In the past, I’ve been an all or nothing dieter. Either I’m on track or I’m going crazy. I’ve never been able to find a good middle (or what most people would call “normal eating”).
I’m really working hard at changing that right now. I am trying to stay under my calories every day as well as not trying to eat my exercise calories. So far, that’s going pretty well for me. Although I am eating almost the exact same thing every day. But I do get into food ruts occasionally and I think that that’s ok.
My big thing right now is each day for lunch I’m eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It’s not too bad in calories and it’s easy for me to portion control it (one piece of bread and the peanut butter is a single serving packet). And having that as my lunch every day has helped with the afternoon snacking. So I’m not planning on changing my lunches anytime soon (it’s also pretty cheap so that’s another plus).
There are so many diet books that say that you can splurge every once in a while. Lots of sources talk about having a cheat day, but I know that if I let myself have a day, that’s going to end up really badly. So I want to allow myself a cheat meal every once in a while.
I had my first official cheat meal this past weekend on Saturday. I went out for lunch and pie with my friend Emily. Even though this was only a cheat meal, it ended up in a way becoming a cheat day (I didn’t eat breakfast that morning and I had my leftovers from lunch for dinner).
One thing I learned about my cheat meal: I probably went a little overboard. Not in calories (somehow I was 1 calorie under my calorie goal for the day), but in richness or something else. Not to be too gross, but my body was very unhappy for about half a day after that meal. It’s a few days later and I still don’t feel as good as I had been feeling before.
I need to be able to make cheat meals a part of my life. I need to be able to enjoy food every once in a while. But I need to balance those cheats meals better with my normal meals. And I’m still learning how to do that.
Sometimes I wonder how skinny people do it. It seems like an impossible task to lose weight (or maintain weight loss) and eat more than just lettuce all day. I know that part of my problem is that I do have a slightly slower metabolism than most people (I had that tested in the past), but that can’t account for all my trouble.
But I feel like for the first time, I really learned my lesson with eating the wrong things. In the past, I might have felt a little sick from overeating or indulging, but never as sick as I felt this time. My body must have started to get used to the good foods I’m putting in my system and is finally recognizing the bad foods as bad foods. I know that there will be another overindulgence or slip up in the future, but for the first time, I feel optimistic that my cheat meal will be just that and not a slide back down toward constant binge eating.
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