Affirmation: Change happens one choice at a time
Last night I chose to have ribs. I haven't had ribs for many months. I was craving them. So I chose to have them for supper. Of course I over ate - waaay beyond saitey - waaay beyond full. I didn't care, I wanted my ribs. I knew that I wouldn't make that choice again for many more months. But I paid for it. I slept terrible last night. I still was overfull and uncomfortable at bedtime. Made for a restless night. All day I have felt heavy, bloated, and just plain yuckky. I want to remember this feeling. Now I don't necessarily feel guilty for eating the ribs, nor am I beating myself up, but I want to remember this feeling that is the result of the choice to not only eat ribs, but to eat waaaay too many of them. To think that I will go through my life never eating ribs again is ridiculous. But to get to the point where I can choose to have ribs for a meal, eat only until satisfied (not full) and stop. That is my goal here with my relationship with food. Eat when I am hungry; stop when I am satisified. So I want to remember the way that I feel right now, the way that I felt last night so that next time I can remind myself of the consequence of eating to overfull. I don't like this feeling of overfull. I want to be present to this feeling so that it will be easily called up next time I am thinking I want to eat beyond fullness. This feeling is not worth that choice.
In other news I had a Dr.'s apt. this afternoon. I lost 2.5 lbs this month...and my b/p is coming down. Not fast enough for his liking so I am back on a higher dose of the enalipril. But that will change as I continue to loose and continue to get back in the groove of exercizing.
I have been thinking all day about what I wrote this morning about now it is down to breaking the old habits. I keep remembering the verse in Romans 12:2 about renewing your mind.
"Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind."
Now I know that this verse is not specifically talking about weight loss or choosing to live and eat in a more healthy way. But it is talking about making changes in your life that are permenant. It talks about not conforming to patterns that you have previously been conformed to - changing your habits. The way to do that is to renew your mind...or change the way that you think. If it will work for your spiritual life, it will also work for other areas. What does renewing your mind mean? If that is how you change your habits, then how do you go about renewing your mind? To apply it to making the healthy choices in my life, I think that it is to be viligiant about how and what I am thinking about in relation to food and the choices I do or do not make for health. I think it means to activly guard your thought life...How much of my time do I spend thinking about food? Make the choice to change your thoughts.
v. re·newed, re·new·ing, re·news v. tr.
To make new or as if new again;
restore: renewed the antique chair.
To take up again; resume: renew an old friendship; renewed the argument.
To repeat so as to reaffirm: renew a promise.
To regain or restore the physical or mental vigor of; revive: I renewed my spirits in the country air.
To arrange for the extension of: renew a contract; renew a magazine subscription. To arrange to extend the loan of: renewed the library books before they were overdue.
To replenish: renewed the water in the humidifier.
To bring into being again; reestablish.
v. intr.
To become new again.
To start over.
The definition of renew. I like "To become new again" and "to start over". But I really love "to bring into being again" I think that we all, at one time knew how to make healthy choices in our lives. To go on this journey to health is to renew that knowledge. To consciously make the choices on a daily basis until my body begins to trust me again and I begin to trust my body to know when, how much, and what to eat. To know and want exercise and movement in my life again. Our bodies were made for movement. Remember how we were as children? How we moved, ran, jumped, twirled, walked, skiped? Our bodies love movement. It was created for movement. I just have to remind it of that by making new choices everyday to include movement in my life again.
To not conform to the patterns of life as I have known it in the past - to renew my mind, my thinking - actively choosing to think new thoughts and make new choices so that I may be transformed into a person who chooses health...life over death.
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