After losing 30lbs in about 4-5 months, I have been maintaining for a while now. This new phase offers all kinds of new challenges, and figuring out how to make this diet my forever diet has been challenging for me. I'm very all-or-nothing and so I have felt lost in the last few weeks, not gaining weight but disliking HOW I'm eating and feeling like I'm constantly on the verge of cheating.
When I was losing, I had a single focus: the number had to keep going down. So I was hard on myself in a way that isn't sustainable, but now that I have mentally allowed myself the occasional treat, I look at junk food again, knowing that sometimes, I can have a little.
A few days ago, I was staring at kid's sugar cereal, and started to get that panicked desire to eat it, weighing how long it's been since my last cheat. (I generally eat Paleo) But then I did something I used to do when I was heavy: I put it off until tomorrow. Told myself "your cheat day starts tomorrow" and it helped me push through the rest of the night, knowing that if I wanted, I had full permission to have a bowl tomorrow. And then tomorrow came and went, and I realised I hadn't thought about the cereal all day, even though I had been in a staring contest with it the night before. The food will always be there. So for me, it helps not telling myself "no", but instead just saying "later" because it doesn't seem so final.
Hopefully, I won't have to do little mental tricks like this forever, but I figure that Nestle and Kellog employ some tricks too, so it's only fair! :)
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