Indulgence = Mental Breakthrough

Last night I hung out with some friends (I made dinner: healthy). We put on a movie and painted to a theme (I was terrible but it was awesome) and then we dragged our butts to the theatre at 10pm to watch Pitch Perfect 2 wherein I ate a bag of (small) popcorn, 2 peanut butter cups, and half a mounds bar. And you know what?

It was totally OK.

I ended up about 300 calories over my goal for the day. It was the first day in maybe two weeks that I've eaten back all my exercise calories (and then some). I ate healthy throughout the day. I went to the gym. We walked to the theater and back. I got a small popcorn without butter instead of the large with butter (even if we would have shared the large, I couldn't have seen just how much I was eating...i.e. most of it). I logged everything, choosing the higher calorie count options if there was multiple options.

I had a blast. I've hung out with these friends on days when I was within all my counts and still had a blast but last night was just so much fun.

Maybe most important is that I realized that for the first time I really, honestly believe I can do this for the rest of my life. I can have a night like last night without feeling like I've "cheated" and undone all my hard work. There are hard days, it's a definite struggle. I'm only 14 pounds down, I've got 25 more to go before re-evaluation. But it's a very, very good start for the way I want to live the rest of my life. I have never before felt this way when I've been dieting. Even when I was 100 pounds heavier and lost (and kept) that off, it still felt like I was waiting every day for it to creep back on.

I got up this morning and went to the gym. For the first time I hit 5 miles during my allotted time--at the resistance I've been upping since I started to push to be healthier. 30 days ago I was doing maybe 3 miles on a good day. I've gotten stronger, both in body and in mind.

And it feels great.