187.0: After You've Met Your Goal

Then what?

I mean this seriously.  I've noticed that I'm a bit compulsive when I set goals that others can see/know about.  Like my goal to be 220 or less when I had my surgery in March.  I knew that they would weigh me the day of surgery and therefore I really really tried to get there, to the point of working out a couple of hours a day.

I joined the Holiday Challenge at the Y.  Weighed in 11/26/12 and had to weigh in by today to see if I got the shirt.  I haven't been working out, but I managed to lose 5 pounds in 6 weeks (most of it in the last week).  I got the shirt.

But today?  Today I feel like I've indulged and there is no goal or no one watching.

For breakfast I 6 ounces of Greek yogurt, 1/2 cup berries with it.
For lunch I had 1 cup tomato soup with 1/2 english muffin with a piece of low fat cheese on it.
Then I had 3 mini peanutbutter cups.
This afternoon I had about 10 small pieces of licorice.
Then I had a Special K pastry Crisp.
Then I had about 3/4 cup cucumbers/red pepper strips with about 3 ounces of hummus.

My mind thinks it's been eating all day long.  But when I log it in like that it's not bad.  Sure I could have chosen better with the peanut butter cups and the licorice.  But I followed up with fresh veg knowing that the sugar wasn't cutting it.  And it's not that terribly indulgent.  But I feel like it is.

I think I feel like that because I was very determined and limited my intake the last week to meals and very few snacks.  That is to say, my mind plays a trick in that it thinks I was better with eating last week when really it just may be that I was so limiting last week and I can't sustain that, so I start eating more to compensate.

It's a mind game.  Really it is.  I think some of it is about control and some is about meeting goals.  But it's definitely something I need to work on to be truly healthy.  It's ok to have snacks and indulge as long as it's not way out of balance from what I should be eating.  It's ok to try to stick to limited eating, but it needs to be be done in a healthy way.  Those are the things I need to keep working on.