Sometimes its easy to live a life of health. Sometimes it is really hard. You never know which one will be the reality. I have some patients who have shared failure after failure with me. What kind of failures? All of them.
It might be diet, it might be exercise, staying committed to chiropractic or sleep. What is it for you? One, all? Well, it is good to hear my folly once and awhile, as I think it is good for me to see the falter of the disciples, or to hear my pastor share his difficulties. The point is to see that masters, experts, or those otherwise deeply entwined in their teaching, will also falter.
I just came off of six weeks of the advanced plan (aka – the healing diet), finishing with a pseudo suero cleanse where I ate a blended meal a day (trying to maintain protein levels right now for shoulder healing). I did a good job of being committed. But then, the wellness retreat. The whole idea, is to teach wellness, and not to guilt these people into life change while there, but to give them the tools to plan a time to attack at least 40 days of this diet, if not 80 or 100.
Enter, the dining room of the High Hampton Inn. First off, I have been full on healing deit at this retreat in the past. My wife did it without error in October of last year on her way to 4 ½ months of this. So it is possible. But hard. The reason, they give amazing options at every single meal. It wasn’t difficult to avoid pancakes, and waffles, and fresh baked biscuits scones and the like. I had no problem avoiding breaded meats at lunch or dinner. But the options for dessert. I really enjoyed trying the desserts.
Now, if you have heard me talk, you should know that I do enjoy the dessert. When I am in core plan, which is now, the dessert is where I prefer to add my sugar calories. Where you might prefer breads or pastas, or crackers, or cereals, or oatmeal, or whatever. I prefer to gain my sugar through dessert. Which isn’t a problem, as I am on the core plan.
But it became a problem when I had two, then one for lunch, and one for dinner, and a cookie later. My point, is that the simple rule which I always use, failed me. Two extra sugars in a day, outside of the high glycemic fruit (which I will allow two per day as well. Well, I was hitting six and seven easily (mostly because I was eating grapefruit at breakfast with strawberries and blueberries). Meaning, the total glycemic load was too high.
So, my parting paragraph to you. ONE – you should really plan to join me in October, and we’ll all hold a better line of what we eat together. This place is an absolutely amazing place, and all will fall in love with it. Period. TWO – expect to fail, but expect to succeed as well. Now that this failure has taken place, I am going to be pretty darn perfect for the next week with my diet. Exercise increases for me naturally when I eat like this, you should think the same way. Fall in love with your exercise routine (if you haven’t tried CrossFit yet, now is your time, too many people fall in love with it, for you not to try it).
And THREE – If you find you are always failing at your goals, then the problem is you. You need to make a decision that your commitments will be greater than your feelings. Done. I love and adore all of you who make effort towards commitment each week. It is a great thing to be working on the project of self. Be well and be strong! – Dr. E