Breakfast: Coconut quinoa topped with cherries, strawberries, and shredded coconut. This is still a delicious and refreshing summer breakfast, but I think I'm ready to mix things up a bit and try some new flavors. Overnight oat/smoothies may make an appearance when this batch of quinoa is finished.
Lunch: The kids and I spent the day with my family today. I always struggle to make healthy food choices when I'm around my family, and today was no different. Though I'd prepared and packed my usual salad for lunch today, I *tasted* these veggie chips dipped in Aladdin's hummos. This *taste* led to one handful, and then another. Before you know it, I'd eaten my fill of chips and dip and, well, salad never happened. Imagine a much larger pile of chips than the one pictured.
Dinner: The grazing continued until dinner-time, when I feasted on a Morningstar "chicken" patty with ketchup, mayo, and American cheese on a hamburger bun with macaroni salad and barbecue chips. Not pictured was the remaining mountain of barbecue chips and mac salad that I ate both before and after dinner. And for dessert? A cheesecake-filled cupcake.
Dessert: Yeah, that's right. Not pictured was a half a cupcake that I ate before dinner and another half a cupcake eaten at home before bed...with another bowl of Snickers ice cream.
Now, weekends have always been a struggle for me. In the past, after a day like today, I'd have beaten myself up for "undoing" all of my hard work and clean eating for the week. I'm realizing the ridiculousness of this attitude, however, and have a new outlook.
I tend to be an all or nothing dieter. Either I'm eating perfectly and working out ALL OF THE TIME, or I'm eating whatever the hell I want (fast food, fried food, giant portions, daily dessert) and not exercising at all. Now, after an amazing week of eating and exercising, I'm not going to sweat over a day like today. In fact, I don't feel like I'm undoing anything. The choices that I made today were my "status quo" choices. They are the exact choices that I would have made were I not actively trying to lose weight. My status quo choices are what got me where I am today and are what would keep me here if I made them on a daily basis. So long as I'm not making these same choices every day, so long as I'm making the other, healthy choices the majority of the time, I'll get where I want to be. I will not stay here. It's just not possible. One bad day or one bad week, even, does not mean failure. Failure is allowing that one bad day or that one bad week to defeat you and cause you to give up completely.
I've often been hopeful but, ultimately, fatalistic about my ability to ever reach my goals. I'm no longer pessimistic about what I can accomplish. I know that I can do this and I know that I will do this. I don't know how long it will take, and I can't really be expected to know something like that. I have no real control over how long that it takes. It may take me six months, it may take me six years. I don't know and I don't care when it happens. I can't control the scale, my size, or time. All I can do is make my body as healthy as I can. I can nourish it with healthy foods and water. I can move it and make it stronger and faster with exercise. I can heal it from the years of abuse that I've put it through. I can learn about how to make it better. I can love it and appreciate it and be grateful for it.
But I can't and won't make fruitless and ultimately damaging goals like, "I will lose 10 pounds this month." To even want or expect some arbitrary number on the scale on a specific date is preposterous and is nothing but a recipe for disappointment. Nobody can fucking control the number on the scale, nomatter how vigilant one is about food and drink and exercise. We are not robots. The human body is complex and every single one is different and operates in its own way.
I now look at my body as a testament to my success or failure at a particular skill set, and that skill set is healthy living. And it is clear, when looking at my body, that I have some work to do. I'm strong and disease free (that I know of, at least) and I am so, so grateful for that. But right now I need to work on consistency and discipline. I need to live every week like I lived this past week. If I can do that one simple thing...be consistent...you will read that consistency on my body. My body will be a testament to that consistency and that discipline.
It's not exciting. It's not all that fun, either. But it's...exciting. I've wanted this for a long time, and I know that I'm finally closing in on it. and I think that I'll really be proud and amazed, thrilled and beyond grateful for all that I will achieve.
I lived well this week. I worked hard and I took excellent care of my body. I am satisfied with what I've achieved. Here's to another week of healthy living!
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