1 out of 21 (Cheat Meals, Guilt & Regret)
Looking through the SW Instagram feed this weekend, I came across the #notsoslimmingworld hashtag. Full of awesomely “naughty” food and drinks (which I, too, may have contributed to since), this particular hashtag is often followed by a similar number of posts showing guilt and regret about the state of the scales in the coming days.
Feeling bad or guilty about detouring only leads to anxiety, dreading the scales and the upcoming weigh in at group, which in turn makes you miserable and unhappy, making it easier to stay off plan (as most of us are comfort or stress eaters) and perhaps ultimately giving up trying and losing sight of your goals permanently.
Over the last 7 months I have had my share of guilty/regretful monday mornings when I take a sneaky look at the scales to see the damage of the weekend. Recently however, I have had a change of mindset about this and now I no longer feel bad about it. Yes, I still jump on the scale to assess the damage but only to set myself up for the week and allow myself to plan ahead for what may need to be done to correct it.
If you go “off book” and have a blowout for a meal, a day — hell even a couple of days, don’t beat yourself up about it. Hopefully you enjoyed the time off plan, draw a line under it, get up and start anew.
I’ve ditched the guilt and instead, I try to think about it this way:
Before I joined SW all my meals were off plan, ALL OF THEM!
That’s 21 meals a week off plan. Now 7 months in I have 1 “cheat meal” a week. No matter how horrendous that meal may be I am still way ahead of where I was in October last year.
So, 1, 2, 5, 10 meals off plan a week would still be miles better than before. Yes, the byproduct of leading a more healthy lifestyle, the weight loss, will change depending on how many of these we have in any given week but that’s not the thing I think we should be focusing on.
And don’t get bogged down in the scales either. They have a mind of their own and amazing power to control our every waking moment (At one point I was even weighing myself 3 times a day to see how things were going. A bad day on the scales meant a bad day in general as I carried that crappy feeling around all day.).
Instead, concentrate on the things you can control, making time and space for healthier choices when you can, having a positive mindset, planning ahead, positive body image (that’s one for another day i think) and some exercise, will lead to success and ultimately your weight loss goals.
What we should be doing is seeing SW as a lifestyle change, not a diet with an expiration date. In order to maintain this lifestyle adjustment, we have to accept that not every day is going to be a perfect day. And that’s ok — because we are in this for the long haul.
Ultimately, SW has given us the tools and the community to change our whole outlook on food; to live a healthier, happier and more balanced life day to day. Slip ups, bad days, treats and moments of chocolate covered weakness will happen, but the truth of the matter is that the guilty feeling simply means that we know we shouldn’t be eating it all the time. It means we have learnt what’s good for us and what’s not, and we are really committed to our SW journey. And that commitment is something to be really proud of.
— We have a family Instagram where we post pictures of our meals (dull) as well as recipes and tweaks to recipes, oh, and plenty of our cheat meals too ;-) —
