The Truth
It's important for me to be truthful with myself. Living the Deliberate Life can't include lying to myself to meet the new 'rules.' That would just defeat the whole purpose. I don't want to follow 'rules', I want to come up with a better plan for living my life.
I forgot to bring an afternoon snack yesterday and was hungry. I knew I had an appointment with Carol at 5:30 and wouldn't necessairly have a chance to eat dinner beforehand. So I went to the vending machine and chose to buy a bag of BBQ pretzels/peanuts. I looked at the label and the bag was 4 servings, at 140 caolories each. I wanted to eat about a third of the bag, for around 200 calories. So I poured out that much and ate it. Then after a minute poured out another portion and ate it and put the bag in a drawer. Then after a few minutes I ate the rest of the bag. And then tried to do some weird psychological shit about 'deliberately choosing' to eat the rest of the bag. NO I DIDN'T. I made a mistake. That's OK. I can mean to make more conscious choices and I can make mistakes and not live up to my goals for the day. I don't have to lie to myself so as not to be a FAILURE. Stupid stupid stupid. It's OK to make mistakes. The thing is to acknowledge them, think about how to do better next time, and MOVE ON. So next time, I want to plan ahead and bring a healthy afternoon snack (which I did today - go me!) and if I forget to do that, make a better choice from the vending machine, and then if the portion size is too big, throw away the remaining food before consuming it. It's OK to acknowledge that at this time I don't have great self-control when food is just sitting in front of me. THAT'S OK!!!!! I will be more proactive about destroying the excess food, working at this time on gaining control over what I eat. Working on improving self-control when confronted by food I can't throw away can be a future goal. I don't have to fix everything at once. Phew. That's a lot of yelling.
I set goals last night of getting up without hitting the snooze alarm and using the treadmill, not the elliptical this morning, and to bring yoghurt for an afternoon snack. Goals accomplished! Happy dance for me. It's important to celebrate successes. Not in an insane, artificial way - oh you're so wonderful for getting up on time! - but in a 'you did what you wanted to do, well done' self-affirming way. That's a hard line for me to set because I tend to consider most self-affirming talk as artificial. Oddly enough, only self-criticism is authentic. *snerk*
I forgot to bring an afternoon snack yesterday and was hungry. I knew I had an appointment with Carol at 5:30 and wouldn't necessairly have a chance to eat dinner beforehand. So I went to the vending machine and chose to buy a bag of BBQ pretzels/peanuts. I looked at the label and the bag was 4 servings, at 140 caolories each. I wanted to eat about a third of the bag, for around 200 calories. So I poured out that much and ate it. Then after a minute poured out another portion and ate it and put the bag in a drawer. Then after a few minutes I ate the rest of the bag. And then tried to do some weird psychological shit about 'deliberately choosing' to eat the rest of the bag. NO I DIDN'T. I made a mistake. That's OK. I can mean to make more conscious choices and I can make mistakes and not live up to my goals for the day. I don't have to lie to myself so as not to be a FAILURE. Stupid stupid stupid. It's OK to make mistakes. The thing is to acknowledge them, think about how to do better next time, and MOVE ON. So next time, I want to plan ahead and bring a healthy afternoon snack (which I did today - go me!) and if I forget to do that, make a better choice from the vending machine, and then if the portion size is too big, throw away the remaining food before consuming it. It's OK to acknowledge that at this time I don't have great self-control when food is just sitting in front of me. THAT'S OK!!!!! I will be more proactive about destroying the excess food, working at this time on gaining control over what I eat. Working on improving self-control when confronted by food I can't throw away can be a future goal. I don't have to fix everything at once. Phew. That's a lot of yelling.
I set goals last night of getting up without hitting the snooze alarm and using the treadmill, not the elliptical this morning, and to bring yoghurt for an afternoon snack. Goals accomplished! Happy dance for me. It's important to celebrate successes. Not in an insane, artificial way - oh you're so wonderful for getting up on time! - but in a 'you did what you wanted to do, well done' self-affirming way. That's a hard line for me to set because I tend to consider most self-affirming talk as artificial. Oddly enough, only self-criticism is authentic. *snerk*