First off, if you had a slip from your healthy eating plan you are not alone. Everybody who makes the choice to live a healthy life has days where things just don’t go right and they fall back into their old eating habits. You are not alone. We have all been there.
You deserve a big gold star for realizing the slip and looking for a way to move on from it. Many people use one bad day as an excuse to give up on all the hard work they have already accomplished. I know because I have been there. My self talk would say, “Well I ate that candy bar so there is no point in watching what I eat the rest of the day. I might as well splurge all day and then I can start tomorrow.”
This is a recipe for never meeting your goals. It is a license to sabotage your efforts and guarantee that you will never reach your healthy living lifestyle.
Instead of starting tomorrow to get back on track, make the commitment right now to get over your slip and start following your plan again. There is no point in giving up this whole day to bad habits. The sooner you remake your commitment to eating healthy the sooner you will reach your destination.
There is two problems with just saying you will restart again tomorrow. First, you can eat a whole lot of bad carbs between now and tomorrow morning. Believe me, I’ve been there. It is like I tried to eat as much as I could because I was getting away with it. I felt terrible after shoving all that food in my mouth, not really tasting any of it, and this did absolutely nothing for my self esteem. I felt bad and ugly and a failure. This often times can lead to a complete breakdown which means tomorrow I think, “Well I blew it again so there is no point in trying to stay on track. Maybe I’ll try next week.” You know where this leads.
The second problem with waiting till tomorrow means you have not used this experience to increase you will power. In fact, you actually drain away some of the will power you build up over the last weeks and months.
Will power is like a muscle. The more we use it the stronger it gets. So, the sooner you exert your will over your eating habits the better the chances that you will be able to stop slips in the future before they begin. You can use this small slip to drastically improve the chances the you won’t slip in the future.
Make the commitment right now, right this minute, right this second that the slip happened, but you are not going to let it take control of your life. YOU are the one with the control. YOU can decide that the slip is water under the bridge and YOU are not going to let it continue to control you for the next hours, days, or weeks. Decide right now that you are moving on with your health.
Tips For Getting Back On Track With A Diet
1. Drink a glass of water right now. It is amazing how great a big, cold glass of water can taste and how great it makes your body feel. I use it as a reset when I am feeling down, or stressed, or overwhelmed.
2. Take a brisk walk. This will tell your body that the past is the past and you are moving on with your healthy life style.
3. Update you list of reasons for living a healthy lifestyle. The more power we can give to our desires to live healthy the more willpower we develop.
4. Do a work out to counteract your slip.
5. Read a motivational story about someone who overcame the odds to find success. Nothing of value in this life is easy, including developing a life long healthy lifestyle. Sometimes we need to be reminded of this.
The most important thing to realize from this experience is that you can get back on track and find success. No matter how long your slip period was, one snack, one meal, one day, one week, or one month. Right now, right this second, you can leave all that behind you and start back down your path to the healthy you.