It has been a good week! :-) To recap, I want to list list the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Good: * I have almost stopped eating mindlessly! I am very aware each time that I eat. It isn't a big deal, and when I start to feel hungry I have a little something to eat. While I am eating, I stop doing other things. That part is hard, but it works.
Good: * Paying attention to my level of satisfaction when I eat, I am learning to be aware of those feelings, too. It is amazing how little it takes to satisfy my hunger! Who knew?!
Bad: * I don't always stop when I am satisfied. I am aware of it, but I often keep going a little longer.
Good: * But sometimes I stop right then! I haven't 'stuffed' myself since reading Intuitive Eating!
Bad: * I really, really, really want to 'clean my plate' still. I really do. I always have. It just feels wasteful to leave food. (Instead, I am turning it into 'waistful' food!)
Good: * I'll keep working on the 'clean my plate' thing and following my signals.
Good: * I know to start serving myself smaller portions now. No eating out of the container either!!!!!
Bad: * I definitely have not been serving up the veggies and fruit the way I had planned!!! What's the deal with that?! I've been eating too many 'good carbs' instead.
Good: * I'd really like to focus on "G-BOMBS" -- greens, beans, onions, mushrooms, berries, seeds & nuts for my health. (Remember to ask Ashley if she agrees with that.)
Bad: * Broccoli is so expensive!
Good: * I think I have been avoiding the grocery store to keep from being tempted from certain habits. I need to start going regularly so that I don't run out of fruits and veggies to snack on. That should be a priority for me!
Good: * I have been doing aerobic exercise most days for at least thirty minutes, with some weights, bands, stretching, etc., added at the end. So far my foot (dropped metatarsals) hasn't bothered me much (only with the side steps during a video session. I'm thinking about trying different shoes on video workouts).
Bad: * I still find it very difficult to start exercising each day.
Good: * I'm follow Ashley's instructions to ensure that my workout is done prior to other more pleasurable things. I LOVE the way that my body feels after a good workout!
Good: * When I am stressed, sleepy, or bored at work, I'm learning to get up from my desk and walk to another area for a change of scenery or a chat with a co-worker instead of eating. Hooray!
Good: * For the first time since August 2012 (foot problem began) I am going up the stairs again! (Going down tends to make my foot more sensitive, but up only makes me feel 'winded'!) Good for me!
Good: * I'm encouraged to be more confident about my food choices, as well as my consistency in exercise. I weighed yesterday and I'm down a few pounds, too. I can hardly wait to get into the other two books.
Good: * Other than the 'egg-white delight' in the mornings, I don't think I have had ANY fast food for the past couple of weeks! Remarkable!
Good: * Fewer Diet Cokes and more water lately! If the price of Diet Coke keeps going up it will be a sure thing!
Ugly: * I was kidding about that part. The only thing that's ugly is the smell after my dog has been out in the rain. But, hey, he's worth it! ...Oh! And we are going to the UNC football game tomorrow night -- that may be ugly. ;-)
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Friday, October 11, 2013
Another Week Flew By...
http://www.sparkpeople.com/resource/nutrition_articles.asp?id=1389
I have been rather good regarding 'consistancy' this week as I make they trek to better health. I just checked into Spark People again and found the article above. Yes, common sense tips, but sometimes I just need a reminder.
Exercise has gone well this week -- feeling great! My food choices have been rather impressive, I must say! The only binge was eating too many mixed nuts from a can in my car (healthy, but calorie dense)! And I had a great breakthrough this morning!!!!!! On the way to work I wanted to pick up something sweet for my co-worker whose birthday is today. (...What to do? What to do?) I decided McDonald's so that I could get my usual 'EggWhite Delight', so I got her the chocolate chip cookies. Apparently they stuck some in the oven, and when I got to the window they said, "Just a couple of minutes on the cookies; they are baking." Perfect (NOT!!!). Now they were going to hand me a bag with steaming hot, wonderful smelling chocolate chip cookies!! (Cookies are probably my greatest weakness.) As I sat and waited I talked with myself, reminding me what Intuitive Eating says -- so I told myself that it was fine, that if they smell too wonderful I would have one and take the other to Nancy. Knowing that I had that option, once the cookies came I was fine. I wanted her to have both, so I happily ate my 'EggWhite Delight' instead. :-) ...When I was trying to 'diet' I would have eaten both cookies and then stopped at Bojangles to get her something else. Seriously. I like not restricting myself; it feels good to be able to choose.
Happy Friday!
I have been rather good regarding 'consistancy' this week as I make they trek to better health. I just checked into Spark People again and found the article above. Yes, common sense tips, but sometimes I just need a reminder.
