Eating clean, and then not

Tuesday:

Got up and did a half hour walk this morning. It was a good, brisk walk - although the time I took indicated it wasn't as brisk as I used to walk. It felt like I was pushing, though, which is the important thing. I had the usual voice in my head telling me that a half an hour walk was nothing, pathetic, couldn't even start to combat the other 23 and a half hours I spend sitting down, I wasn't going fast enough, just NOT GOOD ENOUGH. The thing is, I get that voice no matter how much I do or how hard I push myself. Run/walk a 5K? Not enough. Two gym classes back to back? Not enough. Pushing hard enough that I am getting dizzy and nearly vomiting? Not enough.

One day I hope to be able to turn that voice down so I can hear the other voice, the one that tells me I am doing a good job. Because the one that tells me I am not doing enough really isn't a good motivator.

I took the kids to see another movie, "Walking with Dinosaurs". I found it quite boring, but they enjoyed it. They had a treat each but I took in some grapes for myself. It was lunchtime when we came out but we still had some things to do before going home. I couldn't see anything in the Food Court that seemed like a good option for me. Some things could have been ok but I had no way of knowing what was really in them so I had a handful of almonds to tide me over while the kids had Happy Meals. I am a bit worried that I have linked "going to the movies" with "eating junk" for them. We did a bit of shopping and went to the library before finally home and I could eat a late lunch - I was starving!

Just a banana in the afternoon then a healthy dinner and so ended the official eating day well under available calories. When my weight went up (again) over the past year, my calorie tracking app changed my allowed calories from 1340 to 1750. This seemed like a big jump to me. Of course I still regularly went over this higher limit. But today I decided to manually change my allowance down to 1400. And I was comfortably under that.

And then Dungeons and Dragons supper happened. Doritos and chocolate happened.

I was feeling frustrated with myself that yet again I had failed, I hadn't even managed one full clean healthy day. I really felt like giving up (again). But I plugged in the calories I had eaten.

And you know what? I had still only eaten 1600 calories today. Sure, it was more than I wanted, and not entirely the type of food I had planned, but because I had eaten so mindfully all day my binge wasn't the total disaster I thought it was. I'm not saying it's ok that I ate a lot of junk, but that number consoled me enough so that I don't want to give up any more. I'll keep going, keep tracking my food both good and bad, squash down the voice that says I can't do it. Good day plus supper is better than bad day plus supper. Every slow dragging step is one step closer to my goals.