That Rotten Little Voice

Sometimes I'm stunned by the thoughts that pop into my mind.  Just when I think I've really, truly, finally "gotten it" when it comes to maintenance, a little voice starts talking in my head, and the owner of this voice has a fully-developed set of fat-girl taste buds.

Last night started out innocently enough.  My husband and I decided to out for some ethnic food and wanted to try a restaurant we'd never been to before.  We had talked ahead of time about what we'd eat and knew that we could make some pretty healthy choices (we're in maintenance, so "healthy" does not always equate to "lean and green").  Unfortunately, when we got to the restaurant (coupon in hand!), the restaurant had closed.  It was one of those places we kept saying we needed to check out "one of these days", and apparently we waited too long.  Since there's not another restaurant of that ethnicity in our town, we had to figure out what to eat.  Nearby was a small restaurant that featured BBQ, so we decided to go there.  The meat we selected was fairly lean, but all of the choices for the sides were definitely not in the "green" category.  We figured we'd just go for it, so we did.

That's when that little voice popped up in my head.  We'd eaten a yummy meal that left us satisfied and not over-full, but that little voice nagged at me that I hadn't eaten as healthy as I usually do.  That triggered some old tapes to start running in my mind, with thoughts like, "Well, since you've already blown it, you might as well REALLY blow it!"  I started thinking about different places we could go for dessert, and I contemplated suggesting to my husband that we go to a drive-through for a frozen dairy dessert.

In retrospect, what really frustrated me was that I went right back to that old mindset that, #1, I'd eaten something "bad," and #2, since I'd already eaten "bad", I might as well be really, really bad.

The good news is that I didn't follow through on those miserable thoughts.  While those old thought patterns showed up once again, I'm so thankful that I recognized them as faulty almost immediately and chose to not act on them.  I realized that even thought our dinner fell short of our usual healthy fair, it certainly wasn't "bad."  There was no reason to feel guilty for eating it; this was an exception, not the rule, and exceptions in maintenance are more than OK.  Secondly, I recognized that I wasn't remotely hungry, so going on a quest for a dessert really didn't make sense.  That impulse was in response to feeling guilty for eating the dinner and was a throw-back to that old "stuff the bad feelings with more food" cycle that eventually brought me to my all-time high of 268 pounds. 

Maintenance isn't for sissies, and the head and heart part of maintenance is sometimes just as challenging as it was during the weight loss phase.  I'm encouraged that I was able to quickly recognize what was going on in my head and not fall victim to it.

Instead of heading out for a dessert that I really didn't want, we headed home.  About three hours later, I enjoyed a Medifast S'more Crunch bar - something that satisfied my sweet tooth, nourished my body, and left no guilty after taste. 

Making healthy choices isn't easy, and I am the first to admit that I don't always make them myself.  However, it's a great feeling when we DO make the difficult, but right, choice!

Have a wonderful weekend filled with good choices!