Sunday, September 16, 2012

All In

Why is it that, when it comes to eating a healthy diet, we are either all in or all out? And I include myself in that statement. It seems that there can be no middle ground in our quest for the right way to nourish ourselves. We believe that we must not only eat the foods that are optimal for human health, whether you define that as low-fat, low-carb, ancestral, or some other approach, but we must eat them 100% of the time, without fail. If one stray cookie, one spoonful of Rocky Road, one slurp of pasta crosses our lips, then all bets are off and all hell must break loose. We’ve failed. We were weak. It was inevitable. Everyone knows that diets don’t work in the long run, right? Might as well just have brownies slathered in bacon grease for the rest of the day.

This describes what goes on in my head a fair amount of the time. I am forever berating myself for some dietary slip. And I can really take it to a scary place when I get going. A serving of grilled chicken that is five ounces when my nutritionist says it should be three? Off to the gallows with her! So you can imagine how bad it gets inside my cranium if I eat a piece of cake at an office birthday party. Or have a potato and a slice of bread with dinner in a restaurant. It’s a regular horror show.

Sigh. So exhausting. Why do I do this? Surely it should be possible to eat a generally healthy diet most of the time with an occasional “bad” food thrown in. Surely eating one slice of pie at Thanksgiving should not have to mean that it’s all been for naught and now I should just quietly accept that I have to regain the hundred pounds that I lost. I say “surely” in a desperate attempt to convince myself, by the way. What makes this whole thing so terrifying for me is that each time I eat one of those “bad” foods, I see the effect on the scale immediately.

I wonder if this is one of the reasons why so many people are unable to maintain a large weight loss. If you embark on a new healthy lifestyle, which will necessarily feel strange and somewhat foreign at first, and you think you have to do it perfectly, with nary a misstep, then what do you do when the first lapse occurs? If you’re trapped in the “all in, all out” mind frame, you might decide to give up. I’ll be honest here. There have been many times in the last five years when I’ve been tempted to give up. The little voice in my head says things like, “It’s too hard.” “You’re too busy to spend all this time fussing over food.” “Relax, it’s only a cookie.”

One of the reasons why I write this blog is to answer that ninny in my brain. Slap her up the side of the head even. Yes, it’s hard, but “too” hard? Yes, I’m busy, all the more reason to stay healthy. Yes, it’s only a cookie, but remember that one cookie often leads to another. That dialog is what saves me – even if it means that I have to spend a lot of time talking to myself. Another way to look at it could be that being “all in” doesn’t mean you have to be perfect, but that you keep going even when you screw up.

It’s so reassuring when I agree with myself.

5 comments:

  1. I think sometimes we are looking for an excuse, so we hand ourselves one.

    Other times we think it is all about the food, but it is really something about our lives, that we are trying to hide/avoid, and we do this big food dance as a means of avoidance.

    My therapist said pretty much everyone she has ever worked with has had
    1. anxiety/fear
    2. Something in their life they needed to change in order to get well (she means something like getting a divorce or a major job change)

    Good post

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    1. The way I experience it is like this: after dinner, not really hungry, but wanting *something*, though what I can't say. That's when the munchies set in.

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  2. "It’s so reassuring when I agree with myself." LOLOL!

    To be that diligent can be 'exhausting.' I think its probably necessary for people who have been really overweight and are trying to maintain at a really lower weight, for the most part. I am not maintaining at that "really lower weight" right now (I'm 20 pounds over my lowest weight, which was still not my "ideal" BMI) so I have found it is possible to maintain my healthy eating habits and also indulge in some junk/extras/excesses, whatever you want to call it.

    Re: Vickie's comment, I used to have a lot of anxiety, and I did eat to control that. Heck, nobody, myself included would have ever guessed that I was anxious. It was only after I lost the weight and did some digging that I discovered that so much of it was related to anxiety. Right now, I am not eating out of anxiety.

    I like this sentence too: "Another way to look at it could that being “all in” doesn’t mean you have to be perfect, but that you keep going even when you screw up." Lori at Finding Radiance is one radical maintainer who showcases a generally very healthy diligent lifestyle (food AND exercise) and yet indulges in treats regularly.

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    1. I was at my "really lower weight" for about a year after I hit my goal weight, then I gained about ten pounds. I stayed there for several years, thought maybe that was my "true" right weight, but then last year I gained another ten pounds. I decided that I was just fooling myself into thinking I wasn't regaining, slow thought the regain was. I lost 12 pounds over the summer just past, so now I am closing in on my "really lower weight" again. I am hoping this is not a cycle I will repeat over and over...

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