How to get back on the wagon...

"If you keep on going the way you're going you'll end up where you're heading - which direction are you aiming for?"


I've had a mini-setback...but as Jillian says, you can't let that stop you. If you got a flat tire would you ditch the whole car? No, you'd fix the flat and drive on.

So I'm fixing the flat. I've been doing so great...last Friday morning I told Cathy that I was feeling so good and feeling so good about myself. And then I completely just stopped what I was doing.

Don't get me wrong...I didn't go buy a cake and eat it. What didn't I do? I didn't count my calories and I didn't exercise. What did I do? I got a massage, got my hair done, got a body scrub, and got some rest.

And yet, I've been beating myself up about this since Sunday. I've been so mad at myself for not working out and for not being the perfect dieting robot that I have almost pushed myself back into that hole.

This morning, as I was driving to work I had a radical thought. If I am feeling resistant to going to the gym to workout...then maybe what I really want is to do something a little different. So what about yoga this week??? Or what about taking a class? Maybe I need to change up the program a bit...shake things up...make it fresh.

It's certainly no reason to get so down on myself that I abandon my good eating plan.

I have traveled such a long road over this past year. Trying to figure out what works and trying to find my way. When I look back to this time last year, I can see that I've made some measure of progress. I've lost 14 pounds. But more importantly, I've started treating myself better.

One thing I'm really proud of...I've quit eating those awful Lean Cuisine's and Weight Watchers meals. Ugh. To think how much money I've spent on that crap for all those years. And did they help me lose weight??? NO. Not one pound. And when I look at the ingredients list and nutrition information on the package, I'm grossed out. And the best side benefit from giving up that little box of crap disguised as food? I stop adding all that packaging to the landfills.

I am so glad that I've found my way to clean eating. Whole foods are really the way to go when you want to feel better. I am so glad that I'm eating more locally grown, organic foods. I feel better about not contributing to the massive industrial food giants (who turn pesticides and petroleum into foods that poison us and makes us fatter).

Something else I've recently come to...I gave up eating pork a few years ago though I still ate a piece of bacon here and there...so not quite a non-pork eater...but even eating a piece of bacon 3-4 times a year...it wasn't sitting well. I've been reading Omnivore's Dilemma and Pollan pointed out something...it wasn't even a paragraph but this little fact about how the industrial animal farms treat pigs (something I knew and is what spurred me to give up pork in the first place)...it broke my heart and made me renew my vow not to be a consumer of pork. So, no more. Not even a tiny piece once in a while. Done. I'm not contributing to the misery of one more pig.

And honestly, I don't want to contribute to the misery of the cows/steers and chickens either. So I'm going for grassfed beef and organic dairy products. No more industrial beef for me. It makes me sick to think of eating one more bite of that kind of beef.

Not to turn my blog into a political treatise on becoming a vegetarian (because I'm not...at least right now). Though, I will say, I so wish I lived near Polyface Farms (or one like it!!!).

Last night I found my way back onto the wagon...it was a struggle, to be sure! But I'm back...these little bumps on the road that knock me off are getting fewer and far between. And I'm getting stronger...the program I've developed is working. Looking to my spiritual practice to sustain me and help me to shapeshift has been the difference. Magic really works!