My wife and I visited the Bristol Balloon Fiesta for a long weekend with my family. We really enjoy camping and watching the balloons go by, and I made the decision to add extra cheat days so that I could really enjoy myself. To minimise the damage I knew that I’d have to be strict with myself the rest of the week (which I mostly managed), but it still resulted in a 5.5lb weight gain.
I found it really hard to accept intentionally putting on weight that I have worked so hard to lose
I’m not surprised by the huge gain, the extra cheat days were Thursday and Friday, so three cheats in a row before weighing on #faturday is not going to look good on the scales, plus a lot of alcohol was drunk, which leads to huge water retention.
What I found really difficult though, is the dread I felt even before the cheat days. I knew I wanted to let loose, but I found it really hard to accept intentionally putting on weight that I have worked so hard to lose.
Although it felt like a backward step, I can justify it easily, occasional breaks are natural, and living like a monk is an unattainable target, but it still messes with my head, in fact I struggle to really understand exactly what I’m feeling. Is it disappointment in myself? Shame maybe? I don’t think it’s as simple as being disappointed in the weight gain, it feels like some sort of failure I guess.
It’s probably a useful feeling to some degree. I don’t want to be cavalier about extra cheat days, in that direction fatness lies. So although I want to overcome this mental block and embrace some cheating, I must be mindful not to let “I can cheat for my birthday” become “it’s Friday, lets celebrate!”.
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