The way you dealt with the meal afterwards sounds great, too.
You didn't deprive yourself, but just had a few things you really wanted. And
then you did extra exercise to make up for it.
I hope I'll get to that point. I only changed my eating habits five weeks ago
and don't feel that secure. I never stray from my "healthy" foods. But of
course, every food can be healthy as long as you watch portions and keep
exercising, right? Thanks for the inspiration!
Rox, not every food can be healthy as long as you watch portions and keep
exercising. It is important to make this distinction for yourself. While it's okay
to have cheatmeals once in a while (I have 3 per week), it is still important
to know that healthy food is "whole-food" (veggies, fruit, lean meat, fish,
shellfish, nuts, seeds) that has not been processed and/or refined in the
factories and lost all its nutrition like these unhealthy foods (i.e. sugar, white
flour, margarine, etc.).
While the healty foods provide you with calories that have all the
macronutrients (protein, healthy carbs, good fats) and also micro-nutrients
(vitamins, minerals) the second provides your body with empty calories that
are mostly driven into your fat cells, because there is nothing in that food
that the body needs or can use to function properly, and to use as building
blocks for all the bodily processes that are happening 24/7/365 !!!
And this is why folks that eat too many processed and refined foods are
always eating way more than their bodies can burn off. The human body
will demand food as long as it's not getting what it needs, and this only
comes from the "healthy" whole foods, and can't be provided by eating
"unhealthy" processed foods.
By the way, this is without a doubt the biggest mistake that I see being made
not only in this forum by the majority of people, but generally by almost all
people that are trying to lose weight in the world.
And, the statistics confirm that 99.9% of the people trying to lose weight,
eventually gain it back within 3-5 years. These are the people with very
strong wills, the majority gain the weight back much faster.
And the root of this is simple, viewing weight loss simply as calories in and
calories out, without taking into account the reality of the human body and
how it operates and what it needs to function properly.
...which is whole foods, mostly plant based, with some lean protein, and
good dietary fats (walnuts, pecans, olive oil, fish fat), plenty of water, and
plenty of physical activity on a daily basis.
...if this is not provided to the body, and a person is born with a slow
metabolism (i.e. endomorph body type) and mostly consumes refined and
processed foods, then the consequences will always be excess body weight,
there is simply nothing else that can happen, because the human body is
a structure that has been designed to SURVIVE, and in order to accomplish
this is needs the right amount of macro-nutrients and micro-nutrients, water,
and exercise on a regular basis, and if it doesn't receive this it starts to
break down, and all kinds of health problems show up.
