This was yesterday

HUNGER SCALE(from Brooke Castillo's If I'm So Smart, Why Can't I Lose Weight)

HUNGER LEVEL	WHAT IT FEELS LIKE
-10	Stomach past growling, headache, obsessed with eating NOW
-9
-8
-7
-6
-5
-4
-2	Slightly hungry, stomach beginning to growl
-1	Just a bit hungry, twinges
0	Neutral – neither hunger or full.  Just right.  Unhungry
1	Not satiated, still feel like I could eat a little bit more
2	Satiated, energized but still feel light
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10	Gross, overstuffed, heavy, dull, groggy drugged

Table 1 - Updated 8/30/11

I aspire to eat between -2 and 2.  As I progress through this journey,  I’ll make note of how I feel when I eat outside the hunger  boundaries.

August 30, 2011

8/30:  10:27 AM :   Just ate a few bites of breakfast:  yogurt, blueberries, walnuts with a bit a honey.  I was slightly hungry and decided it was indeed time to eat.  I paid attention and stopped eating when I was no longer hungry.   It was hard – the habit to eat until the plate is clean is very strong.  But I stopped eating and moved the bowl of yogurt.   I have well over half left to eat when it is time to eat again.  This is good.

8/30/2011  11:34 AM:  Feeling hungry again.  Eating more breakfast.  3 more bites.  Hunger is gone. Stopped eating.

11:58 AM: I have picked up the bowl of yogurt and put it down twice now.  I am not hungry so it is important that I honor my body and not eat until I am.

12:26 PM – OK – feeling hungry again.  This time I finished breakfast.  I have to say – this is the longest it has ever taken me to eat breakfast.

12:43 – still feeling hungry.  Getting some lunch – half a tortilla, a few bites of chicken and rice. All told – less than the size of my fist.

2:35 PM – I felt full after the lunch lunch I ate, but by 2:15 – was definitely feeling hungry.  I ate the rest of the chicken & rice, and a few cookies.  OK – more than a few.  BUT… I’ve stopped.  I realized that if I eat any more, I’m going to feel sluggish instead of good. I want to feel good.

4:17 PM – Woohoo – no hunger, no eating. I feel good. This is good.

Back to this morning - I didn't add my dinner.  I was hungry and probably ate to a 5.  I didn't feel too full at first, but I did later.  All in all, though - I feel really good about yesterday's eating.

Today's Aspiration

Today, I aspire to enjoying foods that fuel and nourish my body and when my mind wanders to food when I am not hungry, gently bring it back to the present by focusing on my breath.

Today's Aspiration

D and I are visiting my parents to celebrate my father's 80th birthday. It's a family reunion and I feel all the good and negative stress from all of us being together. My aspiration for today is to stay present and in touch with myself through my breath.

Dear Maura

I'm making this post a permanent page - so it's easy for me to come back to.

I woke up at 3 something this morning and the mind started racing.  One of the thoughts that came is that I needed to write a letter.  Better yet, let my body and psyche write the letter.   And here's what came out...


Dear Maura,

This is your body writing to acknowledge your efforts to take better care of me.

• I appreciate that you are learning that excess weight for so many years took it's toll on my joints and that you are learning to be more gentle with me when you deliberately "take me out for a walk"
  
• I appreciate that you are striving to listen to me when it comes to feeding me - feeding me when I am not hungry makes me feel tired and sluggish.  Feeding me nothing but crap makes me feel bloated and gross and completely undesirable.
  
  But when you feed me nourishing foods when I am hungry and stop feeding me when I am satisfied, I feel energized and loved.  Thank you for striving to do that.
  

Dear Maura,

This is your psyche writing to acknowledge your efforts to take better care of me.

• I appreciate that you are striving to stop hating me - that you are striving to think good things about me instead of hateful things.
  
• I appreciate that you are striving to stay with me through all the emotions you feel instead of numbing me with food.  When you stay with me through the emotions, light gets in and I thrive on the light.
  
