What if I LOVE Christmas cookies?

I've been stressed this week. There's no need to candy coat it, just stressed. One of the things I've been stressed about is my eating and workout habits. I've been wrestling in my mind with the idea of "foods that I love," which are often foods that I really should have no part of. One of these types of foods is Christmas cookies, and another one is decadent cheese sandwiches at one of my favorite restaurants (which thankfully is several hundred miles away, but I will be there next weekend). I have to wonder, could I ever envision my life without some of my very favorite foods, like Christmas cookies... or insanely delicious but nasty cheese sandwiches?

I considered emailing Roni about this, but I pictured the advice before I even asked it. I think the advice would generally be "everything in moderation," and she's right. In addition to keeping moderation in mind, I should plan ahead. For instance, I can make Christmas cookies, but don't keep a lot of them in the house--give them away. I can experiment with a new cookie that has healthier ingredients than the usual ones that call for 1lb of butter. I can go to Melt and order that insane cheese sandwich, but split it with Bryan, and get a side salad (not sure if Melt even sells anything remotely like cold lettuce in a bowl though). And last but not least, I can exercise. I should step up the exercise for this season actually, just to make sure that I'm at least doing the best I can to stay sane through the holidays.

Next, I thought I'd look at a blog post that reflects how I was feeling a year ago. I found this one: "Movin Right Along..." In this post, I was updating after a few weeks of being away, including a trip to Universal for Thanksgiving, and not really saying much about the upcoming Christmas season. I don't think I was much worried about it last year. I think I was so caught up in the throes of losing weight hand over fist that I didn't worry much about a few cookies here and there.

This year is different, because I'm not losing weight hand over fist. Instead, I've been pretty steady on the weight front for many months. My body and mind seem to feel fairly comfortable at the weight I'm at right now, even though I have 10-15 more pounds to lose to get to the BMI level that gets me barely in the upper ranges of "normal" weight. So this year, I'm thinking more about how I'm going to get through this for the rest of my life, and that idea has scared me ever since I first started thinking about it. It's a tough thing, to have a plan for health and fitness that's going to get you through your entire life.

In the end, I know that the only choice is to "just do it." It always comes back to that. I can sit around and whine about not doing workouts, not running, not eating the healthy food that I've surrounded myself with... but unless I get off my butt and stop whining about it, I will never get to where I need to go.