I had two old friends come to town to visit this weekend, which is always fun! However, I made the fatal mistake of ditching my whole diet altogether. Let me explain…
For the past 6 months, I have been eating a clean paleo type diet pretty consistently. I might have a cheat meal once a week, an occasional dessert, or maybe even some popcorn and candy at the movies. But nothing like this weekend. Let me see if I can recap real quick.
I had pancakes, a ton of Italian food (loaded with carbs), beer and wine, a ton of french fries, two huge breakfast tacos, more pasta, a big juicy burger with fried cheese, and to top it off we went to a Brazillian steak house where I ate a huge waffle and way too much meat! To make matters worse, throughout the weekend I was also constantly snacking on fudge!
Fast forward to today and I wake up feeling awful! I am sluggish, have a crazy headache, and have no will to do anything whatsoever. Even writing this post has been rough! It is just like an awful hangover, except I didn’t even go out drinking last night! I simply treated my body like crap.
This experience has made me realize something very important, though. Most times we try and improve ourselves, it comes gradually. And any gradual improvement is oftentimes hard to see at any given time.
When I eat healthily, it is hard to see the benefits. I certainly lost a lot of weight transitioning into a healthy lifestyle, but the energy, clearer mindset, and increased focus all came gradually. Because of this, it is hard to actually see those results.
Think about growing a plant; you may not notice how much it has actually grown even after months of progress. But if your friend is growing a plant and you only see it once a month, then the growth is much more obvious.
“Eating complete garbage all weekend is my own
personal version of seeing
the plant after months apart.”
What I really want to share today is that if you are taking on the challenge of eating a healthy diet for any reason, don’t give up! If it is to lose weight, gain more energy, increase your mental clarity, or just prolong your life, then never ever give up! There are certain days you may not see the benefits, and there are certain days you still might feel tired. But believe me, the benefits are there! They are gradual and sometimes harder to see until you take time to sit and reflect on your progress.
Don’t give up! Keep learning, trying, and growing!
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A version of this post was previously published on medium.com and is republished here with permission from the author.
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Talk to you soon.
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