This weekend quote comes via Jenn. She left it in the comments on my recent Ask Roni: Good Intentions Gone Bad post about giving up on making healthy choices because you had one "slip up."
Note: I don’t want to call them "slip ups" but I know that you know what I mean! Right? The whole… I-ate-a-cookie-I might as-well-go-ahead-and-order-a-stuffed-crust meat-lovers-pizza-for-dinner thing. This also includes the… I’ll-start-Monday-because-weekends-are-too-hard thing as well.
I believe this cycle stems from the diet mentality. The "I can’t have that" is so burned into our brains. We want to be perfect, to eat perfect and once something disrupts the perfectness we’ve "blown it" so might as well consume everything in sight. This could be our last chance! Until, that is, we try to be perfect again tomorrow, or Monday or after the holidays or….. you get the idea.
Jenn shared some great insight into this weight loss phenomena…
I heard a lady say yesterday that it’s like if you drop an egg on the floor…you don’t then throw the rest of them down too…you clean up your mess and move on…
MAN I love a good metaphor. How perfect is that? Think about all the other areas of your life where "slip ups" occurs. How do you handle them? Do you just throw your hands up and surrender? Lord knows parents can’t do that, if I had a nickle for every time I messed up in that department I sure would’t be worried about leaving my full time job! How about school? Did you ever fail a test? I sure did.. geesh I almost flunked out of my freshman year yet I sit here with my Masters degree.
We have to remember it’s not about one mistake or in the case or our diet, one meal. It’s about an overall lifestyle. There is no on-plan/off-plan. Everything is on-plan IF you are consciously making decisions and not simply reacting to your imperfection. I hate to tell you, we are all imperfect. The sooner we realize it the faster we can get to reaching our goals.
You can read more about my concept of stateless dieting here.
12 Responses to Weekend Quote: How Many Eggs Have You Thrown Away?
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About Roni
Roni started this blog in '05 to journal her weight loss. 70lbs later, she's committed to living a conscious, healthy life and hopes to inspire others along the way. Read more on the about page.
Amazing metaphor! I’m sure going to use it.
Maybe the secret is to expect that, at some point, we are going to slip up? So when that cookie is eaten, you can think “It took me 3 weeks to slip up? Meh, i thought it would happen the first week” and then, move on.
I really struggle with this still. I love that analogy and need to inscribe it on my arm!
GREAT post Roni!!!!! Love the analogy!!!
I so need to hear this today being it’s the 31st of the month and I am debating as whether to binge “just this last time” since it’s the end of the month and then I will be “perfect”. I chase this perfection belief as I go up in weight and I need to get off of this merry-go-round. “Progress….not perfection”, needs to be my new motto.
I love this analogy. Never heard that before. I don’t think I’ll get that one out of my head for a long time!
Another great one is: just because you dent the car doesn’t mean you have to total it.
I love that metaphor as well as a few similar ones.
If you get a flat tire are you going to slash the other three.
And if you trip on the stairs are you going to throw yourself down the others.
I prefer to make scrambles with my eggs.
A great blog message. One we all need to hear often. Yesterday I ate pizza which is something I have not eaten in months & I have felt so lousy about it. But one meal is not going to destroy the entire package. I did lose half a pound so I need to realize eating too much one day will not take away all the good I have done.
Wow that is a great quote!!! By the way, I am reading “Breaking free from Compulsive eating” by Geneen Roth and it has been a real eye opener. She is very big on having people let go of what they deem as their forbidden foods.
Oh my goodness, that IS a great metaphor. I’ll have to remember that the next time All Or Nothing rears it’s ugly head.
Thanks Roni! I just sent to my hubby and told him I am now famous, hahaha :)
Hope you all have a great day!
Hi Roni-
I wanted to let you know that this is one of those posts that reached into the depths of my soul and touched me. I have struggled with my weight since I was 5-years-old. I have been on more diets than I can even remember. In June of 2009 I went through a series of life changing events. One of them was losing 60 pounds from June 2009-December 2009. I did it through the Medifast program. There was nothing that could entice me to eat off plan; I even successfully went on a cruise in August 2009. Rather than eating on the cruise, I ate very little of my Medifast food and supplemented my calories with alcohol. I came off the boat 6 pounds lighter after only 3 days. I began exercising in November 2009 and started to maintain my weight, while still maintaining the low calorie Medifast diet. In January, I completed my first half marathon and I felt as though I was on top of the world. Then something changed. The Medifast program did not teach me any way to eat when not following the plan, however the plan did not work with my active lifestyle. From January 2010-July 2010, I managed to put on every last one of those 60 pounds I had worked so hard to lose. It devastated me and I beat myself up every day over it. I mentally punished myself for being such a failure. The day your post went up was a day when I needed it the most. I have been working on a healthier weight loss goal. If I lose 1 pound a week, I will be happy. I am still in the beginning stages of this new lifestyle, however, when I think I’ve screwed up I think back to your post and it encourages me to pick up and move on. I’ve already noticed a difference on the scale and in my mentality.
Weight is such a personal, internal battle for people.
Last night my boyfriend and I were on our way to a baseball game when we received a phone call that his mother was being rushed in for emergency surgery. Upon arriving at the hospital we were told that there were complications resulting from a Lapband procedure she had done 2 years ago. The Lapband was a very personal decision she made and did not share with anyone but immediate family. The band somehow slipped, strangulating part of her stomach. The result was a hole in her stomach, which was now dead, that leaked bacteria into her bloodstream ultimately causing septic shock. She was taken in for an emergency surgery to remove the dead portion of her stomach. She is lying in a hospital bed in ICU on a ventilator right now. It is devastating to the family, especially her husband of over 50 years. All she wanted was to have a weight loss solution that finally worked for her, and now 2 years later all her husband wants is for her to be alive. Fat or thin.
Thank you for your unending encouragement.
Alicia