Self-esteem

Following a diet or food plan should be a matter of figuring out your nutritional requirements, considering your personal tastes and preferences and then just following that plan.  As mentioned in an earlier blog, I keep a food journal.  We try to do weekly menus.  It should be simple.

But it's not.  Oh, if my life is on an even keel and no surprises crop up, it works pretty well.  It's when I get distracted that I stray off the plan, I eat some meat or I just can't resist french fries.  It's not amusing, though it sounds funny "I slipped last night, I just couldn't resist the fried calamari!  So delish!"

Almost every time this happens to me, I could resist.  There is that moment when I could say "no, I don't want that in my body. Hand me some celery" or whatever.  I've found, by keeping the log and reviewing it, that if I'm having a rough day emotionally, I have a hard time sticking to the plan.

My biggest stumbling block is self-esteem.  Last year, I went to a "mystical fair", where various psychics, mediums, tarot readers, etc, were offering their services.  First, I found a psychic and got a reading.  Her first words were "It's really weird, but I'm getting that you're too hard on yourself.  That you need to stop putting yourself down."

Dead on.  If she had said "you have brown eyes" she couldn't have been more accurate.  I moved on to have my tarot read.  This psychic studied the cards and looked up with a puzzled look on her face. "For some reason, I'm getting that you are too hard on yourself. You're really into putting yourself down."

Blink. I nodded and my husband, who was standing nearby, let out a loud laugh. I was slightly chagrined. Two psychics, both of whom had never met me before, and they're telling me I'm too hard on myself, that I have poor self esteem.  Without even knowing me!

This past week, I had a little problem in my life (since resolved) and was whining about it on Facebook.  At least four, maybe more, friends said "You have such poor self-esteem!"

Wow.  I really have to work on this!  And no surprise, my diet this week has been pretty messed up.  I've had meat, cheese, fries, all the things I've eliminated from my diet.  And I still haven't got myself up on that treadmill.  My goals are not being reached!

So it's a self-fulfilling prophecy -- I don't feel good about myself, so I eat poorly, then I feel queasy, I feel "fat", I feel bad about "cheating".  Then my self-esteem drops a little more, and it spirals out of control.  The only way for me to stop it is to face it and fix it.

It doesn't matter if I slip once in a while.  It doesn't make me a "bad" person, it just means that this one time here, I chose to not follow my plans, which will lead me to meeting my goals.  It's not the end of the world. It's not even the end of my diet.  It's a stumble.  So I have to say to myself "You ate meat for dinner.  You are committed to not eating meat. Tomorrow, don't eat meat!"  Without adding any self-bashing.  That is hard for me, but those words I put in my head and sometimes let slip out of my mouth are not good for me, and are just as important as the food I put in my mouth.

So, it's back to making a plan and sticking to it.  To not let drooping self-esteem keep me from getting healthy.  To realizing that I am worth the hard work, that I can do it, even if it's tough, even if I'm feeling low, I can choose to eat healthy foods.