Yes, Yes, I indulged. So what?
Weekends are always tough for me in terms of eating low-carb. I work a typical 9-5 job (though my hours are usually more like 9-7), and when I leave the building Friday evening, I feel like celebrating. In the past, this meant ordering pizza, getting pints of Ben & Jerry’s, fast food, etc. Then I’d feel so guilty and crappy come Monday and then start the whole cycle over again Friday.
When I decided to go low-carb, I knew that the hardest thing would be the weekends. When I’m in my work routine, it’s far easier for me to eat healthy. I needed to come up with a game plan to conquer the weekends. I decided that I would go slightly higher carb during the weekends, consuming 30-50g a day instead of the usual 20g I did during the week. I’d make the more higher-carb dishes I liked, such as chicken noodle soup (with Dreamfields pasta), burgers and rutabaga fries, stuff like that. I also made sure to have some low-carb candies or other low-carb desserts around to prevent me from going to the store for that pint of Chubby Hubby. I found that this approach helped me because it helped me feel that I was still ‘celebrating’ over the weekend like I used to do, but still lose weight.
However, as my title suggests, I was not so good this past weekend. My boyfriend and I went over to his mom’s house for the weekend to go to a winter festival and do some laundry. Saturday night they wanted to go to this new BBQ place nearby, where of course the only low-carb side they had was canned green beans, which I simply cannot stomach. So I figured might as well get the sweet potato fries, more nutritious than the regular fries at least. Fortunately, I had brought some low-carb candy up with me so I avoided dessert at least. Or so I thought, because Sunday my boyfriend’s mom decided to make home-made brownies so we could have brownie sundaes. I simply cannot resist a home-made brownie! And then when my boyfriend and I wanted to get dinner late last night, I got a burger and fries because at that point I knew it was a day for indulgences (and the bar down the street from us makes the BEST fries).
Now, before you tell me I committed a low-carb sin, hear me out. I knew going into this lifestyle that I would never be able to give up sugar or starches forever. I mean, I enjoy them, I won’t lie to myself! But now, I know that it is ok to consume them in moderation, as long as I go right back to low-carb the next day. And I look forward to it because low-carb makes my body feel good! I never thought I’d be looking forward to eating healthy!
When I look back on how I used to beat myself up if I ate something ‘bad’, it makes me very sad. We are only human, after all, and we are going to crave things that aren’t good for us. And NEVER allowing ourselves to have those things will just make us more miserable. The hard part is moderating yourself to just one day or in my case, one weekend. For some people, just a taste of sugar leaves them craving more. For me, I now know that I can control my cravings beyond that one occurrence. If you are the type where just one taste causes you to binge for days, ask yourself why and what you can do to avoid it. Come up with your own game plan, because it’s unreasonable to think that you will NEVER have french fries or brownies made with real sugar again. I mean it is just no fun, and if you are really going to make this a lifestyle change, you have to learn to cope when you do give into temptation.
So now the real question is: how will this impact my weight loss? Check back Thursday, February 4th for my weekly progress report!
