Forgive Yourself

Once upon a time there was a girl who I shall call Lisa. Lisa was trying to lose weight. She was doing everything by the book; measuring out her portions, eating whole grains, choosing healthy lean meats and monitoring her alcohol. She exercised three or more times a week, had a personal trainer, walked the dog twice a day and drank 8 glasses of water. Lisa felt great about herself. She had energy, she was confident and she was losing weight.

One Saturday evening Lisa went out with some friends. She got rollickingly drunk, ate three bags of crisps at the bar and drunkenly ordered a pizza at 2am.

Sunday morning, staring at the empty pizza box while nursing a tremendous headache, she felt ill. She made herself a fried egg sandwich with bacon, skipped the gym and watched TV all day long.

Sunday evening she stepped on the scale and had gained a few pounds, she felt bloated and had drinkers remorse.

The feelings of self-loathing spiraled their way into her psyche and by Monday morning she thought that muffin at star bucks seemed like a good idea. Perhaps lunch with a co-worker at McDonalds instead of her afternoon run. She had already failed, right? So what does it matter.

This mentality, I have found, is actually quite common. We assume that one brick falling topples the whole building. Well, that, my friends, is NOT true.

Everybody has moments when we fall off the wagon. Everybody has days when we just can't work out, when pizza at three am seems like a good idea, when we are physically unable to stop ourselves from eating the entire bag of crisps. This is normal, and human, and it does not, I repeat, does NOT make us bad people. It does not mean that we have failed or in any way suggest that we are not still on a good, perfect path towards the health we strive.

One day, weekend, week, whatever, does not mean that we have to start over, it doesn’t have to be the hurdle we make it out to be. It's just one moment in life; one silly, meaningless moment. Let it go.