How do you deal with a ***** in your armor?
We all have great intentions before the holiday meal, many of us will do just fine, but some of us will turn a less than stellar performance. Many of us will either fail to plan or find that that the plan didn't really fit the situation or that we just had an oops moment. What do we do now?
I want to point out to you ( and to remind myself) that no diet or eating program fails because we had an oops moment.
The real problem comes after. It is the attitude with which we face our oopses that determines success or failure in the long run.
I want to illustrate my point by admitting to my own oops today. I needed to bake an apple cake to take to a friends house for a party tomorrow. I don't bake and this was a big challenge for me. I found the recipe, shopped for the ingredients, measured, mixed and baked what amounts to my first cake in years. In other words, I was heavily invested in the process. Here is my big mistake, and I bet you will all see it coming. I wasn't sure how it would come out and I have two children at home, so I rationalized with myself and baked TWO cakes; one for the party and one for "the children". The house smelled of baked apples and sugar and my kids crowded around the kitchen when I pulled out the cakes and cut one up. They loved it and rolled their eyes and rubbed their tummies to show their appreciation. So far, so good, well this is where oops happened. I cut a smallish piece of apple cake and ate it. It was terrific.
Now what? This is not on my program nor is this my holiday meal; this is just me having an off eating moment. So here comes the fork in the road so to speak, do I beat myself up for going off of my eating program, feel shame, guilt and despair and possibly trigger a binge situation or do I calm down, figure out what happened, track the calories and use this experience to improve my eating strategy. I looked up the calories and realized that I just ate close to 350 calories and a ridiculous amount of carbs. More importantly, I realized that there is a hole in my eating strategy that needs to be filled. There is a reason that I don't bake, and I need to go right back to not baking. The time and energy invested in baking makes me want to taste the results. I can turn someone else's baked goods down but not my own; good to know this about myself. This is not true for everybody that is why no strategy works universally, we all need to understand our limits and build strategies accordingly. I calculated the approximate number of calories that I consumed today and made a conscious decision to only eat a light, clean protein meal this evening and drink like a fish for the rest of the night. I will still be a little over my usual daily calories, but I will see those extra calories as the price of learning that there is a ***** in my armor that needed to be rethought. How do you deal with your oopses. I am not talking about planned off program eating, I am talking only about when you wanted to do one thing, but did the apposite.
I want to point out to you ( and to remind myself) that no diet or eating program fails because we had an oops moment.
The real problem comes after. It is the attitude with which we face our oopses that determines success or failure in the long run.
I want to illustrate my point by admitting to my own oops today. I needed to bake an apple cake to take to a friends house for a party tomorrow. I don't bake and this was a big challenge for me. I found the recipe, shopped for the ingredients, measured, mixed and baked what amounts to my first cake in years. In other words, I was heavily invested in the process. Here is my big mistake, and I bet you will all see it coming. I wasn't sure how it would come out and I have two children at home, so I rationalized with myself and baked TWO cakes; one for the party and one for "the children". The house smelled of baked apples and sugar and my kids crowded around the kitchen when I pulled out the cakes and cut one up. They loved it and rolled their eyes and rubbed their tummies to show their appreciation. So far, so good, well this is where oops happened. I cut a smallish piece of apple cake and ate it. It was terrific.
Now what? This is not on my program nor is this my holiday meal; this is just me having an off eating moment. So here comes the fork in the road so to speak, do I beat myself up for going off of my eating program, feel shame, guilt and despair and possibly trigger a binge situation or do I calm down, figure out what happened, track the calories and use this experience to improve my eating strategy. I looked up the calories and realized that I just ate close to 350 calories and a ridiculous amount of carbs. More importantly, I realized that there is a hole in my eating strategy that needs to be filled. There is a reason that I don't bake, and I need to go right back to not baking. The time and energy invested in baking makes me want to taste the results. I can turn someone else's baked goods down but not my own; good to know this about myself. This is not true for everybody that is why no strategy works universally, we all need to understand our limits and build strategies accordingly. I calculated the approximate number of calories that I consumed today and made a conscious decision to only eat a light, clean protein meal this evening and drink like a fish for the rest of the night. I will still be a little over my usual daily calories, but I will see those extra calories as the price of learning that there is a ***** in my armor that needed to be rethought. How do you deal with your oopses. I am not talking about planned off program eating, I am talking only about when you wanted to do one thing, but did the apposite.
This is an awesome post! I really think it can serve others well.
I empathize with you - I used to bake a lot, and I was really good at it. Not many people know this, but molecular biologists make pretty excellent bakers - there's a lot of overlap between baking and doing molecular biology experiment. I have EVERYTHING for baking. This mixer and that utensil and this silicon sheet, etc.
They gather dust now, and I couldn't be happier.
But I love your title - how do you deal with a ***** in your armor? YOU call yourself out on it, you don't beat yourself up, you make it a learning experience, you resolve to not let it happen again, and the big one here, you disclose it to others - that keeps you accountable and honest to yourself. You can't lie to yourself about it when others know.
Beautiful.
I empathize with you - I used to bake a lot, and I was really good at it. Not many people know this, but molecular biologists make pretty excellent bakers - there's a lot of overlap between baking and doing molecular biology experiment. I have EVERYTHING for baking. This mixer and that utensil and this silicon sheet, etc.
They gather dust now, and I couldn't be happier.
But I love your title - how do you deal with a ***** in your armor? YOU call yourself out on it, you don't beat yourself up, you make it a learning experience, you resolve to not let it happen again, and the big one here, you disclose it to others - that keeps you accountable and honest to yourself. You can't lie to yourself about it when others know.
Beautiful.
Heaviest weight: 310 pounds (Male, 5'10")
You could not have summarized it any better.
1) Admit the problem
2) Analyze what caused the problem
3) Find a workable strategy to avoid the problem in the future
3) Share it with others to be accountable and to learn from each other.
None of us will ever be perfect in the long run. I was as close to perfect as possible during the losing phase, now in maintenance I allow myself to have some indulgences and I don't count those as problems. It is only when I meant to do one thing, but then find myself doing something else, that I know I need to regroup. I let the scale guide me in terms of how strict I need to be, but even without the scale, I eat quite healthy about 80% of the time and just OK 15% and only allow myself to go a little crazy about 5% of the time. If the scale shows me that I have gained 3 lbs. or more, I scale everything bac****il I am comfortably in my zone again. It works for me.
1) Admit the problem
2) Analyze what caused the problem
3) Find a workable strategy to avoid the problem in the future
3) Share it with others to be accountable and to learn from each other.
None of us will ever be perfect in the long run. I was as close to perfect as possible during the losing phase, now in maintenance I allow myself to have some indulgences and I don't count those as problems. It is only when I meant to do one thing, but then find myself doing something else, that I know I need to regroup. I let the scale guide me in terms of how strict I need to be, but even without the scale, I eat quite healthy about 80% of the time and just OK 15% and only allow myself to go a little crazy about 5% of the time. If the scale shows me that I have gained 3 lbs. or more, I scale everything bac****il I am comfortably in my zone again. It works for me.
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