Fighting the inner perfectionist

Hello, blogosphere. I think it's about time I posted again to summarise what's happened this week.

It's been a pretty good week, really. I've continued to apply very simple rules to my eating and that's all I'm doing, although it seems that when I next see EK I'm going to be expected to commit to doing more exercise. And I'm ready for that, too - I'm going to swim, I've decided. I suppose in a way it is part of my "reconnecting" idea, too. When I was a kid I absolutely LOVED to swim. I would spend hours swimming underwater at my local pool in Townsville. I loved the peace and quiet under the water - see, antisocial even then. :) And with the joint issues I'm currently having and probably will continue to have until I lose some weight, swimming is really the ideal solution. And if I look shocking in my swimsuit, which I know I do, too bad - it's a necessary evil so I can achieve this goal.

As for my mindful eating/only eating in particular places and ways project, I'd have to say I am very pleasantly surprised by how much it is helping me. Since I'm not expecting tonnes of weight to fall off in a couple of months, I'm very calm and at peace about this. There is a refreshing absence of the usual diet/perfectionist mentality which has always ruled every weight loss attempt I've ever made (and there have been waaaaay too many to mention!). Since as far as I'm concerned, I'm learning to eat all over again, this puts me in the same category as very small babies/children and I'm perfectly okay about that. And this is why, even though I occasionally find it frustrating and I really need to concentrate while I'm eating (because my default setting has been to bolt my food whilst doing something else, not even giving it a second thought), something which is extremely foreign to me, I can see exactly why it's worth putting in the effort because there is no way this habit is going to change without diligent work. And it's work I don't mind putting in because I can see there's a logical reason for it and it makes total sense. Now, to use an example of something which does not make sense to me, it's very different than if I had decided that my way to good health and weight loss was to switch to a radical low carb diet. (Caveat - this is in NO way intended to be a criticism of anyone doing this so please don't take offence, any such readers!). Now, as you know, I'm 46 years of age and for just about all of my adult life, I have never been a great lover of protein as a food. I don't like most meats - I pretty much only like beef. I don't mind chicken but I find it very boring if I have it too much. I don't mind eggs but I always have to remind myself to eat them for my iron as they are not a favourite food of mine. I actually far prefer to eat a mostly vegetarian diet interspersed with occasional servings of meat/chicken/eggs to keep up my iron. And this is why a low carb diet would never, ever work for me. I could probably stand to do it for a couple of months at the most and it would be a huge sacrifice. And the thing is, for me it is not a sacrifice I need to make. I know people who have lost weight successfully eating carbs. I see absolutely no logic in forcing yourself to eat foods you dislike to reach a goal. And so, even knowing how well it may work in the short-term, I'm not even going to go there with a diet such as this because it is utterly unsustainable for someone like me. As far as I'm concerned, you can only retrain your taste buds so much. If you don't like a food, you don't like it and no amount of forcing yourself to eat it will change that. But fostering, practising, cultivating a different way of eating, underpinned by a different way of treating my body, with respect instead of hatred - that's a goal which is worth all the effort in the world because it's so logical. So I can confidently say right now I am never going to diet again. I've been there, done that, bought way too many T-shirts. If I don't realise by now it doesn't work, I need my head examined.

Along with this mentality of not dieting is going a new attitude to my progress. I know it's okay to stuff up now. I know if I stuff up, it's just something to learn a lesson from and do better next time. This is very different to my usual uber-perfectionist ways, where a less than perfect day of eating was very likely to lead to an attitude of, "Oh, well, I've stuffed up a morning of good eating. I'm just going to go completely nuts for the rest of the day and start again tomorrow." It's not only illogical, it's so unhelpful. I am but a very flawed human being and mistakes are going to continue to happen for the rest of my life. That has to be okay and it's going to be okay. That's what I'm working on.

And meanwhile, I'm going to leave this entry with one of the best quotes I've ever read for this type of "journey". (urgh, I still hate that word!).

Light Bulb #1

I've titled this blog thus because I am pretty sure this won't be the first light bulb moment I'll have on the way to where I'm going, but it needs documenting, I think.

Today has been a really weird day in a lot of ways. First up I did overtime at work for four hours from 8 till 12 (for a day's pay, though - woot!) and then I had an appointment with my GP to get a couple of sun spots/pieces of thickened skin from sun exposure cut off my face. That it itself didn't turn out to be such a pleasant experience because anaesthetic in the face is OUCH and for some unknown reason it triggered off some kind of allergic reaction in me. Not a serious one as in anaphylactic reaction but one where I got tight in the chest, a big urge to sneeze a lot and a bit itchy, like my histamines were going nuts. Long story short, I ended up with three sun spots off my face and then, as a result of the allergic reaction, they gave me a lung test I've probably needed for a while due to a constant irritated throat and dry cough. I ended up leaving with both a bandage on my face and medication/a puffer for mild asthma. Hmm, well, I can't say it's entirely a surprise because my lungs have always been a weak spot but at least I know now. Hopefully the medication is going to help.

Anyway, in an allergic haze and with a headache, I went off to see the person to whom my GP referred me for help with the "mind" stuff. Let's call her 'EK'. I don't want to go too much into the details because some of it is too private even for a blog but suffice it to say I really found the session very helpful, primarily because EK has heard of Sandy and her program and what she has given me for homework dovetails in very well with Mindwise Bodywise. Basically, when I eat, it's to be mindfully. So, whether I am at work or home, if I am by myself (it's different rules for socialising) I am to eat at a table and I'm not to do anything else BUT eat. I can't have the TV on but I can have music on, especially music I enjoy and which soothes me.

