Foods

There are a lot of new things I'm learning on my weight loss journey… but one concept that I've been trying to wrap my head around is trigger foods. This isn't something that Weight Watchers talks about -- one of the cornerstones of their plan is that you can eat everything and anything sometimes (just not anything and everything all the time!). But trigger foods are something that I've seen many health and weight loss bloggers talk about -- especially Fit and Free with Emily (the I-hope-we-become-friends blogger on my feed). Every time I read one of her posts, I struggle with the idea of trigger foods in my life.

At first it was hard for me to recognize that they existed -- Weight Watchers wasn't talking about them, and their plan was working for me. Then it was hard for me to identify what mine were -- I pretty much like all food… I don't discriminate. (Except for vegetables on pizza… ew!) I was in denial. If I decided not to be honest with myself about what foods I shouldn't have as part of a healthy life, I didn't have to give those foods up. I could continue to eat anything and everything I wanted, most of the time in moderation.

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Then yesterday happened.

I have been having one of those weeks where I want to EAT ALL THE FOOD, but have been able to practice self control and stay within my points. Then I stopped at the store on the way home from work last night for milk and accidentally walked out with a Little Debbie Cosmic Brownie. (For those of you who aren't Little Debbie connoisseurs, the individually wrapped ones are also gigantic compared to the ones they sell in the box.) Once I got home I couldn't believe it, how did I let that snack jump into my hand? I don't even remember thinking about it…

Luckily, I was able to get control of myself and when I got home. I put the brownie in a cupboard, did a 30-minute workout video, and read two chapters of graduate school homework. I did not eat the brownie. What I did instead, was identify my trigger food one of my trigger foods. It is scary and empowering all at the same time. The brownie is gone, and Miss Debbie is not invited back to my house anytime soon.