I spent two days of this long weekend at the cottage with my Mama, one of my sisters and, of course, my dogs.  The weather was crummy and I couldn’t get reception to do the Saturday morning virtual Tabata class I normally would do, so other than walking the dogs and some stretching I mostly sat around; read, wrote, planned content for August, watched movies…ate all the things.  Usually at the cottage I do a virtual class, spend a lot of time out on the paddleboard and sometimes will go for a run…so this was a particularly “lazy” weekend for me from a fitness perspective.

A year ago I would have felt really bad about this, like this was some reflection of my commitment to my health and wellbeing, but I know now that a couple days is not the end of the world. 

Whatever your state of health is right now, it didn’t get there in a day (unless you broke a limb or something, and then ya, I guess that happened pretty suddenly).  For me it was over 30 years of out and out mistreatment and neglect of my physical and mental wellbeing that got me to where I was a few years ago…and to get even as far as I have now took over a year of diligent work that I have to continue to do to 1) maintain the progress I have made and 2) continue to see improvement.  The good news is that it’s next to impossible to undo all that progress in two days.

I used to fixate a lot when I made what I thought were mistakes.  I would replay events over and over in my mind; how I could/should have done things differently, what other people must be thinking about me, if it was worth continuing to try when I keep messing up.  I can’t say I never experience the feeling of wishing I hadn’t (or had) done something anymore but I don’t fixate now because I’ve realized that it’s a waste of time.

When I was little my Gramma had a quote on her fridge that said, “Regrets are like rocking chairs.  They keep you busy, but they don’t get you anywhere.” I could sit here and think ‘man I should have moved more this weekend’, but even if it wasn’t COMPLETELY ok to have weekends like this, the fact of the matter is, it happened.  After the time has passed, you can’t get it back, so sitting there saying you should have done something isn’t going to do anything but make you feel bad about yourself…and you know what happens when you feel bad about yourself?  You’re a lot less likely to do the things that you know will make you feel good.

Negative self talk is a self-fulfilling prophecy.  When we tell ourselves that we suck, guess what?  We tend to do more things that make us feel like we suck.  We expect it from ourselves, so why shouldn’t we?  We’re going to fail eventually anyway, we always do, so we might as well not try. 

The thing is, most of the things we’re beating ourselves up for, we’re blowing out of proportion, or maybe even devaluing.  In my case, in the last two weeks I’ve suddenly jumped from teaching 4-5 classes a week to teaching 10-14 classes a week.  And while that feels AMAZING, my body IS tired because it’s adjusting again.  And while I am being diligent and careful about stretching and recovery, there is still nothing wrong with being more gentle with it for a few days too.  It wouldn’t have broken me do that Tabata class or to move a bit more, but it also didn’t harm me or in anyway set me back to have been “lazy” for a couple days too.

When one of my clients sheepishly tells me they ate a donut that day, my response is never that they failed, it’s usually an excited “Ooh what kind?” because donuts are delicious and in moderation there is absolutely nothing wrong with having them.  One donut is not going to hurt anyone (ok probably there are some people it would, but if we’re talking in general), making someone feel bad about it isn’t going to help them in the long run.

And, ironically, guess what makes saying no to a donut easier?  Feeling like you can have one whenever you want without feeling bad about it.  Ever told a little kid not to touch something?  Notice how suddenly ALL they want to do is touch that thing?  Well basically we’re giant children and the same principle applies, when we tell ourselves we aren’t ALLOWED something suddenly that thing is all we can think about and the only thing that will satisfy us and almost without fail the donut is not going to be worth the weight of the guilt we’re associating with it.  If you convince yourself that one tiny circle of dough is sabotaging every ounce of hard work you’re doing, and somehow defines your self-worth there is just no way it can feel worth it once all that’s left to show of it are your sticky fingers and your feelings of shame.

So what can you do?  For one, you can stop placing any foods off limits; stop labeling food good and bad and saying that you “can’t” have something. Second, when you have something you didn’t plan to, you can not beat yourself up about it and carry on with business as usual without making it into some dramatic thing it doesn’t need to be…as in, get over it, let it go, move on.

Think about it like this, if you eat three meals per day, in one week that is 21 meals (I won’t include snacks just to simplify things, mostly because you may remember that I’m not a fan of math) even if you eat three unhealthy meals a week the ratio of healthy to unhealthy is still 6 to 1.  You’re eating healthy SIX TIMES MORE than you’re eating unhealthy.  That is a serious buffer you have there, so unless those three less healthy meals are literally like thousands of calories, you cannot tell me that you are “undoing” your progress by eating something that’s “bad” for you.

It’s pretty natural to fixate on the bad…we all do it.  If six people tell you that you look great one day but one person makes a passing comment that you look tired, you are much more likely to fixate on the tired comment than the complimentary ones.  Again, it’s just human nature…but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try to be more aware of it and call ourselves out on being sucked in.

I find that we tend to forget things and this is when a food journal is helpful.  You don’t need to write down every single calorie or anything but if you’re trying to do a little better with food choices seeing what you have been choosing laid out in front of you is a great tool.  Maybe you’re “treating” yourself more than you think and even just portion size adjustments would help, but also, maybe you’re being too hard on yourself.  Maybe, if you took a step back and really looked at the big picture you actually aren’t doing so bad with your choices and all the guilt you’re carrying around about how “bad” you are is wasting energy for you.

Life is short and personally I feel that I’ve wasted much too much of it worrying about stuff that already happened and I can’t change.  But the moment I stopped demonizing foods, it actually got easier to not overindulge in them…I didn’t need to have two donuts and end up with a stomach ache when they were available because it wasn’t like I couldn’t have another one whenever I wanted one…and when I do eat one, I enjoy it a heck of a lot more now because I’m not placing the weight of all that guilt and shame on it.

Whatever the food or movement choices you made this weekend were, they’re done now, so let it go and get over it.  No one meal, day, week, month or even year is going to dictate your health and results forever. Every single day you get to choose again.