The Celebration Trap

This was a rough week for paleo eating and general health mindedness, and my Monday weigh-in reflects that.  Last week I was down to 142.5, which is my lowest ever, and this week I'm back up to 145.  Ugh, it's so much easier to gain weight than to lose it!  And I definitely can't look quizzically at the scale and rationalize that maybe it's muscle this week...

It all started Thursday, Halloween.  I came in to work to see a beautiful display of home baked brownies, cupcakes, cakes, breads, cookies, etc... I think I blogged about this then.  And I binged pretty badly on that stuff - I really do have a true weakness when it comes to sugary things.  I told myself that was all I was going to do, but then there was a going away party for me/ retirement party for a lovely colleague named Carole...

...and I so I sort of felt obligated to have some cake.  But the cake was really amazing and moist and delicious, so then I had more cake, and more cake - I probably had about 4 slices.

The thing is, I had mindfully anticipated this trap.  I knew Halloween would be a rough day to get through without resorting to sweets, so I bought ingredients to make paleo chocolate chip cookies so that if I saw sweets at work, I could say, "No, I'm going to not eat that, because I have paleo compliant cookies waiting to be baked at home." 

Here's the thing, though - compiled with this trap, I've been feeling really anxious about my upcoming move.  And pretty much anyone can tell you that if you're feeling stressed out, it chips away at willpower.  So that's what happened - I felt really jittery about all the wonderful people I'm leaving behind in Massachusetts (and to a lesser but still potent degree, still do), I got to work and saw all those delicious things, and I ate my feelings.  It was pretty mindless, and perhaps indicates a need for supplementing my diet and workout routines with a daily meditation regimen...

Oh, but that's not all.

On Friday, I went out with some colleagues to dinner and karaoke.  At dinner, I ordered the only grass-fed beef on the menu, which was a burger, and had them hold the bun and the cheese, and substitute the fries with steamed veggies.  I was ready to be a good paleo human (after all, the burger came with avocado and hot sauce so... yum!) but they messed up and brought the fries instead of the veggies, and then when I asked for veggies instead, they just brought them on the side, leaving the fries.  To my credit, I only ate about half the fries, but still... arg.

And then we went to the karaoke bar...

...and I drank a lot.  Mind you, alcohol isn't paleo, so I haven't had more than about half a glass of red wine since going paleo 2 1/2 months ago.  And I also made some further bad eating choices due to my state of insobriety.  Among other things, I ate buffalo chicken wings off a friend's plate.  Then I went home and threw up, and thanked my body for the reminder of why alcohol isn't my friend.

That's the thing, too...  People on various diets often talk about what the "best" alcohol is for weight loss.  And the real answer is none, because regardless of calorie count, at the end of the day, if you're drunk and someone offers you something really fattening, your judgment is impaired and you're more likely to accept it.  There's a reason that after parties and bar hopping, people frequently end up at Denny's or Waffle House or IHOP!

Saturday, I was quite good.  I skipped my workout because I felt lousy from Friday night (I'm telling you - this alcohol stuff is poison!) but I ate paleo and made a delicious Meatza.  (I made the Italian one... I'd love to try the Greek one, but reasonably priced ground lamb is hard to find!)

Then yesterday, Sunday, was the WORST!  To be fair, I planned it, which made it my fault.  But a group of us got together to celebrate an event in a friend's life, and we tackled the VERMONSTER.

For those of you who haven't had the pleasure to hear about or sample this amazing concoction, it's Ben and Jerry's magnum opus, consisting of 20 scoops of ice cream, a thick layer of about 5 or 10 different toppings, and then a layer of homemade whipped cream.

In other words, it starts off looking like this...

...and with all these people....

...diligently working on it, at the end it looks more like this:

It's a lot of ice cream!  And as we established at the beginning of this blog post, I'm not much with the self-control.  So I have no idea how much ice cream I ate, but it was A LOT.

And as of last night's dinner (a sensible cobb salad without all the non-paleo stuff and with olive oil and vinegar instead of whatever dressing they usually use), I'm back on track.  I learned a lot of lessons this week.  I have one more party coming up - a "goodbye Massachusetts friends" party that's happening next Saturday - and I'm hoping I can apply some new rules to that event.

1. Just because it's a party doesn't mean it doesn't count.  If I'm making exceptions to eating paleo, they still have to be controlled exceptions.

2. Easy on the alcohol.  Obviously.

3. Easy on the sugar.  And if I can't eat sugary things in moderation, maybe I should avoid eating them at all.

The thing about the other paleo blogs I read is that they're all very affirmative of the fact that people aren't perfect.  They talk about making "mindful deviations from paleo" rather than "cheating," since the latter is a shame-soaked word that ultimately does more harm than good psychologically.  And they talk about how it's ok if you slip up, and the importance of getting rid of an all-or-nothing mindset so that all you have to do is get right back on track.  One of the sayings Nerd Fitness uses is "never two in a row."  In other words, never two meals in a row where you're not eating paleo.  And never two days in a row skipping exercise.  Those are much better because they're not shaming, so it's a mentality I can buy into.

I guess, as much as this blog entry has been all about self-reporting my week of "oops"es, it's more than that too.  It's about having the willpower to get back on track.  Today I'm going to have bacon, eggs, and spinach for breakfast, leftover Meatza and salad for lunch, and a sensible dinner after going to water aerobics.  In spite of my anxiety and this past week's various moments of weakness, ultimately I know that I am strong enough to get back on track.