Here is something that continues to confuse me… Sunday. You know, the last day of the week & weekend. The entire day has always confused me for SO many reasons. I want that to change because I feel like many of us may not be living our best Sundays. That’s 1/7 of our life so it’s unacceptable to not take it seriously.

Let me start by going through the emotional stages of a Sunday

• 9 am (Excitement)

No work today! The weekend isn’t over yet and I still have another whole day off!!

• 10:30 am (Panic)

Have I gotten everything done that I wanted to get done this weekend? Am I prepared for the week ahead? Is the day almost over?

• 10:31 am (Joy!)

Who cares, I’ll do everything I need to do tomorrow, I still have a whole day off!!

• 1:00 pm (Denial)

Acting like I don’t have any responsibility tomorrow and this day will never end. Maybe I’m at brunch, maybe I’m watching football, maybe I’m 2 episodes deep into a Sister Wives marathon regardless I am content and Monday seems very far away.

• 4 pm: (Sheer Panic)

All of a sudden everything in my upcoming week comes crashing down onto my shoulders. Sunday blues kick in.

• 5 pm (Self Loathing)

I did nothing I was supposed to do. I am feeling sorry for myself that I never have enough time. I feel completely unorganized. The resolve to the truth that the upcoming week is going to suck.

• 8:30 pm (Positive)

I give myself one last burst of optimism, tomorrow is going to be great, everything is going to be great and I’ll do one or two things that make me feel like I did something.

• 10:30 pm (Quit)

Curl into bed. Tomorrow is a new day. It’s Monday. I’ll start doing everything right tomorrow.

In the midst of ALL those emotions… I am eating like crap. Literally, emotionally eating my way through Sunday.Because of this, for as long as I can remember Sunday’s have been a bad eating day for me. I would estimate that 99% of the 1560 Sunday’s I’ve lived have consisted of a binge. Although I’ve managed to lose weight on diets, Sunday has always been my biggest obstacle. A bad Sunday of eating for me seams to be a big reason why that scale won’t move. I figure I lose a couple pounds, Sunday comes, I gain a couple pounds, I step on the scale and BAM… no change.

I recently started paying extra close attention to Sunday. In fact, this Sunday I was extra aware of HOW I was eating my feelings. I didn’t want to alter anything I did because of my personal experiment, but I wanted to be mindful so I could crack the complex code that is Sunday.

I decided to do something super awkward… I committed to writing down everything I ate and drank yesterday.  I say awkward because let’s be serious, when you are having a bad eating day and stop to write every single thing down you ate….you actually feel crazy and kind of feel bad for your stomach.

Here’s my Sunday food diary

• Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough balance bar & 3 Shots of iced espresso with almond milk (almond milk was sweetened with dates and vanilla)
• A shot, 1/4 glass Prosecco, 1/4 glass wine, 1 lemon-a-Rita (OK so this list makes me look like an alcoholic… But I was at the Giants game and it was the first  home game of the season AND I didn’t start drinking until 11:30 (ish)
• Almonds & “That’s It” Bar (apple + mango flavored)
• Grilled chicken wrap from Muscle Maker Grill
• 1 lollipop
• Hummus and Tostitos (hint of lime flavored)
• 7 slices of deli turkey with strawberries
• Small Dunkin Donuts hot chocolate

Like WTF did I actually eat yesterday?! And how do I not have the biggest stomach ache ever? At first glance I actually didn’t think it looked too bad. Sensible breakfast, sensible lunch, a little drinking and skipped dinner and just snacked. But, to see how much damage I actually did I took this day to the Weight Watchers points calculator. This day totaled 81 points. Roughly 2,000 calories I’d say.

Do you ever feel the same way you make a commitment to eating healthy, you make a commitment to not eating healthy?  Often times I think the minute I give in to temptation I might as well ride the day of bad eating out – why waste a day of being bad when I have already ruined it?  Can we get over this hurdle? Well, let’s start with the facts,  Sunday is the first day of the week on the calendar so our excuse that it’s the last day of the week really doesn’t hold any weight (pun intended).

I think it’s time we all take back Sunday. Both mentally and physically. Let’s recognize that Sunday may be a hard day but if we take back Sunday….We will be better off all week. After all, why can’t Sunday just be the new Monday!?