Exercise has gone well this week -- feeling great! My food choices have been rather impressive, I must say! The only binge was eating too many mixed nuts from a can in my car (healthy, but calorie dense)! And I had a great breakthrough this morning!!!!!! On the way to work I wanted to pick up something sweet for my co-worker whose birthday is today. (...What to do? What to do?) I decided McDonald's so that I could get my usual 'EggWhite Delight', so I got her the chocolate chip cookies. Apparently they stuck some in the oven, and when I got to the window they said, "Just a couple of minutes on the cookies; they are baking." Perfect (NOT!!!). Now they were going to hand me a bag with steaming hot, wonderful smelling chocolate chip cookies!! (Cookies are probably my greatest weakness.) As I sat and waited I talked with myself, reminding me what Intuitive Eating says -- so I told myself that it was fine, that if they smell too wonderful I would have one and take the other to Nancy. Knowing that I had that option, once the cookies came I was fine. I wanted her to have both, so I happily ate my 'EggWhite Delight' instead. :-) ...When I was trying to 'diet' I would have eaten both cookies and then stopped at Bojangles to get her something else. Seriously. I like not restricting myself; it feels good to be able to choose.
Happy Friday!
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Music Increases Dopamine !!!
Music increases dopamine !!! Well, of course it does! Music makes the world go 'round! All kinds of music! It can changes your mood in just a few beats! It can wake you up when your are bored and drowsy, or relax you when you are feeling stressed! It's magical!
In reading Intuitive Eating last night while on the elliptical, I nearly fell off when I heard this! In addition to the thousand other reasons I am trying to exercise regularly, I want to boost my dopamine. Otherwise, I will be reaching for cookies to do the job! Now that I am aware of this, when I 'bottom-out' in my office in the afternoon I will crank up Pandora! Hurray!!! I love this book! I love learning new things! I love taking better care of my body (& brain)!
I am a child of God and worthy to be awed -- and so are you! :-)
In reading Intuitive Eating last night while on the elliptical, I nearly fell off when I heard this! In addition to the thousand other reasons I am trying to exercise regularly, I want to boost my dopamine. Otherwise, I will be reaching for cookies to do the job! Now that I am aware of this, when I 'bottom-out' in my office in the afternoon I will crank up Pandora! Hurray!!! I love this book! I love learning new things! I love taking better care of my body (& brain)!
I am a child of God and worthy to be awed -- and so are you! :-)
It Just Makes Sense!
I'm still reading Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole & Elyse Resch, and I can hardly believe how much sense it makes! The whole book is describing me! It talks about mindless eating & emotional eating, and my go-to answer for stress, boredom, sleepy, sad, happy, etc. is always eating (and it usually isn't something nutritional!). But mostly it clicked when I read about the 'last supper' before starting yet another diet, and this 'last supper' can last for days! When doing this final stop every day after work and get a cheeseburger & milkshake (i.e.) because it is my "last chance" before I start the final diet - the last one ever!!! I do this over and over and over again, binging with the best of them!!!
It has only been 'days' and I am already feeling a different attitude about my health. :-)
So exciting!
It has only been 'days' and I am already feeling a different attitude about my health. :-)
So exciting!
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Spark People
If you have never visited "SparkPeople.com" you should give it a try. It is a community of people led by professional nutritionists and (exercise) trainers, coming together to encourage and support each other. It is the easiest way that I have found to keep a food journal (which also supplies the nutritional info for you, as well as the calories, carbs, & fats). They also make it fun by earning 'points' for reading health articles, tracking, posting, etc. I have not been there for a year or so, but today I went back for my first return visit. I did a search for "intuitive eating" and found several nice posts. Below is the first one that I read, and it is pretty comprehensive...
1. Reject the Diet Mentality Throw out the diet books and magazine articles that offer you false hope of losing weight quickly, easily, and permanently. Get angry at the lies that have led you to feel as if you were a failure every time a new diet stopped working and you gained back all of the weight. If you allow even one small hope to linger that a new and better diet might be lurking around the corner, it will prevent you from being free to rediscover Intuitive Eating.
2. Honor Your Hunger Keep your body biologically fed with adequate energy and carbohydrates. Otherwise you can trigger a primal drive to overeat. Once you reach the moment of excessive hunger, all intentions of moderate, conscious eating are fleeting and irrelevant. Learning to honor this first biological signal sets the stage for re-building trust with yourself and food.
3. Make Peace with Food Call a truce, stop the food fight! Give yourself unconditional permission to eat. If you tell yourself that you can’t or shouldn’t have a particular food, it can lead to intense feelings of deprivation that build into uncontrollable cravings and, often, bingeing When you finally “give-in” to your forbidden food, eating will be experienced with such intensity, it usually results in Last Supper overeating, and overwhelming guilt.
