The observant among you probably noticed that I didn’t have a pants/shirt try-on post last Friday.  I will this Friday.

Last week brought a number of surprises with it; I had expected my oldest brother to come for a visit, but he brought my other brother with him.  What started out as a laid-back planned time with family turned bigger.  Wednesday night to Saturday was spent with both brothers, my mother,  and my daughter.

So, for one thing, I preferred to spend time with my brothers over trying on pants.  I made the decision in part because I went off-plan on Wednesday night.  That’s the “be reasonable” part of this post: even though I didn’t stay within my normal carb allotment, I was close on calories.  I kept my meals reasonable without going overboard just because I wasn’t on plan.

Sometimes, there’s the temptation, when going off-plan, to just say the hell with it and go for broke. Eat half that pizza, indulge in ice cream, order pancakes for breakfast with extra maple syrup. I did none of those things.  In many ways, I ate like how I think a person with a normal metabolism and no eating issues would eat; and just because I had the option of whatever food I wanted in front of me, I didn’t take that option. (We ate out just about every meal. I could have ordered whatever I wanted. I didn’t.)

Being reasonable also means accepting that there will be times that you have to change what you had planned, and if you do, remaining in control is always the best option.  It means not obsessing over whether a certain restaurant has anything you can eat, when in the long run, it’s more about the company than the food.  It also means the assumption that when things that have changed your course are no longer present, you go back to your routine, and it doesn’t become an excuse for letting cravings and bad judgment dictate your choices.

Finally, being reasonable also means that I have to accept there will be times in this (very long) journey that I may need to take a different path that delays weight loss.  So be it.  This is not a race.  Although I tend to be impatient with weight loss, there’s no deadline that says I have to have X amount of pounds off by a certain date.

So here I am.  Being reasonable, for me this past week, also meant being rational and letting my head decide my actions instead of my emotions. It was a great lesson to learn.