Practice Makes Perfect Progress: eating normally for your goals.

Like with any skill eating “normally” for your goals requires practice, particularly if you have a history of disordered eating.  We don’t try anything else and expect to get it right straight away and think we’ve failed if we don’t.  We expect to have to learn and practice. When you are looking to change or modify the way you eat, you can expect the same. 

Repetition makes things easier and second nature.

I play/ed a variety of musical instruments and only progressed through practice and would never say I reached perfection, despite getting to grade 8 on the cello…. equally I wouldn’t expect to play now and be at the same standard after 25 years of not playing at all!

Recognising Progress has Been Made

I just back from a week’s “seminar” (read jolly) with my husband and 130 or so other delegates from the construction industry and finally feel like the habits I’ve been practicing have stuck.

Before we went away I had my normal crises of confidence about being in a swimming costume around the pool but had also thought about the food situation. I was right in assuming there would be lots of temptation.

One thing I had decided to do before I went was to use a starter plate for mains as well, but we got to the buffet restaurant on the first night and there was only one size plate on offer

I had a minute of panic!!

And then told myself I could control this:

–  you don’t have to eat everything!!

–  you can take a little and always go back for more if you want.

I located the fish, salads and veg sections and ignored everything else and followed my rules of eating slowly and until satisfied and all was good.

This set the tone for the whole week – despite eating in some rather lovely restaurants I didn’t over eat at all. I drank only water (lots of it) and coffee during the day (apart from the last day – you’ve got to have at least one cocktail by the pool) and a few drinks in the evening.

Believing Progress has Been Made – finally!

Encouragingly I didn’t find it hard and I didn’t feel deprived. I was frequently the last to finish and didn’t feel compelled to eat everything on my plate.

So, we had a great week away, some fab food and local delicacies (baklava) sampled but no weight gain and more importantly I felt in control the whole time.

Keep plugging away and those habits really do become 2nd nature.

So, with practice things get easier, perfect, probably not, but certainly easier.

Instead of striving for perfection, which is impossible, I’ve adopted the motto practice makes perfect progress.