4. Challenge the Food Police .Scream a loud “NO” to thoughts in your head that declare you’re “good” for eating under 1000 calories or “bad” because you ate a piece of chocolate cake. The Food Police monitor the unreasonable rules that dieting has created . The police station is housed deep in your psyche, and its loud speaker shouts negative barbs, hopeless phrases, and guilt-provoking indictments. Chasing the Food Police away is a critical step in returning to Intuitive Eating.
5. Respect Your Fullness Listen for the body signals that tell you that you are no longer hungry. Observe the signs that show that you’re comfortably full. Pause in the middle of a meal or food and ask yourself how the food tastes, and what is your current fullness level?
6. Discover the Satisfaction Factor The Japanese have the wisdom to promote pleasure as one of their goals of healthy living In our fury to be thin and healthy, we often overlook one of the most basic gifts of existence–the pleasure and satisfaction that can be found in the eating experience. When you eat what you really want, in an environment that is inviting and conducive, the pleasure you derive will be a powerful force in helping you feel satisfied and content. By providing this experience for yourself, you will find that it takes much less food to decide you’ve had “enough”.
7. Honor Your Feelings Without Using Food Find ways to comfort , nurture, distract, and resolve your issues without using food. Anxiety, loneliness, boredom, anger are emotions we all experience throughout life. Each has its own trigger, and each has its own appeasement. Food won’t fix any of these feelings. It may comfort for the short term, distract from the pain, or even numb you into a food hangover. But food won’t solve the problem. If anything, eating for an emotional hunger will only make you feel worse in the long run. You’ll ultimately have to deal with the source of the emotion, as well as the discomfort of overeating.
8. Respect Your Body Accept your genetic blueprint. Just as a person with a shoe size of eight would not expect to realistically squeeze into a size six, it is equally as futile (and uncomfortable) to have the same expectation with body size. But mostly, respect your body, so you can feel better about who you are. It’s hard to reject the diet mentality if you are unrealistic and overly critical about your body shape.
9. Exercise–Feel the Difference Forget militant exercise. Just get active and feel the difference. Shift your focus to how it feels to move your body, rather than the calorie burning effect of exercise. If you focus on how you feel from working out, such as energized, it can make the difference between rolling out of bed for a brisk morning walk or hitting the snooze alarm. If when you wake up, your only goal is to lose weight, it’s usually not a motivating factor in that moment of time.
10 Honor Your Health–Gentle Nutrition Make food choices that honor your health and tastebuds while making you feel well. Remember that you don’t have to eat a perfect diet to be healthy. You will not suddenly get a nutrient deficiency or gain weight from one snack, one meal, or one day of eating. It’s what you eat consistently over time that matters, progress not perfection is what counts." IntuitiveEating.org
2. Honor Your Hunger Keep your body biologically fed with adequate energy and carbohydrates. Otherwise you can trigger a primal drive to overeat. Once you reach the moment of excessive hunger, all intentions of moderate, conscious eating are fleeting and irrelevant. Learning to honor this first biological signal sets the stage for re-building trust with yourself and food.
3. Make Peace with Food Call a truce, stop the food fight! Give yourself unconditional permission to eat. If you tell yourself that you can’t or shouldn’t have a particular food, it can lead to intense feelings of deprivation that build into uncontrollable cravings and, often, bingeing When you finally “give-in” to your forbidden food, eating will be experienced with such intensity, it usually results in Last Supper overeating, and overwhelming guilt.
4. Challenge the Food Police .Scream a loud “NO” to thoughts in your head that declare you’re “good” for eating under 1000 calories or “bad” because you ate a piece of chocolate cake. The Food Police monitor the unreasonable rules that dieting has created . The police station is housed deep in your psyche, and its loud speaker shouts negative barbs, hopeless phrases, and guilt-provoking indictments. Chasing the Food Police away is a critical step in returning to Intuitive Eating.
5. Respect Your Fullness Listen for the body signals that tell you that you are no longer hungry. Observe the signs that show that you’re comfortably full. Pause in the middle of a meal or food and ask yourself how the food tastes, and what is your current fullness level?
6. Discover the Satisfaction Factor The Japanese have the wisdom to promote pleasure as one of their goals of healthy living In our fury to be thin and healthy, we often overlook one of the most basic gifts of existence–the pleasure and satisfaction that can be found in the eating experience. When you eat what you really want, in an environment that is inviting and conducive, the pleasure you derive will be a powerful force in helping you feel satisfied and content. By providing this experience for yourself, you will find that it takes much less food to decide you’ve had “enough”.
7. Honor Your Feelings Without Using Food Find ways to comfort , nurture, distract, and resolve your issues without using food. Anxiety, loneliness, boredom, anger are emotions we all experience throughout life. Each has its own trigger, and each has its own appeasement. Food won’t fix any of these feelings. It may comfort for the short term, distract from the pain, or even numb you into a food hangover. But food won’t solve the problem. If anything, eating for an emotional hunger will only make you feel worse in the long run. You’ll ultimately have to deal with the source of the emotion, as well as the discomfort of overeating.
