Tip for Today #5

Forgive Yourself

Guess what. This trip ain't easy. You will have slip ups. You will hit plateaus and get discouraged. You will blame yourself when the scales don't move. I give you permission to forgive yourself. That means you don't get to give up just because you had a bad day.

Truth time - I broke a couple of rules today. I let my discipline sleep late and I stayed in bed and drank coffee with my husband when I am normally up exercising. I only got in 10 of my 30 minutes today (that was the 10 it took for the coffee to perk). Then I ate 3, yes 3, pieces of chocolate today. A great deal of it was a reaction to spending 104 minutes on the phone with computer support, causing me to be one hour and forty-five minutes late for lunch. I grabbed a mini-Crunch bar almost without thinking. I said almost. I was fully aware of what I was doing. Now, for clarification purposes the only chocolate we keep around are the mini sizes. About one bite is all you get, two max so when I say I had three pieces of chocolate its not like I ate a whole candy bar or Ding Dong or anything. But I knew I was doing it and I didn't care.

Slip ups won't kill you and they'll only derail your progress if you let them. Now, tomorrow I will have to wake my discipline back up at the usual time (its busy season, Saturday is just another work day) and get back on the program. My Wii may not tell me I've lost any weight in the morning. So be it. As Scarlett would say "Tomorrow is another day!"

But, unlike Scarlett, who fiddle-dee-deed her way through everything and never really got to "tomorrow" (as I've said before, it was always "today" in Scarlett's world), I will get back to doing what I know is best for me. I will walk to work and have cereal for breakfast and try not to overindulge in anything for a few days. But I also won't beat myself up or try to starve myself for penance.

Everything in moderation - even guilt.