The Chimichanga Justifies Procrastination

Its 8:30 am now and I have already had my 2nd meal of the day. I am getting ready to have to leave soon to drive down to Mesa Arts Center for our district meeting. I know that this meeting is going to take about 3-4 hours so I made sure to bring my lunch box with all of my meals and my gallon of water. Yes I drink out of a gallon of water a day and yes, I actually bring it with to work.

As I get to the meeting, I am sure that my co-workers are staring at my funny because I have my gallon of water in one hand and my lunch box in the other. I’m sure they are wondering what in the heck I’m doing with this stuff, but I don’t care; by now I’m used to the jokes.

When the meeting is over, my co-workers are all in agreement that they would like to go out for lunch and since I car pooled, I’m obligated to the unanimous vote. But that’s no problem because I already got my workout in at 4 am this morning, so I’m not worried about using up my lunch hour and I have my meals with me. I let them chose amongst themselves about where they would like to go. I don’t need to have an opinion about where they are eating since I already have my food with me I don’t have to worry about eating somewhere that doesn’t offer food that I won’t eat. Of course everyone wants Mexican food. Mmmmm! I love Mexican food! That’s okay. I have my chicken and squash and I can pour some salsa over it to make it a little more “Mexican”.

While my co-workers order and dive into their entree’s (chimichanga) I bust out my tuperware of food and enjoy my meal as well. No one thinks I’m weird for bringing my own food. Actually, they complement for having such impressive self discipline and tell me how they wish that they could do the same thing. While I can appreciate that they are impressed by my discipline, I am asking myself, “why can’t they?” I didn’t do anything except plan! We’ve all heard the phrase “if you fail to plan, you plan to fail” but then why do they never plan?

Those plates of chimichanga’s were licked clean! And you know something? The people who ask for my help and guidance the most are the ones who somehow talked themselves into ordering that kind of a dish over a salad and ate the whole thing! One chimichanga has over 1100 calories in it!!! That’s not including the side of rice and beans that come with it and the non diet soda you ordered. Add that to it and now you’re near a 2100 calorie meal for lunch! No wonder why employees have lunch and are then tired and unproductive afterwards. They’ve just killed their metabolism! And somehow this behavior was justified because, “it’s Friday” or “we never spend time together outside of work”. After the meals have been devoured, I hear things like, “Oh, I’m so tired”, “why did I eat all that”, “that was so good”, “diet starts back on Monday”.

Monday? …Monday? Are you serious? You hate what you just ate, you feel guilty about it, but you’re going to sabotage yourself for two more days and start again on Monday? You just ruined your diet for the day but apparently Monday is the magic day that is going to get you back on track….. Why wait till Monday? Fix it and make corrections now! Don’t procrastinate! This has got to be one of my biggest pet peeves.

The only thing that waiting till Monday is going to do is allow you to eat more of the crappy foods that you know you shouldn’t have any way. You know you are going to eat more than you want to and the quality of your choices is going to be worse. You will more than likely talk yourself out of doing any exercise over the weekend as well. What’s the point, right? If you plan on waiting to get back on a “healthy diet” for the next two days you may as well wait to get on an exercise schedule as well. All of this will be okay with you because you are able to “justify” and make excuses for it before hand because you are telling yourself that you are going to “get back on track on Monday”. Really? Does this sound like anything that you have ever said or thought to yourself? How many times have you said this to yourself? How many times have you done this to yourself? Final question… how has that been working for you?

Let me tell you something; it doesn’t work! I know because I’ve been there! I used to do the same thing! I’d over eat on bad foods, feel guilty about it and tell myself that it’s okay I’ll start my diet again on Monday. Then the weekend would come and of course I’d eat whatever I wanted, justify my eating behaviors on the fact that “it’s okay, this is the last time I’m going to eat this for a while so I may as well get it in now”. Then Monday rolls around and I told myself that today is the day! (for the umpteenth time). Monday starts out great, I’m motivated and on a sugar high from my weekend of eating everything that I think I’m not going to get to eat for a while, but then, somewhere throughout the day I slip up; I eat a little something I shouldn’t, I miss a workout, etc. Since I’ve become such a good “justifier of my behavior” I figure that today is not the fabulous Monday that I thought it would be so since I already goofed, I may as well start full power again next Monday. Hello????? Does anyone see what is happening here? I just lost 7 days, gained more weight, and am emotionally beating myself up about how I just can’t stick to anything, all because I didn’t nip in the butt and get right back on track immediately!

If we procrastinated on everything else in life the way that we do with diet and exercise, our lives would be a disaster. If you’re a student and you have a paper due on Friday, but “life gets busy” and you turn it in on Monday… what kind of a grade would you expect to get? ” Those low grades are harder to pull up had you just turned your assignment in on time. If you had to make a credit card payment and you paid it late, you’d expect a late charge, right? Same thing with your body, if you over eat, under exercise and procrastinate on proper diet and exercise, you are going to gain more weight! Consider that your “late fee” or “lose of points on your graded paper. If you keep putting it off you are making more work for yourself later.

Procrastination is a sabatager. Don’t do it! If you know you need to make change, do it now! Your body needs to you to take care of it. What are you waiting for? There’s never going to be good time, a better time, a convenient time or enough time to make change, but you have to just do it!