It's all about choices for me now, I've realized that EVERY CHOICE COUNTS!
That is sooo important! Every choice does count, and one bad one does NOT have to come with days, weeks and months of MORE bad ones. We can have a bad snack, meal, day, week... but it doesn't have to "ruin" all of our hard work that came before it. I was always the queen of that. If I lost control and did a mini-binge (or a full-on binge) I would give up for the rest of that day. Then the next day I'd feel like crap about myself and not be motivated, so I'd eat badly again that day, and the next, until months and months later I'm back to where I started... fed up and worse off than before.
In the past, I've always been all or none. If I wasn't perfect with my eating and exercise, I'd let myself quit. Now I know that I'm not ever going to be perfect with it, but if I'm consistently making good choices more often than bad ones, I will reach my goal without a doubt.
Best of all, I just recently had a revelation that my moments of weakness don't even end up hurting me that much in the grand scheme of things. Certainly not enough to make me quit. Matter of fact, this last time I discovered that it actually helped! I had started anew-once again- one Monday (of course) and did great for a couple weeks. Then, I don't know.... I had an aggravating day, or I had PMS, or it rained, or SOMETHING... and I blew it. Then I gave up for that week and since I was going to start again NEXT Monday, I ate about as poorly as one could possibly eat for the next week or so, doing that old "Last Supper" thing. I thought I'd set myself back at least 3 weeks with all the fat and salt and whatever else bad for you I'd ingested non-stop, but surprisingly my body started craving healthy food after the junk, and it rewarded me for getting back to eating right and exercising by dropping the extra water weight in just a couple of days, and I was back on my merry way. Motivated greatly by the bodily forgiveness and several days straight of nice drops on the scale. I'd kind of jump-started myself, I suppose. I don't want to sound like I'm encouraging eating unhealthily, I'm just trying to stress that it is in no way, shape or form a reason to give up.
I guess the moral of my ramblings here is this: let your bad choices and your mistakes (and we will continue to make them) cost you a day or two at the most, don't let them turn into weeks, months, years. Always get back up on that horse.... why not???
I find food journaling to be a great tool (I use Livestrong's Daily Plate, which I love) because in addition to the obvious benefit of always being aware of how you're doing calorie-wise it gives you that little "gold star" feeling when you get to make your good entries and it kinda starts to feel like a fun game you play with yourself. I think the diary on this forum will be the same way, once I really get going with it. When you're reporting back and being accountable, it gives you some extra motivation and momentum.
Keep up the good work!!!
