You can't just shut the door and say, "No way! I am trying to do something good for myself and you are gonna come in here and mess it all up!" No amount of leaning on the door or locking the deadbolts is going to keep life out while you are trying to focus on yourself. And the bad influence life exerts on us is stress. And if you are anything like me (and I expect we all have this in common), stress makes for mad dashes to the pantry, the fridge, the grocery store, McDonald's, Marble Slab Creamery, and many other places that you have been successfully avoiding up to that point.
If only we could keep the door shut. Isolate ourselves, then emerge several months later as from a cocoon, glowing with the confidence of our transformation like some starlet in a hollywood flick about how much better life is for cute skinny blonde girls. Real life sucks. And it loves to dump its suckage right on our front steps.
I wish I had some grand advice on how to handle the desire to stress eat. I succumb to it, even as my internal mom-voice is telling me how well I have been doing, and how much weight I have lost, and how this is going to ruin everything!!! The fact of the matter is, the only potential solution is to reach for veggies or fruits in quantity and try not to focus on the fact that they taste nothing like ice cream, potato chips, or french fries. Just keep telling yourself that if you can think hard enough to remind yourself of that, you are not worrying hard enough. Of course, if we had this much self-control, we would be lounging by a pool somewhere in a bikini instead of having a stress eating crisis.
Life is not going to stop knocking. It will not be ignored, and cannot be shut out. It will happen. And so will slip ups. This is hard work, and if anyone made it seem otherwise, they were trying to get money from you!!! This is like a 12-step program, where you take it day by day.
The important thing to keep in mind is that if you slip, you start again. Don't dive headlong into the bag of Doritos because you already blew the diet for the day. Just have a few, forgive yourself, and get up tomorrow ready to hit the fruits and veggies again. Self-flagellation will accomplish nothing except adding to your stress level. It is a self-propagating cycle. Just let it go. If you let life in and work on yourself anyway, pretty soon you'll get a handle on your reaction, which is all you can really control, after all. So concentrate on yourself, and forgive yourself.
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2 comments:
That whole moderation thing gets me every time.
Of course, I found that when I spend all day BAKING the goodies in my kitchen, I'm less apt to snack on them. Why is that, I wonder?
Regardless, I have 13 loaves in my refrigerator of zucchini and banana bread ... and only a few bites have been nibbled.
Life's being a bitch right now. Don't let it win. Rear your inner bitch and beat it into submission. At least where controlling your eating is concerned.
Anything you need, gimme a call. I'll do my best to help!
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