This morning I had a craving for Sprite. While I usually practice what I preach and keep junk food/beverages out of the house, I had bought a six-pack of Sprite the week before since I was having very long, busy days and had been experiencing low blood sugar at times (it’s a quick fix, I know, but I’m human after all!). One may ask why I bought six instead of 1 or 2—and therein lies the problem I am going to address: that small bottles aren’t sold in packs of 2, rather 6. And if I were to buy only one that was slightly bigger, its bubbles would have worn off within a day so it wouldn’t have lasted very long, and I wanted to have the Sprite on hand for a few days.
Which brings me to this morning—I gave into my craving and went for the sugar-packed beverage and drank a whopping…2 fluid ounces!
And then I was done. Satisfied.
After that, I proceeded to drink my usual thirst-quenching beverage of choice: a nice cold glass of filtered water.
Great, right?
Well, not really, because now I have 15 fl oz of Sprite sitting in my fridge—some of which I may likely drink at some point today because:
It is there and it tastes yummy and refreshing
I feel bad wasting it
I already addressed (a), that I don’t usually have it in my home to temp me and I will not be buying it again in the near future. I will address (b) now, which is the challenge in our current food culture that we get big portions and then, either consciously or unconsciously, eat more than our body physically wants—aka more than it needs. This leads to excess calorie intake, which for most people equates to weight gain. (For more on that, see Mindless Eating Brian Wansink, PhD, http://mindlesseating.org/faq.php)
