Fierce and Awesome
Monday mornings have become a time of confessions for me, to atone for my food sins over the ever loosening weekends and vow to be healthy for five days at a time. Yeesh! It didn't used to be like this.
When my husband was a body builder, he was abnormally disciplined. Now he's a model, and during the week, he gets his carbs and calories so low that he looks like an anemic zombie. And let me tell you, while he's never been obsessed with food in the 11 years I've known him, now that he's depriving himself, he goes a lot more crazy with food on the weekends than I've ever seen him. That is the beauty of the emotional being. I think he is finally understanding the mind game that overweight people face, the comfort that eating what you want brings, and the challenge that avoiding those foods can be.
Then, come Monday morning, I am preparing my confessional, and he is chiming, "It'll feel really good to be back to eating normal." Normal for him is chicken breast with green peppers and onions, turkey breast cutlets, egg whites, protein shakes, and one lowly serving of carbs in a bowl of oatmeal in the morning. I think to myself, that will feel good to get back to? I want to keep eating all the garbage I was eating over the weekend.
It does remind me how powerful a factor the mind is in weight loss. The feeling of deprivation is so powerful that it causes stress. I think I was not entirely ready to do that keto phase this time, it felt a bit torturous to me, and I was constantly aware of how abnormal it was to not eat some grains and fruit. And I probably ate much worse this weekend than I have in some time, due to the mental stress of having to stay on-point when my mind was going in the other direction. One of the reasons I did so when I first began this diet a year ago, was because in my mind, I could see where I was going and I knew I was strong. When I wanted something unproductive, I knew that I was stronger than whatever was driving me to want the junk. I believed so strongly that I could reach my goal, and that every part of what it took to get there was absolutely worth it. Another part of my success was all the time I had to myself each day, six beautiful hours of peace gave me time to reflect and focus on myself and I had all the time in the world to workout/cook. Not that I want to be unemployed without a paycheck ever again, but in retrospect, the free time was amazing! And while I can't possibly make that much time for myself these days, I am going to try to fit in a half hour of journalling each night before bed. Self reflection is so important, and with as busy as my schedule has been lately, it has been one key element that has been missing. My other goals going forward, are to keep my weekend a little more sane. I eventually want to work my way back to only one cheat meal per weekend. I have been in maintainence mode ever since last August, when I started going crazy on the weekends. It is like shooting myself in the foot, putting all the effort during the week, only to erase all the good I have done by eating so much junk over the weekend.
I have a lot of things to consider in my quest, not just looking good in summer clothes, but my heart health, my mental health, my 5K, and being a good role model for my kids. The deeper I get into psychology classes, the more I see the correlation between mothers' mental health and their children's. It is scarey how closely children of both sexes end up with the same problems their mothers had/have. Not a very strong correlation for fathers, so dads can be a total mess and the kids will come out OK, but if Mom is a bit sad sometimes, their kids will be a mess. No pressure there! Sometimes I think it would be better if I was outside of my head! Alas! There is still plenty of time to fix myself and my kids. And I can do both, because I am fierce and awesome!
Go forth and be awesome. And have a great Monday!
When my husband was a body builder, he was abnormally disciplined. Now he's a model, and during the week, he gets his carbs and calories so low that he looks like an anemic zombie. And let me tell you, while he's never been obsessed with food in the 11 years I've known him, now that he's depriving himself, he goes a lot more crazy with food on the weekends than I've ever seen him. That is the beauty of the emotional being. I think he is finally understanding the mind game that overweight people face, the comfort that eating what you want brings, and the challenge that avoiding those foods can be.
Then, come Monday morning, I am preparing my confessional, and he is chiming, "It'll feel really good to be back to eating normal." Normal for him is chicken breast with green peppers and onions, turkey breast cutlets, egg whites, protein shakes, and one lowly serving of carbs in a bowl of oatmeal in the morning. I think to myself, that will feel good to get back to? I want to keep eating all the garbage I was eating over the weekend.
It does remind me how powerful a factor the mind is in weight loss. The feeling of deprivation is so powerful that it causes stress. I think I was not entirely ready to do that keto phase this time, it felt a bit torturous to me, and I was constantly aware of how abnormal it was to not eat some grains and fruit. And I probably ate much worse this weekend than I have in some time, due to the mental stress of having to stay on-point when my mind was going in the other direction. One of the reasons I did so when I first began this diet a year ago, was because in my mind, I could see where I was going and I knew I was strong. When I wanted something unproductive, I knew that I was stronger than whatever was driving me to want the junk. I believed so strongly that I could reach my goal, and that every part of what it took to get there was absolutely worth it. Another part of my success was all the time I had to myself each day, six beautiful hours of peace gave me time to reflect and focus on myself and I had all the time in the world to workout/cook. Not that I want to be unemployed without a paycheck ever again, but in retrospect, the free time was amazing! And while I can't possibly make that much time for myself these days, I am going to try to fit in a half hour of journalling each night before bed. Self reflection is so important, and with as busy as my schedule has been lately, it has been one key element that has been missing. My other goals going forward, are to keep my weekend a little more sane. I eventually want to work my way back to only one cheat meal per weekend. I have been in maintainence mode ever since last August, when I started going crazy on the weekends. It is like shooting myself in the foot, putting all the effort during the week, only to erase all the good I have done by eating so much junk over the weekend.
I have a lot of things to consider in my quest, not just looking good in summer clothes, but my heart health, my mental health, my 5K, and being a good role model for my kids. The deeper I get into psychology classes, the more I see the correlation between mothers' mental health and their children's. It is scarey how closely children of both sexes end up with the same problems their mothers had/have. Not a very strong correlation for fathers, so dads can be a total mess and the kids will come out OK, but if Mom is a bit sad sometimes, their kids will be a mess. No pressure there! Sometimes I think it would be better if I was outside of my head! Alas! There is still plenty of time to fix myself and my kids. And I can do both, because I am fierce and awesome!
Go forth and be awesome. And have a great Monday!
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