Adult brain vs inner child - who wins?

When was the last time you were drawn to something that was not good for you? Was it savoury or sweet? Going out with some friends the unmistakable mistake was there. I saw it right away, drawn magnetically to it, before even ordering my meal.

I’d been pointed in the direction of it from the start: a ‘specials’ menu. As I stepped in the room, a smug smile fleetingly spread across its face. The gentle, unmistakable draw of it from across the room. At first a gentle, sweet voice spoke softly in my head as my main course was enjoyed. As my tummy continued to fill, it began pleading childishly. Feeling fuller, the noise in my head got louder and louder, heading towards a meltdown. I could have ignored it. With my full tummy it was time to order coffee and just enjoy the conversation. However, that childish voice in my head was nagging me ceaselessly. ‘Go on, you know you really would love it, remember how good it tastes? Mmmm’. Louder!

The dessert tray arrives. You see a grown woman with a puzzled look, faced with an internal dilemma as the picture perfect merits of the dessert tray are laid out before her. The large, smiling face of the banoffee pie, with a fat tongue of goo oozing out the side.

Irrationally I’m thinking ‘Bananas’. That’s it! My inner child wins with a simple negotiation trick: a faint reminder of some nutritional basis for choosing an extremely calorific and fattening slice of dessert. I said 'yes' to banoffee and manage half before nearly being stuck in the chair with fullness. In the afternoon, a stomach ache and feeling tired and tetchy with all that sugar having given in to the temptation of that sweet and clogging dessert.

My adult brain took over the next day, not wanting to feel ill again and my inner child was noticeably quiet as I was in the gym, methodically working off that fattening dessert. As I made a choice to eat it, I can choose to get active and make amends. I can feel OK about that. I can choose to say ‘no’ too. Choice and balance is what it’s all about, isn’t it? What will you choose today?