Mistake#1:
Last week, I successfully completed a mini goal to run once a week for three weeks. My new mini goal is to run twice a week for three weeks. The easiest days for me to go out for a run are my days off work: Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday. The best time of day for me to go running is first thing in the morning, which makes Tuesday and Thursday the best days to run, because I do not have the luxury of sleeping in anyway.
Today was supposed to be a run day. I slept well last night, but I woke up feeling rather sluggish. Almost immediately, an argument began to play out in my mind. Go for a run! Don’t go for a run! Guess which side won?
Mistake #2:
After the kids left for school, my wonderful husband invited me out for breakfast at IHOP, and as I usually do, I ordered my favourite country-fried steak and eggs. Now I love country-fried steak and eggs, but country-fried steak and eggs is not a very healthy choice for anyone! That one meal contains about 1500 calories, which is pretty much an entire day’s worth of calories consumed in roughly 15 minutes. Yet somehow I don’t feel disgusted by that until I after I eat it all!
Mistake #3:
I needed to run a couple of errands mid-morning and picked up a large Iced Capp and a honey cruller donut. Why?! I certainly was not hungry. In fact, I had to push myself to finish my treats, because I was so full from breakfast. Is it any wonder that I have felt bloated and gross for the rest of the day?
I think it is time for me to go back through my Made to Crave book again. I read the introduction this afternoon, and the words resonated deep within me. This struggle is real. It is spiritual. It is cultural. It is emotional. I am great at making excuses and justifying my behaviour. I allow my mistakes to suck the life out of me, keeping me chained in unhealthy habits. I am prone to giving up too soon.
At this time last year, I was nearly 20 pounds lighter. Now I can blame some of the weight gain on surgery and recovery, but the truth is that, more than anything else, I’ve put the weight back on, because I have fallen back into unhealthy eating habits. Willfully and deliberately. Of course, I didn’t set out to gain back the weight I had lost, but I was happy to live in a make-believe world where I could eat as much of anything that I wanted without my body being affected. The reality, for me and most people, is that such a world does not exist.
My theme for 2013 is Acceptable Transformation. Gaining 20 pounds because of over-indulgence is not acceptable, nor is it the kind of transformation I had in mind.
Becoming Angela 