Get Back On Track
A few clients recently told me that they found themselves eating a bit more and seeing the scale go up. They wanted to know what they were doing wrong or if they had suddenly gained five pounds of fat. I told them, they weren’t really doing anything wrong and no they probably didn’t gain five pounds of fat that quickly.
Relaxing our eating habits and consuming more will cause the scale to jump up if you are weighing yourself every day. It’s inevitable. The initial gain will most likely be water weight or possibly just extra food content in the stomach. That second one is something folks don’t always realize. It takes time for your body to break down food in the stomach, so if you had a large midnight snack, weighing yourself at 6 AM, you may be experiencing a little bit of both water weight and the fact that your body hasn’t had time to fully digest everything in your stomach. So don’t freak out about it.
I have had several coaches over the years remind me: just get back on track. You’re never more than one meal or snack away from getting back to your goals. One midnight snack doesn’t undo all the work you’ve done. One weekend barbecue with the family doesn’t immediately regress you to old habits or weight. What does work against us is when we allow those moments to lead to a week or month long event.
I went to my niece’s baptism about a week ago. We had sushi afterwards. I had my mother-in-law and my sister-in-law’s mother both cajoling me into finishing the boat and other snacks that we had for the lunch. I complied because well, I learned that I don’t want my mother-in-law to be annoyed with me, and add in another mother and it was just…well good sushi. Afterwards my mother-in-law had dinner planned in honor of the anniversary of my father-in-law’s passing. She never cooks or purchases less than a feast. Cha gio, short ribs, thit heo, and che for dessert was on the menu. I ate a lot of cha gio. A lot. I also ate a lot of che. So this past week I’ve been dealing with the scale being a little higher than I wanted. It’s ok. I don’t eat like that normally, and it always serves to remind me that I did eat like that in the past, and I wasn’t a fan of the full feeling anymore.
Getting back on track means giving yourself a little grace. Making sure the next meal is within your nutrition expectations. There’s no punishment exercising or strict restrictions. One day of eating a bit more won’t equal a monthlong deficit. And for many of us, myself included, we’ve been here before and we know that we just have to move on. I fully enjoyed my excessive weekend of sushi and Vietnamese food. It doesn’t happen often, and I’m already back to focusing on my daily intake. No beating myself up. No negative self-talk. Just enjoying the time spent with family and my baby niece.