Feeling like a loser

Don't you just hate the days when you feel like a loser? When you feel you don't fit in, when you feel you aren't smart, when you feel you're ugly and you don't have much to offer? I hate those days. I am trying to figure out why they happen. If you have thoughts, please let me know -- I welcome your input.

Here are some of the things I have identified:

• I feel more like a loser when I make bad choices. For example, if I eat a bunch of gross foods when there are healthy choices around and do not exercise, I feel like a loser.
• If I am exhausted, I am more likely to feel like a loser (whether or not I actually am).
• If I feel "out of my league", I feel like a loser. This is especially true if I am labeled as a peer but don't feel like one.

I've been having one of those days today. I feel severely out of my league at the conference I am attending, though I am supposed to be a colleague. The other attendees are really "who's whos" of the HC Engineering world and I'm...um...not. I have not made stellar food choices this weekend (some by design). Yesterday I was tired so I just took a tour so I could sit down a lot of the day. I felt like I took the easy way out and so I feel like a loser. I am also just really tired. I am sure these are the reasons why I feel like a loser. I am sure these feelings will pass, but man I dislike days like today. Feeling like a loser really sucks.

The trick is to manage your way out of these days and not let them become death spirals. For example, if you have a bad food day, you need to pick yourself up and dust yourself off. You can't succumb to the "I'm a loser" self-talk and use it as an excuse to make bad decisions the next day...and week...and month...and so on. You need to make it a priority to get more sleep so you're not burning the rope from both ends. There are things you can do to make sure you're not going to get deeper into your funk.

On a semi-related note, I kind of feel like I'm in the doldrums of the weight loss thing right now. I haven't been losing weight for a couple weeks (and I fully expect to gain some this week), but just maintaining. The honeymoon period is over; the new is gone. This month I am traveling three out of the four weekends. It's for fun stuff, but man is it exhausting and man does it make it tougher to follow the healthy patterns you've established in your everyday life (eating healthy, working out, etc). This does not bode well on the weight-loss front.

I really do want to be in this healthy lifestyle thing for the longhaul. That is why I try to give myself allowances and not get freaked out when I have bad days or weeks -- but at some point you need to just buckle down and get on with it. That is the part that I am struggling with now.