My Vacation Break-Up with Mangoes and Pecans

I posted this on Facebook and Instagram at the end of a week filled with family, special occasions, and breaks in routine.

Dried mangoes are a great food for me to use as an off-ramp and an on-ramp food. They are readily available at my favorite grocery store. I love dried mangoes, but they do not have the power over me that foods with sugar, salt, and oil do. Raisins, currents, dates, and other dried or freeze dried fruits serve the same role — as do grapes, apples and bananas.

I don’t eat dried fruit every day because these are calorically dense and easier to overeat with the concentrated sweetness and the water removed. (I should admit that there is one exception on the dried foods list: I do have small amounts of dates daily in various ways and have since my weight got into a healthy range).

Inviting Failure Foods into My Life

As I said in my Facebook and Instagram post, dried mangoes and pecans caused too much drama this week. I need to cut these ties for awhile.

To be fair, this drama is caused by my own design. Of course, I have a success plan. But, an important part of my success plan is that I also have a failure plan.

Part of how I succeed is that I always have failure foods at home. These are my off-ramp foods—foods good enough to go off-track with but mild enough to make getting back on-track possible.

Keeping failure foods on-hand is counter-intuitive and may go against the advice of experts. But, this journey is an individual one, and this is my journey.

I live in a house full of food triggers that I no longer eat. And, if I did eat them, I would have a skyrocketing failure — a degree of failure with which I have a lifetime of experiences. This is a way of life I no longer want.

My failure foods have kept me in check so far. Without salt, oil, and sugar in my life, I live an all-or-nothing life.

Failure foods help me avoid the all-or-nothing mindset that comes with this all-or-nothing life. This is important for my success.

I have gotten to the point where failure foods appeal to me when my human fallibility rules the moment. Mangoes and pecans played starring roles this week on multiple days.

I have other failure foods, including noodles with cashew sauce, air-popped popcorn, nut butters, currants, raisins, dates, grapes, apples, cherries, and bananas.

I had some of these failure foods over my erratic week, too. And, I expected to with the holiday and my break in routine.

Breaking-up with Failure Foods: Finding My On-Ramp Back into Success

The end of this vacation week brings about my break-up with my dried mangoes and pecans. My failure foods served their purpose well.

Nuts are part of my success plan and my failure plan. Pecans are one of my favorite nuts. I need to be careful with having pecans around. I save them for special occasions and buy only small portions at a time.

Storing pecans in the freezer helps me keep them at an arm’s distance. As long as I have the balance of plant foods that work best for me most days, nuts can play that dual role as part of my success and failure plans.

Until they didn't. When my failure foods start causing their own drama, they need to go. And, the drama happened. It always does. I am predictable that way.

This is all part of a process that I recognize and have learned to navigate in myself, so that I stay away from the fierce foods that exert authoritarian power over me.

I am cutting my ties with mangoes and pecans for awhile in lieu of healthier options. This is a much easier break-up than with foods with salt, oil, and sugar.

To fill their void, I am increasing my salad, raw vegetables, and cooked vegetables.

I have enough healthy foods on-hand for the moment, and resuming these foods feels good — especially since I have also been able to exercise.

But, I will need to shop soon and have a full array of produce ready for the week ahead.

Success means being prepared for what comes next. Sometimes, that is failure. And, then, it is the success that follows failure.

Failure is an inevitable part of success. Expecting failure, planning for failure, FAILING, and moving in and out of failure are all skills I need and use to transform shadows successfully.