Day Thirty-Two: The Bad Days

You wake up in a nasty mood, don't know why. Maybe it was because you didn't get great sleep last night...someone might have kept you up. Someone else might have gotten good sleep, but it wasn't you. You're tired, you're cranky, you're hormonal, you get ready for work & you hate the way you look. You hate the way you feel. You hate the world in general today, & there's no valid reason why. You've felt this way before, but it's been awhile...

You get to work & nothing goes your way. People are nasty. You hate people today.

You eat something that you know isn't good for you. You justify it. I've had a bad day...maybe you don't justify it out loud...maybe you don't even realize what you've done. What have you put into your body today? A cup of coffee and a doughnut? Not even a multivitamin, "For real!!"...you say to yourself. "Oh well, the day is shot anyway. Have I had any water? No? Okay, a diet coke will do...I'm tired, I need energy. My goodness, I feel like crap. There's no way I can work out today, not with the day I've had. I wish today just didn't happen."

Oh, for the love of bad days. Let me tell you, there will be many. You're not the only one, we've all had them, let me say it again....WE'VE ALL HAD THEM. And, you will have many more. It's the way of life. So, you ate crap...and it was a Thursday. There's not a person out there who hasn't done it.

You have three choices. 1) You can deny what you've done, justify it by saying that your diet was better than anyone else's that you work with even though it was crappy, and continue about. 2) You can shame yourself by making yourself feel even more horrible for doing what you did. 3) You can accept that you reverted back to your old ways, hold yourself accountable, forgive yourself, & move on.

I hope you made the third choice.

How does this work? You realize that becoming healthy is a process. Even if a switch flipped in you on Jan 1, it is still going to take time for the "new you" to become the "new you". Sixty days from now, you'll recognize what is going on & make the decision to go spend some time on yourself, maybe a little more than normal. You'll recognize that contaminating your system with junk, soda, or stress only makes a bad situation worse. Right now, though, you must forgive yourself & realize that this is a process. Where you are is not where you are going to be. You will have bad days, WE ALL DO. You will have days where you fall short of your own expectations of yourself. WE ALL DO.

Hold yourself accountable. How do you do this? You do two things: 1) You journal about why you ate emotionally. This is important, because the only way you can stop eating emotionally is to recognize the triggers & how you've habitually responded. 2) The second thing you do is switch one of your cheat meals out for the day that you screwed up. Why? Because screwing up costs you, & that's part of holding yourself accountable. You don't get 3 cheat meals because you ate emotionally that day, you still only get 2 for the week.

Now that you've held yourself accountable, you FORGIVE yourself. Then, drink a liter of water to start cleaning out your system, take a multivitamin and a TUMS (or 3), & realize that tomorrow's another day.

Try: Leeks. In the produce section somewhere around leafy veggies, you'll find these awesome stalky things. I love to make veggie soup using these instead of onions. To make veggie soup, remove the outer stalk of leeks, chop them up width-wise & saute with generous amount of olive oil & fresh garlic in a large soup pot. Then, add veggies (I like carrots, celery, fresh green beans, fresh chopped spinach). Saute until carrots are slightly softened, then add generous amount of water. Add bullion, pepper, & onion powder to taste. Sometimes, I kick it up with a touch of cayenne. Bring to boil, then simmer for about 45m. Serve with lightly toasted warm Ezekiel bread with Earth Balance Buttery Spread.