I hate holidays, vacations, family gatherings and nights out with the girls. That's a total lie, but the truth is that afterwards, sometimes, I am in this crazy crap eating funk. I try not to spend my life counting calories, points or anything else that lends itself to obsessive behavior, but I do work to maintain a healthy lifestyle. I put thought and care into what I eat and hit the gym regularly, but then there are those little spurts of ill-balanced eating that send everything out of whack.

To all the talking heads who say eating well needs to be a lifestyle, not a diet, I say, "Yeah, I got that, thanks." It's not a chore to eat healthy, but junk food happens, and sometimes it happens for days/weeks at a time. It's getting out of the junk-funk without launching into the evil self-deprecating diet mindset that's the hard part. My initial instinct is always to pretty much berate myself into submission, which never works. Telling myself I'm a worthless, snack-eating monster will not make me want to head to spin class; it will, however, make me want to eat myself into a coma. Old adages, like "A moment on the lips equals a lifetime on the hips," espoused by blue-haired ladies everywhere, cause me great anxiety. I don't want a food mantra, I don't want to berate myself, I just want to get back to normal.  And, as cliché as it all may seem, here's how the process usually goes:

First, I have to accept that I've already eaten all this stuff. It's already set up shop in my colon and there's really nothing I'm going to be able to do about it. I need to just get over it. The food is not evil. I am not evil. I ate something. Oh, my goodness, how dare I? 

Next, I need to actually stock up on good foods. Usually these spurts of bad eating come when I'm really busy, don't have time to cook or shop regularly, and my mental and physical health are the first to lose out in the battle of time management. No one will begrudge you the opportunity to buy food, and if you're blowing someone off to hit the supermarket, you don't have to tell them that you prefer the company of frozen fish to theirs, just tell them you have something to do. Since we are no longer a society of hunters, consider yourself lucky that a trip to Whole Foods is a lot less taxing on your time than stalking a water buffalo. If all else fails, you can even order groceries online from an increasing number of stores.

I do not swear off snack foods. That's the first step in crazy land for me; if I swear myself off of something it's the only thing I can think about it. I have a junk food system: I don't buy junk food when I grocery shop. I stick to a list. But, if I want a cookie, a cookie I shall have, but I have to leave the comforts of home, walk to a store, buy a cookie and bring it back.

Another problem is that the junk-funk is often coupled with the "Gym? What's that?" funk. When I eat crap, I feel like crap and when I feel like crap, I nap. Getting back into the fitness end of things is so vital to keeping this whole machine I call my life going. If it's only been a week, I can usually jump right in where I left off; if it's more than that I'll increase my walking and only go to the gym a couple of times a week for a week or so, until I feel like my body no longer feels like the inner workings of a Slurpee machine. After that it's business as usual.

Will I ever again have a lapse in judgment that tells me that a Slim Jim is a good source of protein? Uhh, I hope not, but the answer is probably yes, and even if I have two processed meat sticks it's not the end of the world, just a seriously gross lunch. It's all completely normal. Or, at least that's what I tell myself.