What to do when you’ve blown your diet

The goal is not to beat yourself up but to find out what went wrong and prevent it from happening too often.

“Forgive yourself and resist the urge to stick to plain water for the next 100 years.”

Surprisingly, the day we ate two pizzas, one entree and 16 wings started well enough. As usual I woke up, showered, got dressed, pat down a cocktail of serum on my face until it became numb and put on some bright lipstick. I also went for a 45 min walk. I know I should be awarded a medal😎. On top of that, I made some quinoa and black beans for lunch. Had I just ran a marathon, I am pretty sure I wouldn’t have been any prouder.

But then it started to go downhill from that point on…We’re in the kitchen getting dinner ready. We’ve prepared a chicken dish and it’s in the oven and getting crispy. But somehow a little demon started whispering “pizza” in my ears😈. First, I tried to ignore it. That lasted about 5 seconds, then I heard myself saying “Well, if it wasn’t such a bad idea, we could order pizza”. Dear husband didn’t answer at first. I took that as a chance to get back to my senses. Just when I thought I’d successfully crossed that bridge with minimum damage to my waistline, I heard him say: “what kind?”

Me: “What do you mean what kind?”

Dear husband: “What kind of pizza?”

While I am a woman of my words, dear husband is certainly a man of his actions. He’ll only discuss something while doing it or once it’s done. So we had pizza while our healthy dinner was practically done!

FOR HAVING BEING THERE DONE THAT, HERE’S WHAT I DO WHEN I’VE BLOWN IT:

1. Forgive yourself and resist the urge to stick to plain water for the next hundreds years.
2. Rewind and look at the whole sequence of events leading to that point when you went hog wild:
   • I was in the basement which is very comfortable – I had been hungry for more than 2 hours – I wasn’t particularly hungry for what I was going to eat for super
3. By the time we got down to cooking dinner we were already too hungry. Don’t wait till you’re hungry to make make something to eat. Prep all food in advance and get them ready before you get hungry so that by the time you’re hungry you have something ready made. As a matter of fact, plan all of your meals for that day as soon as you wake up.
4. Watch out for those moments when you’re particularly vulnerable and plan for them. Sometimes it’s not always between good and bad. It’s between bad and worst.
5. Make it easy to do the right thing. Make sure your environment support the healthy habit you want to promote. I know if I am watching TV late at night, there will be some serious damage done to my diet.
6. Make a food journal

For me personally, I feel like it’s important to try and maintain some kind of discipline (After 2 pizzas and 16 wings that is😏), specially during this quarantine. Yes, we’re inside now for the most part but at some point we’re gonna have go out and I don’t have money to buy a new wardrobe to accommodate quarantine weight gain so I got to deal😛.

Sticking to a healthy diet: The challenges

Currently reading the compound effect by Darren Hardy. In this book, it says a positive environment carries a powerful impact in ensuring the successful implantation of good habits. The right environment can be the difference between success and failure.

“So many times we set goals but we forget to take into consideration those stumbling blocks be it people or situations that can derail us…”

In other words, when you’re trying to implement a new behavior, you must put your environment to work for you. I thought about that and realized this is something I don’t always take into account when making grand plans. For example, dear husband and myself are trying to keep a healthy diet by eating good nourishing food most of the time. Sometimes we succeed, sometimes we don’t. But I have noticed that some environment (like watching TV late at night) may not be helping. Every single time we went off track, it was while watching TV late at night, especially Friday evenings, etc.).  There’s also something to be said for bad company but since I obviously can’t get rid of dear husband (not sure I want to go back to the dating scene again…) I feel pressed to figure out other ways to stay on track. So, below are a couple of steps I am thinking on implementing. It would take some practice but I believe they could help steer the boat in the right direction.

“When dieting, the very idea of cheat days is problematic. It’s like cheating to keep your marriage interesting…. Not the best strategy. “

The first thing would be to eliminate TV time during weekdays. In a fit of transparency, I feel obligated to mention that most of the times, I am only awake for 30 minutes max🙄, favorite TV shows or not… so, I can’t logically cut out TV time when I am sleeping through it😴🤤. Dear husband is a patient man but there are limits. Consequently, I must find a solution that won’t make me look bad. As a Libra, I am all about finding solutions that make me look good, even if they’re bad😜.

The second thing would be to plan ahead which means plan our weekly menu ahead of time and making sure the fridge is stuffed with healthy options. Also, it would be a good thing to plan our treat days days ahead and find delicious alternative to add to our cheat day menu! I know some people are against cheat days and with good reason. Some people can cheat and keep it classy but some go hog wild🤣

When dieting, the very idea of cheat days is problematic. It’s like cheating to keep your marriage interesting…. Not the best strategy. No good can come out of it and it always backfires.

So in that spirit, we decided that on Fridays, instead of ordering out we’d get back to making our own treats which are way more delicious and cost way less. Of course, that won’t stop us from overeating but at least we take pride in our willingness to experiment and see what work😏. 

If I am being honest, number two is a lot more realistic for us right now so we’ll try and stick to it as best we can and give it time.

What about you, dear readers? Do you have any strategies for implementing new habits or sticking to good one? Please do share!