Yesterday I bought a package of cookie dough. 170 calories per square, or as the naive darlings at Toll House call it, “one serving.” I call it a “half of a bite” but it’s hard to measure exact portions when you’re tearing open the package and taking bites out of the cookie dough brick as you drive home.
As you can see this was a day of questionable judgement and a pancreas who now needs to listen to Eye of the Tiger to get out of bed and deal with my shit. There was also a bag of sour cream and onion Ritz toasted chips but I think you get the picture.
What’s more important is the conversation I had with myself while in the shower this morning. It wasn’t self eviscerating, I’ll have you know. Kristin Neff’s work on self compassion and Tara Brach’s work on radical acceptance has done wonders for how I treat myself. I still eat garbage, mind you, but I don’t hate myself for it. The gist of my self talk was more like this:
“Alright Matthew...I’m not mad that I ate cookie dough. It’s okay in moderation, when I count calories. But I consciously decided to overdo it. I knew a binge would create feelings of regret, I’ve been down this road. I wish I had done it without sabotaging my goals. I don’t have to be perfect every day but it really hurts that I gave back progress I fought so hard for.”
I think this is why I was able to lose 50 lbs with CICO in the past. It’s not just math, it’s not just measurable, it’s a simple way to always keep YOU on YOUR team. Because sometimes rewarding yourself with a snack sounds like a kind thing to do. But if you do it too much then you’re making your life harder, sabotaging your goals, inviting regret into your life.
The calorie counting system kind of says “no matter what you choose to eat, you won’t eat so much you regret it later.” You don’t have to live on spinach and kombucha to lose weight. You just have to count and be consistent. It’s not about a right way or wrong way, and you don’t have to do it perfectly. It’s “play the game how you want but don’t score points for the opposing team.”
So maybe this post is just encouragement for anyone looking for a reason to give it another shot. Allowing self sabotage is deciding you don’t want your life to get better. Deciding you want to make a painful mistake again even though you know how it ends. Deciding that this action will take you farther away from your goal instead of closer and that’s what you want. I’m not trying to tell you what to do. You’re probably smarter than me and you don’t have to have pep talks in the shower about “don’t guzzle cookie dough while operating motor vehicles.”
This system works, maybe you just need an accountability buddy and a fair honest try at CICO. I’m sticking with it because I just want to play on my own team. I don’t need to be a perfect teammate, but I’m not going to stab myself in the back anymore. Maybe you can play on your own team too.
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/loseit/comments/nnllxi/screwing_up_sometimes_is_okay_self_sabotage_is_not/
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