Would you give a beer to an alcoholic?

I have had a PERFECT week! A perfect week until yesterday that is. Then yesterday there was ice cream. I had done so well all week that when the opportunity for ice cream came I jumped on it. One dessert a week is reasonable. I’m not “dieting” I’m changing my lifestyle. I’m being “realistic”! Those are the things I’ve been telling myself and for the most part that is true.

I’m so proud of what I’ve accomplished these past months. For the first time in my life I have consistently lost weight for 8 months in a row. I have not gained once! Some months have been great, some not so great… but I have lost every singe one!!! I know some of you are like, “tell us something we don’t already know.” So here you go.

I was eating my ice cream and it was SOOOO good and I was kidding myself that it was worth it. But it wasn’t long after is started eating that the old patterns began to crop up. First I had checked the calories and figured I would have just the ½ cup for the 110 calories. That was a nice treat with a reasonable amount of calories. But after that first ½ cup I told myself, “That was SOOOO good. Just one more ½ cup won’t hurt. That’s still a reasonable amount of calories.” So I ate that full cup. But once that was gone I wasn’t “satisfied”. I kept thinking of all the reasons it would be ok to have more. I thought, “I’ll go for a walk and work it off.” After the walk I felt great… so I ate more ice cream. And the same cycle began again. ALL NIGHT! I would walk then eat, walk then eat. I kept thinking to myself that it was ok, because at least I could just walk it off.

Today however, I’m thinking WHAT THE HELL WAS I DOING??? Seriously!?!?!? I was out of control. So all told I probably ate 2 cups of ice cream and although I walked to “make up for it” here is the problem. Once I started I couldn’t stop. I had a perfect week and it was shattered with just one bite of ice cream. Allowing myself to give in just a little I ended up losing control. In reflection I keep going back to a conversation Karilynn and I had the other day.

She had talked about many of us allowing ourselves a treat hear and there because we were doing so well. We talked about rationalizing eating crap because we were going to exercise to make up for it. We had, had that discussion and here I was living it! That’s exactly what’d I’d been doing. I’ve been giving myself breaks, allowing little treats here and there under the pretense of being realistic. But here is what Karilynn said that really stuck with me, “Would you give a beer to an alcoholic? Would you tell them, ‘come on… you have to give yourself a break every once in a while. You have to be realistic!”

DUH! Hell no! I’d never give a beer to an alcoholic and I’d never rationalize that for them. So why do I rationalize it for me? I’m under no delusion that I will spend the rest of my life NEVER eating anything sweet or tasty. I’m not going to cut out cake and cookies etc forever. But, right now… in this moment my goal is to undo what I’ve done over the last _ amount of years. I will lose this weight and I will reach my 100 lb. goal by September! I WILL! To do that I have to be honest and realize that if I’m eating crap and then exercising to make up for it I’m just breaking even!

If I want to lose then I have to exercise and NOT eat the crap. I’ve got to be on menu and exercising without the pretense of “reality”. The reality is: I am an addict. I didn’t get here on accident. I got here by making a bunch of poor choices and the only way I’m going to get out of here is to make GREAT choices. I can’t cut myself slack or tell myself I deserve it. I don’t deserve to be where I am! I deserver far, far, far better than that and damn it, I’m going to give myself what I really deserve. So, Here is to another perfect week! This time for real!

Hope you’re all doing great! This month is going to be fantastic!!! It is already!