I had my cake and ate it too!

Today is my birthday. I was thinking about how to covertly mention it was nearing without mentioning the actual date, but I got nothing. So it's today. Happy Birthday to me! To call it even, I won't share how young I am.

So with my birthday begs the question: What did you do about celebration food? In years past, my excuse for overeating on days like this is "Oh it was my birthday". Guess what? It comes once a year and it comes at the same time each year. It's not a "whoop there it is!" because its impossible to miss (you know with all the sales, fireworks and breaking out of Christmas decorations), but I digress.

The answer: Simple, I ate my meals like normal (a little on the light side actually to put some extra cushion in my allowance). Then, since I got my choice of what kind of cake/pie to have, I choose to go out to Marble Slab Creamery. This way, I get my birthday treat, but I don't have to watch it watch me for a week begging to be eaten. It's a little easier with another person's birthday because I feel a little guilty if I think I'm "hogging" their cake. But it's MY birthday. It would have been MY cake. And there would have been a lot of whispered summons from the cake. That would not have been an ideal situation, or not even less-than-ideal. It would have been bad. Very bad. Then I would be writing about how it is not good to give into temptation and so on. I save my hips the extra pounds and you the having to read my whining. Everyone wins! :)

So for my treat, I did my research. I did decide this last night. I had all day to plan and I wanted to really make this count. I scoured the nutrition facts pages for tasty options, then calculated points on all of my picks and the choices narrowed down pretty easily. Is chocolate topped with chocolate and fudge really worth 10 points? No. I went with what they call a Red, White, and Blue (it's Sweet Cream ice cream, strawberries, and blueberries - YUM!). It was 6 points. I only went over my daily points allowance by 1.5 points and that includes the adult drink I had at dinner. YEAH!!! Victory for me!!!

I am so proud of myself! I am also still enjoying the ice cream. It's the kind of long term enjoyment. I knew going into it what I was getting and how many points it was, and I knew where that fit into my day. I went in not worried at all and the ice cream tasted twice as good with no guilt or worries! It's a bit of work on the front end, but WELL worth it on the back end (literally!).

One other thing about today that I enjoyed (and recommend) was that the opening of presents and the ice cream were two separate things. At two totally separate parts of the day. I opened presents after lunch. We had ice cream after dinner. There was no, let's eat cake and open presents, like I hear so often, and what we have done traditionally.

Overall, a GREAT day! Another year passed, survived, and this year ranks way up there in terms of how healthy I am! Another thing of which to be proud and feel blessed!

Enjoy the fireworks!

Until next time,
:)