A friend was beating herself up today for letting her emotions get the best of her brain.  This beautiful, amazing woman has been working so, so hard on her body for the past several months and making great gains.  Yet today, she had a slip-up.  Some bad news had her fighting with herself, until she gave in and ate the cookie dough.  Yup, cookie dough.

Now, what’s bad about that isn’t that she gave in.  What’s worse is that the whole time and afterward she felt ashamed and awful about herself for not being able to resist.  Sound familiar?  Many of us have been there.  We have to understand that we’re only human, forgive ourselves, mentally set a plan for next time, then set about rectifying the damage.  Which, bless her heart, she was able to do.  When she got over her self-loathing and took responsibility for her body she strapped on her running shoes and headed out the door.

I’m not saying eat what you want whenever you want and you’ll be saved by Chalean Extreme!  But if you hold on to your negativity you will continue to secrete cortisol which encourages fatty acid retention.  If you FORGIVE yourself for an OCCASIONAL slip, and remind yourself how you will handle it better the next time (turning a negative into a positive), then take your body and move it in a way that makes you happy, you CAN mitigate the effects of a backward step.

Don’t look back, baby.  Keep your eyes on the prize:  good health and a functional, fit body!

(This was originally posted on my beachbodycoach.com/teammona blog on April 30, 2010)