Rosemary  

Yes, I've been there more times than I care to remember and I know how you feel the morning after with your guilt hangover.   It's definitely a bummer but a natural consequence of letting yourself go despite days, weeks, maybe months of great behavior.  Then wham, you do yourself in and lose control.

If this hasn't happened to you yet, hang in there, it will.  You will go on an eating binge or an eating indulgence every now and then because it not only goes with the territory,  it's also natural to take a few steps backward while you are learning.

You've done this your entire life, we all have.  We didn't start out knowing how to walk, tie our shoes or dress ourselves.  It took practice, focus, and work until we got it right, until we stopped falling down or putting our clothes on backwards.  We made progress, then we fell back on old habits, began again, progressed, then back.  And on and on until the progress far exceed the repetition of old habits and eventually, we mastered our new skill. 

And its no different with weight loss and dieting.  You should expect yourself to be human, like everybody else, and stop using setbacks either as a sledgehammer against you or as an excuse to quit your efforts to control your eating.  

What you do with your setbacks and how you handle the guilt hangover is critical to maintaining the positive direction  you were on up until the slip. 

I have some tips to help you deal with guilt but first, I want you to read a short story which holds a tremendous metaphor for all of life's issues.  You need to savor and digest its message because if you accept and apply it, everything in your life will change. 

A Tale of Two Wolves (unknown author)

An old Cherokee was teaching his grandchildren about life.  He told them about a battle that was raging inside him. 

He said to them, "A battle is raging inside me.  It is a terrible fight between two wolves.  One wolf represents fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, jealousy, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego. 

The other stands for joy, peace, love, happiness, harmony, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, forgiveness, and faith."

The old man fixed his eyes upon the children with a firm stare.  "The same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person, too."

The children thought about it for a minute and then one child asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?"

The old Cherokee replied,  "the one you feed."

Which wolf will you feed? Guilt or forgiveness?  You have a decision to make right now.  You can either use the information you just read or not.  If you understand the division within your own self, one wanting change desperately, the other fighting change desperately to keep you the same, your choice becomes either feed the guilt by allowing it to rage against you, demoralize and ultimately defeat you, or accept the guilt, allow it, detoxify it and move on.  

The thoughts you choose feed only one wolf.  It is your decision. 

I didn't say it was easy but you will succeed if you practice, practice, practice.  You will detoxify your guilt by simply allowing it.  That takes away its power to pummel you over and over.  Look, you can't change the past, what happened happened, but you can change how you respond to it.  If you stop resisting the fact that you overate or binged nonstop, whatever it was, and  just tell yourself that you're like a toddler learning to walk all over again, falling down but still learning, still making progress despite setbacks, it will allow you to move forward and continue on your journey.  Let go of your guilt, tell yourself what's done is done and you'll work on doing better next time.  Think of your two wolves.  Feed the one you want to grow stronger.  Feed yourself compassion and forgiveness no matter how many times it takes.  You get stronger every time. 

You don't have to like what happened and you can tell yourself that you don't like how you behaved and promise to work on helping yourself to avoid doing this again.  Then let it go and continue to make your life better by making better choices.  You always have that power.  To make different and better, life-serving choices.

I hope you enjoyed this blog.  If you would like to read more blogs from me, based on both my personal experience and business weight loss program for women,  send me your email at rosemary@greatest-diet-tips.com

I really have great information to share and I would love to hear from you.

My best to you,
Rosemary