I had another bad day

You said that so well. Sometimes when we have those bad days, we forget to admit that we are human and sometimes we WILL have less than perfect days. Once we can do that, we are on the road to success.

"I realize that just one bay day doesn't hurt your efforts that much. The thing that really hurts is one bad day turning into another bad day and then another... And so on. It's sort of like a snowball effect"

THEONERM5 - I 1000% agree with what you've written here! And it took me a long time to figure it out on my own I can tell you! One bad day is often simply the result of circumstances coming together. For example, it could be that you forgot to pack your lunch and snacks, your best buds at work are inviting you to lunch, and you're hungry because you missed your morning snack, and then you get stuck late at work, etc. If we can't have days like that once in a while, we're sunk. What matters is if the NEXT day, when things are normal again, if you have a bad day for no good reason. And if the circumstances are the same as the bad day, you've just had an opportunity to think about it and realize that there are ways to deal with those particular circumstances -- in other words, each set of bad circumstances can lead to one bad day each, but once you've experienced it, you've had a chance to come up with a way to deal with it. For example, in the example I gave, you could keep lots of healthy snacks in your office for when you forget to bring something with you.

The most important thing you can do is not NOT to have a bad day, but to make the day immediately following it a very GOOD day. IMHO.

So if you consider your bad day as a chance to review a set of circumstances and come up with a series of actions you can take in advance or at the time to avoid another bad day, then your "bad day" is actually a very useful day, a "good day" in the long run.

Edited by: NAUSIKAA at: 1/25/2013 (06:15)

Whenever I have a "bad" day, I think about how far I have come in the past few years, not really in terms of my weight but in terms of myself. I'm so much happier and more content now than I was three or five years ago, and I've been able to stop the cycle of gaining and I've maintained for a year and a half. So whenever you have a "bad" day, just think of the positive!

I think the "opposite" that you're talking about isn't just sticking with a program but being devoted to changing your lifestyle for good. Part of that lifestyle involves cheat days and forgiveness.

The opposite of a DIE T is a LIFE style change. A lifestyle involves both good and bad days, it allows us to make mistakes, choices, decisions, and to take it slowly. In the die t we have to be perfect or FAILURES. In the LIFE style change, we try to do better from one day to the next. We make better, more informed choices, and we don't have the option of quitting. We just keep making choices and hope more of them will be better and healthier than the unhealthy ones. We choose small changes and make them more often and when we conquer that ONE small change, we move on to another small change. Those small changes add up and we soon see PROGRESS and success builds on success.

"I think it's too hard and I quit as a result. That's clearly not the recipe for success. That's a recipe for failure. Then maybe I could think of the opposite of that as the recipe for success. What's the opposite?"

Who told you to listen to that little voice? Who told you this was going to be easy? Who told that quitting is acceptable?

OK, start with this. Everyone is going to have a bad day. Everyone may also have a bad week or month. The point is not to let it get you down. This is all a process. Get it in your head right now before you take another step your reason WHY. Why are you on this journey? Why do you want to get healthy? and please do not tell me it is to just lose weight. ANYONE can lose weight, but it takes more to get healthy.
I will share my reason. The little guy is on my screen saver right now. Nothing motivates or inspires me more to get healthy than the little bald chubby nephew on my screen saver. I can't be the best and healthiest aunty if I don't take care of myself.
When I want that extra pices of candy, I look at him and choose a carrot instead, When I want to stop the exercise routine before I am finished, I look at his picture and do 5 more squats instead.

Quitting is easy. this is a motivational picture on my wall-- you don't get "there" by staring, wishing, drooling, hoping. It doesn't come easy. It comes by getting off your butt working for it every single day for the rest of your life.

so take a deep breath, determine your BIG WHY and get to work. DO NOT LET A BAD DAY BRING YOU DOWN. A bad day is when you do not wake up in the morning. A great day is when God wakes you up and hands you the ultimate challenge.

A bad day is a learning opportunity!!! Look at what went wrong and why; helps you for the next day!!! There you have it.

I realize that just one bay day doesn't hurt your efforts that much. The thing that really hurts is one bad day turning into another bad day and then another... And so on. It's sort of like a snowball effect I guess. The thing that I think causes people to want to quit is because they start feeling bad about the bad days. We're only human and we all make mistakes. There's no way that any of us can always have perfect days every day even when it comes to dieting. So then how should we treat the bad day? Usually I think of a bad day as my inability to keep up with the program. I think it's too hard and I quit as a result. That's clearly not the recipe for success. That's a recipe for failure. Then maybe I could think of the opposite of that as the recipe for success. What's the opposite?