• I appreciate that you are striving to nourish me by returning to a spiritual practice.  It helps keep me centered and available for that light.

Today's Aspiration

First - yesterday's recap:  Well, I did my best to not think about my weight and size.  In the process, I realized just how constant the thinking is.  And how negatively I think about it.

Today's aspiration:  To gently touch my shenpa thoughts with a feather and go back to my breath.

Today's Aspiration

This is a two part post.  I have to say, I'm really really enjoying and resonating with Pema Chodrön.  And today's two part post is inspired by her teaching.

Today's aspiration is to kindly acknowledge my shenpa - or thinking with hooks.

Example:  I've already thought about how fat I am today.  Many many times.  That thinking creates an unease in my body.  For the rest of the day, I will aspire to catch myself when that thinking comes and acknowledge by simply identifying it: shenpa.

Part two will come tonight - I'll briefly report how I did.

Living Through The Itch

I’m listening to Pema Chodron’s Getting Unstuck: Breaking Your Habitual Patterns & Encountering Naked Reality  

I joined Audible.com this morning and decided that my first book would be by Pema Chodrön.   She’s another gentle, effective teacher.

She was taking about meditation and how we are like children with scabies.  They itch.  They scratch the itch.  The itch gets worse until medical help is required.  The child is told to not scratch the itch so they can get better – and they are given medication to help with the itch.  Children who desire to get better will do their best to not scratch the itch and take the medication.

I immediately realized that my impulse to eat when I am not hungry is very similar to wanting to scratch an itch – real or imagined.  How many times have I successfully kept myself from scratching an itch.  Instead I’d breathe through it, distract myself (probably not very Buddhist-like) and eventually the itch would be gone and I’d be better – without the red welts that mark my skin when I scratch it.  I’ve done this more often than not – unless it was a mosquito that bit me.

When I have the impulse to eat when I am not hungry (ie, not bitten by a mosquito), it is because something has made me uncomfortable and I want to change that and my first response to discomfort is to desire food and to act on that desire without thinking.  We all know that eating when not hungry is simply a minor distraction from the discomfort.  And it often increases the discomfort level by adding guilt and remorse.  I KNOW this.  I don’t practice it.

So, for this moment, I’m living through the itch.  I want to eat, but my hunger level indicates that food is not required by my body.  So, I’m living through that itch.  When my hunger level reaches the point that I know my body requires nourishment, I will eat.  I’m not there yet.

Hey - I'm a maintainer!

It hit me this week that my weight has been fairly stable for the past year.  Sure it's a good 30 lbs higher than I'd like, but it's stablized.  I like that.

I took a few days off exercise - work got in the way one night and I just didn't want to one night.  Back at it today.  Leslie Sansone 4miles express.  My heart rate didn't get above 141 and the average was 130 (my max according to Polar is 135 for moderate).  I did well today. And I feel well too.

After the work out - made a huge salad of butter lettuces, raddicio (sp) and carrots.  And home made caesar salad dressing.  Not quite the real thing, but full fat, full flavor everything so a little will go a long way.

Found a local butcher - YAY!   We bought a month's worth of meat and two properly cut, properly sized filet mignon steaks.  Guess what's for dinner tonight?  Classic - steak, baked potato (D and I will split), sauteed mushrooms for me,  the wonder salad I made and wine.  I'm happy.

More later.

To Screaming Fat Girl

I follow a quite interesting blog about weight loss - it is intensely personal, intelligent and well-written.  And closed to comments.  So... Screaming Fat Girl, should you see this I just wanted to let you know that the past several of your blog entries have really spoken to me.  Thank you.

A little better

I kept the workout indoors today - Leslie Sansone Walk Strong - moderate walking intervals interspersed with very light weight work.  My max heart rate was 159 - much better than yesterday's, but still higher than I really wanted.

