Yesterday I went over my calories. Here’s how it happened:
Workout: really tough but felt great afterwards
Breakfast: greek yogurt. an hour later i went for a skim two shot latte.
Lunch: First of all, that’s only 200 calories for breakfast. After a workout. That’s not enough. I had meetings until 12:30 so I didn’t end up in the Cafe until 12:45. It was taco day with homemade salsa and guac, cilantro rice, sauteed squash and zukes. I could’ve chosen some cioppino or a salad or the flank steak with swiss chard, but I was HUNGRY. TACO.
I started out by scraping off most of the guac and not eating the tortillas. But halfway in, I realized I was HUNGRY and was going to need to eat all of it. Plus two cups of pineapple.
Meh, okay. I journaled in myfitnesspal. I only had 450 left for the day, but I was full, so I didn’t need an afternoon snack.
Dinner: Made it home after sitting in CVS for an hour waiting on a scrip. Bought another dark chocolate/sea salt bar to curb the chocolate cravings. Grilled 91% lean ground beef with a half slice of cheese, ate it w/o a bun, had some green beans sauteed in olive oil and a tiny baked potato w/ a tsp of butter. Had enough calories left for one square of dark chocolate.
But then I got bored. And I wanted a sweetie. And it was Wednesday, which means my favorite homemade ice cream truck was out scooping flavors like malted cinnamon, black raspberry, vegan toasted coconut, salted butter caramel and BEET. And it was hot.
Now, normally I would eat salad for lunch and with a dinner like that have more than enough calories for a scoop of real ice cream, especially after working out. No harm, no foul. But instead I got way too hungry, ate calorie dense low volume foods for lunch and then when the sweet craving hit, plus boredom, plus the possibility of BEET ice cream… well, some unplanned eating, as Dr. Judith Beck would call it, went down. As in a scoop of BEET and a scoop of malted cinnamon.
Series of mistakes:
Small breakfast after a tough workout
Knowing I wouldn’t be able to eat until 1 but not planning for a small snack
Going to our amazing cafe STARVING without a clear plan
Eating calorie dense, low volume food that honestly wasn’t as tasty as my salad bar special
Letting boredom get the best of me
Getting two scoops instead of one
Dominoes, man, and not the pizza kind! Yogurt for breakfast and it’s all downhill from there. Strangely, I was proud of myself at breakfast for only downing 200 calories.
Victories:
Realizing that, with proper planning and technique, I could have avoided the dominoes
I ate tacos and ice cream not because I’m a bad person, but because I let myself get hungry and bored
Now that I know how this can happen, I can take steps to avoid it in the future
Restriction backfires. Eat.
Hopefully my reflection will inspire you to examine your falls off the wagon as the result of simple decisions you can change, not as a result of your inherent fattiness, which is where I normally go. It happens. I’m over it. For further inspiration, here is a picture of me doing the crab walk, which was in our WOD on Monday:
And yes, if you must know, beet ice cream is incredible.
Debbie Bootie 