Changing Directions, Sort of

Last week (the past Monday) was a disaster at the scale.  I had been on vacation and gained much of what I had lost.  It was also the beginning of what I am calling my semi retirement.

Restricting food does not seem to be doing it for me.  I am struggling with the constant feeling of deprivation.  I don't do well with deprivation.  I start to feel sorry for  myself and eat what ever I can get my hands on.  And being on vacation always has seemed to signal a time to let down my guard and enjoy myself which means eating what ever I want.  So bouncing between deprivation and "vacation" from restricting, is a recipe for disaster as I saw last week.

So...I am going to try something else.  Something called mindful eating.  This is not new for me.  I have done it in the past.  I have an author that I particularly love,  Geneen Roth, who is all about eating mindfully.  I have read every one of her books.

The basic idea is to follow you body's signals instead of your head's.  You eat only when you are hungry.  You are allowed to eat what ever you want as long as you do it mindfully.  You are fully aware of what you are putting in your mouth, how it tastes, feels, smells and even sounds and you stop when you are no longer hungry.  It hasn't worked for me.  Part of the problem is I can't always tell when I am hungry.  I seldom eat out of hunger.  I seldom allow myself to get hungry.  Physically hungry anyway.  A theory is that we eat food when we are really hungry for other things, love, contact, attention.  And while I have worked at putting more of those in my life, I continue to over eat.

So what now?  The only thing I know to do is to begin again.  To try to get a better understanding of my relationship with food and how I can substitute other things when I am not physically hungry.  This week, I have simply tried to allow myself to be hungry.  Sometimes, especially in the mornings, I can go a long time before I feel the physical huger.  Sometimes instead of hunger, I just feel nauseous.  Sometimes I go all day without eating and I start to feel shaky from lack of food.  And sometimes the physical hunger hits me like a hammer and I have to eat something immediately.

The other difficulty with only eating when I am physically hungry is that it isn't always convenient.  At work, it is sometime difficult to stop and eat when I am hungry.  Sometimes I have to eat before I get hungry because that is the time I am slotted to eat.  Or I go out to dinner with friends.  How can I sit there and not eat if I am not hungry, only to get hungry and hour later.  Things to work out.  For now, I am going to be aware of my hunger.  I am still going to try to eat mostly unprocessed food and steer away from grains and sugar.  But if sugar is what my body wants, I will give it to it.  As long as I do it mindfully, enjoying each bite and stopping when I no longer want it.  If I truly am mindful, that is sometimes after one or two bites.

My other concern is my semi retirement.  What to do with it.  How to not waste days on end.  I have decided to prioritize things that I need and or want to be doing.  My top priority will be my walking.  To get in my 10,000 to 12,000 steps a day.  That will effect everything else in my life.  If you don't have your health as they say.  My second priority is going to be my writing, whether it is journaling, blogging or some other writing.  My third priority is my relationships.  While this doesn't seem to be much of a problem for me on some levels (those people I see on a regular basis) there are others that I neglect.  I am thinking mostly about family here.  I am going to work harder at this.  And last, though still a priority is my photography.  I need to spend time organizing, editing and improving my photos.  Note I did not list housekeeping as a priority.  I think letting go of this is as a priority is a positive thing for me.  It will get done in some form or the other anyway.