Some days are crazy. There used to be an inverse relationship between the craziness of my days and the quality of my food choices. The more crazy the day, the lower the quality of my choices.
This is something we can work to conquer. If your choices are only on point when life feels manageable and predictable, you’re in big trouble.
Here’s what I know to be true for myself: my choices need to be the highest quality on my craziest days.
The crazy days are when it matters most.
Crazy days can mean different things: high emotion, high stress, lots of pressure, tons of projects, travel, unexpected problems & challenges. You know how it goes.
For most of my life, I’d use those crazy days to justify over indulging, not working out and cutting the corners of self-care. Inevitably, I felt more stressed and more unhappy as a result of my less-than-stellar choices.
I’m certainly not going to make the crazy days go away, but I can use them as an opportunity to practice making the best possible nutrition, fitness and self-care choices.
Today is a crazy day. It’s Fat Loss Fast Track launch week (registration opened yesterday for the summer session) so my inbox is blowing up, I have live webinars 4 days out of 5, my spring groups are still going on and I have to keep up with normal Primal responsibilities like the podcast, blogs, emails, and the Daily Motivations Podcast.
Where is the time for me? Where is the time for taking great care of myself? I have to make it.
Here are some of the strategies I personally use to conquer the crazy days:
- Wake up early and do the most important thing first
- Have my food ready to go – I don’t want to lose time to cooking & cleaning when I’m already stretched thin
- Make time to workout
- Meditate, no matter what, even if my only opportunity to do so is in the shower
- Dress in a way that makes me feel confident & beautiful (no lounging around without a bra in clothes that are too big)
- Choose a great attitude
The other thing that has been super helpful to me is reminding me that though it’s tempting to “treat” myself with food on hard day, it will absolutely make me feel worse. Without a doubt, making awesome food choices will make me feel better than making average food choices.
On crazy days I want to feel my best, so I think hard about what makes me feel my best and I make time for those things.
I had every reason in the world to skip today’s workout, which makes it even more important to me to make time for it.
Deadlift
Build to a Heavy Set of 3Then,
“Optimus Prime”
AMRAP 7:
Wallballs* (20/14#)
*EMOM: 5 Deadlifts (225/155)
This workout felt AWESOME. I was so proud of myself and I felt empowered and happy as I left the gym. Now it’s my job to find ways to carry that joy & empowerment through the rest of this day crazy day.
I’ll do that by doing only what MUST be done today and saving everything else for a less crazy day.
I’ll do that by meditating. I’ll do that by making the very best food choices possible. I’ll do that by taking a walk and spending a few minutes in the sun.
On the food front:
I was doing some heavy lifting this morning – sets of 3 deadlifts at 245 lbs – so I was feeling really hungry after my workout. I was very happy to have my cobb salad around 10am.
I broke up my lunch into two smaller meals since tonight will be a late night – my webinar doesn’t start until 9pm. At 1pm I had a few grilled chicken strips and at 3:30pm I had spaghetti squash with meat sauce.
Dinner was around 6:30pm (a little later than normal because of my late webinar) and it was steak frites (with sweet potato fries). All the food I ate today was from Paleo Power Meals. If you give them a try, be sure to use the coupon code ebprimal20 to save 20% on your first order!
PS: If you’re new to these posts, listen to this podcast episode to get the scoop on what changes I’m making in my life and you can start back at my first daily post here.