6 Days On, 1 Day Off

In 1999, my sister and brother-in-law gave me the book "Body for Life" by Bill Phillips.  I was getting into fitness for the first time, and I read it, cover to cover.  I gave away my copy years ago so I can't refer to it directly, but what I think I remember is that you eat six smaller meals a day, with a serving of protein, a fist-sized serving of some complex carbohydrate, and a lot of vegetables.  If you do this faithfully for 6 days out of the week, on the 7th day you eat whatever you want... and as much as you want.

Since getting back on to SparkPeople in the New Year, I've been tracking my nutrition every day, with the exception of Sunday.  I wanted one day to not have to worry about it.  Sunday the 7th, I did pretty well in terms of eating healthfully even though I didn't track every calorie & nutrient.  However, on Sunday the 14th, I decided I had done well for 13 days and I was going to eat whatever I wanted.  This included nearly an entire bag of Craisins and a lot of those mint chocolate chips that were in the pantry.  (Remember my "Resisting the Baking Frenzy" post?)  I have no idea how many grams of sugar I ate, but it was a lot, and I also had 2 glasses of wine that evening.

The result was that I woke up not feeling all that great.  I don't think I did any great damage, but I definitely noticed a difference in the way I felt.  Is this how I used to feel all the time and just didn't realize it?

I still think I will do 6 days on, 1 day off in terms of tracking, but I will try to make smarter choices on my day off.  I need to keep in mind JannieWannie's quote from my blog entry yesterday - about each day renewing my commitment to my health.