(Client: Claire) “Nothing tastes as good as thin feels”?

6/25... I’ve always hated this saying, especially since it always seems to be coming from skinny women. But this morning, I may have had an inkling of what it really means. My life is a bit complicated right now, and last night I was convinced that I had at least three good reasons to take a break from my diet. I pondered all the choices of tasty food, the rationalizations for “treating myself”, and then tried to write some new rule in my diet plan that would encompass the occasional bad eating (“once a week”, “once every ten pounds lost”, etc.). I even had an extra glass of wine at a social outing so I could add “drunkenness” to the list of reasons that I wouldn’t be responsible for a slip. Luckily I realized that I was so tired from a very long day that crawling into bed would also be a treat, so I did that ASAP. When I woke up this morning, I realized how close I came to sabotaging myself and was really glad that I had not. After all, this whole diet shift is about treating my body better, and so eating stuff that I know to be bad for me is not really “treating myself” at all, is it? So as I headed into another harder-than-average day today, I was glad for the experience and the awareness—I had said no to an intense momentary need in favor of my long-term need, even though I couldn’t grasp the long-term need at the time. I loaded my little red cooler (which is more important to me now than a purse!) with soy pita, red pepper hummus, almonds and clemetines to tote around all day. And I decided to treat myself to a Coke Zero; I’ve been avoiding soft drinks, even diet ones, so the sweet fizziness was a great way to treat myself without triggering a return to my old eating habits. While I hope I’ll never parrot “Nothing tastes as good as thin feels”, I can say that nothing tastes as good as mindfulness of and respect for your long term health feels.