Tomorrow is Another Day...

This mantra really saved Scarlet O'Hara's sanity on more than one occasion. But for me, in this weight-loss journey, it amounts to nothing but a ginormous cop-out of epic proportions. I find myself at the end of most days, looking back on hours of poor eating choices and saying, "well, tomorrow is another day, after all; I'll do better tomorrow." And true, saying this to yourself every once in awhile is not a big deal; in fact, it is healthy, and probably good for a healthy lifestyle to allow yourself indulgences every once in awhile. But daily? If you're saying "Tomorrow is another day" to yourself daily, I think we can all agree that you're doing it wrong!

I tend to do really well until about 4pm. I can do the healthy breakfast, the mid-morning snack and sensible lunch. That's easy. But there are eleventy billion hours between lunch and dinner, and one handful of almonds and a piece of string cheese don't seem to cut the hunger, you know? And then there's the 3.5 year old who neeeeeeeeeeeeeeds snacks and is too little to hunt and gather them on his own. I do try to make his snacks healthy--fruits, whole grains, and whatnot, because a.) he should have healthy snacks, and b.) I am no fool; I know that for every one cracker he eats, I will be eating three. or four. So if I load him up on sugary snacks, I am loading myself up on them as well.

My problem is not really what I am eating, most days. It is the sheer volume of what I'm eating, apparently. Given the seemingly geological age that passes from lunch to dinner, I should sit down to dinner ravenous. But most of the time, I sit down to dinner with barely room to spare in my tummy because of all the munching I've done in the few hours leading up to dinner.

Also? I can rationalize just about anything. That cooking class on Friday night? Clearly I HAD to eat some of everything put in front of me. To the point that driving home I had to unzip the jeans (granted, they were my smallest pair of jeans, but still...that is the drive o' shame if ever there was one). And the dinner party on Saturday night? Well, when a friend brings a cheesecake for dessert, it is just rude not to partake, right? And when she leaves said cheesecake at your house, it is rude not to continue to partake until it's gone, right? If nothing else, I have good manners. Thus, I will eat the entire cheesecake, right?

Actually, yesterday afternoon I did manage to throw away a large portion of the remaining cheesecake (and felt horribly guilty doing it, by the way), after cutting away the back, crusty end of what was left and saving it for later---because cheesecake crust? Might just be the only proof of G-d's existence that I really need.

And after all of these things, I find myself saying, "Well, tomorrow is another day." Except, somewhere in the back of my head I kind of already know that tomorrow? Is going to be just like today.

So my mantra has to change. I have to ditch the Scarlet O'Hara optimism/procrastination and embrace a more Rent-esque "No Day But Today" attitude. The song is about how you can't really control what's going to happen tomorrow, but you can live today in the moment, making it count.

My attitude needs to change from the idea that "I can just start this whole process over again tomorrow", to "I need to make today matter and make choices today that I can feel good about." Because the reality is, going to be every night thinking, "oh well, tomorrow is another day," really doesn't do a lot for the old self-esteem, you know? It would be awesome to go to bed at night feeling like I did the right thing, made good choices and treated my body with the respect it deserves.

So, deep breaths. No day like today...