Whoa! Smack! Help!

Today has been a disaster! Food wise that is. I could see this bump in the road coming and try as I could to swerve around it - I still ran smack dab into it.

First I'll tell you what happened - then I'll tell you why.

The past few days I've been slipping a little. Skipping the exercise (granted I've been busy and there aren't enough hours in the day) but still - I need to carve out a niche that's just for me and my sneakers. I've also become, shall we say - lax - in my food journal. Even though I keep it with me, for the past few days I've not bothered to record what I've eaten. And damn if it isn't true that the perverse little brains of us fat people really do believe after a bit, that if we didn't write it - we didn't eat it!

So okay, I've been kind of good - resisting the donut holes, eating salads, yada yada. But today I stepped out to run an errand on my lunch hour and while I was at Wegman's I meandered through the food court area. The one where they serve various slices of delicious gourmet pizza. I couldn't resist. I've been good I told myself. After a little bit more of my propagandizing (is that a word?) to myself, I heard myself saying, "I'll take a slice of that thar' spinach ricotta pizza...and could you warm it up, please?" While waiting for the pizza to heat up, my attention turned to the chicken tenders that were calling my name from under the warming light. Ever notice how they display that stuff not only at eye-level but nose-level as well?! So I put some in a take out box with a side of barbecue sauce. I then proceeded to my car (after paying of course) and ate it all down. All while doing this I was reading an old issue of Oprah magazine (March) - the one that has the article about diet blogging in it. As I re-read the article, leaving a trail of greasy finger prints on each page - one thing kept coming back out at me. The honesty and candor that we in the blogging world not only expect, but demand from one another. Sometimes we can get so smug in what's working for us right now, that we are afraid... embarrassed... ashamed to 'fess up to what isn't. So I knew I had to write about this little binge as soon as I got back to my classroom. (Even thought the kiddos are out for the year - we teachers still have to show our faces for another two weeks.) When I got back to the room I figured I would first hit the vending machine and get something really chocolately (since I was on a roll here) but caught myself and reached for the emergency bag of cheerios, almonds and dried cranberries I keep stashed in my purse. Not that I needed to eat anything else(!) but the latter was the best choice if one was going to be made. Score one - Lora ~ zero - chocolate bar!

So there you have it. I slipped. Big time. And I feel bloated and crappy and defeated. The only thing left to do (besides pick myself up and get back on the train again) is to try to analyze what went wrong. I already know the journaling (or lack thereof) had some effect on things. Not exercising also played into it. When you're taking the time to break a sweat - you think twice before shoving something you know you shouldn't''t be eating, into your pie hole. Aside from being complacent though - there was something else going on. Something that if I look back, always goes on when I'm trying to lose weight. As soon as I start to feel good - as soon as those numbers on Mr. Scale start cooperating..and as soon as I can slip into something I haven't been able to in a while - this false sense of over-confidence envelops me and I decide that I somehow deserve to indulge. Or over-indulge for want of a better word.

So I've got two choices here. Move forward or backward. I'm choosing forward. I refuse to look at today as a complete failure. Yes I bombed it. But it's done. I've spilled my guts and now I can press on. Perhaps my binge wasn't over the top (relatively speaking) but it was the start of a big slide down a slippery slope.

I feel better now. Bloated, but better.

Hot or Cold?

The weather here has been as unpredictable as a rat in a maze. Last week it was so hot and humid that the rugs in the house were damp. Last night it was so cold around dinner time that hubby and I stood huddling in our almost now finished basement - shivering like it was November! Today the sky is dark and ominous and it's still pretty cold (was only 44 degrees when I left the house this morning) and now they're telling us on the radio that the mercury is supposed to it 90 degrees tomorrow! What gives? Do I store my winter clothes or not? Can I take out the summer clothes for good?

You know, sometimes that's how my dieting efforts go. Hot and cold. One day I'm on fire to succeed and make it work and others I'm just kind of lukewarm - lazafaire. Thankfully those days are getting fewer and fewer. I think the real turning point for me has been to not look at this as an all or nothing. Sometimes I'm gonna' slip. Sometimes I'm going to just say the heck with it and go get an ice cream with my grandson. But the key has been - and is - to look a those moments as life. Because realistically - that IS life!

Whenever I've looked at a diet plan that said I can never ever eat another donut - or to say goodbye to pizza forever - I've failed before I'd even begun. I remember being at Weight Watchers one time and the leader told us how she just automatically threw the bun away when she ordered a hamburger. Was she for real? I think that's the day I stopped losing and finally quit. I was trying to live up to impossible standards. We can't let our eating become an oddity. And we can't lump foods into evil vs non-evil. Lfe goes on and we just have to enjoy it. (but not too much!)

My friend the Cactus Freak posted a good blog today about taking note how skinny people think and eat. And it was right on. (Check her out - she's awesome!) If you look at a skinny person - they don't deny themselves. They don't group foods into categories. They simply eat when they're hungry and stop when they're not.

So as long as we keep on getting up when we slip - and and don't turn the skips into a slide - we'll do okay. I know it's been working for me!