Occasionally I have a period where I go out to restaurants a lot in a short period of time. This morning I was planning my week and realized I am going out 5 times in 4 days. My brain immediately went to “Yay! I have an excuse to not stick to my protocol!” Whoa. So I did a thought download on this, and rather than have expectations and desire toward dining out, I changed it to the REASONS I am going out (celebrating Gary’s move, Thanking Wendy for cat sitting, having amazing conversations about books, catching up with father after 8 months, visiting with old friends and making garden plans). I plan on NSNF on all, 1 cocktail to celebrate the move, and 1 wine at book group. The rest will be protocol foods and portions. This feels like a positive way to approach it, but am I setting myself up? My toddler brain has been in charge for so long, sometimes I feel like I lie to myself. OR is it really just this simple (minus the urge feelings of course!) Should I do any more work before these events? And BTW I love how thinking about the reasons feels so amazing – how that got lost over the years, I do not know.