Ups and downs

I’ve been struggling this week, and giving in and not practicing what I’ve been learning these last 7 weeks.  There’s no way to gussy it up to sound better, either.

The office has been tough for me:  bagels one day, fresh donuts from my favorite bakery the next, and a bad breakfast decision on my part the day after that.

The bagel day, I didn’t even really want one, but my co-worker had gone out of his way to bring them in (because he knows I love them!) and so I found it difficult to not have one. It felt rude to turn it down.  No one at work knows that I’m doing Lean Eating — and that’s how I think I’m going to keep it for awhile — and so he didn’t know that I’m trying to stay away from unplanned, surprise bagels.

The donuts?  Well, those were a present from a rare vendor visit and when I walked by them, the smell wafted up and grabbed me.  I should have said no.  I should have kept walking.  But I didn’t.  That’s not really the worst part, though.  The worst part was that I went back for another even though by that time I *really* wasn’t hungry.  The only thing that kept me from getting a third?  The fact that my jeans were very uncomfortably tight. I suppose it was a stroke of luck that I was wearing my Getting-Fat jeans rather than my Already-Fat jeans (which have a little slack in them).

The breakfast decision… well, usually once a week I treat myself to a bagel with egg and cheese on it.  I figure that as long as I have a week of good eating, that’s one thing that’s not horrible for me and that I really enjoy.  But, coming on the heels of everything else, I really should have abstained this week.

And the vegetable habit… well, I haven’t been doing very well with that either.  I’m getting in 2-3 servings a day, but that’s been it, mostly because I haven’t cooked dinner even once this week.  Some of it due to busy days that ended up out of my control, some of it due to days that I was just too tired and lazy to put in the effort to cook.

So, tonight, I decided that I needed to do something to turn it around.  After getting home from work and napping for awhile due to a headache, I went out to the store and bought tons of vegetables and good stuff for food to make over the weekend.  I’ve got baked broccoli, a vegetable frittata and a warm spinach side dish on the menu — all new recipes that I’m looking forward to trying out.

The moral of the story:  acknowledge the past, be gentle and give myself a break and then move on.  Don’t let those donuts from the past be the excuse for bad choices in the future.