Excuses, excuses, excuses....

Oh Mexico.....I've had a really hard time with alcohol and food lately. Alcohol always leads to more food and that just makes me feel terrible. BUT at the time I justify it with myself and it's easy to do because I've had some drinks. I don't want to give up drinking right now but if I can't control it then I will have to. I don't normally drink. This is very new for me. It's like college again, only worse. I have some new guidelines that I will be following.



That is a screen capture of my excel file. So far this has been helping me. I highlight in pink the good things and red the bad things.

I read this article about sleep. I know it's from Glamour but it's actually a good article. I have noticed in my own life how good I feel when I get more sleep. I used to think all I needed was 6 hours of sleep and I was good to go. This is ok for me once in a while but not all the time. I need to concentrate on getting more sleep and with this job it's been easier than it was with my last job. I used to spend two hours in the car a day and now my commute to work is 10 seconds.

As for the Excuse Sheet....I got this idea from a Leigh Peele post.

Here is an excerpt:

#5) The excuse sheet

Every time you break the rules, every time you break down and give in, you have to write down why it happened on your excuse sheet.

“I broke down and ate because I was sad.”
“I broke down and ate because I was hungry.”
“I broke down and ate because the game was on and I just wanted to have fun.”

All are excuses, all are things you are trying to justify to yourself. All are reasons why this is being drug out for weeks, months, and years longer than it has to. With the sheet you will start to see a pattern and maybe you can find a way to end some of the triggers of why you keep giving up on yourself.

There are clear cut things that cloud my judgment and cause me to eat. I fell for a guy, I have gotten homesick, I have missed my friends and family, I have been stressed, I have drank a lot of alcohol, I am in Mexico, etc. I have created all new excuses for myself since I have been removed from my real life. What is helping me now is getting into a routine and finding other things to do with myself. It's a challenge. This is not real life. I'm living at a resort, surrounded by people on vacation. It's hard to live in that environment for 6 months.

I also read this post from Michael Eades, MD about excuses. He is writing about eating low carb BUT it can definitely be applied to your diet in general. Here are a few highlights:

'....people spend all their time worrying and stressing about things they can’t control and end up ceding control over the things that they can control completely.'

'Going back to our example at the start of this post, my patient who put her mother in the hospital didn’t have any real control over any part of what was happening. She couldn’t control her mother’s disease, she couldn’t really control much of anything that went on in the hospital. But she worried constantly about these things she couldn’t control and abandoned her diet, over which she had total, 100 percent control.

People do this all the time. One of the very few things we have complete control over is what we put in our mouths. Unless someone hogs us down, pries open our jaws and force feeds us, we have total and complete control of our eating. Yet how many times have we heard people say (or have said ourselves), I just couldn’t do the diet with all this going on. I lost all control.'

'If the high-carb demon is goading you to go face down, telling you that you have uncontrollable cravings, just force yourself to go do something else. Soon the cravings will be gone. It takes a little practice, but it helps to repeat the mantra: I have 100 percent control of what goes in my mouth.

Take the advice of Dr. Glasser. Start worrying less over those things you can’t control and accept that you have no control over them. And take back control of the things you can. If you do so, you will be a much happier person. And a much thinner person.'

The 100% control thing is what I really need to keep reminding myself. I am in control of my eating! I might not be in control of things not working out with a guy or being home sick right now or how the job is going but what I put into my mouth is what I have complete control of.

The 'keep moving' section of my spreadsheet is because the most I walk during the day is down the hall. My office is right down the hall from my room. Obviously I'm not getting much exercise during the day unless I make a conscious effort. Of course I workout in the morning but I know how important it is to keep moving during the day and something I am really missing. What I've been doing this week is exercises in my room to get my heart rate up. I go down there 2-3 times a day for 3-5 minutes. I know this isn't enough but it's a start and something to build on.

I should add how quickly this weight came on. It is a reminder to myself that I really gain weight easily and I won't see it coming on, one day it's just THERE and it's all around my waist. I know this but I didn't realize HOW easy it is for me to gain weight. I was even exercising. So it is all about my diet. I cannot let it get away from me again.