I was having a really, really hard time reining in my eating habits. I couldn’t muster up that sense of urgency I had before, that feeling that every little decision makes a difference. I couldn’t seem to find any fucks to give. I’d try to mentally reset myself, and then something would just sound good, so I’d eat it; or I’d order the wrong thing from the coffeeshop, but drink it, anyway; or I just wouldn’t feel like running in the drizzly cold, so I’d rationalize it by taking a low-activity week to monitor my back pain.
I decided it was time to reinstate some basic guidelines for myself. After that first dreadfully off-the-rails week of April, I made some rules:
- I will only buy lunch once or twice during the week — the rest of the time, I pack.
- I won’t eat after Connor goes to bed — not even a little treat with my decaf or tea.
- I will exercise daily, whether it’s a full-on fitness class or a lunch walk (or run) or yoga before bed.
It was the middle of the week — hell, the middle of a Thursday afternoon — when I instated my new rules. I didn’t have to wait for Monday, or weigh-in day, or even tomorrow. The sooner I could get back on track, the better, honestly. If I could turn my mentality around while I was thinking clearly, I (hopefully) would have already made the right decisions by the time the decision-making time was upon me. I hit a couple of bumps that first half-a-week (one big one involving a box of Kraft Dinner), but for the most part, I successfully started turning things around.
