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September 1, 2006

Beautiful Day

My favorite weather has to be just before the rain on an autumn (or close to autumn) day. Today is beautiful and I feel good.

I’ve been pretty consumed with the closing of my new house and trying to maintain my sanity living with my parents. I can feel my body is physically under a lot of stress due to my mental anguish.

I haven’t found my way back to the gym on a regular basis but I have been taking a lot of walks around my neighborhood. In fact, I just walked to town to meet my best friend for lunch, which explains my good mood. I’m trying to get in as much activity as I can without overwhelming myself with the obligation of a rigid rigorous regime. I’m taking it a bit easy on myself during this transition.

That leads me into how I’ve been doing with my eating. Because I’m so eager for the house to close, time has been going in slow motion and I’ve lost track of it. So I think it’s been about a week and I’ve been eating OK. Better than I had been anyway.

I’m reading a book called Intuitive Eating that my sister lent me. I’m not very far into it but I’m getting and working on the basic principles. I’m letting go of the diet mentality and not practicing any restrictive methods. I’m working on learning to listen to my body for what it wants and needs and knowing when it is full or hungry. So initially I allow myself to eat whatever I want, whenever I want, and not feel guilty.

I’m analyzing all the reason that I eat a lot of food in all different situations. For example, I eat when I’m bored, sad or mad. I eat a lot when I’m at a restaurant because I’ve paid for the food so I don’t want to waste money. And so on. I’m trying to let go of those and only eat when I’m hungry or want something. If I crave something it’s OK and I can have it.

I can go on but you probably get the gist of it. So far I’ve had some success in cutting out “the last meal” mentality so I haven’t been eating things (like extra pizza) because I think it might be my last chance to ever get it again. (I live in NJ for cryin' out loud, there's a pizza place on every corner.) I’ve stopped eating extra because my mom thinks I shouldn’t be wasteful or because she thinks it has been sitting in the fridge for too long. I also don’t eat anything I don’t want to just because I paid for it or whatever other reason.

There are a lot of aspects of this “re-learning” that I’ll write about as I go through it. But the first thing is relieving me of guilt. The guilt that I impose upon myself for not dieting or exercising to a certain extent always has adverse affects.

I’ll weigh myself tomorrow to see where it’s at. I really am going to try and not have it make me want to restrict my eating. Supposedly when you work out the mental aspects of this intuitive eating method the eating falls into place.

By the way, the book is called Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole. This is not an endorsement yet because I’m only a quarter the way through it. But if you’re curious, there it is, and my sister said there is another book by the same title but is nothing like it so I don't want to misdirect anyone.

Posted by hopeful @ September 1, 2006 3:19 PM