Jumping Back On the Wagon

I’m an all or nothing kind of person, especially when it comes to how I eat and exercise.  It’s so unhealthy!  I know it is, yet I still let that mindset either lead me to burn myself out or tell me what a failure I am until I give up on my goals all too often.

Today I got to see some of Taylor’s extended family, and it was a good time.  So good that I let myself get a little careless with what I ate.  And that careless attitude kind of followed me home after that.  It’s been bumming me out a bit.

Normally I would let a moment like this be an excuse to binge on any other “naughty” foods in sight, and I started doing just that until I caught myself making it an excuse to not exercise tonight.

Not today, Satan!

I have been working way too hard to let myself give up over some junk food and dessert- which I have to shamelessly show off on here because I think it turned out cute:

(It was gluten-free too, so I guess that’s a small win?  Haha)

Did I overeat today?  Yup.  And I don’t have celebrate it.  Nor should I be so devastated over it.

I just gotta acknowledge this all-or-nothing mindset right now and tell its  negative voice that I WILL be running tonight anyway, because I deserve to feel better about myself.

I can’t expect to be perfect 100% of the time, but I had better be putting in 100% when I see the chance.  Even if I’m not quite to the level I want to be at, putting in what I’ve got each day is what will actually get me closer to it.  It’s practice.

I also have to remember that I only picked up running less than 2 weeks ago, after years of being fairly sedentary and binge eating, so why should I expect it to be easy to exercise AND eat healthy at this point?  Loving healthy food is going to be a learning process for me, so I’d better be patient as I’m teaching myself or else I’m going to want to give up.  I’ll get there eventually, but for now I’m focusing on exercising each day.  That’s it.

And honestly, I should really be focusing on my wins here.  I haven’t missed any days of working out yet, and I’m proud of myself for that!  I may have overeaten today, but I avoided gluten so my energy levels are still doing okay.  There’s another win.

So what am I actually rambling about this time?  I guess the moral of the story here is that focusing on resilience is so much more effective than focusing on restriction.  The all-or-nothing mentality is so restricting and I need to kick it right in the butt!