Maine or bust!

Monday, October 24, 2011

On resisting temptation...

Three different people have tried to throw chocolate at me today, and I have successfully resisted all three. Am I super-virtuous? Heck no... but I'm starting to realize that what I put in my mouth has a direct correlation on my long-term happiness. Until now, I've been all about the instant gratification. I like instant gratification, but I'm beginning to realize that feeling good RIGHT NOW doesn't counter-balance the feeling like crap later on that I get when I just give in to my impulses. And I vividly remember feeling like crap the last time I binged, the last time I weighed myself and found a gain instead of a loss, the last time I let myself down.

Because ultimately, that's what I'm doing. I'm letting MYSELF down. Nobody else's opinion matters. It's me that I'm disappointing, and it's me who ends up being unhappy as a result. I don't want to be unhappy. When I dream at night, I see myself as a healthy, active individual. I don't see myself as a wheezing, overweight cow. So my behavior has to mirror my own image of myself if I want to achieve that. I've by no means mastered that, but by recognizing it, it's made choices easier to handle and temptation a bit easier to resist.

I did have leftover pizza for breakfast (my kids had theirs for lunch). Not so proud of that choice, but I was able to turn the rest of my day around. I know a lot of people think it's hokey nonsense (and maybe it is, but it works for me), but I watched The Secret on Saturday night, while I was feeling particularly good about myself. I find it more helpful to watch it when I'm in a high place than when I'm feeling low. Because when I'm feeling low, I feel like these people are all full of it and what do they know of my problems, right? I want to wallow, and the film tries to pull me out of that, so I stubbornly dig in (sometimes). But when I'm feeling good, when things are going well, it kind of reinforces that. It's a lot easier to maintain a positive outlook in any case. (And Rob snickers now because I was in a pretty low place last night due to something that happened yesterday afternoon).

Hopefully it will become easier and easier to remind myself of this :) I don't really have any frame of reference as to what goes through the mind of a skinny person when they look at something particularly unhealthy. But what's going through my mind now is that if I haven't been particularly "good" lately, I'll regret it and guilt myself about it later. Progress?

1 comment:

  1. Also, the people who throw chocolate at you are maybe trying to sabotage you (or maybe not)....I am very glad to hear that you resisted to that temptation.

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