So I’d love to begin this article with this proud statement: I’ve been on the Huge in a Hurry Diet/Workout plan for two months, have gained 10 pounds of solid muscle, and am showing my six pack off to everyone who will doesn’t mind staring at a stranger’s stomach.
However, it hasn’t quite worked like that. I got a little sick for a week in December, then went to the seven day Release Technique Retreat, where working out wasn’t really an option if you wanted to take advantage of all the releasing opportunities.
So, you could say I fell off the wagon a little bit. This is not to say I got fat. In fact, I think I lost a little weight of both muscle and fat in the last month, so I basically just became a leaner version of what I looked like in early December.
But now within a week or so, I’m back on it and doing great. It got me thinking about how we can keep our health & fitness goals consistent, while living in a very inconsistent world.
Even without time commitments and surprise affairs to deal with, we have the issue of situations where there’s limited access to healthy food, or the temptations for fatty/sugary foods seem to be too great for us to resist.
At my new job, there’s a bowl of Jelly Belly jelly beans on the front desk where you walk in. I love Jelly Belly beans, and it takes some discipline and not indulge myself every time I walk by the desk.
With my Huge in a Hurry diet plan, I was being extremely strict, with not indulging in any white carbs, added sugar, or fried foods, except for a cheat meal every week where I could eat anything. I actually am gifted with exceptional willpower so I’ve been able to do this pretty well.
The problem I noticed with this extreme, even with a cheat meal allowed, is that it feels very “all or nothing.” If you miss your workout for a week, it feels like you’ve abandoned your plan entirely, when you just simply had a busy four days at work. If you have a sundae three days after you already had your cheat meal, you feel like you’ve fallen off the wagon, when all you had was a little variation in your practice.
Here’s the solution I’ve given myself:
I know what to eat, and I know when to eat it. With Livestrong.com (formerly TheDailyPlate), I can hone in on my carbs, protein, and calories with microscopic precision. So knowing what to do is not an issue anymore.
My new decision is to give myself permission to eat anything, as long as I log it. When people keep a food diary with all their macros and calories and protein goals, they tend to stop recording when they cheat. If they don’t beat themselves up for this apparent infraction, they try to sweep the “infraction” under the rug, and start anew the next day. This leads to more occasions of you not keeping track of what you eat, followed by more binges, missed workouts, you get the idea.
Last night I took a friend to dinner at Chili’s to celebrate her getting a new job. Having just added up all the metrics, it was a 1,384 calorie meal. But I’m ok with that. I logged the whole thing, and I can stare it in the face and be ok with myself.
I believe that’s really the most crucial behavior when you go against your diet guidelines. In my opinion, most of the damage from junk food is done by you feeling bad before eating it, or feeling guilty or angry at yourself after over having eaten it.
Now does this mean I’m going to eat junk food more often? I don’t really think so. My relationship with junk food just changes. Now when I see the jelly beans, I can decide whether to eat it based on how it will make me feel, instead of if it will violate a rule or standard I set for myself. And from any outside observation, it would look like I’m following the Huge in a Hurry plan pretty exceptionally.
And yes, coworkers do laugh at me when I’m counting the potato chips on my plate for record keeping purposes, but so what?
If any readers here have experience with logging calories/carbs/fat/protein online, feel free to share your experiences in the comment section.
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