Back to Reality

The first day after a holiday, the first day back from vacation, the first day after a day long binge fest...

THOSE are my hardest days.  Not the holiday's or the vacations themselves.  For some reason I have it in my head that I am allowed to consume huge portions of rich delicious foods on holidays and vacations and my eating disorder does not even blink an eye.  I went 9 full days on an all you can eat and drink Caribbean cruise and never once did it cross my mind to purposefully get "seasick."  It's the day after that always kills me.  I try to starve myself, and when that fails I eat all the leftovers to get them out of the house and throw them up.  This has been a pattern I'm not so proud of when I'm not in control.  Since starting this blog, though, and being in control, the 4th of July was my first real test.  And trust me, the eating disorder forced me to fight.  That's because, though, of the way I have always viewed holiday's and other special days in the year. 

The way I see it, I use to give myself "free" days.  Days where dieting didn't count, that I would worry about the results and work it off when the free day was done.  Well, now looking at it... (for 2011 alone) Free days have added up to...

17 Holidays per year I celebrate with food (with 2 days for Thanksgiving and 4 for Christmas)
36 Vacation days I plan on throwing food caution to the wind and enjoying my time away from Columbus, Ohio
8 Birthdays I'll indulge in celebratory cake eating (and other not so good for me goodies)
... and I'll guess about 15 or so days that simply are not accounted for (Tailgates, Weddings, Gatherings in general)

That comes down to 76 days a year I don't care what I'm putting in my mouth.  Kind of puts it into perspective when I figure I struggle losing weight, huh?  Now I'm not saying you should be counting calories on Thanksgiving, Christmas, or at your 5 star Italian dinner on a Caribbean Cruise (best veal chop, ever.)  What I'm saying is 76 is a very large number, and doesn't really make for a good excuse to throw a diet out the window.  So what if you passed on desert for Labor day? Statistics show the next "celebratory" event is 18.25 days away! Get dessert then!  Pick and chose your battles.  Maybe throw caution to the wind for Thanksgiving, but really make smart choices for the first Holiday party.  What it comes down to then is those 45 high alert days in the year that follow the 76 care free days won't be as hard to deal with.

Now did I follow this last week on my mini 4th of July Vacation to Hocking Hills?  Kind of.  I did great the first 2 days, worked out like I should of, and then just, gave up.  But now that I see these days can be a killer to my dieting success, it's time to put them in prospective.  First test coming up next Saturday!

And for the record... I didn't check the scale, and I didn't mess with my goal (...Sidebar.... 6 days and counting until my self deserved pedicure!) I jumped right back into eating healthy and working out.  So although I didn't follow my rules so great last week, at least the hardest days came and went like they should.