21 Days of Healthy Holiday Habits–Letting Go Of Slips
Welcome back for another tip from my healthy holiday arsenal. So what happens when you threw out all sense of restraint and totally overindulged in food and drink over the weekend? If you are like most people, you probably feel bad physically and mentally. The physical will pass after a day or two of getting back on track with your normal healthy routine, but the mental portion can linger so that is what I want to delve into today.
While it is perfectly normal to be a bit disappointed in yourself when you lose the willpower to say no, it can be dangerous when you continually berate yourself internally. Our internal monologue has a huge bearing on how we view ourselves. If you tend to think of yourself in a negative light, you are not only going to have a hard time enjoying life but it can also drive you to continue to make poor health decisions. We tend to act like the person we feel we are, so if you feel like a failure in one or many aspects of your life you will be more likely to act as such.
Instead of setting yourself up for continued perceived failure, I challenge you to try to be easy on yourself when you slip. I do not think I know anyone who never slips off track on the rare occasion. Even all of the wonderful health and fitness professionals that I work with every day have the occasional treat. The key is having that regularly healthy everyday routine in place so that you go right back to that after that one temporary departure from the norm.
I also prefer not to look at food as “good” or “bad”. While I certainly will not tell you that refined sugar is in any way healthy, grouping foods (or worse, entire food groups) into that “bad” category will perpetuate that negative attitude towards food that can cause issues with self-image down the line. This very closely relates to that all or nothing attitude we discussed on Friday that can be quite dangerous to your health goals. Words have power, so I do my best to try to choose positive words as much as possible instead of giving the negative that power.
Most of my clients that have had the longest lasting success with weight loss and other fitness goals are not perfect in their nutrition choices at all times, just most times. 😉 Hopefully knowing that you can still find success with the occasional slip should help you feel a bit better about moving on from any unplanned overindulgence. As many sports coaches would say, shake it off and get back out there!
