You think I’m kidding? I’m not. Here’s what I ate yesterday:
- 2 doughnuts
- granola bar
- Auntie Anne’s pretzel
- half of a turkey/avocado sandwich
- nachos with cheese
- pint of Ben & Jerry’s peanut butter core
Sufficient to say, I had a screaming sugar headache and felt like complete garbage by the time I went to bed. Why did this happen, you may be asking? I didn’t feel great in the morning and was at a breakfast meeting and this was all they had. Then I was kind of grazing throughout the day and didn’t want to deny myself that Auntie Anne’s when it called!
Later, I felt like the day was “ruined” and I might as well throw down on that Ben & Jerry’s I’ve been wanting to try for months. Since I had no real dinner to eat, I just threw caution to the wind and ate nachos.
Who am I? I woke up this morning feeling “hungover” from food — a feeling I remember all too well from my binge-eating days. It wasn’t pretty and sent me into a bit of a panic. I felt totally out of control yesterday, though not at all like I did back then (thankful for that!) I’m currently still feeling pretty rough — headache humming a bit and rehydrating.
I’m not sure what pushed me to just abandon all principle like that yesterday. It’s not really about all the calories (though I’m not happy about that), but I wasn’t really even enjoying the food very much and it felt like an abusive act against myself.
I guess we all have bad days, where we run to the wrong things to find fulfillment. I’m writing only to remind you that it happens. I get this reputation for being “really healthy” and disciplined (ha!), but that’s not really true — especially on a day like yesterday. I strive to be a healthy person overall but sometimes stress and emotions overtake me just like everyone else.
I woke up today feeling beaten down but so far have not run to the demons of yesterday and have confidence I will finish the day in the right way. Hope you can choose to “re-start” even when things get rough too.
I have done this 100 times. I just finished an excellent book (Rewire Your Brain) that touched on this subject as an example on how the brain works. As an experiment, one group of women were given a small bowl of ice cream that equalled about 120 calories. Another group was given a large bowl of cottage cheese and fruit, about 250 calories. The group that ate the cottage cheese actually ate healthier the rest of the day because they saw their dish as healthy, no matter the calories. And the group that ate the ice cream, even though they ate less calories overall, ended up throwing caution to the wind and blew their diets the rest of the day. Kind of crazy the way our brains work. I’m really trying hard to “rewire” my own!!!!
Sounds like a book I need to read! This was just not good day for me. I had the worst headache!