Monday, August 16, 2010

No Guilt and Perfection

I saw the movie Eat, Pray, Love this weekend. I read the book and thought it was ok but really liked the story behind it. It's a true story about the author who is unhappy in her current life/marriage and decides to take a year long trip to find herself. She goes to Italy to eat, India to pray and Bali to love.

The only thing I'm going to say about the movie is one part in Italy. Her friend and her are eating pizza and her friend doesn't want to eat it because she has gained 10 lbs. Liz (Julia Roberts) tells her that she is going to eat without guilt. She said that she is going to eat the rest of her pizza, they are going to go watch a soccer game and the next day, they are going shopping...to buy bigger jeans.

Now granted, we, who have struggled with our weight, are not going to just go off, eat whatever, wherever, gain a bunch of weight and buy new bigger jeans! But the message behind it was good. You should eat without guilt! Life is too short to be depriving yourself or feeling guilty of something that you want to eat.

This past weekend was not a great food one. Saturday, I did ok considering I was at a graduation party and they catered Mexican food!

Sunday, was not a good food day because we were going to Chicago Pizza and Oven Grinders for dinner because my brother and his girlfriend were in town. The "pizza" part is not traditional pizza. It's like a pizza pot pie. They use a bowl, put cheese (tons of it) at the bottom, the sauce, veggies, etc. are in the center and the crust is baked on top. Then when they serve it, they flip it upside down so the crust is the "bowl" and the cheese is on the top.

I wouldn't even begin to venture how many calories and fat is in it. Plus the huge Mediterranean bread with it! Calorie disaster. But I might only go there one or two times a year so after watching this movie Saturday night, I decided that I was going to "eat without guilt" on Sunday. I would get right back on plan Monday.

So that's what I did. Kind of. I tried to eat without guilt. But it's ingrained in the back of my skull that it's "bad". That's ok. I'll keep trying to not feel guilty about things. My mom and I walked about 1 mile before the place, 1 mile after eating and then we took the dog for a walk. I tried to not just sit! That's when you get into trouble! So I ate without guilt and I walked.

Today, I'm back on plan. I will try to be as good as possible this week but I'm not perfect!

That was the meeting topic at weight watchers this past week. It was about people trying to be perfect. When you try to be perfect and you slip-up, you feel like a failure and you want to give up. They were trying to stress that no one is perfect. Sometimes you have to fail in order to succeed.

By the way, I gained 1.8 last week (because I'm not perfect!) but I'm still at my goal of 160 so I'm doing good.

So I'll do the best I can for the remainder of the week. I may not be perfect but I'll succeed!

Are you a perfectionist? How do you handle it if things don't go "perfectly"?

4 comments:

  1. I am a perfectionist, bordering on OCD. I am better than I was, but there are some things that will just annoy me until I put them right.

    I think what made a difference for me, was seeing that being a perfectionist about certain things, didn't necessarily benefit me. Sometimes, things don't have to be perfect to just "work".

    Some things are worth being a stickler about. Others aren't and telling them apart can be tricky.

    That said, I do get a warm fuzzy feeling when things are exactly how I want them. I too, am a work in progress :)

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  2. love it, I must see this movie!

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  3. Mark, so true that some things don't work better when you are a perfectionist. The perfectionism gets in the way of the true, bigger picture.

    Kathleen, did you read the book? The movie was pretty good but I loved the Italy part since I've been to part of Italy, I love to see some of the scenes from there!

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  4. My motto for several years has been "PROGRESS, not Perfection" so I am fine with the imperfection thing!

    I really think a key to long-term successful healthy eating at a healthy weight is learning to appreciate really good food and enjoy it (and by extension also knowing when it's NOT that good and NOT worth eating...). I think it's a long, hard process of learning to get there, however.

    I blogged about Eat, Pray, Love yesterday, by the way.

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