First Update on Second Attempt

Here are some Daily Affirmations by Louise Hay that appealed to me;  I wrote them out by hand on a piece of my daughter's artwork that had a lot of blank space on it (someone helped her glue some foam flowers on a piece of colored paper).  And now it's posted on my refrigerator.

I love my body exactly as it is.

I am my perfect weight.  I am my perfect size.

I eat only when I am truly hungry.

I am drawn only to foods that nourish my body.

I eat slowly.  I savor every  bite.

I love to eat healthy foods.

I release the fear of food.

I drink lots of water and herbal teas.

Food flows through my body with ease.

Every morsel I eat rejuvenates my cells.

All the food I eat energizes me.

I breathe deeply as I eat and digest.

I love to exercise.  I love walking briskly.

I have respect and a high regard for myself.

I balance my life around work, rest, and play.

I support, love, and accept myself unconditionally.

I am happy and peaceful beyond my wildest dreams.

It has been almost a week since my last update.  All is going well so far.  I haven't fallen off the wagon in any really terrible way, although I will say that I have had some nibbles of chocolate chip cookie on a couple of occasions.

This is because Panera Bread keeps insisting that we have a free pastry that expires at the end of July.  The thing is, they keep giving us the free cookie every time we go in.  It has happened four times so far.  I only have half or less of the cookie.  I'm not going to turn down a free cookie and I'm not going to watch Adam eat it if I don't get some.  Sorry.  Going into a Panera Bread (no more than once a week) is necessary for my sanity.  I don't want to cook every single damn day and going to restaurants re-charges me.  I can have a healthy meal there (consisting of roast turkey and avocado BLT and a broccoli-and-cheese soup, an apple, and herbal hibiscus tea to drink.)

Also, I don't know how you feel personally about Wendy's chili, but I will have that, too, if I really can't face meal preparation.  And a baked potato.  With broccoli and cheese.  And sour cream.  It's low-fat sour cream.

I think this is less strict than what I was intending on my last attempt, but it makes my cravings and insanity much less while my eating behavior is about the same or better.

I feel I have had much less inclination to eat this week, because of being absorbed in books and interesting thoughts.  I think the best diet in the world would be just to have a book you can't put down, or a computer game.  Something that's just a bit more fun than eating.  Until you can figure out how to align all of life back to the way it's supposed to be - everything is supposed to be a bit more fun than eating, until you're really hungry.

Any hobby, activity, work, or play that actually rings your bells should do it.  The catch is that it has to ring your bells pretty dang intensely, and what works won't necessarily be the same kinds of things that you think should work.  I'm a mother, and while doing that demanding job keeps me busy, even the great joy, meaning, and fulfillment derived from helping to protect and shape a young life won't keep me from wanting to make a McDonald's run after putting her to bed.  I think it's because there is a complex mix of worries and anxieties that deplete energy along with the satisfying aspects of parenthood.  Whereas being "in the zone" reading a book or computer game (or a sport, or whatever does it for you) creates a meditative change in brain-wave patterns that just takes you away, and revs you up.

I weighed myself on July 5th and was 146 pounds.  I have since lost 2 pounds and then regained one.  I have seriously been eating less than usual, and exercising more.

I weighed 156 when I got pregnant with my daughter.  What I'm losing now isn't baby weight.  It's "living in North Carolina" weight, or possibly, "Relationship Gut" (a term coined on the show How I Met Your Mother, for when you let your appearance go because you're in a secure relationship.)

I've been going for a 45 minute walk each evening after dinner, and it feels so good.  I have discovered a pair of very sweet, affectionate donkeys behind a chain-link fence near my neighborhood.  I don't know why there are donkeys there.  I don't live out in the country.  I'm not going to question it.  I'm just going to enjoy the donkeys.  I have named them Juniper and Daffodil (after the nearest streets).

Since the subject of my blog ties-in with body image, and the intention to feel good about oneself and attain a very positive body-image, I would like to share this video that I came across yesterday.  (If the video doesn't work for you, please let me know in the comments).  This video features a very good-looking fat girl who runs a YouTube channel in which she likes to model bikinis, and this is her response to negative comments about it.

What Was This Blog About Again?

Okay, let's talk about getting back on track.

To re-cap for any newcomers:  

I started this blog to journal and share about my attempt to stay away from junk food for three full months.  About three weeks in, I had to move, then immediately travel, and everything crumbled.  After doing some thinking and consulting with you guys (my friends who read and comment on this blog), I decided to stick with the 3 month goal as an ultimate goal but to be satisfied with some short-term goals along the way.  If three weeks is doable, I need to practice that and try to get to four weeks, then five weeks, etc.

The new goal starts today!

Today happens to be the day after a major holiday here in the good ol' U. S. of A.  We all know that holidays are major challenges to any diet.  Off the top of my head, I don't think there will be any major food holidays from now until my birthday.  Yesterday, July 4th, would have been a tough day to diet.  My own birthday would be a tough day to diet.  But I don't see why I shouldn't be able to make it from today, July 5th, until the day before my birthday, August 19th (my birthday being the 20th), without incident.  THAT'S SIX WEEKS AND FOUR DAYS of junk food abstention.

