Thanksgiving is Just One Day

So remember last week when I said I refused to gain weight? I even put it in bold font, so obviously it was very serious. However, I may have put on a pound or so over the last week. We’ll see on Wednesday, the official weigh-in day, as bloat and whatever else settles in, but I might be up. It’s not much, it’s not going to hold me back from making my February goal of breaking the 30 pound loss mark, but it’s a frustrating detour I didn’t want to take.

I think I let the anticipation of a food-related challenge get to me. I knew Thanksgiving would be hard, and that we'd be away for the weekend, probably with a lot of delicious and unhealthy food. So it's like I gave up before I started: On Wednesday I broke my “no office food” rule for the first time, eating a cupcake that a coworker brought in. On Thursday, Thanksgiving, I didn’t track anything. Or the next day. It was the first time in a long time that I skipped recording my food. 

It was my anticipation of the potential to overeat and the challenges ahead - “Oh my god, there’s going to be SO MUCH food everywhere, all weekend, and there’ll be no gym and it will be ten degrees." How pointless, right? I made some good choices, sticking to the white meat at dinner, and realizing that I didn’t need seconds of stuffing and gravy, and had only one of the three desserts offered. Then I made several bad choices, like eating some leftover cake later that night.

By Saturday night I was in this weird in-between mode of eating a totally reasonable and healthy lunch and then pouring myself a glass of apple cider. It was not fun - my feelings and brain wanted to eat well, but my actions were not reflecting that.

Yesterday I realized how ridiculous I was being, recorded what I could remember, and packed a gym bag for this morning. Today I went to the gym, tracked my food, and netted 1200 calories. Oddly enough, it was as simple as that.

On Saturday I felt in the throes of a teen angsty-level of self-pity, this close to writing a free-verse poem about how trying to lose weight is like a baby whale who's lost its mama, with a classy metaphor involving Jennifer Lawrence and cheese fries, and a twist ending where everyone dies. 

Now, I feel pretty good and like my difficult weekend was not the beginning of a pattern but rather just that - a difficult weekend.

So now, I feel pretty good. But this whole thing just double-triple reinforces that I still get overwhelmed by holidays, parties, and other non-routine stuff. I end up overthinking it, or revert back to that sneaky ten-year-old, or break my biggest weight-loss tip, and get mad at myself for slipping. This is still something I need to work on. The other option is to allow myself to indulge, within reason, during these times, and accept that there might be an extra pound or two. I think that can actually work if I immediately get back to healthy habits.