Weighing the Options

What’s more important?

Sticking to the plan or engaging in my life?

This weekend it seemed like that was the choice I was faced with every day.

Andy and I decided to postpone our post-MCAT celebration from Tuesday night until Friday night, allowing him to really decompress from the stress of taking the exam and allowing me to use my “cheat day” to indulge in some celebratory goodies!

It sounded like a good plan. I’d just eat light on Friday and use my surplus of calories to splurge on pizza, beer and s’mores.

BUT, after eating light all day Friday, I didn’t exactly have enough calories in my “budget” to enjoy pizza and beer and s’mores.

::frown face::

I’d been super excited about cracking open the icy, cold 24’s that Marie brought over (hi Marie!), throwing back a few slices of Hot n’ Ready (classy, I know) and experimenting with new variations on s’mores. Like really excited.

I love looking forward to simple little pleasures of life and thoughts of how much fun stuff like this will be is what gets me through the rough patches in my week.

So, you can imagine my disappointment when I realized I’d be able to eat a whopping 2 slices of pizza and 1 s’more.

This is how I felt:

Image of Sad Trombone

I kept entering different combinations of the 3 treats into my LoseIt app to see if there was some option that would allow me to have it all. There wasn’t.

Enter Solution: spend an hour briskly walking with Andy and Grace to and from the grocery to pick up the s’mores items.

One stone, many birds.

With that one walk we managed to:

• enjoy the summer evening
• spend time together as a family
• save gas
• reduce our carbon footprint
• pick up the s’mores ingredients
• get in a workout

Not too shabby for a Friday night, eh?

At the end of the day, I came in 323 calories over my daily budget and I’m totally OK with that. I decided that it was more important for me to engage in my life than it was for me to stay within my budget.

Sitting by the campfire with Andy that night was about more than the s’mores I ate and the beer I drank.

It was about spending time together, sharing what’s been on our minds, thinking about what’s ahead and just connecting with each other once all the dust had settled from the storm that was the MCAT.

Sure, we could have sat around the fire sipping ice water and chewing on celery, but how much fun would that really be?

Ultimately, I’m proud of myself. I made good choices and I put life ahead of the plan.

For me, that’s a good step in the right direction. This whole thing is a marathon, not a sprint. I’ve got to make this work with my life so I don’t give up or slide back into my old habits.

My high blood pressure has a bulls eye on it and it’s goin’ down!