Boringly Wonderful
Yesterday was a little on the nutsy side with stuff going on and tasks that needed to be tended to, so by the time I got a few minutes of free time at 9pm I indulged in a hot bath instead of blogging. Oh, I thought about it, wanted to blog, but boy am I glad I took a few minutes to sink into the warmth. The energetic, happy Amy had a harder time shining through yesterday, but towards the end of my shift at work, I decided to do a Random Act of Kindness and leave some cash in the elevator for whomever happened upon it. I included a message to remind the recipient to pay it forward. Even though I didn't get to see the result, it did lift my spirits a little and it did. I recommend this as a way to make you feel good, especially if you can do it in a manner that you can see the reaction, say if while paying for your coffee you hand over a $20 bill to the cashier and tell them to use it toward the next customer or two. Then sit down and see the reaction. It is still rewarding if you can't see the reaction. One time I put some cash in an envelope and dropped it in the hallway outside my department ( I work in a health clinic) and labeled it as a RAK and a boy about the age of 10 found it (it was $10). He was so excited that he started to cry, and his mom let him keep it. It was really touching.
Well, here I am on Friday, tomorrow's grocery shopping day, and I am in the familiar spot of wondering what to have for meals and snacks next week. I may spend some time looking at recipes, but it gets so overwhelming and time consuming that I end up dreading it. I did find something new that I really like:
not a bad nutrition profile either, eh? I was nervous about trying this, not really sure how the texture would be. It was SO SOOOooo GOOD! I put it in a tortilla with a little melted cheese, the texture was nice and spices made me feel awesome! So, if the grocery store has more of these I may make this my lunch next week. I still struggle with breakfast. I typically have 15 minutes or less to eat breakfast in the mornings, so cooking something is going to be out of the question. I want something healthy and tastey, that takes no time to cook/make. That doesn't sound like too much to ask, right? haha.
This is our last weekend of peace before we move. My husband is convinced it'll be an easy move because it is just across the parking lot, but for me the driving stuff from place to place wasn't the hard part, it's all the bending and lifting and stairs. I am going to try to think of it as a free workout, if nothing else, that should ease my mental torment over the whole moving process!
This morning I put on a pair of pants that I haven't worn in a couple weeks, and I kept thinking I forgot to zip them and finally realized it's because they fit so much better than they ever have. There's less belly down there to contend with, which is a sign that things are going well for me. I do not struggle or stress out about food anymore (except for trying to figure out my menu for the week). What an amazing feeling it is to say that and live it! My eating is normalizing in that I can eat smaller amounts of things and be satisfied, and even if I nibble on something when I'm not hungry, it is way less and much easier to stop after a few bites. When I think about what I'm eating and how it's going to affect my physiology long-term, it is easier to see I don't need something or to allow myself to have enough to satisfy the urge but then I stop. The crazy compulsive eating seems to be slowly falling off and a happier version of myself is what remains. I'm not dropping massive pounds, but I'm not obsessing over the scale or how many workouts I did each week, or every micronutrient in what I'm eating. I was seeking my own sort of 'normal' with food and I think I've found it! I'm glad I never gave up. I never stopped reading books about emotional and compulsive eating and trying the techniques, I never stopped trying to find a way to make it stick, I never stopped believing that one day I'd make it happen without feeling tortured. To be honest, this feeling, being able to feel normal around and about food, feels so much more amazing and makes me happier than junkfood ever could. Getting off sweets makes this all posible, and I was nervous about it because for a good many months before I cleaned things up, I was eating loads of sugar every day, waiting for the time when I would be motivated to try again. I think near the end, I was so saturated with sugar that I was actually sick of it. That made it easier to change. You know when you start craving salads that it's time to change because your body is begging for some nutrition. Now that I think of it, I don't really have cravings much at all anymore, it's not something I think about anymore. That might be a huge part of what makes this easy right now because I was never particularly great at being strong in the face of cravings in the past. I also don't really look at junk food as something I can't have, but as something I don't really need or want right now. It doesn't serve me. I have that stuff as an occassional treat, a handful of chips or a dinner out with my family, I know sweets are non-productive in general, and I feel really happy that I don't really crave them. My tastes have changed, and if I am going to indulge, it is more the salts and fats I crave, chips with guacamole, chips with cheese melted on, buttery popcorn, sometimes even pizza, though it isn't on the top of my must-have's like it once was. I think I can eat a certain amount of sweets without triggering anything, but they just don't make me feel very good at all, so then it becomes not really worth it. I used to read blogs that said something similar to that and think that the author was trying to convince themselves of it, but now I know it's true, getting off sugars makes you want it a lot less, and after not having eaten that stuff in a while, having sugars leaves an aweful thick, phlegm in my mouth/throat and makes me feel dizzy and jittery, and sometimes gives me a headache. It's the first time in my life that I can fathom the thought of being off sugars for the rest of my life, this is definitely sustainable for me if I continue to feel how I do now. The key is being mindful, if I'd eaten that pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving and decided that it was so good that I was just going to buy one pie for home and eat a few slices, despite the fact that it made me feel bad to eat it, physically, I could have easily been back on the sugar-crack path. But I was mindful of how eating that made me feel, and I never would have been able to tell a difference if I hadn't first gotten off the sugars. I know I'll have sweets from time to time, especially at holidays or events, but it will be the exception, not the rule, I lived with sugar ruling me for way too long and it tortured me. I don't pretend to be the healthiest person on the planet, but I sure feel a lot better than I did, and just getting through life seems to be a lot less of a chore than it was before. That's really what we who try to lose weight are looking for, isn't it? Normalcy. Boring, wonderful, abundant normalcy!
