Weigh in (Oct 31)

13.3 (and 1/2 lb)

That's a loss of 2.5lbs this week, without 'dieting'.  Long way to go, but I'm happy with that.  

Today's food diary

I'm far from being 'cured' but today, I went to the supermarket and I gave myself the whole shop from which to buy dinner, not just the diet/low fat ready meals counter.  Typically, during the week, that's what I live on; low fat, tasteless lasagnes, low sugar drinks blah, blah, blah.   But tonight, I gave myself freedom to actually eat whatever I fancied...I was actually scared (would you believe it?).

I've lived for so long in this crazy world of restricted diet foods during the week, blowout-eat-whatever-you-want at weekends, that it's like I don't have a medium setting.  How on earth do you eat 'weekend foods' in moderation without screwing the whole thing up?!  But then learning how to eat so called 'bad' food in moderation is also hugely liberating! 

Here's what today looked like;

Breakfast: Big mug of coffee and a lovely well-thumbed Bible on knee, I also enjoyed a piece of toast with cheese and a huge juicy tomato. I made 2 pieces of toast but after finishing first, realised I didn't actually need the second.

11.30 Felt hungry, so had a bag of Snack-a-jacks and a cup of tea.

1.30pm: Genuine tummy rumbles by then, so had a Warburton's sandwich thin with some laughing cow cheese...and a small gingerbread biscuit.

Twigged later in the afternoon that so far, this wasn't the healthiest of food days, but I took a multi vit, had an Alpen bar, big pint of water and pondered what I'd eat for dinner.

Dinner (much better!). Had a risotto with a load of veg, bit of chicken and some prawns.  Even when I put it on my plate, it looked too much, but I ate slowly and savoured every yummy bite.  It was flipping gorgeous! And I couldn't actually finish it, so for once I didn't clear my plate, I'd had just enough and I hadn't eaten some vile processed meal.

Real food, combined with a cracking Biblical start to my day too.  My prayer all day has just been, 'help me to eat only when I'm hungry. Help me to eat the way you intended me to eat'.

I've now got to tackle the weekend, so this could be a huge challenge. I find that I'm constantly having to challenge my thinking about food, which is easier in the process of a working week, but less easy in an unstructured weekend.

It's been a difficult week emotionally, due to external factors, but I feel that God and I have taken the first few steps in dealing with this lifelong food issue.

Weigh-in tomorrow!

When the pressure is on...

Yesterday was very, very pressured.  I had 4 major things vying for my attention including a family friend seriously ill, after collapsing with a heart attack and waiting (anxiously) for the medical test results of another.

Later, some friends asked me for dinner and I felt this immediate 'oh no, how will I eat...?' And then soon banished that thought.  My former way of eating was to use going out as an excuse to 'stop the diet'.  But this way of eating means I can do and have what I like, I just stop when my body has been happily fed.   

I had a lovely dinner and in the end, got so busy chatting that I didn't even think about the food. I ate it, enjoyed it, but I didn't overeat it.  The company was balm to the soul, on what had been a shocker of a day.

It again highlights how deeply ingrained some of these thought processes have become.  I'm ashamed to admit that food has, for years, dominated my thoughts.  I've tied myself up in knots over 'good days' and 'bad days' and have (and still do) believe that when I eat too much or weigh more than I'd like to, that I am a bad, rotten, disgusting person.

It strays so far from God's version of me, that when I look at it baldly, I'm astounded. 

You'd never talk to your friends, the way you sometimes talk to yourself.

I read that somewhere recently and realised how deeply unkind I am to myself.  I don't know how to stop that, but I am becoming aware of it, and that's a good start. 

Why don't you switch the light on, girl?

Just read this.  I want to walk in the light, not stumble around like a plonker, in the dark.

If we claim that we experience a shared life with him and continue to stumble around in the dark, we’re obviously lying through our teeth—we’re not living what we claim. But if we walk in the light, God himself being the light, we also experience a shared life with one another, as the sacrificed blood of Jesus, God’s Son, purges all our sin. (1 John 1:6-7 MSG)

Here's how it works...

I'm not a scientist or a nutritionist (the world of science thanks me for that) but I figure one of our biggest food issues, is not what we eat, but how much we eat.   Food today is probably packed out with loads of addictive rubbish, but it is still possible to have 'a little of what you fancy'.  It's a question of how much.

For me, I have good days and bad days.  A good day means sticking (to the letter) to a set amount of calories. So come supper time, even if I wasn't hungry, I'd be fishing about for stuff to nibble on, so I could polish off my 'calorie allowance' for the day.

A bad day on the other hand, meant letting it all hang on, usually eating very little by day and then having a bottle of Prosecco for dinner with a nice carb-heavy meal...think Pasta, cream, cheese or fajitas.  Oh how I looooovveee fajitas.   The result of that though is a heavy 'food hangover' the next day - feeling disgusting, bloated and guilty.  

I would wake up in the morning, feeling lethargic and unhappy with myself. The 'action' of those feelings is to then wear black and to 'hide' my body.

Much of this stream of thought is unconscious - but people always comment when I've lost weight, more so because they notice I'm wearing brighter clothes.

So this experiment is to become more aware of what I'm shovelling in my mouth and more aware of my thought processes.  

After yesterday's sort of blue day, an arrow shot through my head, 'go home, eat, relax'.  But how would that make stuff any better?  Having a plate of creamy carbs isn't going to fix the problems I'm facing...though it'd probably provide a temporary escape.  

Funny how my brain has become wired in this way.   This is what I'm trying to smash.  It's a starve-binge cycle that's messed up and which fixes nada.

Day 3 begins...

Overwhelmed...

Funny how, when you ask God to deal with an area of your life, He always seems to start doing other stuff too.  Driving home tonight and the word 'overwhelmed' was in my head -that's genuinely how I felt.  

I have so much stuff on my plate at the moment (ha...good pun, considering!), that I felt like I was about to be hit by a tsunami. Now did not feel like a good time to start tackling eating issues. But then again, there never is a good time.  There's always an excuse, always a reason not to.   So, I stuck with it, had a reasonably nice dinner, ate thoughtfully and slowly and stopped when I'd had enough.

Later, I went to my cell group and we got talking about what to do when we're overwhelmed.  I hadn't told a soul about how I was feeling but that exact word kept cropping up, 'overwhelmed'.  We sang the Bethel song too;

God, I look to you, I won't be overwhelmed. Give me vision to see things like you do.

And so day 2 of thoughtful, conscious eating comes to an end.  I passed my first emotional eating test and learned just a smidge more about what I should be doing, when I feel like life's waters are threatening to drown me. 

God's not interested in me...

I saw this today and the first part, summed up exactly how I have felt (deep down, and secretly) for such a long time.   It reminds me that freedom is possible.