The Warehouse Obstacle Course

Recently I navigated Costco.  For me this is rare occurrence.  Because in our household, it is my husband who is the primary Costco shopper.  He loves that store.  He eagerly awaits the coupons that come in the mail.  He goes often and buys lots.  Sometimes I go with him, but mostly I am happy to leave that errand to him.

Some things he buys are, in my opinion, great deals.  Others… not so much.  Like the enormous jar of Hot Tamale candies.  Or the Costco size condiments that spoil before we get halfway through.  I’m undecided how to categorize the ginourmous bag of quinoa since it is healthy but we haven’t tried in in the months since we got it!  We have gotten smart and now he keeps a running list on his phone of the things we need.   And some days he sticks to the list; some days he doesn’t.

A trip to Costco for me is a venture into a potential diet-busting minefield of little bites – the challenge of food samples waved under my nose.  On my recent trip the lovely ladies tried to tempt me with:  spinach dip on tortilla chips, frozen yogurt bars, oatmeal bars, red colored fruit juice, dried blueberries that looked great until I saw the added sugar, ravioli.  “Do you want to try…” they entreated.  “No thank you,” I replied, steadfast.  The one sample I did taste was “naked chicken nuggets.”  No breading, no added sugar, no way would my son eat that!

I will admit that in the past, in my non-diet days (or diet days when I was cheating), I loved those food samples and was happiest when they were baked goods and candy.  I didn’t even try to fool myself that the tiny size added up to tiny calories.  One time they had every flavor of cheesecake to sample and I sampled several.  Another time it was a variety of Otis Spunkmeyer cookies.  Yum, yum, yum and yum.  And I really enjoyed the holiday samplings of  blissful Belgium chocolate.

But this visit I ate my naked nugget and headed to the checkout with only the items I came in for:  three bags of fresh green beans, an assortment of colored bell peppers, and my husband’s Oroweat bread thins.  No little bites of diet derailment; no Costco-sized diet disaster.