Hold on tight! Dont fall off the wagon!

Hello everyone!

Well the weekend is here and I hope you all had a great week. I know mine was pretty wonderful, but its still nice when the weekend gets here. You get to see your friends and family and relax and have some fun. Its all great except for that feeling of guilt you feel when you go totally overboard with the food and drinks. By the time Sunday rolls around you feel as if your whole week of eating well and working out has gone to waste and now you have to start over to make up for the weekend of pigging out. Have you ever stopped to think about how much you consume in calories in your drinks alone? After I started my Challenge with Visalus, I started to watch my daily calorie intake. If you have a smart phone and would like an easy way to keep track of your calories daily, I highly recommend the myfitnesspal app. It is so easy and doesn't feel like work at all to keep track. It even scans bar codes so you don't have to look up what you want to add to your diary. I absolutely love it! Anyways, back to what I was getting at with the amount of calories in your drinks. I was sitting outside one afternoon, it was hot and sunny and one of those days where you just feel like having an ice cold beer and enjoying the weather. Well I was updating my diary of what I had to eat that day and what I did for exercise and then I thought I better add my beer to it. I never knew how many calories were in a beer, I just knew it wouldn't be a good number. Lol. Well I was right, I scanned the bar code on my can of Stella and it was about 187 or somewhere around there. I was like "What?!". Ya that is a lot of calories when you have about 3 or 4 when you are socializing with friends and end up drinking all evening. So I thought to myself I better start drinking smarter if I want to lose weight to get to my goal. And yes it is possible to drink smarter, not all alcoholic drinks are bad when it comes to calories. I have actually switched to either vodka and water with a wedge of lime or vodka and water with a splash of cranberry juice. You would think it would be gross with the water but you know what? It really isn't bad. Of course I still have an occasional beer but just when I know I am only going to have one. You have to still live a little right? Do you have any of your own suggestions to drinking smarter?

This past week I have been helping out a friend of mine. She is quite over weight and has been struggling to lose weight for quite a long time. Since I have been learning a ton about healthy eating and weight loss since I have joined Visalus as a promoter, she asked if I could help her by giving her advice about what foods to eat and exercise and is even interested in joining the Challenge as well. Its been a great feeling to help her out and I want to see her succeed. She shared with me a few of her struggles and its something that is so common, it happens to us all. I know its happened to me many times. Starting a diet and then crashing hard and falling off the wagon. So bad that you pig out and stuff your face as if you haven't eaten in a wk. She was telling me she was doing so well with her eating and exercise that she had lost some weight, and then out of nowhere had crashed and ate almost an entire bag of oreo cookies. Perfect example of falling off the wagon. I know that its happened to me, you have one bad meal or a bad weekend and feel so bad for it that you give up because you feel like a failure. And instead of getting right back up and continuing where you left off, you don't. You give up for awhile and then sometime down the line you try again. After doing this so many times myself, I finally thought to myself, why do I just give up after I've fallen off the wagon? I should just get back up and continue. So this is what I talked to my friend about. I told her if she has a bad day and feels like she failed and wants to give up on her diet, not too. To just start fresh the next day and keep at it. Otherwise she will never get where she wants and lose the weight and feel good about herself. I'm pretty sure I got through to her and that was a good feeling. It always helps when you have someone there to motivate you. :)

 So if you find yourself struggling with your diet and have fallen off the wagon, don't let the feeling of failure get you down and cause you to give up. That will just end up leaving you down and disappointed in yourself and obviously no closer to your goal. Just forget about it and act like it never happened and go on with your day. Trust me it feels much better then pigging out for a week after because you feel angry with yourself and then even more angry with yourself because you gained a few more lbs as a result of how you reacted to it.

That's all I have for you this evening, time for me to go make myself a yummy shake. Hope you all have a great evening and a wonderful weekend. If you would like receive news about Visalus or would like to check out my Visalus Facebook page check it out and "Like" my page. :) And if you are having any thoughts about joining me in the Challenge then check out my website at mardellryckman.bodybyvi.com. Its so much better not having to do it alone!

Mardell