Day by Day, Step by Step- A Way of Life and a Motto

PRELUDE:
All in all, this was a harder-than-usual week for dieting.
First of all, Sunday night and Monday until night was Yom Kippur, a 25 hour fast from all food and drink. The tendency to overeat before/after a fast are very big (strong “survival mood” emotions and physiology weighing in here), plus going out walking was not feasible. (Anyone who wants to finish the fast feeling relatively good does NOT traipse around outdoors in the boiling sun. )
Secondly, Saturday was a holiday, which meant that I had a lot to do at home in the preceding days (little time for walking). And to top it off, I spent Friday cooking in the kitchen, and Saturday trying to convince myself that all the holiday food I had prepared was NOT for ME (or at least only a bit of it).
All in all, I did pretty good (although I’ll see later this week what the scales say...), overeating just a bit today. Starting tomorrow, I should have a fair number of guests, but I plan to get out and walk more and stick 100% to my eating plan.

MAIN POINT
But the main thing is that my habits ARE changing. I am drinking much more WATER (as opposed to coffee/diet drink). (Not to even mention the 150-calorie-a-glass chocolate milk I used to guzzle....). My idea of what constitutes a “portion” are shifting. I make a point to include more vegetables and fruit in my diet, and most importantly, I get out and about more.
[Over the last few days I had lots of steps from running errands, errands that once upon a time I would have avoided, or attended to by bus. This alone is an improvement. But I “hungered” to get out some real aerobic walking. After standing most of Friday in the kitchen, I was exhausted, and I went to bed early. But then, early Saturday I went out to walk. My feet hurt me a lot (a result of all that stationary standing on Friday), and I quickly realized that UNTIL I GOT OUT AND GOT MY BLOOD FLOWING, via a good quick pace, my feet wouldn’t feel better. It took about 15 minutes of walking until I really felt normal again, but it did help in the end.]
Weight Loss, or ANY change in our lives, is about DIRECTION. Even if we occasionally mess up a bit, don’t quite make all of all goals, if we are in general making progress and changes in the way we do things, than there is no room for despair over a little lapse. (Just don’t use this as an excuse to ALWAYS go below your goals...If you are slipping off your plan frequently, than THAT indiscretion is your direction, not what you had planned to do..) We have to go day-by-day and step-by-step. We need to see alterations in our general direction.
The same applies to other areas in our lives. Struggling with a new diagnosis of disability in the family? Trying not to look like the “Wicked Witch of the West” when you discipline your children? Whatever your struggles are, you are likely to falter here and there. And that’s OK, as long as it doesn’t become a habit. Each time you conquer the urge for a piece of cake or a scream at the kids, you are strengthening those emotional and psychological muscles that will help keep us on the correct path that we are choosing. So “go for it”, day after day, a step at a time.

For more of "31 for 21" (blogging in October for Down syndrome awareness)go HERE