I Chose Poorly

I’m envisioning the knight in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade right now, telling me that I chose poorly.  Yesterday was a hyper-stressful day at work.  I’ve been tasked with working on a project that I hadn’t planned on, and I’m struggling to fit it in the schedule and to get access to all of the information that I need to complete it.  I wrote before about the Zen Habits blog post where the author stated that we feel overwhelmed because we’re trying to live up to an ideal, and if we just give up that ideal we’ll be better off.  However, my father has always made it clear to us that it’s not alright to do a “half-assed” job on anything; that you must give everything your all.  He used to love to quote Yoda to us, “Do, or do not.  There is no try.”  I think this is why I’ve always had such a strong work ethic...and why I’ve always dealt with so much stress and self-induced pressure.

Requests were coming in fast and furious yesterday at work and I was getting really frustrated with people who, in my estimation, should have known better than to ask me for information that’s never been made available to me.  So I found my stress level escalating until it reached a pretty unhealthy point.  Instead of pulling out the guided meditation exercises that I have, or going for a walk around the building (although given yesterday’s snow and wind, that might have been a little difficult), or reaching for any number of other healthy and productive methods of stress reduction; I ate.  A lot.  I got taquitos and corn chips from Baja Fresh for lunch and ate ALL of them.  I ate 6 squares of dark chocolate.  I ate a serving of Whole Foods brand of corn nuts.  I capped it all off with jelly bellies after dinner which was Salisbury Steak, noodles, and brussels sprouts.  (Side note:  My husband makes the most delicious baked brussels sprouts, even the kids love them and pop them like candy).

I recognized that I was using the food as a coping mechanism while I was eating it, but that didn’t change the fact that I continued to eat.  It made me feel like my self-control must be stunted somehow.  Although I’ve read before that we humans only have so much self-control that we can exercise, that it’s like a muscle and when it gets fatigued it’s harder to exert self-control.  This is why some nutritionists recommend eating the same meal everyday for breakfast, because the fewer choices you have to make, the more self-control you’ll have leftover for the times that you really need it.  Maybe I had just used it all up on not screaming at any of my co workers yesterday, so I had nothing left when it came time to make food choices.  Or maybe I’m just making excuses for the stunningly poor choices I made yesterday.

The good news is that when I stood on the scale this morning, I’d actually lost half a pound.  I don’t think I’ve discovered some new secret to losing weight, I think I just got really lucky because I had been eating so well up until that point.  So last night I did pull out the guided relaxation for bedtime, unfortunately I still didn’t sleep well (I’m starting to feel like a zombie).  This morning I got up and did a Pure Barre workout.  When I first start the exercises where you move only an inch, it feels like it couldn’t possibly be a real workout.  But it’s isometric, and by time the same muscle groups have been engaged for two full minutes, I can definitely feel it.  I ate a healthy breakfast and Iunch, both of which I prepared in advance.  I chose to reframe the way I’m thinking about this work project and to just stop worrying about it.  I’m doing my best with the tools that I have and if anyone wants to knock me for it then that’s their issue, and I don’t choose to take it on.  So another course correction was necessary.  I guess this is just part of the human condition.

Image courtesy of IMDB