Slip-ups

Falling off the wagon is no fun. It happens to me at least once a week. “Slipping” means different things for different people. It could be an ice-cream and potato chip binge that lasts all night, or an extra serving at dinner. These days, I consider anything I put in my mouth that I haven’t planned for a “slip-up.” Take today, for example. It’s freezing cold in the office I work in, and for some reason, everyone I come into contact with is annoying me. This stresses me out and makes me want to eat everything in sight. When I got home for lunch, I put my waffles in the toaster to heat up. It seemed like an eternity waiting for those things to pop up. While I was waiting, I got out the potato chips and cottage cheese and went to town.

Granted, there are worse things I could have done. I could've eaten the whole bag of chips instead of only having a few. I don’t keep a lot of unhealthy stuff in the house, so it’s difficult for me to get in any real trouble. Like I said, though, I wasn’t planning on having those extra calories today, so now I’m annoyed with myself.

If you have an “all or nothing” mentality, losing weight is hard. Those people who can just eat one bite of cake...surely they are the devil. I have an all or nothing mentality, and I’m trying to get rid of it. Not everything is black/white, or good/bad. Maybe my body needed those extra calories since I worked out this morning. Fifty more calories isn’t going to make me gain back 88 pounds, and that’s what I have to remember.

On my refrigerator door, I have taped up both pictures you see on the right side of this page to help me remember how far I’ve come. I thought it would persuade me to stop eating in the middle of a binge. It didn’t work today. Once I’m in that moment, it’s really hard for me to get out of it. The only reason I stopped today was because I had to get back to work.

The truth is, I’m having a really weak, defeated-feeling day. I’m trying to get out of the funk.