Tasty Tuesday (the "butter cookie")

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It was a butter cookie on California’s central coast, a famous cookie place no less, famous for its brown butter sugar cookies.

No one walks into that place without eating butter cookies. Few people eat just one.

So I walked in.

And this is what happened….

First, I should add that since my weight loss over seven years ago, I don’t walk into one of these places without a plan. In fact, I most usually walk right past these places.

This day the kids and I would buy a bag of six cookies.

I asked my sons to eat one of the six cookies immediately as we walked out. They obliged. 🙂 

We had been in this little beach town for a few hours and it was time to go home when we bought those cookies.

We walked out and sat on a bench with a view of the ocean, right near our car. We divided up the cookies — two each for them, one for me. I savored the taste of the cookie and said goodbye to the ocean. We walked to the car with our cookie crumbles and we drove away.

It was the very end of our trip, a trip in which I ate a total of one cookie.

About five miles out, I was well aware that I could eat another half dozen cookies if they were sitting in my console. However, I had already promised myself that the cookie-eating was finished, that it ended with the trip and we were now headed home.

I didn’t end up sick and regretful from over-eating the cookies. I didn’t have to fight with additional cookies, trying to keep myself from eating them. There were no additional cookies in the car!

It was a masterclass in “just one” for a food-addicted person.

Notice that I waited until the very end of the trip and that I didn’t buy a dozen.

This was not luck. It was a calculated decision, one that would afford me a cookie and keep me trim.

It was the sort of strategic behavior that has helped me survive these seven years. Structuring eating and choices is a big part of our discussion the next few weeks in the Deep Den. It’s one thing to know what to eat, it’s another thing to structure your life so that you keep on making those good eating decisions.

We can do it!

Gardener for Hire

I thought of a good way to keep me away from more butter cookies: gardening.

I was looking at the list of side-hustle jobs from The Hustle Daily, this week’s newsletter sponsor. “I could be a landscaper!!!” I’d be a great one! It’s a strong Plan B and would keep me away from the butter cookies.

If you’re looking for a Plan B, click around and check out this list.

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That’s it! See you soon.

P.S. Get strategic about your meals if you haven’t. The popular meal framework here at Eat Like a Bear will help with that. Grab the three-pack collection from the Bear Shop for more: https://thebearshop.life/products/three-pack-print-book-collection

P.S. #2 Get balanced, bullet-pointed news in one place. Check the news quickly and then get off your device and get out in the world. 🙂 (I write this for myself…) Newsletter sponsor 1440 Media will help you with that. Click around and check them out too.

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