On Monday, the first of the month I stated I was going to try not to eat out at all the month of March.

I have been good so far except for a minor slip.

This week was actually pretty easy because my husband was out of town for several meals. And since I only had to worry about satisfying my own hunger I could throw together whatever sounded good or was easy without concern that another human may not qualify what I am eating as a meal.

One night I ate a fried egg, a slice of bread and an orange for dinner. Another day I had half a large yam for lunch. Not items that I even qualify as meals but they were satisfying and semi-nutritious.

Then there was my slip up. A doughnut.

I had to go to the grocery today. Obviously if you are going to only eat food prepared at home, you need to actually have food at home. So there was I was at the grocery buying various things for breakfasts, lunches and dinners, when I passed by the pastry case. My eyes locked with a cinnamon sugar doughnut. And it called out to me, literally! Well, not literally but it looked so tasty.  I remembered talking about doughnuts with my husband last week because Bon Appetit had an article on the best doughnut places in America. And one of my friends had posted on facebook that she wanted a doughnut. And here was I was staring at a doughnut. I stood strong though. I walked away from the pastry case. Afterall, wouldn’t that violate my goal of not eating out?

I thought my willpower had won. I continued with my grocery shopping however, I was feeling a little hungry. Apparently despite their ability to help your heart Cherrios are not as filling as I had hoped. Even though I was no where near the pastry case I could hear the doughnut calling my name. And then the attorney part of my brain clicked on and it became making the argument for the doughnut. Attorney Read said “You’re not going out to eat, your at the grocery store where you are buying food. Doughnuts are food. You can buy a doughnut at the grocery store. Plus, its not as if you can make a doughnut at home from scratch, you don’t have a deep fryer or anything. And even if you could make a doughnut at home, you’d have to make a lot to be worthwhile. It would be much healthier just to buy and eat one doughnut than make and eat six doughnuts.” And the jury declared the doughnut not cheating on my goal. And that is how I ended up with a single cinnamon sugar doughnut in my cart as I checked out. I will testify the doughnut was delicious like a doughnut and churro had a love child.

However, I feel like the doughnut violated the spirit of what I am trying to do which is to save money and lose weight by not eating out. So I will consider it cheating. But that does not mean I give up on my goal. I just have to pick myself up from my loss and carry on.

Tonight for dinner we are having pulled pork made in the slow cooker. I have never made this before so I hope it turns out well because we don’t have the option to go out if it doesn’t.

The weekend is going to be rough because that is when we tend to eat out the most. But hopefully I can make it through without more slip ups.