Hey peeps! Welcome back or thanks for stopping by 🙂
It is the Sunday after Thanksgiving and I am anxiously awaiting Monday morning. Why you might ask – I am desperate to get back to my routine. The past 3 days have been full of family time, yummy food and relaxing but I honestly don’t feel so great physically.
I did exactly what I said I wanted to do for Thanksgiving and I did not deprive myself, but I also broke the promise to myself to get right back on track the next day. While I have modified my intake slightly by not loading up on my favorite carb-a-licious fun foods like mac & cheese and cornbread dressing – I have been finding ways to have them ‘in moderation’ and rationalize adding them to my plate with other balanced items like my normal portions of protein and veggies.
So why do I still feel bad? Even having just a portion of the fun foods are making me bloated and puffy. I feel sluggish and lethargic and engaging in a lot of negative self talk. Even after all that I know to do, I have been choosing not to. I am choosing to have these foods because they are delicious, but I know it’s going to take me a full week or more to reset myself and get back to where I was pre-Thanksgiving.
Some people may think I am being too hard on myself or I am obsessing over just a couple of days and the truth is I do feel this incredible pressure to be hard on myself. I constantly remind myself that I am not this person anymore that just eats what she wants because she wants it. I have to continue to act like the person I want to become to successfully achieve my goals. I have to remember that the person I want to be want sticks to her diet 90% of the time. She makes choices that will benefit her in the long run, not just to please herself in the moment.
I’ve been on this journey for a whole year now and there are some days I feel amazing about my progress and there are other days that I beat myself up because I’m not as far along as I want to be, or truthfully – where I think I’m supposed to be. I’m an idealist which also feeds into my perfectionism complex. If I am not performing at the level I think I should be I feel like a failure. Because I broke my promise to myself this weekend, I feel like a failure. I put this insurmountable pressure on myself to be perfect when in reality I’m just a human working toward changing her entire life. I’ve got one year under my belt, but I have a lifetime to improve my habits. One year is just a drop in the bucket.
My fat girl tendencies rose up in me over this weekend and I felt ashamed about the choices I was making. Justifying them to myself and at the same time berating myself as I was doing it. I have to fight these internal battles daily with myself, but I also am training my mind to give myself grace for not being perfect. As long as I keep showing up and doing what I know I’m supposed to do each day, I will reach my goal eventually. In my own time. I’m not racing anyone. I’m only competing with myself to be 1% better with every passing day so that when I do arrive at my goal, transitioning into maintenance will be manageable because I have fought the battles and I have proven to myself that I know how to live this life. And even if I fall – I just have to get back up. Quitting is not an option.
So Monday morning I will get up and train, at 4-ish AM. I will eat a protein packed breakfast and fuel my body with the things I know it needs and I am going to keep my eyes on the prize – looking great naked! LOL! But also modeling that this life can be done while maintaining your sanity and feeling good about yourself and your choices.
Let me know in the comments if any of this resonated with you and or/ your post Thanksgiving thoughts!
Until next time…
-xo, Siara
