Tuesday 12 February 2013

Falling down and getting up


 
As with most things in life, we have moments of poor judgement and error  in our diets. We relinquish control and give in to our desires.....this sounds a lot like the start of an erotic novel, but isn’t our relationship with food the stuff of a heady love affair?  However this love affair has a different lesson, the age old lesson of; Get back on that horse. Which is, come to think of it, much the same advise when a love affair ends....

Saturday night we went to a braai (bbq for the rest of the world), a braai in South Africa is slightly different, the main focus is drinking and people seldom eat before 10pm. We make wood fires and stand around them getting sloshed....such has been a South African tradition for ages (what this says about our nation, I don’t know). I was a very good girl most of the evening, I took with my healthy snacks, avoided the starch/fat traps when dinner was served and mainly stuck to my green tea... Then someone took out a bottle of red wine and I decided to have a glass, it’s good to have one glass.

If only it stayed at 1 glass.....tsk tsk. It quickly became glass 2 then 3 4 5 6..... I have a weakness for wine it’s in my genes and I thus take no responsibility. I was a decent amount of inebriated and was a bit ill of stomach.... Usually I could drink wine till the sun comes up, but not having done so in roughly 5 weeks and exercising like a machine has its effects.

IT was a horrid experience and I was quickly reminded why I prefer to abstain while on a strict regimen. The next morning though I didn’t give in to my carb and saturated fat hangover cravings. I woke up and carried on with my healthy eating, I didn’t assume the “well I drank a lot last night so I might as well cheat today, I will start again Monday” attitude. Which is incidentally a very dangerous thing, as it always seems to move to the next Monday and the next and the next – interesting phenomenon. It is crucial that you get back on the wagon the very next day, actually not even that, the very next meal!

When you cheat on your diet or have an allowed cheat meal, that’s fine and it won’t be detrimental, what will be detrimental is if you continue to cheat and turn it into a day, a week, a month and eventually the 20 kg you struggled to loose in the first place. I have been a victim to this, a very big victim. This is why I haven’t reached my goal in previous years; I always fall of the wagon and just can’t seem to get back on. Eventually I have gained back all the weight I had lost and have to start over yet again!

So here are some tips to make you get back on that horse

1.       Think of your goal and how much you want it

2.       Think of all the hard work that has gone into each kg/pound you have lost

3.       Think of how amazing you feel when you  eat clean and train hard

4.       Think of what you are putting into your body by having these take-aways/alcohol/cake/chocolate/billion of other bad foods go here.

5.       Ask yourself: is the few seconds of “good” taste in my mouth worth it?

If after these question you still can’t get back on the wagon go look at you’re before picture, is this what you want to stay forever?

In the end we are mere mortals and we will sin and stuff a “enter fav bad food here” in our mouth, but it’s our actions after this that will determine our success!

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