Up three pounds this week.

I’ve been doing a lot of distracted eating and I have to stop that. Plus my love/hate affair with food continues.  It’s like living with an abusive spouse, in the end you always wonder what the heck were you thinking?

On the good side of things, I have a good friend coming over this weekend, a student gallery show. Bad side: Art History Exam coming up..yikes!

More evidence

 

Well I felt hungry for the weirdest thing at 2pm: Sushi, so I got myself sushi from the grocery store, ate it at the table in peace, and guess what, I had leftover sushi to put in the fridge cause I WAS FULL!

Also, here’s the other weird thing, now that I’m not making myself crazy by eating as I do other things, I’m starting to realize I have time to do stuff!

I was so busy eating and being busy, I had no time.  So, now I have time and it really feels weird.

Weigh in Day- Ten pounds down this month.

Well it is weigh in day, and I’ve lost ten pounds since I last blogged about my weight. I waited ever so patiently for my period to come and go, and it has. I’m so happy! Only two pounds away from losing 50 lbs in total! See, there are good things about working at a job where you have to run around all day. And eating only when I’m hungry the cure for me I think. I hope…I’ll keep you posted.

When is enough, enough?

 

I’m continuing on my path to try to track emotional eating, and the hardest thing for me to change is the blind eating.

Here is a bad habit of mine: When I’m eating food, I turn on the TV, open a book, or choose to think about negative emotional things. As if, what I am eating will soothe the bad feelings, or will help me escape from the things I don’t like in my life.

 Lately, thanks to prompting from a good friend of mine I’ve been reading Geneen Roth’s book, Breaking Free from Emotional Eating. It has been a total eye-opening experience.  Following her philosophy, brings  me back to the skinny days when I was a kid. My mom would never say anything like “Eat your food because there are starving children in Africa”, however I did get the message that I would have to clean my plate.

I remember struggling through a plate of Liver and Brussel sprouts being forced to sit at the table long after everyone had gone, because I had to eat what I was given. My dad did grow up poor, and so did my mom, and to be honest, my parents cut a lot of coupons to put food on the table. Because of that, there was an unsaid theme of guilt, where we would be taking food for granted, and that was spread around as thick as butter on the toast which my mom would serve us.

I distinctly remember feeling distracted at meal times, feeling “bored” like I couldn’t wait till it was over so I could go and do other things. Now, it seems that I eat and elevate the boredom of eating by doing something at the same time. Whoever said multitasking was a brilliant idea, was wrong, at least,  it’s not good when you are eating.

So, for the past few days I have made an effort to really do two things:

1. Pay attention to my hunger signals I only eat when I am hungry.

2. Eat, sitting down, only. At the table, or in some kind of peaceful place where I can enjoy what I am eating.

This doesn’t mean nibbling food when I’m making stuff, nor grabbing dinner while I’m on the bus, waiting for the bus or whatever. And, tough as this is, it means not eating while I am at the computer, TV or reading my book. Nor will I begin to develop the habit of eating while I’m working on art. *whew.*

When I do eat peacefully, the first thing that creeps into mind is resentments and anger about some event in the past, and I have to stop that as well, and move on to something more Zen like enjoying the flavour of what I’m eating, or the sunshine, or the moment of quiet. What starts to happen, is that I suddenly understand when I’m full and I am now making an effort to put food away if I haven’t eaten it. Heck, I may even throw it away, that would be a radical thing to do!

Today, I discovered I was full mid way through an orange, so I saved the leftovers for another time in a glass in the fridge. I thought I’d take a picture since it’s been a while. Usually I’d eat everything on my plate. No more.

Emotional eating

 

A friend of mine mentioned a book that dealt with emotional eating, and I think that’s one of my base problems. Dealing with depression through food. When I’m really depressed I don’t eat at all, but that happens rarely, most of the time I try to stuff feelings in by eating away. Perhaps one of the things I should face is this big issue. How do you stop a bad habit, turn around and start facing feelings and dealing with them? What is the first step that you have to take. Well, you can eat at meal times only, you can ask yourself this: What am I feeling at this meal time?  A simple step forward may help me out in the long run. I’m going to try to focus on my emotions every time I’m about to have a meal and see if it’s a good time to put food on my plate.

Only four more weeks of winter left.

Ok so for the past few weeks I have been struggling some more, but it has been getting better in general. I have stayed the same lately, and I need to continue to become motivated. A lot of this angst is from being a little depressed, I suffer from S.A.D and also I’m not too happy about my work lately. I used to make a lot more money and I was proud of what I accomplished. Now, for much less pay, and harder work, I feel more like a rat on a wheel than anything else. I guess art is my escape. Food should not be my escape. Heres to this week being full of art escape.

I have been struggling

I haven’t been on top of my life changing things lately. My hormones have gone wacky, and  I have been suffering with a UTI that has come back because it’s resistant to antibiotics, on top of that I have a yeast infection, and I got my period early and it’s as heavy as a miscarriage. What the frack is going on. I’m going to a doctor today to figure it out and to at least get more antibiotics for myself.

Today, I’ll try to stick to my vows of no late night eating and see what happens. Hopefully I’m ok. Yes, I checked  Web MD ( wouldn’t you?) but I’m not going to try to jump to conclusions.

Junk food

The letting go of processed food and junk food is a challenge but I’m finding, weirdly enough, when I don’t eat the stuff I actually eat less? Why is that, maybe junk food is easier to digest or maybe the sugar/fat/flour is my addiction and when I cut out a lot of it from my daily eating, the food doesn’t give me the same high as before.

I went to the grocery store and saw some Red Velvet cupcakes and bought them, but was strong enough to tell my daughter to take them to her D&D game.  If I really want a red velvet cupcake, I can take my dog for a walk to the cupcake bakery and then enjoy one, after the walk, as opposed to a monster sized one which would be super bad for me.

Staying the same

Weighed in this week and I’m still staying the same, but this doesn’t mean I give up.  I have decided to cut out all processed and junk food. That means no Mc D’s, no french fries, no frozen food. It seems a little bit overwhelming but I think I can do it. It definitely means no chocolate bars, coke or diet coke etc. Anything that has a ton of shit in it that I don’t understand is out of my menu.  Soup I’ll need to make on my own, forget the canned or the box stuff. Can I do it? I hope so. Ok, yes I can.

The Hardest Part is staying motivated

Well, I stayed the same this week. My period is gonna come soon and I’m feeling all hormonal and menopausal. I also was slipping around when it came to my eating, and yesterday I broke my rule of not eating after work. But this just means I need to continue following my plan.

Why did I break it?

Well if you follow the HALT issues I fell under three of those. H.A.L.T stands for the following:

HUNGRY

ANGRY

LONELY

TIRED.

I was tired, irritated (hormonal) and hungry. I wasn’t drinking a lot of water.  I did drink my camomile tea and only had some crackers and beets, but still I know my slippery slope of excuses can lead to worse excuses and that just won’t do. I will have to continue with my resolve. 

Today, I have a day off and I’m feeling off: I had a nasty hotflash last night and now feel a little whacked out, like I was hit by a rolling pin in the head. I’m going to do things that will help me feel better. I have a late night gig tonight, so I need to pack up all my stuff for that and get ready, and afterwards I can relax, walk the dog and paint a picture. Maybe I’ll do a still life or a landscape. I haven’t painted for the fun of it for a while.