Well, here I am on Friday, tomorrow's grocery shopping day, and I am in the familiar spot of wondering what to have for meals and snacks next week. I may spend some time looking at recipes, but it gets so overwhelming and time consuming that I end up dreading it. I did find something new that I really like:
This is our last weekend of peace before we move. My husband is convinced it'll be an easy move because it is just across the parking lot, but for me the driving stuff from place to place wasn't the hard part, it's all the bending and lifting and stairs. I am going to try to think of it as a free workout, if nothing else, that should ease my mental torment over the whole moving process!
This morning I put on a pair of pants that I haven't worn in a couple weeks, and I kept thinking I forgot to zip them and finally realized it's because they fit so much better than they ever have. There's less belly down there to contend with, which is a sign that things are going well for me. I do not struggle or stress out about food anymore (except for trying to figure out my menu for the week). What an amazing feeling it is to say that and live it! My eating is normalizing in that I can eat smaller amounts of things and be satisfied, and even if I nibble on something when I'm not hungry, it is way less and much easier to stop after a few bites. When I think about what I'm eating and how it's going to affect my physiology long-term, it is easier to see I don't need something or to allow myself to have enough to satisfy the urge but then I stop. The crazy compulsive eating seems to be slowly falling off and a happier version of myself is what remains. I'm not dropping massive pounds, but I'm not obsessing over the scale or how many workouts I did each week, or every micronutrient in what I'm eating. I was seeking my own sort of 'normal' with food and I think I've found it! I'm glad I never gave up. I never stopped reading books about emotional and compulsive eating and trying the techniques, I never stopped trying to find a way to make it stick, I never stopped believing that one day I'd make it happen without feeling tortured. To be honest, this feeling, being able to feel normal around and about food, feels so much more amazing and makes me happier than junkfood ever could. Getting off sweets makes this all posible, and I was nervous about it because for a good many months before I cleaned things up, I was eating loads of sugar every day, waiting for the time when I would be motivated to try again. I think near the end, I was so saturated with sugar that I was actually sick of it. That made it easier to change. You know when you start craving salads that it's time to change because your body is begging for some nutrition. Now that I think of it, I don't really have cravings much at all anymore, it's not something I think about anymore. That might be a huge part of what makes this easy right now because I was never particularly great at being strong in the face of cravings in the past. I also don't really look at junk food as something I can't have, but as something I don't really need or want right now. It doesn't serve me. I have that stuff as an occassional treat, a handful of chips or a dinner out with my family, I know sweets are non-productive in general, and I feel really happy that I don't really crave them. My tastes have changed, and if I am going to indulge, it is more the salts and fats I crave, chips with guacamole, chips with cheese melted on, buttery popcorn, sometimes even pizza, though it isn't on the top of my must-have's like it once was. I think I can eat a certain amount of sweets without triggering anything, but they just don't make me feel very good at all, so then it becomes not really worth it. I used to read blogs that said something similar to that and think that the author was trying to convince themselves of it, but now I know it's true, getting off sugars makes you want it a lot less, and after not having eaten that stuff in a while, having sugars leaves an aweful thick, phlegm in my mouth/throat and makes me feel dizzy and jittery, and sometimes gives me a headache. It's the first time in my life that I can fathom the thought of being off sugars for the rest of my life, this is definitely sustainable for me if I continue to feel how I do now. The key is being mindful, if I'd eaten that pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving and decided that it was so good that I was just going to buy one pie for home and eat a few slices, despite the fact that it made me feel bad to eat it, physically, I could have easily been back on the sugar-crack path. But I was mindful of how eating that made me feel, and I never would have been able to tell a difference if I hadn't first gotten off the sugars. I know I'll have sweets from time to time, especially at holidays or events, but it will be the exception, not the rule, I lived with sugar ruling me for way too long and it tortured me. I don't pretend to be the healthiest person on the planet, but I sure feel a lot better than I did, and just getting through life seems to be a lot less of a chore than it was before. That's really what we who try to lose weight are looking for, isn't it? Normalcy. Boring, wonderful, abundant normalcy!
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