Love Life Not Food
This is my new Mantra : Love Life Not Food! I can be a healthy eater! These are my new sayings. I really do want to be a healthy eater. I want to eat the way I should to be healthy. In the last 3 years I . have gained and lost the same 10 lbs probably 20 times. Yoyo dieting is not for me. I've tried it all. Really I have. I have a dear friend Christy Lee that has been by my side in this crazy weight loss endeavor. Last summer she introduced me to a book called "If I'm so smart Why can't I lose weight?" by Brooke Castillo. That book really struck a cord with me. The same week I started reading that book I went to a training for work on "trauma". I learned that some trauma that happened to me as a child could be part of the reason I struggle with weight loss.
Let's talk a little bit about trauma. Trauma can show up in many different forms. Losing a loved one, getting hurt, or anything that is out of the norm. Trauma happens to us more than we care to admit. Our brains are so magnificent that sometimes when trauma hits it protects our heart by losing that memory until we can physically deal with it. When a trauma hits we choose how we are going to deal with it. Anger, sadness, depression, what ever feeling you can imagine. When we feel those emotions we immediately want to run away from it. We don't want to feel it at all. Those emotions are not fun and we want to hide from them. To hide from them we choose food, movies, or anything to get it out of our mind. We don't want to feel that way. We want to hide from it. We want to mask it with happiness, that is so much more fun to feel.
What Christy is teaching me is to feel my feeling for what they really are. I'm sad and it is ok to feel sad. I kind of did this before. When I felt sad I would go have a really good cry, usually in the shower so it would wash all the sadness down the drain. When I was mad I would clean the house. So sometimes I would choose ways to get out the frustration I felt. Sometimes I would want to eat a candy bar or donut or anything that would seem to make me feel better. Did it make me feel better? Yes for one moment and then I would want to eat more and more so did it really make me feel better. Not really but it seemed to for a moment. Sugar is an instant gratification filler. But how did I feel in the long run? Still not so great or even worse because I now I felt yucky because I ate junk. I ate things I didn't need at all.
So how do you feel your feelings without trying to mask it with food or something else. What I am learning is that my feeling have a place and feeling them for what they are is not so bad. I will admit that I had a week in the beginning of this journey that was really bad. My husband said something, my kids did something, I was trying to feel my feeling instead of turning to food. I made a promise to myself that I was going to make it this time. So the one friend that was always there for me was now not an option. So what did I do, you might ask, I sat and cried. How sad is that to cry over the loss of eating things that I would eat again but under different circumstances. I would not turn to food for my sadness any more. I eat to live healthy and not live to eat.
Once I passed that very hard week something in me changed. Donuts were no longer a temptation. Ice Cream will be a wonderful treat at some point, when I am ready to add it back into my protocol. So what is my protocol? For 6 weeks I need to detox my system and get rid of the sugar craving so I have:
No sugar
No flour
No snacks
3 meals a day that I keep track on My fitness pal
10,000 steps 4 days a week
pilates 4-5 days a week
12 cups of water at least
I eat a lot of salad
I will say Detox is a beast and it is very hard. Some people might say that this is way to hard. It is very hard. There were moments that I wanted to give up but really something changed in me this time. I am in control of what goes in my mouth. I've lost 9 lbs so far and right now I'm feeling pretty good. I hope you will join me in my crazy endeavor to get healthy. I thank Christy Lee for all her continued support. I really don't know how much I'll post but I do hope to post things that I'm learning along the journey. I want to thank Chantel Allen at findyourbeautifulyou for helping me look at my circumstances different and helping remember that I control my results. And a thank you to Brooke Castillo for starting this program that is changing my life with the help of Christy and Chantel.
Let's talk a little bit about trauma. Trauma can show up in many different forms. Losing a loved one, getting hurt, or anything that is out of the norm. Trauma happens to us more than we care to admit. Our brains are so magnificent that sometimes when trauma hits it protects our heart by losing that memory until we can physically deal with it. When a trauma hits we choose how we are going to deal with it. Anger, sadness, depression, what ever feeling you can imagine. When we feel those emotions we immediately want to run away from it. We don't want to feel it at all. Those emotions are not fun and we want to hide from them. To hide from them we choose food, movies, or anything to get it out of our mind. We don't want to feel that way. We want to hide from it. We want to mask it with happiness, that is so much more fun to feel.
What Christy is teaching me is to feel my feeling for what they really are. I'm sad and it is ok to feel sad. I kind of did this before. When I felt sad I would go have a really good cry, usually in the shower so it would wash all the sadness down the drain. When I was mad I would clean the house. So sometimes I would choose ways to get out the frustration I felt. Sometimes I would want to eat a candy bar or donut or anything that would seem to make me feel better. Did it make me feel better? Yes for one moment and then I would want to eat more and more so did it really make me feel better. Not really but it seemed to for a moment. Sugar is an instant gratification filler. But how did I feel in the long run? Still not so great or even worse because I now I felt yucky because I ate junk. I ate things I didn't need at all.
So how do you feel your feelings without trying to mask it with food or something else. What I am learning is that my feeling have a place and feeling them for what they are is not so bad. I will admit that I had a week in the beginning of this journey that was really bad. My husband said something, my kids did something, I was trying to feel my feeling instead of turning to food. I made a promise to myself that I was going to make it this time. So the one friend that was always there for me was now not an option. So what did I do, you might ask, I sat and cried. How sad is that to cry over the loss of eating things that I would eat again but under different circumstances. I would not turn to food for my sadness any more. I eat to live healthy and not live to eat.
Once I passed that very hard week something in me changed. Donuts were no longer a temptation. Ice Cream will be a wonderful treat at some point, when I am ready to add it back into my protocol. So what is my protocol? For 6 weeks I need to detox my system and get rid of the sugar craving so I have:
No sugar
No flour
No snacks
3 meals a day that I keep track on My fitness pal
10,000 steps 4 days a week
pilates 4-5 days a week
12 cups of water at least
I eat a lot of salad
I will say Detox is a beast and it is very hard. Some people might say that this is way to hard. It is very hard. There were moments that I wanted to give up but really something changed in me this time. I am in control of what goes in my mouth. I've lost 9 lbs so far and right now I'm feeling pretty good. I hope you will join me in my crazy endeavor to get healthy. I thank Christy Lee for all her continued support. I really don't know how much I'll post but I do hope to post things that I'm learning along the journey. I want to thank Chantel Allen at findyourbeautifulyou for helping me look at my circumstances different and helping remember that I control my results. And a thank you to Brooke Castillo for starting this program that is changing my life with the help of Christy and Chantel.
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