How was your week?

How do you answer the question? Does that answer change depending on who is asking you?

You have an amazing week which includes attending sporting event of your favorite team you eat the yummy tailgate food and you get to spend quality time with your son. You attend a concert and you run into friends you haven’t seen in forever and you had some delicious but somewhat high calorie food and a few cocktails. You spend a day babysitting your grandson and rolling on the floor and playing all day long. You hike to the top of that mountain, then go get nachos and margaritas afterwards. You go out to dinner with your husband and good friend and order that ooey gooey dessert. Later in the week when catching up with your best friend they ask: “How was your week”? What’s your answer?

• 

You have an amazing week which includes attending sporting event of your favorite team you eat the yummy tailgate food and you get to spend quality time with your son. You attend a concert and you run into friends you haven’t seen in forever and you had some delicious but somewhat high calorie food and a few cocktails. You spend a day babysitting your grandson and rolling on the floor and playing all day long. You hike to the top of that mountain, then go get nachos and margaritas afterwards. You go out to dinner with your husband and good friend and order that ooey gooey dessert. You go to your weekly weigh in or meet up with your support group and the question is asked: “How was your week”? What’s your answer?

• 

Do you allow your weight to determine how you feel about a particular experience? Is that the first thing on your mind when you are telling the story of your week?

When I first started my healthy journey, I found that sometimes I answered this question differently when asked by a coach or leader rather than a friend when describing my week. That was because my focus was on losing weight. So that must be the measure we use to determine our success and/or happiness – right? WRONG. One day it hit me that my weight has absolutely nothing to do with the enjoyment and memories derived from the previous week. Day, weeks, years from now when I reminisce about a special memory with my son, or grandson or another beloved family member or friend, I am not going to also register oh, I lost a pound or I gained 3 pounds that week. I am going to relive the moments and feelings of the time spent with them. Period!

Why is the food front and center in our minds if we think we made a bad choice? Or even made a good choice, that we still feel needs an “excuse”? Why do we try to justify a certain choice we’ve made to someone else, or ourselves for that matter? If food is the beginning of the story, good or bad, so be it.. but if it only finds its way to the beginning of the story when you perceive it as a less than stellar choice, perhaps some repositioning is in order. Most of my stories include food, but I’m good with that, it is part of the experience, and while I will allow what I ate to enhance the story, I will not allow it to detract from the experience.

So I ask you again… How was your week? Mine was freaking awesome! Namaste.