"You don't have to be perfect."

I feel like I've had a lot of therapy in the past week.

I saw Terri on Thursday and then yesterday morning joined the ladies form my former gym for a walk around Peace Valley Park and walked the whole 6.2-mile loop with one of my former trainers.

Great conversation about where I am almost 18 months out of the gym. How I let ex-boyfriend sway me with his bad habits, how I used food to fill the emotional void toward the end of the relationship, and how scared I got when the scale hit 199.

And she said something very profound.

"You don't have to be perfect. You just have to do better."

I think that's where I've been living and possibly why I've seemingly been failing. I've tried too hard to be perfect. Tried too hard to lose those 15 extra pounds all at once. Threw my hands up in the air and said "fucks it" and proceeded to eat Hershey miniatures like they were m&m's.

We talked about the guilt associated with our food issues and how it's not just the physical discomfort that comes from over-eating (I've talked about the carb hangover), but the mental beatings we give ourselves. And that's when she said, "I finally figured it out, that I'm allowed to have another glass of wine or a cookie. Because I'm not perfect and I don't have to be. But tomorrow, I have to be better than I was today."

And she's right, and once I finish my detox and slowly re-introduce food back into my daily diet, I have to remember that I don't have to be perfect. I can have a couple Christmas cookies, and then the next meal, I have to be better."