Thanks Sandrelle and Karen for your comments. The positive support means a lot.

This is quick - I'm WAY out of shape

So, I wore my heart rate monitor on my walk today.  It's been a while since I walked in the neighborhood, which is called Mountain Creek for a reason.  My heart rate got up to 173 with the first hill.  I'll be 50 in December.  You do the math.  Yep - I slowed down and decided to just enjoy the walk as much as I could.

I am feeling dizzy and a bit light headed.  Like I used to feel after one of my grueling work out sessions from before.  The heart rate monitor is being used now to stop feeling like that so the next time I walk, I'll take it a bit easier and not do any "intervals" on the flat part before the hills.

Consistency & Retuning

I see myself following the same old patterns - doing well and then forgetting.   The past few days I've felt bloated and heavy.  Not as light as I had been feeling.  But I'm aware - and retuning* to asking the important question "is this going to make me feel heavy or is this going to make me feel light?"

* I meant to type returning but I actually like retuning.  All musical instruments need to be tuned and retuned and in my case - so does my mind.   And I can retune without guilt.

I got up and worked out this morning - first time in a while.  And for the first time in well over a year, I wore my heart rate monitor.  I had a goal for wearing it - I wanted to make sure I didn't push myself too hard.  I used to push hard and harder and even harder - looking for the calorie burn.  I know for a fact that my completely giving up exercise and healthy movement is a backlash from abusing my body that way.  So, I did get above range a few times - used that as a cue to retune (gees, I love this analogy) and reduce my intensity.  The result - I have an average heart rate of 139 bpm for 58 minutes.  And I don't feel wiped out and icky.

I'm still working on Noaa's blanket - it's really quite easy now that I'm getting the hang of it. I've never picked up stitches before - and I know it's not perfect.  But Noaa is not going to care.

And I'm reading The Writing Circle by Corinne Demas and the complex characters have definitely intrigued me.  So much that I'm about to sign off writing here and pick up the iPad to return to reading.

But before I do - does anyone have any suggestions for cooking swiss chard?  I have the recipe for my first ever tasting of this beautiful green.  I am hoping I love it for it's taste as much as I do for it's color - and if I do, then I think I shall be wanting to cook it quite often.

An Awe-filled weekend

Today is my husband's birthday and to celebrate, we spent to extra days at our haven in North Georgia.  We splashed around in the swimming pool - and I experienced a first: I skinny dipped.  I now understand the appeal and plan to be butt naked in my swimming pool as often as possible.  Thankfully where we live is very secluded!

As I sipped my coffee each morning, I watched hummingbird wargames at their feeder.  My goodness those little buggers are fast.  It's hard to believe how this beautiful little bird whose image is often used to invoke tranquility can be so very aggressive!  It must have something to do with getting all the energy necessary to make their annual flight across the Gulf of Mexico.   Until then, I'll enjoy watching their wargames.

And then there was Baby.  Baby is a black bear.  About 250 lbs of black bear and he (we think & hope) has a major penchant for sunflower seeds.  And if you haven't guessed already, D and I feed the birds - black sunflower seeds.  We figured he was a nocturnal to dawn thief and didn't think anything at all about traipsing off our porch to go get a bite to eat.  We had one surprised bear, 2 surprised humans and one very dead bird feeder.  We'll find another bird feeder - one that is hopefully a bit more bear proof.   I don't care if Baby noshes our birdseed as long as he remembers to run away when we surprise him.  The image of this incredibly powerful animal trotting off to the border of our yard, every once and a while looking to see if we were still there, will be forever with me.  I am in in total awe of Baby.

This is not Baby - but you can get the picture...

And at this moment, I'm in awe of myself too.  For the past few days, I have actually listened to my body and paid it attention.  I put my fork down.  More than once.

It is my hope that as D and I spend more and more time with the bears, hummingbirds, deer, and frogs, that I will never lose the awe I have of them.