determined To Succeed

So last night I went to a “tweet-up,” a meeting of people involved in the Twitter community. These meetings are very cool for a few reasons. You get to visit new places/restaurants (this time it was the awesome Victory Brewing Company in Downingtown PA), you get to meet great people face-to-face (many of whom follow you on Twitter and vice versa) and you find out tons about the social media community.

What makes meetings like this hard, though, is the food aspect of things. Not that the food at Victory was bad (quite the contrary – it was amazing and their homemade warm soft pretzels with cheese and mustard are to die for, really) it’s just that I have my extra poundage to lose and I knew going into last night I’d have to be careful with what I ate (and drank).

I wrote a column a couple of months back on how social situations can derail your weight loss journey and believe me when I tell you – I had to remember every word of it last night. There were a ton of people there, too, ordering everything from buffalo wings to salads, burgers to loaded nachos and all of it seemed to pass right by me. So I got a good whiff of some amazing looking food. But I had to keep in mind my inner voice (that darned little angel that sits on your shoulder) telling me “you know you have to be good. So just be good.”

It took a lot but I listened. It’s hard when we’re out and about and wanting to sample the great smelling foods of where you are. But I knew I couldn’t do that last night because 1) I need to re-lose the weight I’ve gained back recently and 2) just because we can eat doesn’t mean we should eat. So I compromised with myself. I ordered one of those wonderful, delicious and warm soft pretzels and shared it with a few folks around me. This way I could have my pretzel and eat it, too.

And you wanna know something? That was alright.

I didn’t totally give in to having wings, or a burger or what sounded like amazing chili. Nope. I was good, especially knowing I couldn’t work out first thing this morning as I had to get right to work today due to an appointment I have at Noon. But as I lose more weight I will treat myself to more of their food and the foods of other places I want to visit. I am just proud that I resisted my urges to splurge calories.

I CAN resist bar food!

Sure, I will always eat what I want on my weight loss journey but last night would have been bad when I’m just now getting back on track after the holidays. And when I have been good for a while I will go back and have another one of those pretzels (they really are their own food group) and one or two other things from their menu.

After all, good things come to those who wait.