Not much to report this week. I’m back down to 225, which I was disappointed with at first because I was hoping to be lower than that by this point. However, then I thought to myself, “holy crap! I’ve lost 12lbs in the past month and a half and I did it in a completely sustainable way. AWESOME!” Sometimes, you just need to remind yourself how well you’re doing overall so you don’t get too depressed with the little setbacks.
Speaking of which, I heard a great advertisement on the radio from Kaiser Permanente. Now I usually don’t pay much attention to advertising, nor would I repeat it here, but this one really struck a chord with me. The ad drew a mental image of a club where people who had a setback sat in. These included people who had a donut when they were trying to lose weight, smoked a cigarette when they tried to quit or had a bad day when they’re trying to be healthier. The basic message of the ad was:
“Hey, it happens to all of us at some point. No one is perfect and sooner or later you’re going to have a little setback. The question is what do you do then. Do you give up altogether and use this setback as an excuse? Or do you pick yourself up and keep working at it?”
That’s a beautiful message and it’s really important to keep in mind with any health related project. You’re going to have setbacks. You’re going to have bad days. You’re going to have meals after which you ask yourself “why the heck did I eat that?” The question is, what do you do then?
Since I Already Failed…
I’ve seen people (and I used to be one myself) who use one little mistake as a reason to give up. When I first tried to lose weight and get in shape, if I had one little candy bar in the morning I would use that as an excuse to binge for the rest of the day. I would tell myself “well, since I already messed up today, might as well screw it up completely!” and that would turn into “well, since I already messed up Monday, I may as well write off this whole week…”
It’s an awful chain reaction that quickly turns any little mistake into a giant mess.
So What To Do?
Easy. If you make a mistake, skip a workout, eat something you shouldn’t, do something stupid at work, mess up your homework or any other issue, just stop, evaluate the true damage and move on as though that mistake never happened. I’m serious, it’s that easy. It never happened. It’s in the past. Learn from it, put it behind you and move on. One little mistake is no reason to ruin your whole day.
