Why cheating isn’t worth it

Yesterday we celebrated two friends’ birthdays that both had fabulously catered events. In anticipation of an unusual eating day I doubled by cardio exercise doing 40 minutes on the treadmill and had no carbs for breakfast.

Despite not being hungry I had more to eat than I needed to at the lunch and I know this because aside from obsessing about the food that I eat, I watch what others eat very carefully too and I was way ahead in the grazing stakes. The fact that the food was very delicious and interesting made it all the more difficult but the biggest difference was that I wasn’t eating a single plate of food but rather eating from platters as they arrived. This makes portion control very hard. A strategy for next time is to keep things on my plate until I have filled the plate and only then start to eat.

The evening event started with canapés being served with drinks and then main courses served to the table, family style. I noticed a growing sense of pleasure and pride each time I refused something being offered. One of my rules is to only eat while sitting at the table but the fact that everything was carb laden made it clearer for me what to refuse.

To say that I relaxed when it comes to eating dinner is an understatement. The mains – hot-smoked salmon and Asian-style steamed prawns with innovative salads, were incredibly delicious and I lied to myself that because I’d been virtuous by refusing the canapés I could have seconds and thirds.

If only this story ended here.

As I’ve reached my goal weight I’m more allowing than before in terms of what I eat and although I’d refused cheese during my initial phase, I’ve now started adding Woolies Low Fat Feta to my salads. I spied the cheese board and, just by looking at it, I knew this was a selection of cheese from France and probably cost a fortune. Yes, I’ve eaten fine French cheese before but I was overwhelmed with that Fear Of Losing Out and rationalised to myself that it would be a long while before again having such cheese available to me.  A connoisseur might have the tiniest piece of cheese to experience the flavour of it but as I’m a glutton I probably had half a kilo of cheese. And then the strangest thing happened. I was overwhelmed with disappointment at my failing – I felt shame that I had behaved just as I had promised myself I wouldn’t.  The extra calories I can deal with at the gym (and I went first thing this morning and did 40 minutes of cardio at an average 140 heart rate.) I still feel disappointed in myself and I have growing self-doubt that when faced with a similar situation I again won’t be able to refuse. I feel that I have cheated myself. I have been unfaithful to the promise I made myself and while I can fix the short term damage to my weight, I’m not sure how long it will take to trust myself again.