Balance

The struggle is real, balance is difficult to achieve.  I tend to have an all or nothing, go BIG or go home view.  Applying that to something like a lifestyle change has been a struggle.  I have made strives to lose excess weight before and trying to maintain balance was the biggest struggle.

In college, I followed the South Beach diet and cut out bread and pasta completely (I LOVE bread and pasta for the record and this wasn't an easy transition).  I would eat steammed veggies and a bunless burger or chicken breast for most meals and was completely fine with it.  I hit the gym and would get a good workout in every day.  The only problem was, I was 22 years old, living in a college town where outside of group projects the biggest social gathering was at a bar.  I didn't cut this part of my diet out, frankly I didnt even see it as an option.  I lost weight and felt great but knew that long term this wouldn't be the best solution.  Eventually the pasta and bread would come calling my name again, and when they did the weight went back on.

After I was married, my new husband and I started weight watchers and in order to buy a few extra calories each day we switched to low calorie or no calorie foods.  Keep in mind they all tasted horrible, but we had some wiggle room in our daily goal.  After a few months of eating "butter" that only had 5 calories and "diet" or "fat free" and "sugar free" items that really didn't fix the cravings that we had those items were tossed in the trash.  We decided that it would be better to eat actual food and enjoy the taste and flavors rather than save a few calories.

So here I sit today, still struggling with balance.  Since we first had our daughter we've become wheat bread eaters and only keep whole grain pasta in the house.  Most of the things that I cook are whole foods or at least I know the ingredients in them.  I make an effort to cook at home as much as possible.  But in the name of balance, we eat out and will continue to.  I love pizza and homemade just isn't as good sometimes.  And to be frank, some nights its great to let someone else do the cooking and clean up so that I can just relax and talk to my kids.

Its so easy for me to get discouraged when it hasn't been a great meal/day/week but trying to remember to find balance has been helpful in being able to continue instead of tossing all the hard work out the door on a few missteps.  We're heading on a long talked about family trip to Disney this weekend and balance will be what keeps me going.  The diet will not be great, there is only so much control that I have over that.  But I plan to offset that by the massive amounts of walking we'll be doing.  Additioanlly, this trip is an awesome experience for our whole family and I want to be present in the moment and enjoy my kid's faces as they experience the rides, not stressed about where we will eat next and how expensive it will be in both dollars and calories.  Balance...deep breath....balance.

#sisterstrongblog