Baby Steps

Time just slipped away from me last week as we pushed to get all the doctors charges out to insurance before the end of the month. The last week of each month is its own little flurry of activity and usually includes some overtime for me. It can be stressful some months but I'm learning to not let it derail me because in the end, the doctors still get paid. I have been rock solid Monday through Friday afternoon. Fridays my husband and I get a bite to eat, just the two of us. This is my one planned cheat meal if I need or want it. This time I used it and even had 2 glasses of beer, which reminded me why I quit drinking it. I have mentioned before that my husband likes to turn one day of eating out into 3 and suddenly I'm only eating clean 4 days a week. That's an exaggeration, one bad meal per day doesn't mean I ate garbage all day. in fact, Saturday night my family wanted spaghetti for dinner. I had already eaten an Italian sub that day (holy carbs Batman) so u made up my mind that I was going to keep dinner cleaner. I substituted zucchini "noodles" for regular ones on my plate and had some no-sugar-added pasta sauce. I skipped the breadsticks and kept it liw carb for the win! I was fully intending to keep Sunday clean but we were at the beach and my husband said he wanted to try a Cafe brunch place we haven't tried yet. They have high quality salads but I hadn't eaten in almost 6 hours so my hunger made me cave and get a sandwich with chips. So this is becoming the norm, 1 higher carb, lower quality meal per day on Friday-Sunday. Not the end of the world but also these behaviors are keeping me stuck in the same place I've always been. I know that letting things go so l8ng between meals is just asking for food disasters, I honestly forgot to eat a snack that day. I watched a documentary called "Heal" and it was inspirational. The premise is how we have the innate power to heal ourselves with our own thoughts. Some topics were releasing emotions, meditation and reducing stress. I felt really good after watching it. It's free on Prime Video. I am toying with trying fasting again. I only tried it once and probably didn't do it correctly. I am hearing so many positive things about early time restricted eating and how it can really help your body burn fat instead of storing it. here's a very informative video I am going to research and plan this week for a possible start next week. The guy in the video says he doesn't recommend fasting every day but a few times a week will help. I wonder if it's more difficult doing it that way because your body gets accustomed to eating at certain times and I wonder if the habit is harder to break when you're still doing that some days. Anyway, if you don't want to watch the video, basically every time you eat your blood sugar spikes which triggers your body to release insulin. Insulin, by its very nature encourages your body to store fat. When we eat 8 times a day our insulin is never really stable. By restricting your eating to a set number of hours that allows your insulin to rest when it's normal for your body to start slowing down (during the afternoon and evening), thus stabilizing your insulin which puts your body in a state to burn/release fat instead of storing it. I will have to ease into it. The typical time to stop eating is 4PM or earlier. I will start with 7PM and work my way backwards so it's not a sudden drastic change. Most of the time my bedtime snack is at 9:30 pm and I'm typically not hungry, I just eat a snack because I'm afraid I won't sleep good if I don't. Anyway, I am a little nervous to try it because I really dislike being hungry, but my ace up my sleeve is hot herbal tea, which always makes me feel really full which I don't understand but it's a trick I will use. I haven't been on a scale in a couple weeks but I feel like I haven't lost anything. It is what it is. I may give fasting a try and see if it kickstarts anything or if I will need to go another direction. sometimes I feel like I'm spinning my wheels but for the efforts and good choices I am making, I am much better off than if I were on autopilot eating, binging on chips and sweets all day long. Baby steps are still steps in the right direction!