Another good exercise day (thank goodness this seems to be more and more of a norm for me). I listened to my own playlists to get me through all those leg lifts. I did run into awful leg pain when I began my cardio though! It felt like the worst shin splint ever, I couldnt' even stand on my leg without it hurting. So I sat down and massaged it for a few minutes. The thought definitely crossed my head that maybe I would not be able to do cardio today. Luckily when I stood back up I seemed to be okay, but I was too scared of jumping and landing into shooting leg pain, so I opted to do 30 minutes on the rebounder today. In the past, that has sometimes proven to be amazing, and other times painfully boooooring. Today, it went by super fast, as I watched my DVR of Tracy on QVC as I shaked an shimmied on that bad boy for an easy breezy 30 minutes.
As for eating...well, there is a difference between having an amazing, potentially life altering epiphane (hunger and anxiousness are not the same thing, and therefore food only meets one of those needs ) and actually learning how to eat thereby undoing a lifetime of muttled, misguided eating habits. Truly, I am not exaggerating when I say a lifetime.
From the time we are very young we learn to equate food with comfort as our mothers held us close and fed us when we cried. While I don't rememeber that far back, I remember in elementary school that I wanted what I couldn't have. My parents only bought all natural food. This might have been fine if that's what everyone else was eating, but I desired to "fit in" and "feel normal" when I saw other kids eating those little baggies of chips and bologna sandwiches while I snacked on raw cauliflower and stinky tuna.
I learned that you should finish everything on your plate as children in Africa are starving. I remember one time I poured too much cereal (I was visited my grandparents and they had frosted flakes, something I had only seen on TV, so of course I poured a huge bowl.) I was in kindergarten, and I specifically remember wishing I had a magic wand to make the rest of the food go away so I wouldn't have to eat it all because as a child I instinctively knew what it felt like to be full, but was socialized to eat anyway. (Don't get me wrong, I don't blame my parents in the least for this as they were kind and well intentioned. The situation simply affected me from a young age, and that is my only point.) Next came jr. high, where I had my first opportunity to eat what I wanted as I was buying my lunch at school. I don't want to go into the details of all the goodies, because it too easily triggers cravings for me, but the point is I took full advantage of my new found freedom. I would then come home and relax by eating and plopping myself in front of the tv. This time felt like my reward, for a hard day of school, a break before I had to start my homework, and before my parents came home.
I only wish to convey to myself that re-learing how to eat will take time, and I certainly hope will get easier. It's not that I even ate poorly today. My current objective is not to restrict my eating in any way other than to eat when I'm hungry and stop when I'm full. More than anything, my objective is to learn what hungry and full feel like, particularly to learn to how feeling anxious is not the same as feeling hungry as I discovered a few nights ago that my mind had learned to identify anxious= hunger (when this is in fact not true).
What I've learned so far is what it feels like to not go into a food coma after nearly every meal. After my meals I normally feel very heavy in my protruding stomach. I feel lumbering and slow, and ready for a nap. Today, I felt not stuffed yet not hungry, but something in between. It was a very unusual space for me to exist in. Sometimes it felt good, other times it felt uncomfortable. I noticed it is easier to tell when I get full after my first meal of the day. It is more challenging to identify being hungry and full when it comes to my later meals.
However, this truly is just the beginning. I know with certainty that I've reduced that amount of food I'm eating. I know that I'm more aware of how I'm eating. I felt my underlying anxious today after I ate a late lunch. I felt it again after dinner (it sounds like an imbalance may be taking place in my body triggered by food. This is something I will need to explore in greater depth). Both times, I used tv to help the feelings pass, and for the most part they did. While not stuffing myself isn't easy, it is at the same time nothing like the past where I was white-knuckling it to fight through a diet. I can't help but wonder with all that I've learned and experienced in the last ten weeks, what does the future hold?
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