I’ve been avoiding posting lately because I’ve not been sticking to my plans well. I’ve allowed myself to fall into my old habits of stress eating. I’ve been somewhat discouraged, but have managed to consistently pick myself up, dust off my dirty britches, and get back on that wagon. My off-the-wagon-binges tend to last for a day or two, but then I get back to low carb eating.
I have lots of excuses, of course, and they are all bullshit, of course. Holidays, stress, bathroom renovation, kids misbehaving, ex-wife being unreasonable, blah, blah, blah. The best way to deal with these situations is to continue to take care of myself, but my old self-destructive habits can kick in when I’m under enough stress. I think the thing to remember here, is that I’m recovering much more quickly than ever before, now in a day or two, rather than weeks or months. I’m also making better choices when I binge and eating less than I used to. As a result, weight gain has been kept under control. This is a real win and if I was stuck in a pessimistic mindset, I wouldn’t see it. Eventually, my failures will be for a matter of hours, then minutes, then seconds, as I continually improve. I also expect that the frequency will become less and less.
A big focus of mine has been to learn to manage stress better. I think that weight problems aren’t physical health issues as much as they are emotional health issues. If you are fat, there is a good chance that you are not emotionally healthy. This is a very hard issue to correct. If you don’t believe me, talk to someone who has gotten bariatric surgery and ask them if their life has magically improved.
Emotional eating is a tough thing to overcome. Acceptance is the first step on the road to victory. Also, if you should fail, pick yourself back up and get back to it. When we are babies and are learning to walk, we fall many, many times. If we gave up then, where would we be? The key is understanding that your goal is a foregone conclusion. For babies, they see everyone else around them walking and they KNOW that walking is something they can and WILL do. I suggest we all remember this.
I hope that everyone is having a wonderful holiday season. Even with all of my challenges in life, I’m still happy, and remember just how blessed I am to have my health, my family, and my faculties. What more do we really need?
