Home Sweet Home

I’m glad to be home. I didn’t follow my plan they way I intended. I’ll get to the learning portion of the program, but I need to process first, which I hope is different than making excuses. I must find out what worked, what didn’t – and there was a whole lot that didn’t. Surely there was something positive to take away, but right now I just feel bloated and achy from eating too much junk.

I left my house with the assumption that the most difficult part would be the restaurants. Yes, that was challenging, but it was fairly insignificant compared to the rest of the mindless eating; however, I think I finally received some insight from these little weekend visits to the kin folk.

Normally, I hop on my stationary bike or head out for a walk to clear my head when I feel stress mounting. I didn’t have the opportunity to walk while we were away – we bounced from one place to another. Wait, that’s not entirely true. I just realized there was a two hour window yesterday that I could have taken a walk. Okay, I guess I need to put the bouncing ditty into the excuse column.

We arrived home at 10:30 last night, and I didn’t feel like exercising then either. You know, the experts tell you not to plan activity one to two hours before going to bed. Hmm, my bet is those same people in white coats would have an opinion about the 800 calories I crammed down my pie hole in the same amount of time. There’s trouble anytime I rationalize a thought that begins with, “Well the experts say…” That also needs to go in the excuse column.

I promised myself when I sat down to regroup, there would be no flagellation, not to be confused with flatulation…which there is plenty as a result of my little food fiesta! It is still so frustrating! I want to navigate these situations with fewer detours!

What I came to realize is that a fair percentage of poor food choices occur upon reentry. I need to decompress from visits which require me to behave in a certain manner. I spent significant time as a girl being the obedient, helpful and responsible one which is kind of how I spent my weekend. As a kid, I comforted myself with food. When I wanted to scream at one of the “grown-ups” making poor choices, I stuffed that down with food too. It seemed to work pretty well at the time, not so much now. I know that, and I deal with it for the most part. Evidently, it got the best of me this weekend.

Recognizing the decompression tidbit is a good thing. Exercise works quite nicely, but I doubt it will ever be realistic for me to hop on my stationary bike if I return home late. Since I know the activity helps, I must figure out a way to work it into my day when I’m away in the midst of stressful situations.

While I’m disappointed that I didn’t follow my original plan, I refuse to let that send me into a downward spiral. I’ll take away what I learned and figure out a new plan of attack for next time. I didn’t get to where I am today in one perfect swoop. So, I accept that the experience lay somewhere between perfection and utter chaos. Since that describes much of life, I will learn from it as I go and embrace that today is a new day!