This summer I may find myself celebrating the birthdays of other people and I may be offered cake and ice cream, but I've been able to turn that down in the past so I'm sure I can again.

How I'm doing generally

I'm in a funk.  My entire life feels daunting and disorganized.  Our house is still full of boxes we haven't unpacked yet.  The yard needs to be completely killed off and re-seeded.  We still don't have a lawn mower.  The air ducts need to be cleaned from previous tenants who were smokers.  There is an ant problem in this house. And ohhh, the things, the things I have eaten.

There are also more personal struggles, tensions, and worries.  My eating habits really feel like the least of it. At times it seems laughable to even give a fuck.  I am feeling deeply ashamed of how lazy and unproductive I've been since our return from Ecuador.

Originally I wanted to create a blog not just about one aspect of life, but about the entire holistic journey of coming into myself, and the unfolding quest to overcome limitations in all areas.  I couldn't think of a good title for it.  I tried out "Becoming Someone" but quickly realized I couldn't quite play that off without choking on the lameness.  I know it's not actually lame.  I have an involuntary shame reaction though when I try to get personal like that.  I thought I could temper my self-consciousness by taking the intermediate step of focusing on one challenge, one that I can sort of hold at arm's length and de-personalize to a certain extent.  Thus was this blog born.

While hoping to stay true to a healthy diet, I'm simultaneously holding an expectation for myself to achieve, learn, be, do, and have things I've never achieved, learned, been, done, and had before.  I want to build a stream of income without getting a traditional job, while not short-changing my young daughter, who still needs constant care.  I want to express myself and make my own mark, to make connections with people and "find my tribe" - a tall order for a socially awkward loner. I want to create a welcoming and peaceful atmosphere and lifestyle.  I want health, fulfillment, intellectual expansion, and enlightenment!  I want It All.

Doesn't everyone?  Well, not really.  Some people would rather just get by, and escape by lurching, in between the daily grind and the ennui, from one pleasing pastime to the next.  And the pull, the momentum, to stay sucked into that kind of helpless/hopeless/meaningless routine is the strongest thing I can think of, and sums up the all-encompassing obstacle of life.  Everyone is facing the same thing to one degree or another.  My challenge is worse than some and not so bad as others.  The urge to compare sucks.  There's always the fear of comparing unfavorably.  Yet it's so important to share what we're learning on the way, because it's a universally relate-able problem.

Right now, I feel kind of garbage-y.  I want more nice things, and I want to be the person that takes good care of my nice things, and I want to self-sufficiently provide that niceness for myself. 

I have so much to be grateful for.  I don't want to wake up one day and realize I listlessly let everything around me rot.  Right now, I feel like I do wake up and realize that, every day.  The inspiration for change ebbs and flows and hopefully, if I could zoom out enough, I'd see it's always on an upward slope.

More attention to weight and slimness

The last time I stopped eating junk food, I was working from the theory that I needed to separate the junk food addiction issue from the weight/body image issue.  My reasoning was sound, I think.  My most successful stint of weight loss involved many small indulgences along the way, but I came away from that feeling that it didn't address junk food addiction and maybe even entrenched it further.  I thought of how much more nutritious it would be to never have those days when the allotted calories for the day are pretty much knocked out by one really, really horrible, delicious thing.  And I was shocked when my hair started falling out after losing about 20 pounds in 2 months.  I thought, this really isn't necessary. I'm not so vain that I can't just live with being fat while I ferret out the root of the real problem.  The real problem, to my mind, is that junk food is a very powerful narcotic and I happen to be susceptible to it in a great big way.

However, in practice, I noticed when I was abstaining from "junk food" while still having a lot of fattening food, I missed that motivation that comes from feeling a little slimmer within a week or two.  I don't have a specific diet or workout goal in mind, but this time I do want to have it somewhere in my mind that I should be eating to fuel a smaller, lighter body, and let some extra fall away.  I will make more efforts to move my body more and burn more calories, and I'll sway more toward the less fattening of two alternatives, even if neither of them is "junk food" and they are both what I call "healthy."  

Last time, I assumed that indulging in more filling and satisfying foods, regardless of calorie content, would make it much easier to avoid the perils of junk food (which are unhealthy for so many reasons beyond just being fattening).  Strangely enough, I was still pretty tempted by junk food, yet did not have the fun of stepping on the scale and seeing a lower number, or the fun of seeing my tummy start to flatten.

I have bought a new bathroom scale.

And I will be using it.

Thank you for reading, pals.  Thanks for hanging in through my failure, and long travelogue diversion.  WE ARE BACK ON TRACK, SO KEEP TUNING IN, PUH-LEASE!!  And remember how much I appreciate your comments.