Handling hiccups

This week was rough. Talking to my challengers, I know I'm not alone in having a little trouble rebounding from the holidays. It wasn't that I overate or went crazy over Thanksgiving. I did eat more and more richly than I typically do but I was mindful of those choices and worked out religiously while away. The thing that killed me was losing the weekend. When I don't have the weekend to get my mind and home in order for the week ahead I find myself scrambling all week. Laundry piles up, meal planning and prep doesn't happen and I'm flying by the seat of my pants a lot of the time which leaves me feeling discombobulated and just generally out of sorts. That was me all week this week. My challengers, or at least many of them, were in seemingly the same place.

So what do you do when you're functioning in survival mode like this?

• Do what you can. Everything is not going to get done. Everything will not be perfect. Just accept it and move one. Instead of focusing on what you haven't done, try to focus on what tou can do. For me that's working out as many mornings as I can. There's no distractions in my house at 4:45 AM so I workout at 4:45 AM. Things come up later in the day. Work gets crazy, kids need help with homework, dinner needs to be cooked. If my workout doesn't happen before school, I know it won't happen so I make it happen. Beyond that, I do what I can to fall back on what I know and can do for healthy eating.

• Go back to the basics. This is not going to be a week of newly minted meals tested out from recipes found online. Instead, go back to the basics and cook your staples that you know how to make from memory. Cook in bulk and either eat the same food for lunch or dinner 3 days in a row or make a big batch of food and repurpose it from one day to the next. For me that means a big batch of crockpot chicken that once shredded, can become wraps for lunch, chicken added to a stir fry or pasta dish or toss over a salad, or something to pair with rice and veggies at dinner.

• Don't beat yourself up. We are not perfect. Life is messy. We have off days or weeks. It happens and for me, it was this week. Accept it and move on without judgement. Draw on the supports around you to let you off the hook if you need that support. For my challengers that means admitting when we slip up and accepting the supportive words of others who have all done it too. Sometimes you just need to go easy on yourself (and I say this as someone who is continually working on practicing what I'm preaching here!)

• Use whatever time you get to triage and regroup. If you have one night home over the week when the kids aren't screaming and demanding your attention use that as a chance to cut up veggies for snacks for the next few days or throw a big batch of vegetables into the oven to roast. If you have 10 minutes between meetings at work use it as a chance to grab a piece of paper to sketch out meals for the next few days or to write a shopping list. When grocery shopping look for healthy shortcuts like washed and cut veggies or fruit, bagged nuts, etc.. Or if working out is your missing sanity, take a walk to cool off at work between meetings or use the time dinner's cooking in the over to get down and do a few pushups/squats. Something, anything, is better than nothing. Use the little time you have to do what needs to be done to make the next day less hectic.

• Remind yourself that this is a hiccup NOT a reason to give up. Everyone slips up. Everyone has those off weeks. It's hard to remind ourselves of that, this time of year especially. It's not worth throwing away all of your hard work, grabbing that bag of Oreos and camping out on the coach and waiting until the New Year to pick ourselves back up. 

My mission this weekend is to regroup, plan and get myself in a mindset to be more on track this week than last week. It's all I can do and that's enough.

If you would like support through the holiday season, are looking to make a change in your health and fitness, or just need a jumpstart, contact me and let's talk about how I can support you!

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