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Life has a way of blindsiding me sometimes. Last week was great: I was down to 194 pounds, I lifted hard on Tuesday and Thursday, and I ran 21 miles between Monday and Thursday.
Then Friday evening rolled around and I knew I was in trouble. We ordered pizza (actually, I ordered pizza). This shouldn’t have been a big deal, I should be able to have pizza once in a while. I didn’t feel badly about it at all. But then Friday night, I didn’t go for a run.
Saturday rolled around and we hosted a charity poker tournament. I spent some of the day working in the garden, but a lot of it was spent running errands and getting the house ready for the evening. We raised just about $1000 for Pam’s American Cancer Society Relay for Life team. But along with poker comes beer, chips, cookies, soda, and did I mention beer? This too shouldn’t have been a big deal, I should be able to have a poker party once in a while. But then Saturday night, I didn’t go for a run.
The worst thing about hosting a party, is that no one takes home the leftovers of what they brought. So I spent my Sunday cleaning up the house, working in the garden, cooking cinnamon rolls for Mother’s Day, watching playoff basketball and eating leftover crap from the poker party. And oh yeah, on Sunday night, I didn’t go for a run.
So last week’s over, and this week’s here and I’m ready to go. I don’t really feel badly about Friday, or Saturday. But Sunday is a little bit different. Sunday, I felt really guilty. Sunday, I felt like vomiting. Sunday, I felt like the old Mac more than any other day since I WAS the old Mac. I Don’t like the old Mac. Even though the scale doesn’t say 194 anymore, 194 will come back soon. But Sunday? Sunday’s not coming back…ever.
J.D.
8 responses so far ↓
1 Rick // May 14, 2008 at 6:26 am
You’ve lost so much weight and you’re freaking out about an off weekend.
YOU’VE EARNED AN OFF WEEKEND.
Isn’t this why you’re doing this so that you can have a weekend to do what you want to do and not feel guilty about it? You know you’re going for a run and working out during the week. If you took the whole next 2 weeks off, then I would worry, but 3 days? No one has earned a couple days of relaxing and pizza than you. It should be a treat, it should be refreshing. Now you can get back in gear to look forward to your next pizza.
Make it a deep dish.
2 macdaddy // May 14, 2008 at 6:35 am
3 Rick // May 14, 2008 at 7:01 am
I hear ya Mac and that explanation does help clarify.
I still like to look at he positive, you’ve been doing a great thing and motivating a lot of people on the way, but it is OK to stumble. Maybe it was just the vomiting comment that seems out of the ordinary for your posts that made me seem like you were in a rough spot.
In any case, I’m loving your work. Please keep it up. I’m down to 221 from 230 in 2 months which is slooooow. But thats the point. Just ran 1.75 miles Friday. Feels great.
4 Josh // May 14, 2008 at 7:20 am
I understand what you mean. The eating doesn’t really bother you — it couldn’t have added that much weight — it is the mental slip that bothers you. I know the feeling. It’s, hmm, self-betrayal? When this happens to me I’m pretty hard on myself and view it as a mini-failure, but as with any failure I try to learn from it and I think you’ve done that — the next time you have leftovers you’ll remember this time.
Love the blog, thanks thanks thanks.
-Josh
5 Cammy // May 14, 2008 at 7:42 am
Thank you for sharing your experience, unpleasant though it may have been. I think many of us fear that ‘out of control’ day, the one where we sort of go on autopilot, rather than making mindful choices. A couple of lessons I’ll take from your experience is to keep a supply of freezer containers on hand for leftovers and to make sure I get that exercise in. For one thing I haven’t mastered eating on the elliptical trainer. *G*)
I’m glad you’re not regretful of your special events, but more the non-specialness of Sunday.
6 Sally Parrott Ashbrook // May 14, 2008 at 9:43 am
Sunday stinks, but you have many healthy days ahead. It’s all about the long-term, right?
7 greenman2001 // May 14, 2008 at 10:58 am
In the past, there has been more than one post on this blog about how entertaining guests leads you, Mac, to overeat. Advice ranged from not letting that kind of food into the house in the first place to substituting healthier food to throwing the leftovers out so they don’t pose a temptation. You probably remember thanking all the commentors for their helpful suggestions.
You love putting yourself squarely in the path of temptation and testing your willpower. It is as though, just as you exercise your muscles to make them stronger, you believe that if you exercise your willpower, it too will get stronger.
I’ve never seen you address the idea that removing temptation or changing your life so as to avoid temptation might be a less stressful way of addressing this problem. I’m not sure that you even see it as a problem.
Eventually, you’ll reach your target weight. Success at last! And you’ll be faced with these same kinds of contests for the next 40 years. I assume you’ll face them in the same way, using the same beliefs and the same tools, and of course you’ll get the same results. The blog will be long gone by then. Will repeating this pattern count as a success in your mind?
There are many ways to look at this story, but I don’t think saying you were “blindsided” by any of this is really accurate. You’ve been here before, you set up the same circumstances that have defeated you in the past, you used the same tools you’ve used in the past, and you got exactly the outcome you might have predicted.
The charity poker tournament sounds like a blast, though!
8 Andrew is getting fit // May 14, 2008 at 11:58 pm
I get exactly what you are worried about. Sometimes those old habits we thought we had kicked reach out and grab us.
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