The power of memory.

Oddly enough, one of the skills I have had to cultivate in losing weight, maintaining it, and now losing it again postpartum — is my memory.

Here's an example.  Today after a full dinner (sauteed mustard greens, raw sugar snap peas and apple slices, and egg-cheese bake), I had a couple of pieces of homemade cinnamon raisin bread, with butter.  Dessert, I told myself!  

(To tell the truth, they were the last of the breakfast loaf, and I wanted to get to it before the children did.)

But I was very well aware as I was spreading the butter thickly on the bread that I was thereby disqualifying myself from having anything else the rest of the night.  I can have treats, I can even have dessert; but I can't have treats at every hour of the day.  

So as I was enjoying the sweet bread with its salty slip of cool butter, I was thinking to myself:  Remember this.  Remember that you are choosing to have this, and also choosing not to have a snack before bed.  Remember that you already made up your mind.  Remember that right now you are sure that this is what you want.

I concentrated on that for a moment along with the taste and texture of the raisin bread, making a memory strong enough to carry myself through the evening.

Because it's surprisingly easy to "forget" when my stomach is growling later, that once upon a time, long ago, hours ago, I quite logically knew that what I wanted was NOT to have a snack later on.   But if I tell myself firmly enough this is what I want, and it will still be true that this is what I want later on, when my will is weaker, the memory of that firm will lingers long enough for me to stay true to it.  Or at least, truer than I might hold had I not taken a moment to make the memory.