All Is Not Lost

After reading Tips for a Healthy Weekend, concerning our tendency to consume more on weekends, you’ve been conscious of what you’re eating and drinking.

You’ve done well this Saturday: yogurt, a whole oat bagel with lite cream cheese and a grapefruit for breakfast, a slice of turkey, a slice of cheese, fresh veggies and dip and pretzels for lunch, plus a couple cookies for dessert. You’re feeling pretty good about your eating when your husband suggests you and he go to that great Bar-B-Q place for dinner.

“Sure,” you tell him, “That sounds fun.”

The menu offers salads and other healthier fare – though in all the times you’ve eaten at the restaurant, you’ve never ordered anything besides the Buffalo wings, the Bar-B-Q chicken or the fried catfish fingers. This time you think you’ll try a big salad or a grilled chicken sandwich maybe.

You and he start getting hungry a bit after 5 p.m., but the Belmont Stakes, the third leg of the Triple Crown, is being run at 5:30 p.m. so you decide to wait to leave until after the race. As it turns out, coverage of the Belmont Stakes begins at 5:30 p.m. but the actual race doesn’t start until nearly 7 p.m.

Finally, after the race, you head to dinner. By this time you’ve lost all resolve to order the salad, and when the waitress takes your order, you ask for one of your less-than-healthy stand-bys: That chicken is so good, and you’re so hungry. You rationalize that you’ve eaten well the entire day so far, and you’ll end up taking half the meal home with you anyway, so it’s not such a big deal. Besides, you lifted weights this morning.

Your meal arrives and you eat to the point of satisfaction and pack up the rest in a doggy box. Your husband slips the credit card into the bill book, and suggests Dairy Queen for dessert.

“Sure,” you tell him, “That sounds fun.”

The Saturday described above is one I, myself experienced. Sunday morning I woke up feeling disappointed in myself and a little bloated. Did I say, “To hell with it all; the weekend’s a wash,” and plop down to watch Meet the Press with a couple cinnamon rolls slathered in butter—with a hot chocolate topper?

Nope.

I thought to myself, “Going to DQ last night was stupid, but today is a new day.” I didn’t dwell on it any more than that. Then I went upstairs and sweated to the toughest fitness video I own.

The moral of the story is – Don’t let one night of gluttony, one weekend of debauchery, a vacation of unwholesome habits, consume your thoughts and defeat you. Reinstate your healthy lifestyle ASAP. All is not lost.