Pretend I'm Usher and "This is My Confession"

They say the road to gaining weight is paved with good intentions. Or maybe that's the road to hell, but my saying works too. Because I had all the good intentions in the world about staying on track with my eating during the holidays, but it still ended with my gaining some weight. I had fully intended to limit my high-calorie eating to just a few meals, but it is just so easy to rationalize crappy eating during the holidays. You know the excuses, "Everybody else is doing it," "It isn't that  bad," and the ever popular "I'll get back on track after New Year's." Yes, I fell prey to these, and probably many more, rationalizations this holiday season.

I know that it's not the end of the world, and the truth is that I am back on track now. I guess if there was a good part to all this, it's that by the time New Year's Day rolled around, I was so thoroughly sick of eating junk, that I was really ready to go back to normal. So while I am not going to kick myself (which wouldn't be healthy and could be difficult physically anyway) over and over about falling off the wagon per say, I am disappointed in my behavior. There were numerous opportunities for me to turn things around, and I made a conscious decision not  to do so. I mean, there's a reason people eat this crap, despite it being so bad for you. It tastes good! And I found that the more I ate of it, the more I wanted. Despite the fact that my stomach was basically in revolt all week because it wasn't used to food like that, despite the fact that I physically and mentally felt different in a bad way due to what I was putting in my body, I ate it anyway. I sometimes even ate when I wasn't even hungry due to boredom or because my mind wanted it even if my body had had enough.

Despite all of these poor decisions nutritionally, I did do one thing very right that would never have happened previously. I made sure I worked out every single day. Even though I knew it most likely wouldn't be enough to counteract what I was eating, I still did it. So I am very proud of that because the old me, the all or nothing me, would have said "What's the point? You're eating badly, so why should you work out if you're going to gain weight anyway?" Throughout all the crazy eating, my work-outs were kind of like a mental anchor for me.

I admit, there's a small, insecure part of me that worries that the people who have been following my story will be disappointed by me right now. Of course, that's the part of me that feels like I should perfect all the time. But the bigger, healthier part of me knows that the truth is that I'm not  perfect and that that's really okay. I think people generally appreciate honesty more than perfection, because who hasn't  made a bad decision or two before? That's why I put it all out there, even it may paint me in a less than flattering light at times.

So to recap, Christmas eating=failure, yes, that's true. But that does not make me  a failure in any shape or form. My motto is "Fall down 7 times, get up 8." And that's exactly what I am doing.