You had a slip on your diet/eating program; you went on a binge; you ate something off your eating plan. What do you do? The course you choose can make a big difference in the progress of your weight loss journey.
Let’s look possible reactions:
Quit the diet. Yes, you could do this. Isn’t this the way you have reacted in the past? If you have, then consider this. Did you set yourself up to fail? Were you looking for an excuse to quit? What is going on in your life at the moment? Are you depressed, disappointed. lonely, angry? Are there a number of stressful situations in your life? Is one or more of your hunger craving triggers present? If so, you need to totally re-think why you started your weight loss journey and revisit your self-image.
Have your reasons for starting the diet been fulfilled? Have they changed? Are you now the healthiest you can be? Will more weight loss make you feel healthier, fitter, increase your self-confidence?
Now is the time to start over – not on the diet, but on the thought process. Analysis what is going on. Realize what your normal reactions are, then choose to respond. The definition of crazy is continuing to do the same thing expecting different results. If quitting hasn’t worked in the past, why would you expect it to now? Think about different ways to respond to the binge trigger. Remember you are responding to the trigger, not the binge. People can give you hints and advice on what to do, but only you know what will work best for you ; only you can do it.
Start again tomorrow or next week. On the surface this looks like a good idea. Pick yourself up and start again, making a starting point. I have just realized that this does not work for me. If I decided to start again the next day, I continue to binge the rest of that day – eating this and that which I will deprive myself of tomorrow. Do you see the two pitfalls here? I give myself an excuse to continue binging plus I use the word deprive which sets the scene for the next binge. I have to remember that I am not depriving myself, I am choosing not to eat certain types of foods to enable myself to progress towards the goal. I need to remember that my progress is a series of choices, not a list of deprivations.
Start again immediately. Now we are on track. What do you do if you trip on a crack in the sidewalk? Do you sit there until the next day? Do you pick yourself up and intentionally trip on every crack on the sidewalk until the next day? No – you pick yourself up and continue down the sidewalk, being a little more careful not to trip on the cracks.
Stepping up your activity/exercise to offset the slip/binge, at least for a few days. What a concept. Stepping up your activity/exercise to offset the slip/binge? Whoa. You mean I can actually do something positive other than picking myself up? Yes – this is the best recourse.
What should we do when we fall off the eating program wagon? Start the eating program again, immediately and then step up our activity/exercise to offset the binge. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Also, we need go through the questions in the quit the diet section to better understand why we slip/binge. The better we understand ourselves and our eating triggers, the easier it is to respond to the trigger rather than to react.
So, what do you do when you slip or binge?
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