Status 3-14-15*
Yesterday I threw caution to the wind and walked around the park and recorded my thoughts on whether or not to go ahead and track my calories this week. Many reasons, which if you REALLY want to know, you should give yesterday’s episode a listen.
Bottom line I’m wanting to know what I’m eating because:
- I want to track down the nutritional culprit for my weird digestive attacks
- I do not feel I am emotionally overeating, but my body is still not comfortable. I want to check in with the actual amounts I AM eating.
Number 1 is fine with me. Doesn’t cause any anxiety. Number 2 is the slippery slope. Even though I am NOT changing at all what I eat, just tracking it — it STILL feels very weird to enter food into a diary again after all of this time. I’m going to keep going this week however, as I discussed with my therapist in order to examine these feelings and to see if I get any valuable insights.
Sigh.
I am happy that I have come so far emotionally and am astounded that even the THOUGHT of tracking didn’t send me racing for the chips. But so far, no big reaction. Of course, it’s only been one day. Could be honeymoon. Could be I have actually developed the ability to track without berating myself for going over a “set calorie limit”. Too early to tell.
The weirdest thing, is how I feel I’m betraying my IE listeners with this possible “diet mentality” just as I worried about betraying my “I want to lose weight” listeners when I gave up dieting. My bravery moment today is realizing that my story is unique and must, by definition, flow where it does me the most good. Listeners who just like to hear my thoughts on the compulsive eating journey will not be shook. Those who are just need to do what’s best for themselves.
Please stand by while I give myself a commercial announcement:
Laurie, pay attention dear, YOU ARE NOT THE ANSWER! YOU ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE!
Ah grasshopper Laurie, you are doing so well. You are listening to your heart and exploring your needs. You invite others to peek inside your world as you go, but are starting to realize the separation between them and you. You can be companions without being the same. In fact, no BC is exactly the same as you or any other BC.
This show may go on for YEARS as I can see that my internal thoughts will be winding like a snake around the hiking trails. Resting in the sun, burrowing under rocks and slithering here and there in exploration. I will never be done. I will never have “THE ANSWER”.
Today
Working on my Voice Acting monolog for animation class this afternoon. Tough one for me today, but I’m pleased that David thinks I’m up for the challenge. Also, slowly, SLOWLY, getting the house back into shape. May do some yoga as a change. Haven’t in some time. Hope your day is peaceful or exciting as you would like.
xoxoxoxoxo
How about you?
Please feel free to comment on MY statuses or add YOUR OWN thoughts, feelings, challenges, rants and raves on these pages too. That was one of the original purposes of why I posted on FB. I thought BCs might like to share about THEIR days. So if you have thoughts and feelings you’d like to share with the group, go ahead and put them here with your comments.
*Daily statuses are not part of the blog’s email notification. When you enter your email under where it says SUBSCRIBE TO POSTS VIA EMAIL, you will be notified of regular blog posts and when podcast episodes are released. I didn’t want to clog your inbox with my daily statuses. However, the automatic publicize feature will inform you on my show FB page, my AdventureLaurie twitter account, google+ on its show page, and Tumblr.
PSS, some BCs have asked me the difference between blog postings and status pages. Blog postings are where I develop a complete topic triggered by my status thoughts. Status thoughts are how my day went, what’s on my agenda, and how my body feels today – and not much editing or thought goes into them. That’s why I don’t clog up your email with them. 🙂
Body Balance
BB (Body Balance) number: 8.
Sleep: 7 hours divided.
Tummy/Gut: Balances.
Hungry: 1 hour after waking. Regular breakfast satisfied.
Energy: Moderate.
Mood: Anxious for class.
BB is my personal criteria, and I don’t think too hard about it. I ask myself at the keyboard, what is my BB? A number between 1-10, including halves, pops into my head. I write it in my post Then I figure out why it is higher or lower and gently make note.
If you are interested these are my measures.
- Sleep. Quality and Amount.
- Tummy/Gut – If I ate what my body asked for, usually above and below the belly button feel balanced. Ate too much, below the belly button feels more full. Ate too little, the reverse.
- Am I hungry within 1 hour of waking? I have found that I feel best if I am hungry within 1 hour of waking. This tends to make my eating day even and not heavy on food in the evening. But I don’t eat if not hungry unless I’m about to ride or hike. I’ve learned I need to fuel these morning activities, or I’ll bonk.
