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February 12, 2006
Learn From My Mistakes
My CR sister Amy recently wrote a comment on my CR sister Zeynep's blog referring to the self-discipline of Mary and April. Well, I usually have quite a bit of self-discipline, but I extend this story of a total lack thereof to all of you out there who like me, are human! Guess what, ladies and gentleman? What we are trying to do is hard. And sometimes we don't do it perfectly. I am so far from perfect that it makes me giggle or cry, depending on the day. I want you to both learn from things I do that derail me from my goals, and also to forgive yourself when you fall a bit short of your expectations.
Friday, as you know, I ate a nutritionally brilliant, 828 calorie day -- well below my average, but I was making up for a touch of restaurant food and a margarita on Thursday night with VLC. I left the house for my late night meeting feeling quite full between food and the coffee I brewed since I would be working past my usual bedtime.
I got to the nurse's house after a fifty minute drive to find that she had both ordered and made a ton of food. She was expecting a large crowd of her co-workers coming off of a twelve and a half hour day shift. Unorganized (as in non-union, not disorganized!) nurses often are so understaffed that they don't even have time to stop for a lunch break in 12 hours, so you can count on them to be hungry after work. I didn't plan on eating anything, but as the hour wore on and the crowds my hostess had expected failed to materialize, she lamented the waste of so much food and urged me and my co-worker to eat.
I decided one small bite wouldn't hurt.
Wow, was I wrong.
Here is the thing: my friend the clinical neuropsychologist (that's a complicated job title!) once told me that when you take a bite of a high calorie food, something happens to your biochemistry that makes it almost impossible to resist eating more. Like you go temporarily insane. This effect is magnified in those of us who are truly in calorie deficit. Therefore, it is setting yourself up for failure to try to "eat just one bite."
I'd have to concur from experience. One bite of stromboli (that's like pizza with crust on the outside) turned into two slices, two chocolate chip cookies, and several dips of the Mexican bean dip the nurse's son had made. I also ate some grapes and pineapples off the fruit tray provided as a nod to healthy eating, but all in all the evening was a gak-filled disasterous nightmare. Oh, and I forgot the handfull of M&M's.
Yes, my dear bloggiefriends, sometimes I fall apart and eat gak. And then I feel physically terrible! I thought I was going to throw up driving home, though I managed not to. My body is not used to this kind of thing anymore, and when I consider how in my 137 pound days I used to eat like this frequently at nurse meetings, it's no wonder I weighed a lot more!
I didn't take it too hard psychologically -- I know this kind of thing happens only very rarely for me, and I now know how very important it is to avoid that "one bite" syndrome. A good lesson learned, one that perhaps you can learn from my experience without having to try it yourself!
I'm sure you can add a whole bunch of calories onto my average for the week after that disaster, yet my weight was only up by two pounds the next day, which isn't bad considering how much salt water weight I must have been retaining post-gak fest.
And before you naysayers out there take one gak-fest as evidence that CR is impossible, let me remind you that even with this gak-fest my total calorie average is no more than 1300/day for the week, which is way the hell less than almost all American women and low enough to have kept me at under 105 pounds for a year and a half now. I've dropped my calories very low in the last few weeks as a result of my consistency experiment, and I'm going to use the information I've gained to stay low. The occasional problem doesn't derail CR, as long as you get right back on the train. Or get the train right back on the track. Or get the subway right back into the tunnel. Or eat an Atkins wrap at Subway instead of going down the wrong road in the first place.
I never met a metaphor that couldn't stand to be mixed well.
So there: I do no have iron incorruptible self-disclipline when it comes to food. Do not despair when you eat something that doesn't correspond to your goals -- it happens to the best of us. None of us are perfect.
Well, MR is. But I assure you, he's quite odd.
Posted by april at February 12, 2006 2:25 PM
Comments
As the song goes, April, "Take it easy on yourself"! And as for MR, even he isn't perfect! Honest. He just has this amazing level of self-discipline re: food that the rest of us can't hope to attain. I have a great idea for a lunch, though: how about a batch of your fabulous Lasagne? I'm sure you can tinker with it to make it a deliciously Zoned feast of precisely 500 calories. Just one more sleep! JD :-)
Posted by: Judith at February 12, 2006 1:24 PM
As every human being on this world knows from experience, shit happens. The thing is, to keep it from happening again and again.
Nothing is going to likely happen if you just lost it and had gak for one dinner except for you feeling bad physically and psychologically afterwards. But that too passes.
Posted by: zeynep at February 12, 2006 1:31 PM
I wonder if having such a low-calorie success prior to this event psychologically gave you lee-way. Perhaps, if you had been at 1000 calories, a little bite would indeed have been possible?
Posted by: Erin at February 13, 2006 9:35 AM
Well, I for one am glad to hear of a full-on slippage from you :-). Though it's EXTREMELY motivating to follow your excellent example on all those days in which you are splendid in your self-control, it's also nice to know that it isn't just those that have iron will that can stick with CRON. Now, if I could just limit my off-days to once per week . . .
Posted by: Amy Wright at February 13, 2006 3:07 PM
There's nothing more potent than the combination of sympathy/pity to motivate you into eating other people's gakky food. It was really tough not to eat my relative's food that they had made "just for us" at Christmas.
Just think, if she had made you extravagant CR food instead. Do you think it will ever be possible that lots of people will make fabulous healthy food for each other?
Posted by: Little MR at February 13, 2006 7:53 PM