Careful what you pray for...

** Please note that the author for this blog is Tiffani.

I have been meaning to make a shift in some of my dietary habits since I got home from that 14 day eat-a-thon / cruise in January and today was April 1. It was about time to start forcing myself to evaluate the foods I am putting in my body and be a better steward of my little temple. J I knew it was going to be hard. Chocolate has literally become a 3:00 pm addiction. Why can’t chocolate be “GOOD” for you?? But as much as I wished to make a chocolate food group, I knew that these hips weren’t lying, something needed to change. Sigh. So today was the day. I like to include God in the large and small elements of my day and especially my efforts to make changes. I believe He is also invested in seeing me take care of my body, one of His creations. So, during my morning prayers I humbly asked, “Help me to take good care of my body and be wise about what I eat.” I actually pray for that a lot, but today I really meant it... until 3pm when the chocolate monster came a calling. I went through quite a few mental conversations, but it really didn’t take long to convince myself that I could wean myself off my addiction and just eat less today and none tomorrow. Perfect. Besides, it was a Friday of all days, and if you can’t have a little treat after a long hard week, I don’t know what you can do! When I was standing in front of the vending machine, I carefully weighed my options. Working the school of public health building we have friendly nudges towards healthy habits all around. The vending machine was not immune to this influence. All of the healthy options were highlighted in yellow. I didn’t pay much attention to those because I was on a mission; I needed chocolate in my hand in 30 seconds flat. What would it be? Snickers? Milky Way? Or a Cheese Danish? I decided against the Cheese Danish because of the lack of chocolate and the chance it was old and dry. I decided to go for the Snickers because there are nuts in there, and “they are good for you,” so Snickers it is. E10. That’s it. The money was in, all I had to do was hit E10 and I’d be on the road to sinful chocolate bliss. I pushed E… then 1… then… oh no… my heart sank when I realized I had failed to see the 10 button and selected E1 instead. To my dismay I saw that I had inadvertently bought a Kashi Chewy granola bar. It was tiny, it was dry, but it was “good for me.” I almost laughed out loud when I remembered my prayer this morning. Apparently God does care about what I put into my body. Ironically, I ended up only putting a few bites of the Kashi bar in my body because my taste buds couldn’t take it. But don’t worry, even if I did have another dollar in my wallet, I learned my lesson, no more Snickers… at least for today.