Happy Tuesday! One of my favorite holidays is right around the corner: Easter. To me, Easter means renewing, rejoicing, and refreshing. The weather is slowly becoming more pleasant, plants and flowers are starting to poke through the ground, the sun is out more often, leaves are bursting in color, and there is hope for leaving winter behind and seeing brighter days…literally.
It’s also a time to once again be overloaded with sweets and treats, which means doubling down on your tactics for avoiding overindulging and canceling out your healthy lifestyle changes. It’s easy to wolf down a bag of jellybeans without even noticing or to face plant into a bowl of pastel colored M & Ms without being present. Let’s be truthful here…it’s easy to do and we’ve all done it before. What happens when we let our guard down is my “ONE JELLYBEAN AWAY” concept. That means that I personally can go from 0-100 very fast and consume far more jellybeans than I need to without even realizing it. If I’m not aware of what I’m eating, it can be so easy to plow through a bag (or two) of jellybeans and begin the downward spiral into overeating and reversing my weight loss efforts.
Sometimes I promise myself to eat only a handful of jellybeans and I honor that and move on. However, it’s very easy for me to go on a jellybean binge after eating one jelly bean. Insulin spikes are often very difficult to fight off once you start intaking sugar. Actually, it can happen to anyone with any particular food. Pick your poison: cookies, chips, ice cream, candy, chocolate, etc. It’s different for everyone, so it’s good to be aware of your “trigger” food so that you can be ready to handle those moments when it can all skid out of control very quickly without much thought.
First of all, who really eats only one jelly bean? Let’s be honest here! Who really knows when to stop and push the sweets away from you? Most of the time, I do but other times I just keep going. I call it the tornado because it can start small and spiral out of control in seconds. Can you relate? Step #1 is being aware. Step #2 is to have a response ready when it does happen. Talk to yourself out loud and acknowledge what is happening. Ask yourself why you are on the verge of overeating? What feelings are you having….sadness, boredom, anger, stress, etc.? If so, stop and get curious about what you are feeling and why. Step #3 is to walk yourself through a few questions and decide that the unhealthy food you are tempted to devour will not satisfy that feeling. In fact, it will only make matters worse. Or are you actually physically hungry? Meaning, does your body need fuel? If so, stop and feed yourself something healthy. By the way, I’ve never known anyone to binge on carrots and celery during one of these moments. Go figure!
So, be kind to yourself, get curious about why you are about to overeat, and take a step in the healthy direction. You will never regret making that choice, but you will regret giving in to that “one jellybean away” path of destruction. Stay on track and move forward!
You’ve got this!
Georgette
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