Sunday 3 October 2010

What you don't know won't hurt you

They say (whoever "they" are) that what you don't know about can't hurt you. Maybe that is true of some things - if your co-workers earn more than you, what people sometimes say behind your back - ignorance can be bliss. There is one area however where what you don't know most definitely can hurt you. And that's food.

Most of us who are dieting got where we were by not understanding what we were merrily shovelling into our mouths. We probably knew that some of the food we were eating was bad but, if you were anything like me, what I didn't get was how everything added up and the cumulative effect it all had. What I didn't know was hurting me.

When I hit my 6 month weight-loss plateau from January to June, I unintentionally sabotaged myself because I started ignoring what I knew. In fact, because I stopped being entirely honest with my tracking, I stopped "knowing" what was going in my mouth and it did indeed hurt me.

I can't say I ate particularly sensibly this weekend. I've been lazy, had a few days away from the exercise, and eaten, if not wisely, then well. There might have been a box of chocolates eaten over the course of Friday and Saturday, a Chinese takeaway on Friday night, a few glasses of wine, and some fish and chips today (although I did have to walk over the hills and back for those).

But that's the beauty of this healthy eating malarkey. I can eat what I choose, but as long as I take responsibility for it, I can still get where I want to go. I've written down every bit of bad food I've had this weekend, clocked the points deficit I now have (actually not terrible) and having enjoyed the lot, I shall now return to my regular program of healthy eating for the rest of the week.

Happy weekends, guys.

- Posted from my iPhone

2 comments:

Kathleen said...

Yes, it’s important to keep track.

Linz M said...

Great post, I think I need to realise the same thing - that I am in control of what goes into my mouth and even if I am bad, I need to be accountable for it.

Keep up the good work :) x