I Screwed Up

What does it take to screw you up as far as exercise or eating healthy? Usually it’s some change of routine that just knocks us for a loop. Guests or family members come for a visit, going on vacation or out of town, or a holiday or party of some sort are well-known pitfalls.

They even happen to me at times. Yesterday being one of those times. We drove down to Burbank to be a part of the audience for the Ellen Show. I ate well before I went, I understood the time schedule, I even anticipated getting hungry at my usual snack time and brought a nice healthy LaraBar. So how did I blow it? I had everything in place and planned for, right?

Yeah, well the plan sort of fell through when I left my snack in the car. Since I had an early lunch, so we could get on the road on time, I was pretty fricken hungry by the time we got into the studio and the taping got started. The hunger just grew and grew. I was sure Ellen could hear my stomach grumbling and would ask me to leave, but she must have thought it was someone else.

Letting myself get that hungry is never a good thing. A small, healthy snack around 2:30 or 3 keeps me from transforming into a ravenous beast by dinner time. A hungry Rachel is a Rachel who doesn’t always make the best food choices.

After the taping, we headed off to get some dinner on the way home. I’m never so hungry that I would stoop to eating crap fast food. You won’t find me at a McDonalds or Taco Bell or any other place that serves up faux- foods. Sure they fill your belly, sure they’re cheap, but when I’m hungry, I want real food. So our plan was to stop at Sharky’s Woodfired Mexican Grill on the way home. They are “committed to the freshest and most natural ingredients available. That means in addition to NO MSG, NO LARD,and NO MICROWAVES, we guarantee quick and delicious meals that taste great and are beneficial to your health and our planet.”

So how could I go wrong, you ask? Portion size, kids, portion size. Shauna and I split the Fajita Plate (with grilled veggies for us vegans) and that was good, BUT . . . I insisted we order some chips and guacamole to start. I thought I’d only eat a few, but nooooo. I just kept gobbling them up, even after I finished my two little veggie fajitas.

Now, my main meal was good and healthy, but I won’t even try to bullshit you and say that those chips were doing me any good. I don’t deal in bullshit – not ongoing or incoming. So I left knowing I ate way too many chips and feeling stuffed, bloated and way too full. I just hate that feeling. It’s one of the worst feelings in the world. I usually eat to only 80% full and that leaves me full of energy, satisfied, yet not heavy.

So here are my tips to avoid getting off track with your healthy eating or exercise plan.

1. Anticipate pitfalls. What’s got the potential to derail you?
2. Make a plan AHEAD OF TIME to deal with those pitfalls. Don’t wait for the temptation to be full blown. Plan for success ahead of time. Prepare an alternate workout, look up gyms in the area you’ll be visiting, or tell your guests about your workouts and schedule around them. Bring healthy foods to avoid eating crap, investigate and plan for good places to eat out, or bring a snack to hold you over.
3. Put your plan into action. This is where I blew it. I left my snack in the car. Had I done that right, I wouldn’t have munched down so many chips and guac. Making a plan is half the battle, but doing it step by step is where victory is born.
4. Don’t bullshit yourself. Don’t even go down the road of saying it was no big deal. I see people do this and then just get worse, spending days in junk food oblivion or weeks without exercise. But don’t beat yourself up and call yourself a failure or give up altogether either. Be truthful in every way. Admit that you’ve blown it, call it what it is, but don’t let it mess you up for long.
5. Take it in stride. Learn from your screw up, plan better in the future, and then just get back on track. For me this meant doing my evening workout as planned. I had Shauna drop me off 4 miles from home so I could run home. Take that, chips and guac!