- What is my energy level? Subjective, but telling.
- A quick look at my mood.
The Bravery Coach
TheBraveryCoach daily tweet is a morning mediation on how I either did, or can incorporate an aspect of bravery into my day. It is cheerful. It is esteem building. Those who want to follow these on Twitter may, by searching for the hashtag #bravery or by seeing my profile:
Interesting thoughts! I have been wondering if I have a food intolerance issue and the only way to really find out is to keep a food diary. I suspect that it would be ever so tempting to slip into the obsessing about numbers in order to lose some weight. However, as I really crash about 30 mins to 1 hour after eating some days, I really do need to find out what is causing it. I am also pre-diabetic so really should cut down on the sugar content. The way I am planning to tackle this is to allow some sweet things, but in small quantities and only when I really want it and only after a main course. It will be interesting to see if my body will tolerate it. I have benefited so much much from the Intuitive Eating approach and am much more able to determine when I have had enough and interestingly the appeal of a pudding is often more tempting the actual eating of it and it is the puddings that I am most likely to leave some of.
I hope you find a plan that is right for you, and as you are so in tune with what your body feels like and when something is not quite right, then it only makes sense to try and identify the issue and try and improve things.
Hi Sue, so far the food diary isn’t bothering me. Though I AM surprised that I am NOT surprised by the calories. I suspected I would discover that I was eating much more than I thought, and that’s not the case. So a bit puzzled on why my size remains what it is, but I suppose it just is what it is. I’m also happy that so far, my usual dishes aren’t upsetting my digestion. So will continue tracking this week and will try to eat some different foods to see if I can get closer. I AM wondering if just the fact that I AM tracking is lowering the amount I eat. I’m not trying to, but maybe I have a little of the “Oh I don’t want to bother entering these bites” deterrent going on. I think your sweet management plan sounds doable – and eating after your main course may help to keep spikes in check. I find I want my big sweet right after lunch (my main meal). Cheers to us for keeping an open mind and finding out what helps us without going off the deep end! Hooray, that’s progress 😉
My check in: first day of not bingeing in several days. Feeling healthier and happier already. Staying off the scale for now….not sure how long I will stick with that, a few weeks minimum. Went for a nice walk with DH and had dinner out. Stopped when I’d had enough and brought leftovers home.
I’m glad that one day of tracking didn’t set you off, good start…will be thinking of you this week.
Hooray! I’m so glad you have turned this corner and are feeling better. You don’t have to make permanent decisions about the scale yet. Mine is still on the top shelf in our garage. Breaking that dependency turned out well for me. Now, as I said, I don’t need it at all. I think I do better just judging results by how my body feels. Even on a diet, the best week in the world could still not show on the scale, and that would discourage me. Also, I might have eaten like crap and shown a loss, which I would treat as a victory and ignore how crummy my tummy or body was feeling. I like that now I relate the outcome of my recent food behavior more by how my body is feeling. For example, you have not been bingeing for several hours or days. Your body feels better. If you got weighed and saw the water weight you are probably holding post binge, you might negate that good feeling. I’ll be thinking of you this week too. Feel free to post all you like, or call the bravery hotline. It doesn’t have to go on the show, but you might like exploring where this all goes. xoxoxoxoxoxoxo
Thanks, Laurie!
Three cheers for you, Amy.
so happy to hear you seeking out ways to help YOU in this current phase/journey of your life =-) it’s all a journey, and learning is what we do best eh??
YAY for day one of calm-ness. hopefully that sticks thru =-) but if not, well you’ll re-assess & re-evaluate, and go from there =-) because all we have is RIGHT now..
Way to go Laurie..
Good job Amy, You GOT this girl!!! =-) self care is the most important..
Sue, im working thru what you’ve described as your action plan, trying hard to know what’s enough, and for me what’s driving me past the point of ‘oops that was enough’ as I continue…
Good luck to all of us
Hi Dawny, So far so good with tracking. I’m not freaked out. I am a bit annoyed by remembering I want to go enter what I eat into the database. I’m used to not worrying about that. But I’m encouraged by what I’ve seen so far. My calories are what I expected, my nutrition is pretty good, and I haven’t gone off the deep end yet 😉
Yay, go girl. 🙂