Eating and Food Update

Affirmation: To Exercise is to Choose Health and Life

Eating and Food

Last winter I talked about how handling food for me was getting on my nerves and making me want to eat more. Also how I was just sick of all the preparations that seem to go along with healthy eating. In the past 6 months I have experimented with different solutions, some work, some not, some only to varying degrees. It still comes down to discipline. Oh how we hate that word don’t we? But for me to become disciplined it has to become easy. Complication doesn’t work for me. In this eating/exercise/road to health or in any other area of my life it seems.

So what didn’t work:

1. Eating the same thing all the time.
2. Easy and suprisingly as tasty as they are to just eat the TV dinners, they got old after a time.
3. Buying a bunch of fresh produce thinking I would make the time to clean, cut and such.
4. Going to the grocery every week. (Too much time and I tended to over buy and ended throwing out fresh produce that went bad)

What did work:

1. Taking breakfast to work to eat.
2. Using TV dinners for lunches.
3. Making big batches of salad for lunches and suppers and storing it in individual Glad containers for quick salad makings.
4. Spending a bit extra for pre-washed salad, pre shredded veggies, and those fruit and veggie party trays instead of thinking I will clean and chop veggies and melons.
5. Allowing myself the treat of eating lunch out a couple of times a month.
6. But most important was a deep cleansing of my kitchen to make it a “clean healthy” place. I got rid of all white flour and sugar, processed foods, high fat and sodium foods etc. To help it along I donated sealed and canned foods to a food pantry.

Over all, changing how I cook has helped tremendously. The important thing is to have stuff on hand for quick fixing. I have developed a list of regular things I have on hand to make quick meals that are healthy. I will try to post my pantry list later this week.

Update

Affirmation: To Exercise is to choose life and health

Well it has been quite some time since I have posted. This spring has been a whirlwind of activity and changes for me. I have been gently reminded (thanks Kirsten) that there are people who read my blog and have missed me. I find that surprising and am touched that people whom I don’t even know worry when I don’t show up for a while. Thank you so much for your concern and for reading my blog.

First, I am fine. I have been busy finishing up the last of my requirements for becoming a Life Purpose Coach and Life Plan Facilitator through Pathway to Purpose Ministries. I was in Laguna Beach, CA in March for the final leg of training. I love doing this. I am also teaching a small group book study on the book written by the founder of this Ministry. This has kept me busy and focused. I will write more about how this has impacted my journey to health in a later post.

Second I have had problems with back and knee problems. I was in quite a bit of pain most of March through May, unable to really walk or stand for any amount of time, even sitting at work all day proved to be a challenge to my stamina and patients. But thanks to a really great Chiropractor and many prayers I am almost back to normal.

I have learned a lot from this little experience of incapacitation. First I don’t make a good patient! Second I hate having to depend on others! Third I am a lot more self-conscious about my weight when I am unable to be as active and self-sufficient as usual. The last surprised me a lot (the first two I already pretty much knew or suspected about myself). I am not all that self-conscious about my weight. It is what it is and if someone doesn’t like it then that is their problem. I don’t like it, not as much because of the way I look, but because of the way I feel and the limitations it puts on living my life in the way that I need and want to.

I think that the most important lesson I have learned is the importance of exercise. I am fully convinced that much of this was brought on by inactivity and letting go of what exercise I did do. From about Thanksgiving on I quit exercising – no excuses, I just didn’t do it. The trainer I had been going to dropped his Saturday clients in early summer, I quit my membership at the Y (financial reasons), and purchased a great recumbent bike on sale. I thought that I had enough momentum going from working with a trainer and the training I had done for the ½ marathon I had planned to enter in the spring, but alas winter hit and I quit. I wish I had a more glamorous excuse, but no….just laziness and a dislike of exercising.

Everyone says that if you do it long enough you will love it and crave it. Well after a year of training, not loosing much weight, I still didn’t crave it. I dreaded every day going to the Y or the trainer. I will admit to liking, no loving how I felt while I was exercising…no not during the actual exercise, but in the day-to-day way that I felt overall. I do miss that and am craving that feeling. I liked how my body moved easily, how I felt less heavy (in a way not associated to actual poundage) and how much energy I had. You would think that would be incentive enough eh? Wrong!!

So now with summer here, I am still struggling with exercise. I have been trying to incorporate yoga into my day. I am using a great set of tapes from living arts: Yoga AM and Yoga PM. Both are about 15-20 minutes. I am also trying to get back into the routine of using the bike. Walking any constructive amount of time is still out of the question because of my back and knees. I know that will improve as I loose more weight.

Well I need to go get ready for work. More later…I promise.