Falling Off The Wagon

Boys, you will want to turn away and read something else! In fact, some girls may feel the same way.

This post will undoubtably have too much information in it that nobody but me needs to know…however, in the past, with my eating, I tended to brush over the days I didn’t do so well.

This time is different.

This time I want to own it, dissect it, understand it and move on.

So let’s go!

Over the weekend, I told my girls that their mother was a chicken.

As you would expect, they looked at me blankly, wondering if I had, at last, succumbed to old age and lost my mind.

I went on (not very helpfully, I have to admit) to say that I seem to only lay eggs in the summer and stop over winter.

Charlotte yelled from the living room that I shouldn’t be laying eggs at all. I am, after all, NOT a chicken.

I continued (perhaps a little more helpfully) to say that I had not had a period (perimenopausal) all winter, just like last winter, and now the sun had come out, I had effectively ‘lain’ an egg and was expecting said period any day now.

The children laughed, relieved their mother was, well just being typical Claire, and had not, in fact, lost her mind.

Two days later, and it was Tuesday (yesterday), and my period had indeed arrived. I had not had one the entire time I had been following my healthy eating and exercise.

Wondering all along why I had found it so easy to stick to all these months, I now had a moment of clarity, as I spent all of Tuesday fending off the worst sugar cravings known to man woman.

It had nothing to do with some superior self discipline I suspected I had garnered on aging, nor on the will of iron I thought I had developed over time.

No, it was all down to the hormones.

Those pesky hormones had been the cause of many health issues over my life time, but at no other time had I so completely understood the power they possessed.

I would love to be able to tell you that I did really well and used the superior self-discipline and will of iron and continued on making healthy choices.

I did not (on the probable account of not actually having any superior self-discipline or will of iron).

However, over the past eight months, I have learnt a few things and (thanks to Noom) have some weapons in my arsenal.

For example, I now know that I do not have to act in an ‘all or nothing’ kind of way. So, at the pub with my girls, I chose to have a mini chocolate brownie and a herbal tea instead of a full size dessert. At home, I had two digestive biscuits and stopped there. And that night, when Gary brought home many chocolate profiteroles (which I had asked him for), I shared them with the girls and Gary and ended up having four (they were the small blobs not the huge doughnut sized ones – I did not and could not eat four of those!).

I also know that I should not ignore what I did and I should own it by recording it within my Noom meal log, which I did. And, until I ate the profiteroles, I had actually stayed within my calories for the day.

I have also learnt that failure in the moment does not mean the whole day is a failure. I looked at what I had achieved and celebrated that. I’d eaten a wonderful healthy breakfast of porridge, nuts, seeds and fruit, as well as a lovely healthy dinner of salmon, baked potato and salad. I had walked the dog for almost an hour that morning. And I had spent time with my girls at the pub.

I did not go to bed stuffed and hating myself. I did not write off the day and then proceed to eat my way through the multitude of feelings I had concerning my perceived failure. And best of all…I moved on.

Today, the cravings have gone, possibly satiated by the sugar of yesterday. Or maybe the hormones have subsided.

I weighed myself this morning, as I do every morning (part of Noom) and I was exactly what I had been the day before.

However…

And this is important…

Physically I do not feel good. My tummy was a bit upset this morning from the rubbish of the night before.

I have a headache which I have not had since Christmas.

I had a restless night and did not wake up this morning feeling energised.

Crappy food has made me feel crappy.

I had to force myself to get out of bed this morning at six, and I made myself get dressed, put on my walking boots and take our doggy for a long walk around the winding country roads. And as I did, I began to feel better. The sunlight, the fresh air and the time spent in nature all worked their magic.

I’d fallen off my metaphorical horse, and I had got right back on it again.

I wanted to write this post for myself.

To show me just how far I have come.

And also to remind me, the next time I have cravings, that there are consequences to giving in to those cravings.

However, those consequences are transient, so long as the behaviour is too.