Just Good Enough

The birthday dinner was a hit without taking a hit on my waistline.  I am happy to report I was able to navigate the meal with good choices AND I felt satisfied.  When the cake was being passed around I did take a small piece and had a few bites.  The next day, the scale was in my favor.  I didn't lose BUT I didn't gain.  I got right back on my plan.  I did everything about 90% right. 

This is not a diet of perfection.  It doesn't have to be 100%.  In fact, it can't be.  Who can do it perfectly 100% of the time, every day, day after day?  This is a diet of 90% right.  This is a diet of not perfect, but just good enough.  Having been fat before and tried to lose weight countless times, one of the biggest roadblocks for me in changing my lifestyle was my need for perfection.  I find this with many of our patients.

We dieters start our morning with all kinds of resolve.  "I'm going to do it!  Today is the day!"  Then someone brings brownies to the office and we can't resist.  Failure.  We say to ourselves, "I blew it.  I'm getting a cheeseburger for lunch and having pizza for dinner and then I'm going to break open a package of Oreo cookies!  I'll try again tomorrow."  Or in my case, I'll start again Monday.  Because we all know you have to start your diet on Monday!?  Then I would proceed to binge on whatever I wanted because I didn't do it right.  I wasn't perfect so I wasn't even going to try.  This faulty way of thinking had me starting diets endlessly.  And failing diets endlessly.

I've noticed that thin people don't think like this.  These "naturally skinnies," I like to call them, don't expect perfection.  And they don't beat themselves up for taking that brownie.  They just get right back on the good choice wagon the very next meal.  It's not all or nothing.  It's not perfection.  It's  about making good choices 90% of the time. Was it easy to change my way of thinking?  No.  I have been maintaining my healthy weight for over six years and I still have to remind myself. 

So if you're like me, hard wired to want things just so, a perfectionist, you are going to have to let that go.  Especially where food and eating are concerned.  We live in a culture that revolves around food and there is just no way to do it perfectly.  We just have to do it good enough.