Failures and a Great Day

I have this thing with being 100% or nothing when it comes to my food. It's super ridiculous but for whatever reason, I want to hold myself to a perfect standard when it comes to food but not in anything else. I am the FARTHEST thing from a perfectionist and as Mr. Barefoot often says, I don't have an OCD bone in my body. I just wasn't made to see the details...I'm a big picture gal, an emotions and in the moment feeler... if you're into enneagrams, I'm a 7. Always moving onto the next fun thing.. if this doesn't bring me fun, why do it?
So why is it different when it comes to food? Why do I all of a sudden feel like if I have a chocolate bar or some chips with salsa that somehow I've ruined EVERYTHING?

I've been REALLY working on that mind set. Just because I was offered a piece of candy and accepted it doesn't mean the whole day is ruined. Just because the family went out for ice cream and I had a few bites doesn't mean I should start over on my challenge. Just because I had rice for dinner (with delicious coconut curry on top) doesn't mean my pants won't fit tomorrow.

I was reading somewhere that you should stick "on plan" eating wise 80% of the time. Now this isn't across the board. For example, if you have a peanut allergy and you only stick to not eating peanuts 80% of the time.. you might end up having a lot of ER visits and Epi-Pen jabs. Or, if you're doing something like the Whole30 where you are eliminating foods to see how your body responds you can't really do 80%.

I'm technically in the elimination phase of the P10 Diet, but I'm being gracious with myself. I know that if I start focusing on the fact that I wasn't 100% ON for dinner tonight that I'll feel miserable about myself and end up having a horrible day tomorrow eating all the chocolate and carbs I can find. Why? Because in my mind I failed. But did I fail? NO! I had some ice cream with my boys. We laughed, had Mom boys time, held hands, talked about the clouds. That's a WIN!
I had homemade coconut chicken curry over coconut rice. Was that a fail? NO! Today was a long day -  early morning, work out, walk to the park, cleaning, running errands, chasing kids, making meals, laundry and more.

My point is - give yourself grace! and give MYSELF grace. This is a hard time we're in. I feel like I should be able to hit all my goals because what's stopping me? We literally have no outside commitments - we are supposed to stay in our house. Everything has been cancelled. But it's still stressful.

Regardless of my thoughts on Covid-19 and how many its killing and my thoughts on whether everything should be shut down or not - it's STRESSFUL! How do you deal with stress? I am an emotional eater - when I'm stressed i just want to curl up on a couch, watch some stupid disney movie with a cup of hot chocolate (homemade of course) with pop corn and maybe some reeses peanut butter cups and some BBQ Potato Chips.....
Does that mean I get to do that every time I'm stressed? NOOOOOO! I think if I did that every time I have been stressed, I would be officially the world record holder for heaviest woman.

Was today a failure? No.

What was today?

Today I cuddled Little Love while getting my workout in. That included doing bridges, squats and burpees while holding her. Now THAT was a workout!

I cuddled with my girls after "ignoring" them for my 30 minute workout jam. They just needed to know that I was there for them. There was SO MUCH to do, but they needed to sit on my lap and physically feel that I had time for them.So, I did. 

We went on a walk - boys took their scooter and bike and I walked with the girls. By the way - I took over 20,000 steps today! That's a HUGE win! I just love Oragutan's sunglasses - she insisted on wearing them our whole outing today <3


I walked around barefoot, letting my feet feel the cold sidewalk, the warm sand, the textured wood chips. Wonderful getting my toes into dirt again!

Gymnast found the first dandelions of our season! My children love dandelions.When we find them in our yard, I make honey or jam from them but these were found at our local park where I know they spray with nasty chemicals, so these are just for looking at. But the kids were so excited to find them!

We ran all around this field, picking dandelions, rolling down the hills, playing chase, laughing and watching clouds.


Then we went home, I made grilled cheese and tomato soup for the kids (with homemade bread - I think the trick is to use bread that's not 100%whole wheat and cut it THIN!!) and then made myself some dahl and a veggie blend. 

The rest of the afternoon was full of errands including picking up a SCOBY from a friend and checking our local discount store for black tea AND a quick trip to Grandpa Yes's house to pick up his homemade goulash and eat ice cream!

So was today a failure? No, absolutely not. Today was a win! <3

I'm curious - if you could deal with your stress any way you wanted to without consequences of any kind, what would you do?