We suck at giving ourselves credit

My niece, who I love to pieces, was in town yesterday so my mother and I took her out to dinner. We wanted to go somewhere special, so we picked a fondue place. She’d never had fondue before — and I knew they’d have lots of veggies and meat — so it seemed a great pick.

And yet, even after doing Bright Line Eating for months, I still had thoughts running through my brain as I was driving there, “Should I have a glass of wine with dinner, just one?” “Should I have a few bits of bread in the cheese, if I don’t eat any of the chocolate?” “Should I just try the chocolate — how often do you have fondue?”

Arrrrgggggh!

Come on, I wanted to scream. Stop with the damn food thoughts.

This soon escalated into, “why am I still having these thoughts? What is the matter with me? Why can’t I just commit to no sugar and no flour and stay with it? I am NEVER going to reach my weight goals. I am NEVER going to be able to do this.” All I can think about is how far I still have to go.

Yeah, I need to give myself a break.

It’s normal. The problem with focusing on how far I still have to go, is that it keeps me from seeing how far I’ve come.

Honestly, I suck at giving myself credit for the things I’ve achieved in BLE. Sigh.

Here is what I’ve accomplished:

— I can now go 4-6 hours pretty easily without overwhelming hunger. When I get up in the morning, I’m not ravenously hungry and it’s easy to wait until 7 for breakfast. For my first six months trying to do BLE, the hunger was nearly constant and interfered with my life. Looking back at my journal, I was usually hungry within 1-2 hours after a meal. For months.

— I no longer crave dessert after lunch and after dinner. It rarely even occurs to me. I went most of my life with a constant, everyday dessert habit so this is a massive change.

— Fresh vegetables now taste delicious. When I think of what I’d like for dinner, the meals that pop into my head are the ones with lots of veggies. Never thought that’d be possible.

— I've learned to love tons of new kinds of veggies, like roasted broccoli and grilled corn and crunchy fresh cabbage. I used to only eat carrots, sugar-snap peas and bell peppers — and then, only rarely.

— I've gotten into a regular meditation practice. I actually lookforward to it and do 10-20 minutes of meditation daily

— I notice little things throughout the day to be grateful for. Knowing that I will be writing down 3 gratitudes every night keeps me aware of them during the day. It’s a huge thought-process change.

— I'm giving my body nutrients it needs to be healthy and strong. Giving myself the gift of a longer life and a greater possibility of avoiding diseases that often hit people whose diet is heavily in sugar, flour, and processed foods.

— I've saved a ton of money by packing my own lunch (and even dinner) regularly rather than grabbing a restaurant meal.

I’ve come far since October 2016. So I’m giving myself credit for all these achievements. Yes, I still have a long way to go. And yes, I'm still strugging to get squeaky clean bright lines every day. But I’ve come pretty far and that deserves a little pat on the back.