Yes, it’s day five of my ETL six week challenge, and it’s Christmas Eve. My girls baked some scrumptious vegan pumpkin pies. A vegan apple pie sits on the counter. We’ve got cinnamon roasted butternut squash to reheat, and corn, stuffing, garlic potato, and sweet potato dishes to be made. And, my favorite, cranberry sauce chilling in the fridge. Of course, I won’t be eating any of these things… well, I do plan to bake myself a sweet potato.

As I thought about the menu, I felt conflicted. For a few moments I began to rationalize that it wouldn’t be so bad to take one meal off from the ETL challenge. Certainly in the great scheme of things, it wouldn’t be a big deal if I made a conscious choice to do that. I asked myself, “why do you want to eat those things?” When the answers came back, I decided that they weren’t compelling enough to warrant setting aside this challenge, even for one meal. Then something struck me that gave me pause. How might my kids view my eating something different? Would they feel badly for enjoying their food? Would they think I was punishing myself or denying myself “joy”? So, I decided to ask them. They were most worried about me “missing out” and so I reassured them that if I chose to eat something different, that would be my choice and nothing they should feel badly about. I told them I would be perfectly happy with whatever choice I made on the matter.

The scale moved down again this morning. I hope this trend continues 🙂