Nearly Falling Off the Wagon

I finished P90X one week ago. After 90 days of 6-8 hardcore workouts per week and following the P90X nutrition plan very closely, I was elated with my results. At the same time, something mentally switched for me. We’re finished with our goal! Time to pig out!

Ok I didn’t go wild and eat burritos for every meal and get myself a 12 count package of muffins and polish them off in a week, but I definitely was quite lax on my diet plan this week.  I know I should tell myself that I deserve it after 90 very hard days, but isn’t that how people get fat? Isn’t that how they erase the results they worked so hard for? They think, well the hard work is over, time to “maintain.” Well, with so many food temptations out there, it’s easier said than done. Without the “I’m doing P90X” excuse to use when it came to my food choices this week, I practically fell off the wagon!

Blame it on the Chocolate

It all started with my mom providing me with my usual Easter basket full of my favorite See’s Candy. I specifically asked her to provide me with about half the usual load, and she did, but I still ended up with a large bag full of See’s, a marshmallow bunny, and various Dove mini chocolates. I did a good job this week of sticking to 2-3 pieces a day, so I don’t think that I totally went crazy there. But I do think that eating the See’s opened a whole new can of worms when it came to the rest of my nutrition. It seems that eating a few pieces of chocolate justified splurges in other areas.

Friday at work someone brought in a yummy treat and I had a piece before breakfast. Then we celebrated the birthdays at work – and I had a cupcake! Then that night after stuffing myself at a sushi dinner (with healthy choices at least), I still ate the frozen yogurt I had been planning on buying all day. I definitely think it would have been perfectly ok to have just one of these treats, but not all three in one day! Last night I totally splurged by going out with a friend and having wine, appetizers and a huge greasy burger for dinner. Normally I allow for one cheat meal a week anyway, but this one made me feel particularly guilty as I definitely already used all my cheats for the week on my delicious chocolate treats! Not to mention the burger was preceded by a glass of wine, paired with a beer and followed by another glass of wine. I woke up this morning feeling gross and hungover. A pretty big contrast to how I usually feel on a Sunday morning.

Anyway, the moral of the story is that I’ve realized that it’s so easy to fall back into old habits. Overall this week I was fairly healthy – bringing my lunch every day, even during my work’s “baked potato bar party,” and making healthy choices at dinner each night with the exception of Saturday. But the part of me that makes excuses for my unhealthy habits definitely reared her ugly head this week and I even found myself taking a piece of candy from the candy basket that I avoided for 90 days! It’s a slippery slope ladies and gentlemen.

Back on the Horse

One lesson I’ve learned and I hope others adopt as well, is that there is no need to get caught up in the mistakes you made one bad day, week or even month. Just learn from them, and start over fresh on Monday. My freshman year of college I tried to lose weight repeatedly, and would say to my friends nearly every Sunday, “the diet starts on Monday.” It became a running inside joke among my friends. That principle lived with me pretty much the rest of my life – I would eat healthy during the week and then splurge on the weekends, feel guilty and restrict myself on Mondays. It has been a goal of mine to get out of this destructive cycle and P90X finally helped me achieve that.

So, instead of saying “the diet starts on Monday,” I’m going to say, “normal life continues on Monday.” My new “diet” is every day life, not a diet, and I’m excited to get back to normal! I still have plenty of fitness goals to achieve and I’m not going to get there eating chocolate and burgers and drinking beer!