Having a week, day, meal, etc. that doesn't fit into your healthy plan happens to ALL of us eventually. Even those of us who are higher on the conscientiousness scale (not me, lol) have times when they go off-plan and indulge in some eating behaviors they wish they hadn't. The first and most important thing to remember is that an off day is part of normal eating. Wait--what?? How can something be simultaneously off-plan AND "normal?" The answer is that it is normal human behavior not to follow a regimented plan the way a programmed robot would. We are not robots and we live in an obesegenic environment with both everyday and major stressors. If you haven't "messed up," you will. The key is to situate your off day in the context of an overall healthy eating pattern and respond to it in a way that will return you to your healthy habits and make it less likely to happen in the future. In fact, yesterday, I had a very "off" day, probably the worst one in my recent weight loss efforts. It really sucked. I had all kinds of feelings. Here is how I am handling it today!
- LOG YOUR CALORIES. This one is #1 for a reason, and it's not about the calories; it's about bringing you from a place of shame to engage your frontal lobe with some data. You will either find that it's not as bad as you feared, or that it is "bad" but that it's not going to mean you gain ten pounds overnight. In my case, I found that I ate about 700 kcals over maintenance. Since you need 3500 kcals over maintenance to gain one single pound, you will find that this one day, no matter how bad, is not going to kill your efforts. And if you've done this for a week and do gain an actual pound, you'll have the information you need to tackle it. Also, it's one freaking pound. Or five. You lost it before and you will lose it again because you caught it now instead of hiding from the data. In addition, if tracking your food is part of your normal, healthy habits, the act of doing it is the act of staying on track.
- STEP ON THE SCALE with the full knowledge that you will have a ton of extra water weight and food sitting in your gut. Why step on the scale? It's about maintaining your normal, healthy habits. Take a breath, remember that the number is artificially inflated, and move on. In a few days that number will go back down.
- PERFORM A POST-MORTEM. What was happening before your off day? What circumstances or actions led to you departing from your plan? Reflection is power. In my case, it was two things: one, I forgot to take my ADHD med, and was therefore both more impulsive and prone to boredom. This meant that when I was bored at work my brain craved the cheap stimulation of fast carbs at 10:30 a.m. I then fell asleep in a carb stupor, didn't eat anything else until dinner, and caved when my kids suggested Texas Roadhouse and when I saw a Cactus Blossom on the menu. In addition, I know that the light is fading in the Northern Hemisphere, and that I'm actively grieving a very sad family situation. Since food has been my go-to self-medication, it makes sense. If you can't figure it out? Ask your partner, a close friend, or better yet, your therapist, to help you tease apart why you went off the rails.
- PLAN INTERVENTIONS. Now that you have a hunch as to why you departed from your plan, take steps to preventing it from happening again. In my case, I realized that I hadn't fully unpacked from a weekend trip, and when it came time to take my ADHD med I couldn't find it in that exact moment. Just now (as I'm writing this!) I found my toiletry bag, fished out my meds, and put them in their normal place, front and center on my work-from-home desk. In the future, I know I will need to unpack immediately upon returning home from any trip. Second, I know that I need to do some more intentional processing of my grief. I am going to take a break today to get out my journal, write about my feelings, and deal with them instead of burying them under tortilla chips. I will also mention this episode to my therapist. Fortunately, I have identified binge eating as a self-harming behavior and I have a protocol for evaluating these episodes. If you don't have a protocol, ask your therapist for one or search online. Third, I am going to set up my full-spectrum light to help with the waning light.
- IDENTIFY WHAT YOU DID WELL. Even if you ate two pizzas in one sitting, it is unlikely that every single decision you made was a bad one. In my case, I went for a run and lifted weights in the morning. I had a healthy breakfast. I put my chocolate chips in a small bowl instead of eating out of the bag. At TR, I ordered a salad, and ate only half of my second roll. I ordered water instead of a sugary drink. It's really important to recognize that you haven't suddenly lost your ability to moderate altogether. Affirm yourself for the good decisions you did make. This exercise is an antidote to shame, and we are working against shame here. Shame will sabatoge your efforts. And then put this in the NSV thread on this sub! It's part of my routine to post in the NSV thread almost every day.
- RETURN TO YOUR HEALTHY ROUTINE. DO NOT OVER-RESTRICT. I can't emphasize this enough. Restricting in response to a binge is the beginning of disordered eating. Also, you are not a naughty child who needs to be punished (and dear God, I hope you would never do this to a child anyway!). You are a human being who lives in the real world. Even never-fat people have days like this. Whenever your next day or meal is, resume your healthy routine where you left off. It's like what we learn in meditation: meditation is not the state of being perfectly balanced and in tune, but in the repeated act of returning our attention to the breath and to the center. A healthy life is not a perfect life; it's one where we pay attention to our eating and movement, and return to our routine over and over. And just like meditation, returning becomes easier over time. It becomes harder when the dog licks our face in meditation, or when something shitty happens in our life when we're trying to lose, gain, or maintain a healthy weight. The practice is what matters. What is your daily eating and movement practice? Return to that, again and again.
I know I will be OK because I've been here before. The difference between regain and staying on course is the steps above. I know this because when I don't do the steps, I lose the thread of my healthy life and regain. Every single time I am tempted to "start over" and not track and not weigh and not evaluate. When I give into those temptation I end up regaining. When I face my life with facts and not with shame, I stay the course.
[link] [comments]
from loseit - Lose the Fat https://ift.tt/3BYlG5v
