Start, Restart Circle

Does this happen to you? You decide that this is it and that today is the start of your healthy lifestyle. You stick to your healthy eating plan on breakfast, lunch and dinner and you think it's a perfect day. Then after dinner someone decides to celebrate some out of the blue occasion and they bring donuts, cake and ice-cream. You look at all this delicious, yummy sweet food that you think you'll miss for a long period of time because of your "healthy lifestyle plan" you resist for the first 5-10 minutes while watching everybody else cutting the cake and enjoying the donuts..You finally give up and you think that you can postponed your "start" to the next day so that you can have your share of that cake.

It happened to to me a lot before. That's why everyday was a "Start" day for me. I used to be a perfectionist. I used to think this way "If I messed up in one meal, then all meals should be messed up and I should not workout."  I finally got it.. That was a very wrong way of thinking. All what I was doing was trapping myself in a "Start -Restart" circle. I was not moving forward. I was just moving in circles.

I learned that I cannot always control the food available on the dinning table. I cannot always control my cravings either. I am not a robot. So I decided that instead of starting and restarting, I should have a plan in place to follow whenever unplanned extra sugary extra oily food is offered:

1-Resist: If I'm on one of those very strong will power and in-total control days. I would simply resist.
2-Junk substitute: Make a healthy snack instead and eat it with pleasure...I really emphasize pleasure.
3-Get to know what's about to get in: If I am really losing it and I have to have my share of that cake I try to know what I am about to put in my body. I try to check the nutrition fact of that unplanned food and I would try to make it within the calorie range of my daily plan or I try to workout afterward to at least burn it if it exceeded my calorie count allowance
4-Moderation: Many dietitians and doctors say that a healthy lifestyle should not deprive you from any food type. It only regulates your food intake and guide you to better choices.

Remember that everyday you mess up your plan, you will also slow down your progress from reaching your fitness goal. The more you stick to your plan, the faster you'll reach your goal. Don't we all love short cuts?