Making Peace with your Diet

Current weight: don't know :(

When you are watching what you eat, so much can go wrong. We are truly our own worst enemies, sometimes tripping ourselves up out of weakness. People may scoff, but doughnuts really can talk, and they can be mean little buggers. Along with their friends cake and pie, ice cream, and pizza. We are occasionally helpless to drown out the words they whisper to us, the soothing promises like "one won't hurt!" and "you can exercise a little extra to make up for it!" Make no mistake, these little bastards are more silver-tongued than the worst creature of night ever thought to be. And we are easy prey.

Not every setback on a diet is a product of weakness, though. Life often rears up and plants us on our ass and we are just helpless to fight. This kind of setback can arrest our development in all kinds of endeavors, but it is particularly difficult to accept when we are actually doing something good for ourselves and, miraculously, doing it well. For instance, landing in the hospital for three days. Life really ought to have to ask for permission before throwing up a brick wall like that in the way of personal progress. At first, all seems well, as you sit in a bed and find yourself unable to eat or drink much. You think, I am really gonna lose weight this way!! I oughtta do this more often!! But as the docs start to look for progress, and they hound you to eat, you realize that you are stuck eating the crap that they bring you on the trays, and it's usually pasta or fatty meats, foods high in the protein necessary for healing but loaded with calories.

Now, it is easy to say well, yeah, but you need calories when you are fighting infection and healing. And you'd be right. But, damnit, I was doing well! I was enjoying the knowledge of my own success, however premature! And now they want me to eat pasta and meat and pudding and stuff! I could almost feel the excitement in each of my little fat cells as they anticipated their growth after such lean weeks.

But the mind is a funny little thing. There I sat, worrying about a backslide stemming from a medical situation in my body. Why was I dieting in the first place? For my health. What purpose did that serve if, in a time of need, I denied myself what I needed to get well enough to resume my exercise routines? Well, none. And like a curtain being pulled back, my mind opened up to the possibilities in front of me. I could not control what had happened to my body, but I could control how I responded to it. A day or two of real food was what my body needed, and in the supplying of that need, I might as well enjoy some forbidden foods. For my body's sake, strictly, of course.

Determination is a good thing, and success is a potent drug all in itself, but if I'm trying to do what's best for my body, I cannot ignore a need just because it doesn't fit my plans. Today, I am back on my diet. But yesterday? I called my mom and had her bring me gyros from a local restaurant so we could picnic in my hospital room. It was heavenly.