Dear Friend:
The diet mentality tells you that you failed or are failing or whatever negative message you're getting b/c of a slight gain that you're already dealing with.
On the flip side, the healthy lifestyle mentality tells me that you're succeeding! You had a coupla days of less-than-perfect eating. Your body retained some fluid. It may have begun to store excess glycogen and fat. You stopped burning fat. And then you went back to doing what works! How is this a bad thing?
I haven't read YOU ON A DIET, but I'm guessing there is info in there about the difference between a diet and learning to maintain a healthy lifestyle, which allows for slower (sometimes oh-so-slow) weight loss and then culminates in MAINTENANCE.
We MUST get off the diet roller coaster and get on the healthy lifestyle train. Diets don't teach maintenance. They don't teach us how to let-loose for a couple days and then recover from that and move on. Diets teach us there is a perfect way and then there is everything else.
Healthy lifestyles teach us balance. They teach us about how to maintain a quality of life, about how to indulge and, perhaps occasionally overindulge, and how to regain control to focus on healthy. Healthy lifestyle is about WAY more than diet. Healthy lifestyle never tells us were failures or that weve failed. Healthy lifestyle means we learn not to get mad at ourselves. Healthy lifestyle means we learn new ways to deal with situations we perceive as negative. Healthy lifestyle means we send ourselves positive messages. Healthy lifestyle means we eat the most healthy way we can, most of the time. Healthy lifestyle means we get the minimum amount of water and exercise our body needs but often do more, because we deserve more than the minimum. Healthy lifestyle means were always learning. We keep ourselves open to hear new information that may increase our health. Healthy lifestyle means we take time out to play, to rest, to enjoy our friends and families, to pray or have some quiet time. Diets are temporary . Healthy lifestyle is the journey were on. This journey has no ultimate destination
And, by the way, friend, if you're still reading this, the day they open the line for perfection, I'm already first! If I don't get to be perfect, neither do you!
Now, scatgo out and enjoy your healthy lifestyle.