EBB AND FLOW
It’s funny to me when I see instagram posts about “being good” during the holiday season.
These posts assure us it is “okay” to eat that one slice of pie. (Thanks for your permission?)
It’s no doubt that this time of year we are going out more, eating decadently, probably drinking more too.
I guess my question is, what happens if…
...you don’t “follow the rules”?
...you eat sugar cookies for three days straight and not just one?
...you can’t maintain your workout schedule?
Welp, I think you gain weight?
Which perhaps, if you had been losing weight for a while or progressively taking steps to be in better health, might be discouraging. Otherwise it should be okay though, right?
In theory, when we eat foods that are high in fat or sugar and exercise less we may feel more sluggish and therefore worse about the state of our being. Often times though, I think we feel worse when we gain weight because of external messages. External messages tell us that gaining weight, equates to us being a failure for not being consistent. External messages tell us that we need to “work off the holiday weight”, like it’s an evil parasite.
There are so many hours in the year you can spend doing “all the right things” like practicing healthy habits, exercising five days a week and eating well for breakfast, lunch, and dinner...but none of that really matters if it starts to feel like an extra burden. The holiday season is a time to pause and reconnect and be joyful with others. It’s a time to give and make memories and be grateful for life. There are always lots of things to do or be done, and we are only human...
The most helpful thing that I’ve come to accept, is that my mind, body, spirit, health… all operate in a series of ebb and flow.
The way my body looks, fluctuates based on what kind of exercises I am currently doing most and so I go with it. Some periods have been more productive than others this year. I’ll have strings of days when I feel super creative and months when I don’t. There have been instances when I neglected groceries because I didn’t have time and my meals aren’t great and my health is affected by that too..but, my life isn’t a straight line on a graph, steadily shooting upwards. Neither is yours.