I've been on an awareness crusade this past week.
A week ago I got on the scale and - to my shock - I saw that I'd gained 5 pounds since the last time I was on it (maybe a month or so). After I got over being mad at myself, I thought back to the way I'd eaten during December. Then I remembered those two pound cakes I made, and how much of them I'd personally eaten. As the mind gave my memories free rein, I began to uncover the reasons why I gained so much weight.
I was very surprised that I'd
mindlessly eaten enough to gain that much. I looked at the fat my body had accumulated and thought, I need to do something about this NOW.
So I immediately went online and hooked up with some websites that help you to monitor what you eat and how much you move every day. I decided to stick with one of the sites, entered my basic information, including my goal weight, and I've been faithfully following it every day since then.
I am proud to have faced one of my basic - though previously unconscious - fears: That if I disciplined my eating habits, I would suffer deprivation, loss, and noticeable discomfort.
None of that has happened! In the past six days I have written down everything I've eaten, as well as renewed my determination to exercise/move a certain amount of time every week, and written down the amount of movement daily. Although I am eating differently - in most cases, smaller amounts and more consciously - I don't feel the least bit deprived; as a matter of fact, I'm not feeling hungry during the day at all.
It's also interesting for me to see that I don't feel like I have to snack at night. That is such an automatic, unconscious habit to fall into, but once I got serious about being more aware of my food intake, it doesn't bother me to not eat in the evenings.
I will admit, though, that last night I was feeling like I wanted to nibble or munch on something. Several food choices popped into my head; I consciously thought of one thing after another, discarding each thought after imagining that I was eating this or that. One of the things that helped me to resist was that I'd already brushed my teeth. For me, this is a big deterrent to eating again; last night I brushed my teeth earlier in the evening, just in case this situation popped up for me.
Tomorrow I'll step on the scale for the first time in a week. I'll see if there has been any weight change, but even if there hasn't,
the point of all this is not to let go of weight as much as it is to like the way I look again, and to enjoy feeling good in my clothes. Once that goal is reached and sustained for a few months, I will feel as if I've reached my goal.