8. Respect Your Body Accept your genetic blueprint. Just as a person with a shoe size of eight would not expect to realistically squeeze into a size six, it is equally as futile (and uncomfortable) to have the same expectation with body size. But mostly, respect your body, so you can feel better about who you are. It’s hard to reject the diet mentality if you are unrealistic and overly critical about your body shape.
9. Exercise–Feel the Difference Forget militant exercise. Just get active and feel the difference. Shift your focus to how it feels to move your body, rather than the calorie burning effect of exercise. If you focus on how you feel from working out, such as energized, it can make the difference between rolling out of bed for a brisk morning walk or hitting the snooze alarm. If when you wake up, your only goal is to lose weight, it’s usually not a motivating factor in that moment of time.
10 Honor Your Health–Gentle Nutrition Make food choices that honor your health and tastebuds while making you feel well. Remember that you don’t have to eat a perfect diet to be healthy. You will not suddenly get a nutrient deficiency or gain weight from one snack, one meal, or one day of eating. It’s what you eat consistently over time that matters, progress not perfection is what counts." IntuitiveEating.org
Believe that change is possible. Change the way you think. Join me on this journey to fiercely love God and yourself more then food.
Monday, October 7, 2013
Busy, Busy, Busy...
It has been many days since my first blog, but not by choice! I have had a busy, but FUN long weekend! Thinking back, the only 'healthy' thing that I did was to do some walking at Grandfather Mountain. :-) Even though there was a bit of wine consumed, all in all, I could have been a lot worse about the things I chose to eat and drink! I do recall a salad, I turned down buttery rolls once, avoided the chocolate, kept my portions under control, and only picked the topping from the honeybun cake that Teena made!
We had a wonderful time in the old lodge on a mountain in Banner Elk. Three of my husband's fraternity brothers and their wives met us there on Thursday evening. It was our fourth annual weekend, and in spite of Carolina's football loss, we had a wonderful time! When we got home Sunday evening I unpacked, started in on the laundry, caught up my posts for The Shrimp Connection, at supper, and eventually fell asleep. ...No exercise.
Tonight when I get home from work, that will be my first priority! :-)
We had a wonderful time in the old lodge on a mountain in Banner Elk. Three of my husband's fraternity brothers and their wives met us there on Thursday evening. It was our fourth annual weekend, and in spite of Carolina's football loss, we had a wonderful time! When we got home Sunday evening I unpacked, started in on the laundry, caught up my posts for The Shrimp Connection, at supper, and eventually fell asleep. ...No exercise.
Tonight when I get home from work, that will be my first priority! :-)
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
It's a New Day!
https://twitter.com/chjohnson54
I no longer plan to hide from the world because I am ashamed of my unhealthy ways! I may not be the smallest, the prettiest, the best dressed, the richest, the youngest, the smartest, OR the most healthy, but I am still valuable as a child of God! I have come to understand that I also need to value each and every day that I am given on this earth, to cherish my family, and to be the best 'me' that I can be! -- No, no. No pressure on myself, just to love and be loved in a way that makes me happy.
Truth being that I can only love others well if I love myself. I have always been a happy person and have loved parts of me, but never failing to be ashamed of the lazy, weak, unmotivated side of me. Regardless of the number of times I have tried to brush that away, it has always found me again.
Jimmy V. said to 'never, never, never, never, never give up' and I know that I never will! I love my husband and my daughter too much to quit. So, once again -- maybe for the last time -- I am working to turn my life around.
Take this journey with me and let's figure out the best way to enjoy the trip to a new and healthy way of life!
May God continue to bless us!
I no longer plan to hide from the world because I am ashamed of my unhealthy ways! I may not be the smallest, the prettiest, the best dressed, the richest, the youngest, the smartest, OR the most healthy, but I am still valuable as a child of God! I have come to understand that I also need to value each and every day that I am given on this earth, to cherish my family, and to be the best 'me' that I can be! -- No, no. No pressure on myself, just to love and be loved in a way that makes me happy.
Truth being that I can only love others well if I love myself. I have always been a happy person and have loved parts of me, but never failing to be ashamed of the lazy, weak, unmotivated side of me. Regardless of the number of times I have tried to brush that away, it has always found me again.
Jimmy V. said to 'never, never, never, never, never give up' and I know that I never will! I love my husband and my daughter too much to quit. So, once again -- maybe for the last time -- I am working to turn my life around.
Take this journey with me and let's figure out the best way to enjoy the trip to a new and healthy way of life!
May God continue to bless us!
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