Baked Potato

One of the sessions I attended at the Orange Conference was called How People Change. The speaker, Carey Nieuwhof, said – among many things – that incremental change brings incremental results.

Small changes = small results.

He was talking about making changes in churches, but my brain immediately applied that theory to weight loss. In my never-ending attempts to lose weight, I try to be practical. I make one or two small adjustments to my everyday habits and truly believe I’m going to drop major pounds. You know, the habits that landed me at this particular spot on the scale?

So, inspired by Niewuwhof’s words and Made to Crave by Lysa Terkeurst, I decided last Sunday to give up carbs for two weeks. Well, not all carbs. I’m not giving up fruit (especially now that they’re zero points on Weight Watchers!).

My plan was to start on Monday. I lasted for about 10 hours. Then I devoured an enormous, smothered baked potato and polished off more mini muffins than I care to share.

The problem was that I hadn’t planned any meals – or gone shopping for any non-flour-based foods. And, to be honest, I don’t really know how to cook meals without carbs. Faced with all that, I panicked.

“What should I make for dinner? I’m going no-carb, so I have to fix something without carbs. Ummm…okay, chicken. Do I have any chicken? I didn’t thaw out any chicken! What about spaghetti? NO! Duh! Carb City! Okay, then maybe we could do pizza? Right. No. Pizza has carbs. What doesn’t have carbs? What is a carb? I can’t go no carb!!!

Yeah, it went pretty much like that.

Later, after I calmed down (and yes, sat on the couch in a muffin-induced carb coma), I realized that Mondays are simply made for failure.

Every time I start anything new, I try to do it on Monday. Up until bedtime on Sunday, I’m living it up – eating badly, not exercising, yelling at my daughter, not reading my Bible, ignoring the laundry, whatever it is that I’m giving up the next morning. And then I expect myself to flip a switch the moment the calendar turns over a new week.

When I do that – expecting perfection just because the day is called Monday instead of Thursday or Saturday or anyday – I’m setting myself up for failure.

Am I the only one who does this? Are your Mondays made for failure?

P.S. I spent some time this past weekend planning meals without carbs, and so far – two days into a new week – I’m hungry, but eating well!

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