Part 2 of this light bulb moment is to do with my dinner tonight. Now, by the time I had this huge day I literally was too busy running around between doctors' appointments to eat so in between 9.45 this morning and about 5.45, all I had was a cup of coffee. I was the hungriest I've been all week since I started tracking for Sandy's program. I had a headache, I was shaky and I felt weak, which would make me about a 1-2 on the Mindwise Bodywise scale. But still, I had to pick what I really felt like for dinner and and I was determined to put EK's ideas into practice immediately. Bizarrely for anyone who knows me well, the thing I felt like was FISH! So I went to the fish shop at Warner Village and got their "one serve of fish with some chips" meal plus a small container of tartare. When I got home, I was still ravenous by my standards but I had a look at what I'd been given and truthfully, it was really two serves. Not that I couldn't have ploughed my way through the whole lot because of course I could, but I was being honest with myself and I knew I didn't need all of it. So I divided the serving of both the fish and chips in half. Then I went to my dining table.

This is the one I made look all purty the other day (and which I barely ever use!!!) and put a candle on it. I went and put on some music I like. I got my plate and put it on the table and I sat down. I wasn't sure if I would be able to make the meal last the suggested 20 minutes that it takes for your body to register you have eaten and give you a signal, but I was going to give it a try. In the end, I think I managed to make it through more than five songs and I reckon that would have been about 15. A very creditable effort, I think!

So, the million dollar question is how do I feel now? What happened to that ravenous hunger I felt? I can honestly say that right now, about an hour after eating that mael, I am not hungry. I'm not stuffed. I'm just comfortable, perhaps leaning slightly towards being hungry because I have eaten so little today. But that's okay. If I need to eat later, I'll eat again but not unless I really feel I need it. So I suppose what I'm wanting to reinforce for myself is that even if I sit down to eat and I feel like I could chew off my own arm with hunger, if I take my time, relax, put down the fork in between bites and concentrate on being in the moment with what I'm eating, it is possible to reduce that ravenous feeling to a satisfied feeling and the best part is it doesn't need to take a huge amount of food to do it. I feel it's going to be important for me to remember this.

And I think that's enough for tonight. That's my first big light bulb for a long time and it's a good one! xx

Tracking again - but not as we know it

Well, today I started tracking again, but it's not what you think. I'm not tracking calories. What I am tracking is when I'm eating, roughly what I'm eating (no cal counts), where I am when I'm eating and how hungry I was before, during and after. I've only been doing it for one day but already some interesting insights have popped up. Number one would have to be how little I seem to get hungry even when I haven't eaten much in terms of the amount of calories someone my size would need just to exist. It is too early to tell yet whether or not it's because my body is so sick of me ignoring it, it doesn't work properly anymore or whether my body is just able to access vast fat stores to feed itself Who knows? But I've only taken a tiny step in what is going to be quite a long road so I'm not going to draw any conclusions just yet. But I really do feel like I'm onto something here. I really feel like this is what I need to do. So I'm going to keep chip, chip, chipping away and writing things down. More than happy to do this for such a cause and it's easier than counting calories. Even though I must admit counting calories worked for me for a long time, I just simply cannot do it anymore and I have accepted that. And it's okay because I don't think I need to. I feel the last thing I need to be doing is having to think about food more, and that's what calorie counting makes me do, unfortunately.

Anyway, that's all for now. I think it might be time to make a salad for dinner. I haven't yet asked myself if that's what I feel like, though. I'll have to see if there are any other options before I have it. Byeee for now. :)

Feeling more cheerful

Hello again, blogosphere. Well, even though I haven't quite got it together for a full Mindwise Bodywise restart, I'm finding I feel a bit more cheerful at the moment than I have in a while. I don't really know why. Perhaps it's because I have that tiny little glimmer of hope again which I think we all need to carry on in life. If you feel you have no hope, it's a very depressing thought, isn't it? I can categorically say I've put into practice a couple of things already which will help my cause. The first is giving up my yummy flavoured coffees which I've had almost exclusively for at least a year. I freely admit I am at least somewhat addicted to caffeine but I don't think it's a problem because I only usually have two cups maximum a day. Well, now, one of those cups is just plain old Nescafe Gold with a bit of milk and sugar. I still enjoy it and it does the job of waking me up a bit. It might not seem like a lot but I've heard it said if you only made a few little changes like this and did nothing else different, you would lose at least SOME weight and, hey, that's better than nothing. The second thing I've done is, if I've worked out I really do feel like something which isn't so healthy, I only have a small portion of whatever it is. So, that means maybe a Freddo Frog if I want chocolate, the smallest possible packet of chips, etc. This very much fits in with Sandy's principles for Mindwise Bodywise because in theory, nothing is really "verboten". If you really feel like a food, you can have it but you need to eat it carefully and make sure you savour it. I haven't quite got that bit right yet but I think having smaller amounts is a good start. Above all, I need to remember that above all, I can't fail at this because it's like a baby learning to walk. Until they get it right they are going to fall over. A lot. And there's no other way to do this than with baby steps, is there?

So that's about all I have time to write tonight as I've got work in the morning, quite early for me. Peace out... xx