My Evil Weekend

So, here's what happened.

I'm always preaching about moderation, right? Find a program you can stick with for the long-term, diets fail because they are too restrictive, enjoy the things you love in moderation...sound familiar??

I totally got sucked into the extreme diet mentality after reading that book I wrote about a while ago: Eat to Live.  I committed to six weeks of vegan, low fat, mainly vegetarian eating. And you know what happened? I didn't stick with it! And do you know why?? Because it was too restrictive! I was really hungry and didn't feel satisfied at all. I also felt a little sad...like some of the joy was being sucked out of my life.

So, in response to that, I completely rebelled. I went into binge mode over the Halloween weekend. The more candy the better, and don't forget the chocolate chip cookies and cupcakes! I would like to say I enjoyed myself, but I really didn't--I felt guilty and out of control and a little panicked about what was going on with me mentally.

So, when two people asked me on two consecutive days why I hadn't written a blog since last Wednesday, I finally started to calm down and really think about what was going on. I didn't have anything to write about because I felt like I had failed, and I felt guilty, and I felt tired and uninspired from eating too much sugar. But I finally managed to make the connection between the Eat to Live "failure" and my weekend of debauchery, and consequently my lack of energy around this blog.

So, I learned a great lesson...again. And I had a very concrete, recognizable experience of "proving" one of the philosophies that I feel strongly about: don't be so extreme! It only leads to yo-yo dieting and swinging of the proverbial commitment pendulum, from super rigid to way-too-relaxed (read: out of control).

I like the idea of my body as a laboratory--trying out the things I'm learning about and seeing what happens. So far, my biggest successes involve EATING MORE VEGETABLES and less animal protein and dairy. I also really need to control my sugar intake (see: "I'm An Addict").

None of this is rocket science, but when our emotions get involved, things get complicated. Bottom line: keep it simple, do your best, and use your common sense. Oh, and learn from other people's mistakes...